by Sophocles
his head jerked back! His whole body’s soaked
in sweat . . . the dark blood of a burst vein
trickling from his heel . . . Let’s leave him
in peace, friends, so he can sleep.
CHORUS
Sweet sleep that feels no agony, no pain,
we pray you: kindly come 920
breathing your blessings, blessings
spread gently over him—
hold in his eyes this most serene glow
lowered on them now,
O lord of healing.
Come.
PHILOKTETES sleeps.
LEADER
Young man, you see the situation,
think where we’re at.
What’s the next move? Why don’t we make it?
The Right Moment is everything! 930
When you see an opening you take it
quickly! That’s the way to victory!
NEOPTOLEMOS
(raising his voice)
Sure, he doesn’t hear a thing. But we’ve tracked him down
for what?—if we got the bow and sailed off, yet left him behind?
He’s the victory trophy. It’s him the gods want brought back.
We’d be shamed bragging of a job half done. Worse, done by lies!
CHORUS
(severally)
My boy, the gods will take care of that.
But when you speak next keep it down, shsh, down
to a whisper—
sick men sleep sleepless, they pick up on things. 940
So please, whatever you have to do
to achieve what you have in view
do it quietly
because if you keep on like this after this
—you know, doing what you’re thinking—
a wise person can expect something real bad happening.
But now, my boy, the wind
the wind is right! The man lies
blind, helpless, warmed into sleep
as though under cover of night. 950
He can’t get a hand or foot to do anything!
Strengthless he is, like one laid at the edge of Hades.
LEADER
Careful now. What are you thinking to do?
Timing is all.
As far as I can figure, it’s safest to move
quickly, without warning.
NEOPTOLEMOS
Shush! Watch it! His eyes
are open. He’s raising his head.
PHILOKTETES
Ah, sun,
taking up where sleep leaves off! 960
I never dreamed to hope these
strangers would keep watch for me.
I dared not even think it.
You’re so patient, son, so feeling
to stand by me in my agonies
helping me. Those O so brave
commanders, the sons of Atreus,
didn’t have it in them
to put up with this. But you, you’re
naturally noble! It’s your bloodline. 970
You weren’t fazed by my screaming
pain, or the putrid smell.
But now
the disease has left this little lull
of peace, easing off the pain—so
come, my boy, help me, get me
back on my feet.
When the wooziness goes
we’ll head for the ship
and quick, get under way. 980
NEOPTOLEMOS
I would not have believed it. What
a relief! You’re up, your eyes open
looking around, and no pain! It’s more
than I’d hoped for. After all that agony
your sleep looked like death.
Come, get up now. If you want, these men
can carry you. They won’t begrudge the job,
seeing you and I are in this together.
PHILOKTETES
Thank you, son. You help me up, will you,
like you said? Don’t bother the men. 990
I wouldn’t want them weighed down by this
awful stench too soon. When we’re living aboard
the ship, they’ll have enough to put up with.
NEOPTOLEMOS
Come, stand up. Grab hold of me.
PHILOKTETES
Don’t worry. I’m well used to getting myself up.
NEOPTOLEMOS
(to himself, helping PHILOKTETES up)
Damn! What now am I to do!?
PHILOKTETES
What’s up, my boy? Where’re you getting at?
NEOPTOLEMOS
I’m running on. I don’t know where I’m going.
PHILOKTETES
“Don’t know where” why? Don’t talk that way.
NEOPTOLEMOS
But it’s where I feel I’m at. This impasse! 1000
PHILOKTETES
My disease disgusts you? You’ve had
second thoughts about having me on board!?
NEOPTOLEMOS
Everything’s disgust when a man steps outside
his breeding. And does what’s beneath him.
PHILOKTETES
Helping an honorable man you don’t do
anything your own father wouldn’t say or do.
NEOPTOLEMOS
I’ll be seen as dishonorable. That’s
what’s been tearing me apart.
PHILOKTETES
Not for what you’re doing!
It’s your words that worry me. 1010
NEOPTOLEMOS
Zeus, what will I do? Expose myself
as a traitor, by saying nothing? And yet
again, for telling the shameful truth?
PHILOKTETES
(as though to himself)
Unless I’ve got it all wrong, this person here
will betray and abandon me. And sail away.
NEOPTOLEMOS
Abandon, no. But take you on a voyage
so bitter . . . it’s been tearing me up inside.
PHILOKTETES
What are you saying, my boy? I don’t follow you.
NEOPTOLEMOS
I’ll hide nothing. You must sail with us
to Troy, to the Greek forces, 1020
and serve under the sons of Atreus.
PHILOKTETES
What! What are you saying!?
NEOPTOLEMOS
Don’t go moaning yet! You don’t know the rest of . . .
PHILOKTETES
WHAT now?
What do you mean to do to me?
NEOPTOLEMOS
Save you from this misery—then, together
we’ll lay waste the plains of Troy.
PHILOKTETES
That’s your plan? Really?
NEOPTOLEMOS
It’s a matter of utmost . . .
necessity. Don’t get mad hear me out. 1030
PHILOKTETES
I’m done for! Betrayed! You, stranger, why
do this to me? The bow! Give it back to me!
NEOPTOLEMOS
Can’t. Have to do what’s right. And for
my own good, obey commanders’ orders.
NEOPTOLEMOS, face averted, stands holding the bow.
PHILOKTETES
You scorched earth you terror monster
you filthy piece of work! What
have you done to me? you played me!
Ashamed to look me in the face, me
kneeling at your feet, heartless bastard?
Taking my bow you took my life! 1040
Give it back, please, give it, I beg you, boy!
By the gods of your fathers, don’t steal
this it’s my life!
. . . Says
nothing. Looks away like
he’ll never give it up.
O you bays, you headlands,
you sheer rockface, you wild animals roaming the hills
with me, it’s you I speak to—who else is there?—to you
only
I wail what the son of Achilles, this boy, 1050
has done to me. He swore he’d bring me home?
He hauls me to Troy. And with his right hand
having given his word, he grabs and holds
my sacred bow, the bow of Herakles, son of Zeus,
to show off to the Greeks like it’s his own.
Me too he drags off, as if he’d brought down
a big powerful man. He can’t see he’s killing
a carcass, a shadow of ghosting smoke.
Had I my strength he wouldn’t have taken me.
Even as is he wouldn’t, if he hadn’t tricked me. 1060
But he did. Now what can I do?
HAND IT BACK!
It’s not too late! You can still step back
inside your own true self!
What say? What’s that? Silence?
That’s it then. I’m nothing.
O rock tunnel, again I go back
into you. Disarmed, stripped
of the means to live, my life
will wither away in loneliness. 1070
No bird on the wing, no animal
browsing the hills will I kill
with that bow there. I’ll be food
for those who fed me, hunted
by those I myself hunted.
Aaaa . . .
then will I give my blood back
for the blood of those I’ve killed—
victim, me, of one who seemed
to know no evil. Die you! But 1080
(directly at NEOPTOLEMOS)
not yet. Not till I see if you change
your mind again. If not, may you
die a rotten death.
CHORUS
What will we do, lord? It’s up to you.
Set sail? Or do as he says?
NEOPTOLEMOS
For him, I feel. Not this moment
only, but for some time now.
PHILOKTETES
Pity, my boy, for love of the gods! Don’t
give men grounds to despise you
for deceiving me. 1090
NEOPTOLEMOS
What will I do? Better I’d never left Skyros
than come to so hard a place.
PHILOKTETES
It’s not your shame! You learned this
from truly evil teachers. They sent you!
Let them do their own dirty work.
Sail away, but first—give me back my arms.
NEOPTOLEMOS
Men, what will we do?
ODYSSEUS jumps out from behind the rocks.
ODYSSEUS
DO!?
Do what, traitor? You won’t get back
here and 1100
give me that bow?
Two Sailors emerge from behind ODYSSEUS.
PHILOKTETES
Who is that voice? Odysseus!?
ODYSSEUS
Odysseus for sure. It’s me myself you see.
PHILOKTETES
I’ve been sold out! It’s him trapped me,
he stole my arms.
ODYSSEUS
Me, yes, me alone. My word on it.
PHILOKTETES
(to NEOPTOLEMOS)
The bow, son, give it back. Give me.
ODYSSEUS
He won’t, never, even if he wants to.
And you’ll come with it—or these
—Odysseus gestures toward the Sailors—
will force you to. 1110
PHILOKTETES
You, you’re the worst of the worst.
Them? Force ME!?
ODYSSEUS
If . . . you don’t come quietly.
Burst of light, fading. Distant rumbling.
PHILOKTETES
O Lemnos—and you, O shooting flame
worked up by Hephestos—must I stand for this?
Let that man drag me off?
ODYSSEUS
Look here!
it’s ZEUS!
ZEUS rules here!
ZEUS decrees what happens! 1120
I carry out his orders.
PHILOKTETES
You’re despicable. Hiding behind
your shield of lies and gods,
you make them liars, too.
ODYSSEUS
No, this is their truth.
This is the way we must go.
PHILOKTETES
No!
ODYSSEUS
Yes! You must submit.
PHILOKTETES
Then I’m damned! For sure my father
begot me not as a free man, but a slave. 1130
ODYSSEUS
No. You’re the best among the best,
you’re destined
to break Troy down into dust.
PHILOKTETES
Never! Whatever I suffer. Not while
I have these steep crags to stand on.
ODYSSEUS
And do what?
PHILOKTETES
Throw myself down, smash my head
on the rocks.
ODYSSEUS
(to Sailors)
Grab him! Both! Disable him!
Sailors hold PHILOKTETES.
PHILOKTETES
Poor bare hands, with no bow to draw, 1140
hunted down now
together, held helpless under Odysseus . . .
(to ODYSSEUS)
As for you, you’re the sort never has
a healthy or generous thought. Yet
sneaking up you’ve caught me out
again! hiding behind this boy stranger
who’s too good for you, but for me
noble enough. All he’d thought to do
was what you wanted him to. Now he’s
torn up over the terrible thing he did 1150
and the wrong done me. Your corrosive
soul, squinting out from some secret hole,
taught that boy what he didn’t want to learn
—it wasn’t in him—to be good at evil.
Now you want to tie me hand and foot,
take me from the same shore you cast me
up on—no friends, helpless, homeless—to live
my own death.
Aie!
You should die! Out! I kept praying you would. 1160
But the gods leave nothing sweet for me. You,
you’re happy to be alive. My pain is my life
lived among miseries, made a fool of
by the sons of Atreus you run errands for.
And yet, you sailed with them only
because you were tricked, and conscripted.
I, wretch, came on my own with seven ships
only to be dishonored, abandoned—for which
you blame them, and they blame you.
So why cart me off now? For what? 1170
I’m nothing. To you I’m a dead man.
Why’s it now—for you, whom the gods
loathe—I’m not a stinking cripple?
How can you burn sacrifices to the gods
if I sail with you? How pour your offerings?
Wasn’t that your excuse for dumping me here?
Die a rotten death, you! You’ll have an awful end
if the gods love justice. And I’m sure they do—
because you wouldn’t have sailed here
looking for me 1180
if the gods hadn’t driven you to it.
O gods of my fathers, O watchful ones,
when the time comes however late it comes
beat them all down, beat them, if you pity me.
My life is pathetic, but if I could see them
crushed, I could dream
I had been freed of my disease.
LEADER
A tough one, this stranger. Doesn’t mince words,
Odysseus. He’s not one to give in to misery.
ODYSSEUS
I’d have a lot to say back to him—if 1190
we had the time. For now all I’ll say is
whatever the occasio
n, I’m the man for it.
If the times called for just and good, sure,
I could do that. As scrupulous as anyone.
But for me, in my very bones, victory is all.
Except now. With you.
For you, I’ll back off.
(to the Sailors holding PHILOKTETES)
Yes! Let him go! Don’t touch him. Let him
stay here. We’ve got your bow, we don’t need you.
We have Teukros, an expert archer. 1200
And me. I can handle the bow as well as you
and damn well aim it, too. Who needs you?
Good-bye!
Take a stroll around Lemnos. Enjoy yourself.
Sailors release PHILOKTETES.
Let’s go.
Who knows? with this, your precious possession,
I may get the honors once meant for you.
PHILOKTETES
O gods, what will I do? You’ll parade yourself
among the Greeks . . . showing off my bow?
ODYSSEUS
That’s enough out of you! I’m going. 1210
PHILOKTETES
Son of Achilles! You, too? Without
a word for me, you’d leave?
ODYSSEUS
(to NEOPTOLEMOS)
Let’s go! Don’t even look. You being so
noble and good
you’ll spoil our good luck.
PHILOKTETES
(to CHORUS)
You too, strangers? You’d leave me all alone?
Have you no pity?
LEADER
The young man is our master. What he says, we say.
NEOPTOLEMOS
(to CHORUS)
The chief there will say I’m too soft, but you men
stay here, if that’s what this one wants, for as long 1220
as it takes the sailors to set the rigging and get
everything shipshape. Until we’ve said our prayers
to the gods. By then maybe this one will think
better of us.
(to ODYSSEUS)
All right let’s go. The two of us.
(to CHORUS)
You, when we call, come running.
ODYSSEUS and NEOPTOLEMOS leave.
PHILOKTETES
Then
O my deep hollow in the rock
—sun baked, icy cold—
I could never leave you after all! 1230
It’s you will witness my death
o gods o gods
O forlorn space, all echoed up
