Philoktetes | Page 7

cried, how I cursed myself, when I knew my ship had gone off with them, and not a man was left to help me overcome this illness. I could see nothing before me but grief and pain, and those in abundance.
Time ran its course. I have had to make my own life, to be my own servant in this tiny cave. I seek out birds to fill my stomach, and shoot them down. After I let loose a tautly drawn bolt, I drag myself along on this stinking foot. When I had to drink the water that pours from this spring, in icy winter, I had to break up wood, crippled as I am, and melt the ice alone. I dragged myself around and did it. And if the fire went out, I had to sit, and grind stone against stone until a spark sprang up to save my life. This roof, if I have fire, at least gives me a home, gives me all that I need to stay alive except release from my anguish.
Come, child, let me tell you of this island. No one comes here willingly. There is no anchorage here, nor any place to land, profit in trade, and be received. Intelligent people know not to come here, but sometimes they do, against their will. In the long time I have been here, it was bound to happen. When those people put in, they pitied me--- or pretended to, at least---and gave me new clothes and a bit of food. But when I asked for a homeward passage, they would never take me with them.
It is my tenth year of hunger and the ravaging illness that I feed with my flesh. The Atreids and Odysseus did this to me. May the Olympian gods give them pain in return.
CHORUS
I am like those who came here before. I pity you, unlucky Philoktetes.
NEOPTOLEMOS
And I am a witness to your words. I know you speak truly, for I have known them, the evil Atreids and violent Odysseus.
PHILOKTETES
Do you too have a claim against the all-destroying house of Atreus? Have they made you suffer? Is that why you are angry?
NEOPTOLEMOS
May the anger I carry be avenged by this hand, so that Mycenae and Sparta, too, may know that mother Skyros bears brave men.
PHILOKTETES
Well spoken, boy. What wrath have they incited in you?
NEOPTOLEMOS
Philoketetes, I will tell you everything, although it pains me to remember. When I came to Troy, they heaped dishonor on me, after Achilles had met his death in battle....
PHILOKTETES
Tell me no more until I am sure I've heard rightly: is Achilles, son of Peleus, dead?
NEOPTOLEMOS
Yes, dead, shot down by no living man, but by a god, so I've been told. He was laid low by Lord Apollo's arrows.
PHILOKTETES
The two were noble, the killer and the killed. I am not sure what to do now--- to hear out your story or mourn your father.
NEOPTOLEMOS
It seems to me that your woes are enough without taking on the woes of others.
PHILOKTETES
You speak rightly. Now tell me more, what they did---that is, how they insulted you.
NEOPTOLEMOS
They came for me in their mighty warships with painted prows and streaming battle flags. Odysseus and my father's tutor were the ones. They came with a story, true or a lie, that the gods had decreed, since my father had died, that I alone could storm Troy's walls. So they said. You can be sure that I lost no time in gathering my things and sailing with them, out of love for my father, whom I wanted to see before the earth swallowed him. I had never seen him alive. And I would be proved brave if I captured Troy.
We had a good wind. In two days we made bitter Sigeion. A mass of soldiers raised a cheer, saying dead Achilles still walked among them. They had not yet buried him. I wept for my father. And then I went to the Atreids, my father's supposed friends, as was fitting, and I asked for my father's weapons and his other things. They said with feigned sorrow, "Son of Achilles, you may have the other things, but not Achilles's weapons. Those now belong to Laertes's son." I leapt up then, crying in grief and anger, and said, "You bastards, how dare you give the things that are mine to other men without asking me first?"
Then Odysseus, who happened to be there, said, "Listen, boy. What they did was right. After all, I was the one who rescued them and your father's body." Enraged, I cursed him with all the curses I could think of, leaving nothing out, curses that would be set in motion if he were truly to rob me. Odysseus is not a quarrelsome man, but what I said stung him. He replied, "Boy, you're a