GetPassage urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0011.tlg006.perseus-eng2:814-843 urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0011.tlg006.perseus-eng2:814-843
Now take me there, over there!NeoptolemusWhere do you mean?PhiloctetesUp there!NeoptolemusWhat is this new delirium? Why do you gaze at the dome above us?PhiloctetesLet me go, let me go!NeoptolemusWhere will you go, if I do so?PhiloctetesLet me go, I say!NeoptolemusI will not.PhiloctetesYou will kill me, if you touch me further.NeoptolemusThere, then, I release you—if in fact you believe it is for the better.PhiloctetesWide Earth, embrace me now on the verge of death!This pain no longer lets me stand up.NeoptolemusSleep, I think, will take him before long. See, his head sinks backward. Yes, a sweat runs over his whole body, and a dark, hemorrhaging vein has burst from his heel.Come, friends, let us leave him in quietness, so that he may fall asleep.
ChorusDivine Sleep, god who knows no pain, Sleep, stranger to anguish, come in favor to us, come happy, and giving happiness, great King!Keep before his eyes such light as is spread before them now. Come to him, I pray you, come with power to heal! Son, consider what position you will take, and to what strategy you will next direct our course.You see his condition now! Why should we hesitate to act? Opportunity, the umpire of all contests, often wins a great victory by one swift stroke.NeoptolemusNo, even though he hears nothing, I see thatwe have made this bow our quarry to no end, if we sail without him. His must be the victor’s crown. It is he that the god commanded we bring. It would be a foul disgrace upon us to boast of deeds in which failure and fraud had equal parts.
ChorusWell, the god must look to that, son. But when you answer me again,