Epeisodion 1
Philoctetes
shamelessly hurled to this solitude which you see, when I was wasting with a fierce disease, stricken by the savage bite of the murderous serpent. With that plague for my sole companion, boy, those men put me out
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here alone and left, after they landed here with their fleet from sea-washed Chryse. Delighted they were then, when they saw me asleep after much tossing on the waves, in the shelter of a cave upon the shore, and they abandoned me, first setting out a few rags, as though for an unfortunate beggar, and a bit of food, too—
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a small work of charity. But may they get what they gave me! Can you imagine, boy, what kind of awakening I had when they had gone, and I rose from sleep that day?—what stinging tears I wept, and what miseries I bewailed when I saw that the ships with which I had sailed
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were all gone, and that there was no man in the place, not one to help me, not one to ease the sickness that afflicted me, when looking all around me, I could find nothing at hand, save agony—but of that a ready store?
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So time passed for me, season by season, and alone in this narrow house, I had to attend to all my wants by my own resources. For my stomach’s needs this bow provided, bringing down doves on the wing. And whatever my string-sped arrow might strike,
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in pain I would crawl to it myself, dragging my wretched foot behind me. Or, again, if water had to be fetched, or, if when the frost had spread, as often happens in winter, a bit of firewood had to be broken, I would creep out in pain and
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manage it. Then fire would be lacking; but by rubbing stone hard on stone I would at last reveal the hidden spark which preserves me from day to day. Indeed, a roof over my head and a fire inside provides all that I want—except release from my disease.
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Come now, son, you must understand what sort of island this is. No mariner approaches it by choice, since there is no anchorage or port where he can find a gainful market or a kindly host. This is not a place to which prudent men voyage. But suppose that some one has put in against his will, for such things may often
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happen in the long course of a man’s life. These visitors, then, when they come, son, have compassionate words for me, and, perhaps moved by pity, they give me a little food or some clothing.
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But there is one thing that no one will do, whenever I mention it: take me home in safety. No, this is already the tenth year that I am wasted by misery from hunger and suffering, by feeding this gluttonous plague. This is what the Atreids and the forceful Odysseus have done to me, boy.
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May the gods on Olympus someday give them agonies as strong in requital for mine!
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Chorus
I believe that I, too, pity you, son of Poeas, as much as your former visitors.
Neoptolemus
And I myself attest your accusations,
for I know their truth through my own experience with the wickedness of the Atreids and the force of Odysseus.
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Philoctetes
What, do you also have a grievance against the accursed sons of Atreus, a cause for anger at some mistreatment?
Neoptolemus
If only I might one day be allowed to fulfill my heart’s rage by the deeds of my hand,
so that Mycenae might learn, and Sparta, that Scyros also is a mother of brave men!
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Philoctetes
Well said, son! Now what is the reason that you have come complaining against them with this fierce wrath?
Neoptolemus
I will tell you—and yet it is hard to tell—
the outrage that I suffered from them upon my arrival there. For when fate decreed that Achilles should die—
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