Philoktetes

by Sophocles

Then you do not know who stands before you?

NEOPTOLEMOS

I have never seen you before. How could I know you?

PHILOKTETES

You do not know my name?
The fame my woes have given me?
The men who brought me to my ruin?

NEOPTOLEMOS

You see one who knows nothing of your story.

PHILOKTETES

Then I am truly damned. The gods must surely hate me for not even a rumor to have come to Greece of how I live here. The wicked men who abandoned me keep their secret, then, and laugh, while the disease that dwells within me grows, and grows stronger. My son, child of great Achilles, you may yet have heard of me somehow: I am Philoktetes, Poias's son, the master of Herakles's weapons. Agamemnon, Menelaos, and Odysseus marooned me here, with no one to help me, as I wasted away with a savage disease, struck down by a viper's hideous bite.

After I was bitten, we put in here on the way from Chryse to rejoin the fleet and they cast me ashore. After our rough passage, they were glad to see me fall asleep on the seacliffs, inside this cave. Then they went off, leaving with me rags and breadcrumbs, and few of each. May the same soon befall them.