Sophocles, Philoctetes
Robert Torrance, Ed.

Neoptolemus
That is not possible. My duty and
expedience both make me obey my rulers.

Philoctetes
You monstrous plague, you hateful instrument
930of craft and cunning, think what you have done,
how you have tricked me! Are you not ashamed
even to look at me, who trusted you?
You took my bow, and with it took my life:
give it back I pray, give it back I beg, my child;
935by all your father's gods, do not destroy me! ...
Oh wretched that I am, he will not speak,
but looks away and keeps it for himself.
Harbors and promontories - fellow-creatures
who roam the Mountainside - steep-rising cliffs
I have no one but you whom I may speak to
940(for you have heard me often) and lament
the wrongs Achilles' son has done to me.
He swore to take me home, yet sails for Troy;
he gave me his right hand, yet now he holds
the sacred bow of Zeus' son Heracles,
945and plans to show it off before the Greeks.
He uses force, as if I could oppose him:
I who am but a corpse, a smoky shadow,
a vision! He would not have captured me
before - or even now, except by guile.
950Yet he has tricked me now: what must I do?
Oh give it back and be yourself again!
What do you say? Nothing? Then I am lost!
My twin-mouthed cave, I come to you again,
naked now, and deprived of my subsistence.
I shall soon waste away within this chamber,
955killing no wingèd birds or mountain beasts
now with my arrows; I will perish here
in pain providing food for those who fed me:
they whom I hunted once will track me down.
I must pay for the blood that I have shed
960because of one who seemed to know no evil.
Curses - yet not until I learn if you
will change your mind: if not, may you be damned!