Chorus
Goddess of the hills, Earth all-nourishing, mother of Zeus himself, you through whose realm the great Pactolus rolls golden sands! There, there also, dread Mother, I called upon your name, when all the insults of the Atreids landed upon this man, when they handed over his father’s armor, that sublime marvel, to the son of Laertes. Hear it, blessed queen, who rides on bull-slaughtering lions!
Philoctetes It seems that you have come to me, friends, well commended by a grief that matches my own. Your story is in harmony with mine, so that I can recognize the work of the Atreids and of Odysseus. For well I know that he would put his tongue to any base tale and to any mischief-making, if thereby he could hope to accomplish something criminal in the end. No, that is not at all a wonder to me, but rather that the elder Ajax, if he was there, could bear to see this.
Neoptolemus Ah, friend, he was no longer alive—I would never have been plundered like that while he lived.
Philoctetes What do you say? Is he, too, dead and gone?
Neoptolemus Think of him as of one who sees the sun’s light no more.
Philoctetes Oh, no! But the son of Tydeus, and Sisyphus’ offspring that was bought by Laertes—they will not die, since they do not deserve to live!
Neoptolemus No, indeed, be sure of it. On the contrary, they prosper now —yes, and greatly—in the Argive army.
Philoctetes And what of my brave old friend, Nestor of Pylos—is he not alive? He often checked the crimes of those two, if not others, by his sage counsels.
Neoptolemus He has his own troubles now, since Antilochus, the son that was at his side, left him for Hades.
Philoctetes Ah, me! These two, again, whom you have named, are men of whose death I had least wished to hear. Gods! What are we to look for, when these men have died, but Odysseus here again lives, when in their place he should have been announced as dead?
Neoptolemus The man is a clever wrestler. But even clever schemes, Philoctetes, are often blocked.
Philoctetes Now, by the gods, tell me—where was Patroclus when you needed him, he whom your father loved beyond all others?
Neoptolemus He, too, was dead. And in a brief maxim I would teach you this: War takes no evil man by choice, but always the good men.
Philoctetes I will attest to that, and with that very truth in mind, I will ask you how fares a man of little worth, but sharp of tongue and clever.
Neoptolemus Surely the man of whom you ask is no one but Odysseus?
Philoctetes I did not mean him; there was one Thersites, who could never be content to speak once and briefly, even though no one wanted him to speak at all. Do you know if he is alive?
Neoptolemus I never saw him, but I heard that he is still alive.
Philoctetes He would be—no evil thing has ever been known to perish. No, the gods take excellent care of their kind. They find a strange joy in turning back from Hades all things criminal and crooked, while they are always dispatching the just and the good from life. How am I to regard these doings? How can I praise them, when in the very act of praising the ways of the gods, I find that the gods are evil?
Neoptolemus I, at least, son of Oetean Poeas, will be on my guard hereafter against Ilium and the Atreids, and look on them only from afar. And where the worse man is stronger than the good, where nobility goes to ruin and the vile man dominates—among such men I will never make my friends. No, rocky Scyros shall suffice for me from now on to make me delight in my home. Now to my ship! And you, son of Poeas, farewell—as best you can, farewell! May the gods free you of your disease, just as you wish! But we must be going, so that we may set sail whenever the god permits our voyage.
Philoctetes Are you setting out already, son?
Neoptolemus Yes, since opportunity bids us watch near our ship for a fair wind, rather than from afar.
Philoctetes
Now by your father and by your mother, son, by all that you cherish at home— I solemnly supplicate you, do not leave me alone like this, helpless amid these miseries in which I live, so harsh as you see, and so numerous as I have said! Consider me a small side-task. Great is your disgust, well I know, at such a cargo. Yet bear with it all the same—to noble minds baseness is hateful, and a good deed is glorious. If you forsake this task, you will have a stain on your honor; but if you perform it, boy, you will win the prize of highest honor—if I return alive to Oeta’s soil. Come, the trouble will not last one full day. Endure it, take me and throw me where you will—in the hold, the prow, the stern, wherever I will least annoy my shipmates. Say yes, by the great god of suppliants, son; be persuaded! I supplicate you at your knees, I am an infirm wretch, and lame! Do not leave me desolate like this, far from the paths of mankind! No, bring me safely to your own home, or to Euboea, Chalcodon’s seat; and from there it will be no long journey for me to Oeta and the Trachinian heights, and fair-flowing Spercheius, so that you may show me to my beloved father, though long I have feared that he may have departed me. For often did I summon him by means of those who came here, sending imploring prayers that he would himself send a ship and get me safely home. But either he is dead, or else, as I think is likely, my messengers thought my concerns of little account and hurried on their homeward voyage. Now, however, since in you I have found one who can be both an escort and a messenger, save me and show me mercy, keeping in mind that all human destiny is full of the fear and the danger that prosperity may be followed by its opposite. He who stands clear of trouble must beware of dangers, and when a man lives at ease, then it is that he must look most closely to his livelihood, lest it secretly suffer ruin.
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