Neoptolemus
My heart has long been aching for your load of pain.
Philoctetes
Stop, then, and take courage; this visitor comes sharply, but goes quickly. Yet, I beg you, do not leave me alone.
Neoptolemus
[810]
Take heart, we will remain.
Philoctetes
Will you?
Neoptolemus
Be sure of it.
Philoctetes
Indeed, I do not think it right to put you under oath.
Neoptolemus
Rest assured; it is not lawful for me to leave without you.
Philoctetes
Give me your hand in pledge!
Neoptolemus
I give it—to stay.
Philoctetes
Now take me there, over there!
Neoptolemus
Where do you mean?
Philoctetes
Up there!
Neoptolemus
[815]
What is this new delirium? Why do you gaze at the dome above us?
Philoctetes
Let me go, let me go!
Neoptolemus
Where will you go, if I do so?
Philoctetes
Let me go, I say!
Neoptolemus
I will not.
Philoctetes
You will kill me, if you touch me further.
Neoptolemus
There, then, I release you—if in fact you believe it is for the better.
Philoctetes
Wide Earth, embrace me now on the verge of death!
[820]
This pain no longer lets me stand up.
Neoptolemus
Sleep, I think, will take him before long. See, his head sinks backward. Yes, a sweat runs over his whole body, and a dark, hemorrhaging vein has burst from his heel.
[825]
Come, friends, let us leave him in quietness, so that he may fall asleep.
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Sophocles. The Philoctetes of Sophocles. Edited with introduction and notes by Sir Richard Jebb. Sir Richard Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1898.
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