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such pain and suffering to you as it
brought me, and him who wielded it before me.
Neoptolemus
Grant this, O gods, to both of us, and grant
785fair sailing to us and a prosperous voyage
wherever God and our intentions take us.
Philoctetes
My child, I fear your prayers are said in vain:
the bloody gore drops oozing from the depths
of my wound, and yet the worst is still to come.
790The pain, the pain!
O my foot, how great will be the pain you cause me!
It is creeping,
it is coming nearer, wretched that I am!
You know it now; but do not flee from me!
795Ah ah ah ah!
O king of Ithaca, would this anguish might
pierce through your breast: ah ah ah ah ah ah!
Oh oh oh oh! Agamemnon, Menelaus,
you captains of the Greeks, would that you might
800suffer instead of me this lifelong pain!
Oh oh!
Death, Death, why, when I always call upon you,
day in, day out, can you not ever come?
O child, my noble friend, come, take me now
805and burn me in the famed volcanic fire
The women of Trachis and Philoctetes. A new translation in verse by Robert Torrance. Houghton Mifflin. 1966.
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