NEO. What?
CH. 2. Think again. He moveth nigh:
He holds the region: not with tone
Of piping shepherd’s rural minstrelsy,
But belloweth his far cry,
Stumbling perchance with mortal pain,
Or else in wild amaze,
As he our ship surveys
Unwonted on the inhospitable main.
Enter PHILOCTETES.
PHILOCTETES. Ho!
What men are ye that to this desert shore,
Harbourless, uninhabited, are come
On shipboard? Of what country or what race
Shall I pronounce ye? For your outward garb
Is Grecian, ever dearest to this heart
That hungers now to hear your voices’ tune.
Ah! do not fear me, do not shrink away
From my wild looks: but, pitying one so poor,
Forlorn and desolate in nameless woe,
Speak, if with friendly purpose ye are come.
Oh answer! ’Tis not meet that I should lose
This kindness from your lips, or ye from mine.
NEO. Then know this first, O stranger, as thou wouldest,
That we are Greeks.
PHI. O dear, dear name! Ah me!
In all these years, once, only once, I hear it!
My son, what fairest gale hath wafted thee?
What need hath brought thee to the shore? What mission?
[page 224][238-273] Declare all this, that I may know thee well.
NEO. The sea-girt Scyros is my native home.
Thitherward I make voyage:—Achilles’ son,
Named Neoptolemus.—I have told thee all.
PHI. Dear is that shore to me, dear is thy father
O ancient Lycomedes’ foster-child,
Whence cam’st thou hither? How didst thou set forth?
NEO. From Troy we made our course in sailing hither.
PHI. How? Sure thou wast not with us, when at first
We launched our vessels on the Troyward way?