He gathered no grain sown in holy earth, nor the food that living men enjoy, except when he shot his feathered arrows and filled his stomach with what he took. In ten years, he has had no succoring wine; he searched for puddles and drank from them instead. But now fortune has come with victory for him. He has found the son of a great man, who will himself be great, when this is over. Our lord will carry him over the seas, after these ten years, to his father's home in the land of the nymphs of Malia, by the banks of sweet-running Spercheios, where Herakles the archer ascended to Olympos, bronze-armored, engulfed in holy fire, there above the hills of Oeta.
NEOPTOLEMOS
Come on, then, if you want to. Why do you stand there, seized by silence?
PHILOKTETES
Ah! Ah! Ah!
NEOPTOLEMOS
What is it?
PHILOKTETES
Nothing to fear. Come now, boy.