PHILOKTETES
O fire, o utter terror, o terrible craftsman of all wickedness, the things you have done to me! How you have betrayed me! Are you not ashamed to look down on me, who have kneeled to you, the suppliant, you bitter ones?
You have taken away my life with my bow.
Return it. I beg you, boy, return it now.
By your ancestral gods, do not take my life.
He does not speak. He merely turns away, as though he will never give it back.
Caves, promontories, hordes of wild beasts, rocky headlands, I speak to you now, for there is no one else to whom I can speak. You have always been at my side and heard me. Hear what Achilles's son has done! He promised to take me home. Instead he will take me to Troy. He gave me his hand and then robbed me of my holy bow, Herakles's bow, the son of Zeus's, to hold it up to the Greeks and boast that he had taken it from a strong opponent, that he had taken it from his prisoner. He is killing someone who is already dead, a corpse, a smoky shadow, a ghost. Were I strong he would not have won. Even so, he had to trick me to get it away. I have been tricked, and I am destroyed. What is left for me to do?
Return my bow. Recall your nature. No?
You are silent, and I am nothing.
Double-doored rock, I come back to you unarmed, unable to capture my sustenance. Within that cave I will wither, unable to bring down birds or beasts from the mountains with my bow. Now I will be the food of those who fed me. Those I hunted once will hunt me now. I will repay with my life the lives I took because of the hypocrite I took into my trust, a boy who seemed to know no evil.
A curse upon you. No, not until I know if you'll change your mind. If you will not, may you die in all misery.