Philoktetes

by Sophocles

PHILOKTETES

Your prayer, I'm afraid, will be in vain.
The murderous blood is running now
from its deep well. I expect a new attack.
It comes. Aaaah! Aaaah! It comes!
O, foot, you do me evil!
You have the bow, boy. You know what is happening.
Do not leave me! Aaaah! Aaaah!
O, Odysseus, I wish it were you,
I wish it were your spirit that these pains now gripped!
Aaaah!
Agamemnon, Menelaus, I hope it is you,
your two bodies, generals,
that this savage pain holds for as many years.

Death, black death, how can I call on you again, and you not come to take me away? Boy, take my body and burn it away on a Lemnian pyre, in the volcano's heart. I did this for a man, a child of Zeus, and won the weapons you now keep safe. Will you do it, boy? Why don't you speak? Where are you, boy?

NEOPTOLEMOS

I grieve for you, sir. Your pain is mine.