Philoctetes
Sophocles
Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 4: The Philoctetes. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898.
- the son that was at his side, left him for Hades.
- 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?
- The man is a clever wrestler. But even clever schemes, Philoctetes, are often blocked.
- Now, by the gods, tell me—where was Patroclus when you needed him, he whom your father loved beyond all others?
- 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.
- 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.
- Surely the man of whom you ask is no one but Odysseus?
- 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?
- I never saw him, but I heard that he is still alive.
- 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