Epeisodion 5
Odysseus
Unless you come of your own free will.
985
Philoctetes
O Lemnos, and you all-conquering flame kindled by Hephaestus, will you indeed endure it that this man should take me from your domain by force?
Odysseus
Zeus it is, I tell you, Zeus, who rules this land,
and it is by Zeus that these actions are decreed. I am his servant.
990
Philoctetes
Hated creature, what clever pleading you devise! By sheltering yourself behind the gods, you make the gods liars.
Odysseus
No, but true prophets. Now our march must begin.
Odysseus
Now, I say. You must obey.
Philoctetes
Ah, misery! Clearly, then, my father sired me to be a slave and no free man.
995
Odysseus
Not so, but to be the peer of the best and bravest, with whom you are destined to take Troy and force it to the ground.
Philoctetes
No, never—even if I must suffer every torment,
so long as I have this island’s steep cliffs beneath me!
1000
Odysseus
What do you plan to do?
Philoctetes
Throw myself now from the rock and shatter my head on the rocks below!
Odysseus
Quick, seize him, both of you! Do not give him the chance!
Philoctetes
O my arms, what shames you suffer for lack of your cherished
bow, now that you are made that man’s bound quarry! And you, who cannot think one healthy or one noble thought, how stealthily you have once more ambushed and trapped me, taking this boy for your screen, because he was a stranger to me. He is too good for your company, but worthy of mine,
1005
since he had no thought but to execute his orders, and he already shows remorse for his own errors and for the wrongs done me. But your corrupt mind, always on the lookout from some position of ambush, trained him well—unsuited and unwilling though he was—
1010
to be cunning in evil. And now, wretch, for me you plan bonds and passage from the very shore on which you had me flung away, friendless, abandoned, citiless, a corpse in the eyes of the living. Ah! Hades take you! Indeed I have often so prayed for you.
1015
But, because the gods grant me nothing that is sweet, you remain alive and you laugh, while I live miserably among countless sufferings, mocked by you and by the sons of Atreus, the two generals whom you serve on this errand.
1020
