Philoctetes

Sophocles

Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 4: The Philoctetes. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898.

  1. For food he did not gather the fruit of holy Earth, nor anything else that we mortals feed on by our labor,
  2. except when on occasion he obtained food to ease his hunger by means of feathered shafts from his swift-striking bow. Ah, joyless was his life, who for ten years never knew the delight of wine,
  3. but ever directed his path towards any stagnant pool that he could find as he gazed around him.
Chorus
  1. But now, after those troubles, he will attain happiness and heartiness in the end