Philoctetes
Sophocles
Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 4: The Philoctetes. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898.
- Give back my bow, boy, give it up.
- That he shall never do, even if he wished to. And, what is more, you must come along with it, or my men will bring you by force.
- Me, you basest and boldest of scoundrels,
- they will take me by force?
- Unless you come of your own free will.
- O Lemnos, and you all-conquering flame kindled by Hephaestus, will you indeed endure it that this man should take me from your domain by force?
- Zeus it is, I tell you, Zeus, who rules this land,
- and it is by Zeus that these actions are decreed. I am his servant.
- Hated creature, what clever pleading you devise! By sheltering yourself behind the gods, you make the gods liars.
- No, but true prophets. Now our march must begin.
- Never!
- Now, I say. You must obey.
- Ah, misery! Clearly, then, my father sired me to be a slave and no free man.
- Not so, but to be the peer of the best and bravest, with whom you are destined to take Troy and force it to the ground.
- No, never—even if I must suffer every torment,
- so long as I have this island’s steep cliffs beneath me!
- What do you plan to do?
- Throw myself now from the rock and shatter my head on the rocks below!
- Quick, seize him, both of you! Do not give him the chance!
- O my arms, what shames you suffer for lack of your cherished