Philoktetes Part 13

PHILOKTETES

I am destroyed. I am betrayed.

Why, stranger, have you done these things?

Give me back my bow.

NEOPTOLEMOS

I cannot. Duty and my own ambition force me to obey those men who command me.

PHILOKTETES

O fire, o utter terror, o terrible craftsman of all wickedness, the things you have done to me!

How you have betrayed me! Are you not ashamed to look down on me, who have kneeled to you, the suppliant, you bitter ones?

You have taken away my life with my bow.

Return it. I beg you, boy, return it now.

By your ancestral G.o.ds, do not take my life.

He does not speak. He merely turns away, as though he will never give it back.

Caves, promontories, hordes of wild beasts, rocky headlands, I speak to you now, for there is no one else to whom I can speak.

You have always been at my side and heard me.

Hear what Achilles's son has done!

He promised to take me home. Instead he will take me to Troy. He gave me his hand and then robbed me of my holy bow, Herakles's bow, the son of Zeus's, to hold it up to the Greeks and boast that he had taken it from a strong opponent, that he had taken it from his prisoner.

He is killing someone who is already dead, a corpse, a smoky shadow, a ghost. Were I strong he would not have won. Even so, he had to trick me to get it away.

I have been tricked, and I am destroyed.

What is left for me to do?

Return my bow. Recall your nature. No?

You are silent, and I am nothing.

Double-doored rock, I come back to you unarmed, unable to capture my sustenance.

Within that cave I will wither, unable to bring down birds or beasts from the mountains with my bow. Now I will be the food of those who fed me.

Those I hunted once will hunt me now.

I will repay with my life the lives I took because of the hypocrite I took into my trust, a boy who seemed to know no evil.

A curse upon you. No, not until I know if you'll change your mind.

If you will not, may you die in all misery.

CHORUS

What will we do now? Shall we sail away, or do what he asks us? It is in your hands.

NEOPTOLEMOS

A terrible pity comes over me.

I have felt it all along.

PHILOKTETES

By the G.o.ds, do take pity.

Do not put on the mantle of infamy for having deceived me.

NEOPTOLEMOS

What will I do? I wish I had never left Skyros.

I hate the things that are happening here.

PHILOKTETES

You are not a bad man. By watching others who are bad you have learned these terrible tricks.

Leave evil to them. Let us sail away.

Return my weapons to me, boy.

NEOPTOLEMOS

What will we do now?

ODYSSEUS

You coward, what are you thinking of doing?

Are you not going to give me the bow?

PHILOKTETES

Who is that? Is that Odysseus's voice I hear?

ODYSSEUS

Odysseus's, yes. Now you can see me clearly.

PHILOKTETES

I am truly betrayed, truly destroyed.

It is all becoming clear to me: It was he who tricked me and robbed me of my weapons.

ODYSSEUS

None other. I proclaim it to you now.

PHILOKTETES

Give me my bow. Give it to me now, boy.

ODYSSEUS

He could not do that even if he wanted to.

You must come with the bow, too, or these men will take you.