Part 7

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 newcomer. You have been at home, out of harm's way. You judge me too harshly. You cannot keep a civil tongue. For all that, you will not take his weapons home." You see, I took abuse from both sides. I lost the things that were mine, and I sailed home. Odysseus, the bastard son of bastards, robbed me. But I blame him less than the generals. They rule whole cities and a mighty army. Bad men become so by watching bad teachers. I have told you all. May he who hates the Atreids be as dear to the gods as he is to me.

CHORUS

O mountainous, all-nourishing Mother Earth, Mother of Zeus, our lord, himself, you who range the golden Paktolos, Mother of pain and sorrow, I begged you, Blessed Mother, borne by bull-slaying lions, on that day when the arrogant Atreids insulted him, when they gave away his weapons to the son of Laertes. Hail, goddess, the highest object of our awe.

PHILOKTETES

You have sailed here, clearly, with a just cause of pain. Your share of grief almost matches mine. What you say harmonizes with what I know of them--- the evil doings of the Atreids and Odysseus. I know that Odysseus spins out lies with his evil tongue, which he uses to create all manner of injustice; he brings no good to pass, I know. Still, it amazes me to learn that Ajax, seeing these things, should permit them.

NEOPTOLEMOS

He is dead now, friend. If he lived, they would never have stolen the weapons from me.