Philoktetes Part 9

That is how I won it myself: for an act of kindness long ago.

NEOPTOLEMOS

I am glad I found you and became your friend.

One who knows how to give and receive kindness is a friend worth more than any possession.

Go inside.

PHILOKTETES

Come inside with me. My sickness desires to have you alongside as its helper.

CHORUS

I have heard the story, although I did not see it myself, of the one who stole up to Zeus's bed, where Hera slept; how Zeus caught him and chained him to a whirring fiery wheel.

But I have seen or heard of no other man whom destiny treated with such enmity as it did Philoktetes, who killed no one, nor robbed, but lived justly, a fair man to all who treated him fairly, and who fell into evils he did not deserve.

It amazes me that he, alone, listening to the rus.h.i.+ng waves pounding on the sh.o.r.e, could cling to life when life brought him pain, and so many tears.

He was crippled and had no one near him.

He was made to suffer, and no one could ease his burden, answer his cries, mourn with him the savage, blood-poisoning illness that was devouring him.

He had no neighbor to gather soft leaves to staunch the bleeding, hideous sore that ran, suppurating, maggoty, on his foot.

He writhed and scrawled upon the hard ground, crying like a motherless child, to wherever he might find relief when the spirit-killing illness attacked him.

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.

NEOPTOLEMOS

Does your illness now bring you pain?

PHILOKTETES

No. I seem to be better now. O, G.o.ds!

NEOPTOLEMOS

Why do you cry out to the G.o.ds in anguish?

PHILOKTETES

I cry that they might come and soothe me.

Ah! Ah! Ah!

NEOPTOLEMOS

What is it? Tell me! I can see you're in pain.

Do not keep it from me.

PHILOKTETES

I am destroyed, child. I am unable to hide this evil from you any longer.

Aaaah! Aaaah! It sears through my blood!

I am destroyed! I am being devoured!

Aaaah! Aaaah! Aaaah!

By the G.o.ds, boy, if you have a sword, cut off my foot! Cut it off now! You cannot save me!

Do it, boy.

NEOPTOLEMOS

What is this terrible thing that attacks you, and makes you scream in such misery?

PHILOKTETES

Don't you know?

NEOPTOLEMOS

What is it?

PHILOKTETES

How can you not know? Aaaah! Aaaah!

NEOPTOLEMOS

It is the terrible pain the disease sets upon you.

PHILOKTETES

Terrible indeed, more than words can tell. Pity me.

NEOPTOLEMOS