Philoctetes
Sophocles
Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 4: The Philoctetes. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898.
- Well, know first, stranger, that we are Greeks, since you desire to learn this.
- O cherished sound! Ah, that I should truly be
- greeted by such a man, after so long a time! What need, young man, has made you land here and brought you to this spot? What business? What wind so kind? Speak, tell me all, so that I may know who you are.
- My birthplace is the island Scyros, and I am sailing
- homeward. I am the son of Achilles, by name Neoptolemus. Now you know everything.
- O son of a father I loved, and of soil I cherished! Ward of aged Lycomedes, on what mission have you touched this shore? From where are you sailing?
- Well, since you ask, it is from Ilium that I am now guiding my ship.
- What? You were certainly not our shipmate at the beginning of the expedition there.
- And did you have a part in that toil?
- Then you do not know who I am?
- How should I know one whom I have never seen before?