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
  2. because of his meeting with this son of a noble race, who after the fullness of many months carries him aboard our sea-crossing hull to his ancestral home,
  3. the haunt of Malian nymphs, and to the banks of the Spercheius in that very land where, above Oeta’s heights, the hero of the brazen shield approached the gods, illuminated by his father’s divine fire.
Neoptolemus
  1. Please, come on. Why so silent with no apparent cause? And why are you paralyzed?
Philoctetes
  1. Ai, ai!
Neoptolemus
  1. What is the matter?
Philoctetes
  1. Nothing serious—go on, son.
Neoptolemus
  1. Are you in pain from the disease that frequents you?