“Tell me what is the gain to me if this man come to Troy.”
“Without this bow and these arrows Troy falleth not. For though it is the pleasure of the Gods that thou take the city, yet canst not thou take it without these, nor indeed these without thee.”
And when the Prince had mused a while, he said, “If this be so with the arms, I must needs get them.”
Then Ulysses said, “Do this, and thou shalt gain a double honor.”
And the Prince said, “What meanest thou by thy ‘double honor’? Tell me, and I refuse no more.”
“The praise of wisdom and of courage also.”
“Be it so: I will do this deed, nor count it shame.”
“’Tis well,” said Ulysses, “and now I will despatch this watcher to the ship, whom I will send again in pilot’s disguise if thou desire, and it seems needful. Also I myself will depart, and may Hermes, the god of craft, and Athené, who ever is with me, cause us to prevail.”
After a while Philoctetes came up the path to the cave, very slowly, and with many groans. And when he saw the strangers (for now some of the ship’s crew were with Prince Neoptolemus) he cried, “Who are ye that are come to this inhospitable land? Greeks I know you to be by your garb; but tell me more.”
And when the Prince had told his name and lineage, and that he was sailing from Troy, Philoctetes cried, “Sayest thou from Troy? Yet surely thou didst not sail with us in the beginning.”