Why should a man feel fear who helps his friends?
Help for the sons of Atreus, or for me?
For thee, as these my words attest, thy friend.
A friend, when thou would’st hand me to my foes?
O let not suffering make thee truculent.
I know thou would’st undo me pleading thus.
Not I, but thou thyself, who wilt not learn.
Do I not know the Atridae cast me forth?
’Tis true, but now they would deliver thee.
Not with my will, if first I must to Troy.
What must I do, if all persuasion fails
To make thee budge an inch? ’Twere easier
To cease from words and leave thee here to live,
As thou hast lived, a hopeless castaway.
Well, let me dree my weird; but thou, my son,
Perform the promise made with clasp of hands,
Take me straight home, and talk no more of Troy.
My cup of lamentations I have drained.
As thou wilt then; let us forward.
Nobly spoken, let us go.
Forward! plant thy footsteps firmly.
To my utmost will I so.
But the wrath of the Achaeans will pursue me.
Never care.
What if they lay waste my borders?
Never fear, I shall be there.
What assistance canst thou render?
Heracles, his mighty bow—
Say’st thou?
Will prevent their landing.
Kiss the earth and let us go.
Go not yet till thou hast heard,
Son of Poeas, first my word:
Heracles to thee appears,
His the voice that thrills thine ears.
’Tis for thy sake I have come,
Leaving my Olympian home.
Mandate from high Zeus I bring
To forbid thy journeying:
Hear the will of heaven’s King.
But first I’ll mind thee of my own career,
How, having laboured hugely and endured,
I won immortal glory, as thou seest.
Know that thy fortune like to mine shall be,
Through suffering to glorify thy life.
Go with yon man to Ilium. There first
Thou shalt be healèd of thy grievous sore;
Then, chosen as the champion of the host,
With these my arrows thou shalt pierce to the heart
Paris, the guilty cause of all that woe.
Troy shalt thou sack, and, winning from the host
The meed of bravest, carry home rich spoils
To glad old Poeas and the Oetaean halls.
But of the spoils, whate’er the host assigns thee,
Bring to my pyre, as tribute to my bow,
A tithe. I have a message too for thee,
Son of Achilles. Thou without his aid
Can’st not take Troy, nor he apart from thine;
But like two lions together on the prowl,
Either the other guards. To cure thy wounds
Asclepius, the healer, will I send
To Troas; for a second time Troy towers
Must fall before my shafts. Only take heed,
In laying waste the land to reverence
Its gods; all else by Zeus my sire is less
Regarded. Piety can never die;
It lives on earth and blossoms in the grave.
Voice for which I long have yearned,
Form, long visioned, now discerned!
Thee I cannot disobey.
I too obey.
Then to work! No time to spare;
Seize the hour; the wind sets fair.
Yet ere I part I fain would bid farewell.
Home of my vigils, rocky cell,
Nymphs of the streams and grass-fringed shore,
Caves where the deep-voiced breakers roar,
When through the cavern’s open mouth,
Borne on the wings of the wild South,
E’en to my dwelling’s inmost lair,
The rain and spray oft drenched my hair;
And oft responsive to my groan
Mount Hermaeum made his moan;
O Lycian fount, O limpid well,
I thought with you all time to dwell;
And now I take my last farewell.
Sea-girt Lemnos, hear my prayer,
Bid thy guest a voyage fair
Speed him to the land where he,
Borne by mighty Destiny,
And the god at whose decree
All was ordered, fain would be.
Let us to the Sea Nymphs pray
To waft us on our Troy-ward way.
Mariners, attend my call;
Let us voyage, one and all.
Endnotes
-
The nymph by whose guardian serpent Philoctetes was bitten. See l. 1326. ↩
-
Phoenix. ↩
-
According to the tradition that Ovid followed (Met. 13 284) Odysseus rescued the body and arms of Achilles from the fray, ↩
-
Sisyphus, the reputed father of Odysseus, ordered his wife to leave his body unburied and so obtained leave from Pluto to return to earth in order to punish her impiety. ↩
-
For kindling the funeral-pyre of Heracles on Mount Oeta. ↩
-
Lemnos was the island on which Hephaestus fell when hurled from heaven (Il. I 593) and Moschylus on the east coast seems to have been an active volcano in historic times. ↩
-
The omitted lines are:
Who judged Odysseus of thy father’s arms
More worthy than the hapless Ajax. -
Odysseus to escape service feigned madness but was detected by Palamedes, who laid the infant Telemachus in front of the plough which he was driving with a yoked ox and ass. ↩
Colophon
Philoctetes
was written in 409 BCE by
Sophocles.
It was translated from Ancient Greek in 1913 by
Francis Storr.
This ebook was transcribed and produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Emma Sweeney,
and is based on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
Ulysses,
a painting completed in 1827 by
Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
May 5, 2025, 3:56 a.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/sophocles/philoctetes/francis-storr.
The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org.
Uncopyright
May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself
