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Philoctetes
Ah ah ah! he is sitting now
down by the shore of the white-waved sea
1125laughing at me and brandishing
the only prop of my wretched life,
which no one before had ever taken.
O my bow, my only friend,
torn away from loving hands,
1130surely if you have a heart
you are looking with pity on me,
the comrade of Heracles.
Never again will I hold you hereafter:
you will be wielded now by the hands
1135of another, a man of deceitful guile,
and watch his shameful tricks, and see
that hateful man, my wicked foe,
bringing his evil plans to fulfillment
with thousandfold shames for me, my God!
chorus
1140 Man should always attempt to speak with justice;
but his tongue should not ever say
galling words which derive from envy
The man you speak of was ordered
by many other men, and he
1145has done a great service for all his friends.
The women of Trachis and Philoctetes. A new translation in verse by Robert Torrance. Houghton Mifflin. 1966.
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