Part 14

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

What should I do?

PHILOKTETES

Do not be afraid. Do not leave me. The disease comes and goes, perhaps when it has gorged itself in its other wanderings.

NEOPTOLEMOS

Poor man. You have endured such miseries, and still you live on. Should I help you up? Do you want me to hold you?

PHILOKTETES

Of all things, do not touch me. Take my bow instead, as you asked a while ago, until my pain diminishes. Keep the bow, keep it safe, my boy. Sleep overtakes me when the spell has passed; until then I'll have pain. You must let me sleep for a while. If my enemies come while I lie sleeping, I beg you, by the gods, do not give up my bow, willingly or unwillingly, by force or some trick. If you do, boy, you'll be a murderer, your own and mine, your suppliant.

NEOPTOLEMOS

Do not worry. I will be on my guard. No one but we will touch your bow. Give it to me now, and may the gods' fortune go with it.

PHILOKTETES

Take it, boy. Pray to the gods, lest they be jealous, and the bow become your sorrow, as it has been mine and its former master's.

NEOPTOLEMOS

O gods, grant what he asks, and grant us also a swift journey home on a sheltering wind, home, where Zeus bids us to go.

PHILOKTETES

Your prayer, I'm afraid, will be in vain. The murderous blood is running now from its deep well. I expect a new attack. It comes. Aaaah! Aaaah! It comes! O, foot, you do me evil! You have the bow, boy. You know what is happening. Do not leave me! Aaaah! Aaaah! O, Odysseus, I wish it were you, I wish it were your spirit that these pains now gripped! Aaaah! Agamemnon, Menelaus, I hope it is you, your two bodies, generals, that this savage pain holds for as many years.

Death, black death, how can I call on you again, and you not come to take me away? Boy, take my body and burn it away on a Lemnian pyre, in the volcano's heart. I did this for a man, a child of Zeus, and won the weapons you now keep safe. Will you do it, boy? Why don't you speak? Where are you, boy?

NEOPTOLEMOS

I grieve for you, sir. Your pain is mine.