Troy would have fallen too soon.
But this is now.
Philoctetes begins to cry out, offstage.
Chorus
Quiet. Wheesht!
Neoptolemus
This is the hour of the bow!
Listen to that …
He is in awful pain.
That squeal
Must be every time he drags his foot.
Chorus
Watch out. Get ready.
Neoptolemus
How?
Chorus
Think of your plan.
This is not some shepherd in a book
With his Pan pipes and his shepherd’s crook.
This is a danger-man.
That shouting’s desperate and it’s violent.
He sounds provoked.
He maybe saw the boat.
Enter Philoctetes.
Philoctetes
What’s this? Who is this here? How did you land?
What brought you to a deserted island?
Tell us who you are and where you come from.
Your clothes look Greek and that warms my heart
But I need to hear your voices.
I know I look like a wild animal
But don’t let that scare you.
Don’t treat me
Like an untouchable.
What I am
Is what I was made into by the traitors.
Do the friendly human thing and speak.
Neoptolemus
All right.
I can tell you this:
What warms your heart
Warms ours.
We are Greeks.
Philoctetes
Ohh! Hearing you talk,
just hearing you
And seeing you –
you have no idea
How much that means.
But who was it sent you?
Was it only chance?
Or was there purpose to it?
Did a wind blow you off course?
Tell me what happened and who you are.
Neoptolemus
The whole story is very short and simple.
My home-ground is the island of Scyros
And I am heading for its wave-lashed shores.
My name is Neoptolemus. Achilles was my father.
Philoctetes
Then you are one lucky son, and a lucky sailor
To be heading for that home. But where are you coming from?
Neoptolemus
The walls of Troy. We hoisted sail at Troy.
Philoctetes
What’s that you say? You must have been with us.
Did you not sail with the original Greek force?
Neoptolemus
Do you mean to say that you sailed with that force?
Philoctetes
Och! Och! Och ho!
Child, do you not know me?
Neoptolemus
How could I know a man I never saw?
Philoctetes
And you haven’t even heard my name …?
Och ho!
Or heard about the way that I’m afflicted?
Neoptolemus
Never. I have no notion
What all this is about.
Philoctetes
Gods curse it!
But it’s me the gods have cursed.
They’ve let my name and story be wiped out.
The real offenders have got away with it
And I’m still here, rotting like a leper.
Tell me, son. Achilles was your father.
Did you ever maybe hear him mentioning
A man who had inherited a bow –
The actual bow and arrows that belonged
To Hercules, and that Hercules gave him?
Did you never hear, son, about Philoctetes?
About the snake-bite he got at a shrine
When the first fleet was voyaging to Troy?
And then the way he broke out with a sore
And was marooned on the commander’s orders?
Let me tell you, son, the way they abandoned me.
So I dozed and fell asleep under a rock
Down on the shore.
And there and then, just like that,
They headed off.
And they were delighted.
And the only thing
They left me was a bundle of old rags.
Some day I want them all to waken up
The way I did that day. Imagine, son.
The bay all empty. The ships all disappeared.
Absolute loneliness. Nothing there except
The beat of the waves and the beat of my raw wound.
But I had to keep alive. Crawling and twisting
To get myself down for a drink of water.
Think of what that was like in the wintertime,
When the water got iced over. And then I’d have to
Gather sticks and break them,
and every day
Start a fire from scratch, out of two flints.
Terrible times.
I managed to come through
But I never healed.
My whole life has been
Just one long cruel parody.
This island is a nowhere. Nobody
Would ever put in here. There’s nothing.
Nothing to attract a lookout’s eye.
Nobody in his right mind would come near it.
And the rare ones that ever did turn up
Landed by accident, against their will.
They would take pity on me, naturally.
Share out their supplies and give me clothes.
But not a one of them would ever, ever
Take me on board with them to ship me home.
Every day has been a weeping wound
For ten years now. Ten years’ misery and starvation –
That’s all my service ever got for me.
That’s what I have to thank Odysseus for
And Menelaus and Agamemnon.
Gods curse them all!
I ask for the retribution I deserve.
I solemnly beseech the gods to strike
The sons of Atreus in retaliation.
Chorus
I know the way those people must have felt
When they landed here and saw you.
Neoptolemus
And I know from experience, Philoctetes,
That this has the ring of truth. I know
What Odysseus and that whole crowd are like.
Philoctetes
How is that?
Have you a score to settle with them too?
Neoptolemus
I’ll choke them all some day with my two bare hands
And let them know that Scyros is a match
For Sparta and Mycenae put together.
Philoctetes
More power to you, child!
But what brought you here
If you’re so desperate to be after them?
Neoptolemus
I’ll tell you – though you of all men know
What it’s like when you’ve been humiliated.
Still, humiliate me was what they did.
After my father died, there came a day …
Philoctetes
Achilles died?
Achilles?
How? What happened?
Neoptolemus
Human enemies did not slay Achilles.
It was the great god Apollo.
Philoctetes
No shame, in that event, on either side …
Your father, dead. I’m heartbroken for him.
Neoptolemus
You have heartbreak enough, Philoctetes,
Without starting to take on another man’s.
Philoctetes
You’re right.
You are right.
So keep on with the story.
Neoptolemus
My father’s foster-father
and Odysseus
Landed from Troy in a freshly rigged-out boat.
They had crucial information, they maintained,
And to this day I cannot be sure
If it was lies or the truth.
What they said
Was this:
With Achilles gone,
I was the destined one, the only man
Who could ever take the citadel of Troy.
So, naturally, I went straight into action.
There was the Greek cause, and –
There was my father.
I wanted to see
My father’s body before they buried him.
And behind all that, maybe there was the lure
Of being the one who would take the citadel.
Well. After two days’ good sailing,
We disembarked on the shore at Sigeum
And it was a great moment.
The whole army
Gathered to salute me, everybody declared
It was just like seeing Achilles in the flesh,
Alive again.
But Achilles was a corpse.
I mourned him. I took my last look at him
And then went to the sons of Atreus
As friends of mine, for how could they not be?
I made the formal claim for my father’s armour
And whatever else was due to me. But they
Violated every law and custom
And said, yes, I could have the personal effects,
But Achilles’ arms were being worn already
By another man. By Laertes’ son, in fact,
Odysseus himself. And that put me wild.
I raved and cried, then I asked them simply, why?
Why were the weapons not reserved for me?
So who pipes up but Odysseus himself
And says because he was present on the spot
And saved the arms and saved my father’s body,
He was entitled.
And that put me wilder still.
I had a fit. I savaged him to his face
And insulted him and cursed him. But he comes up –
Not out of control, but definitely provoked –
And he says to me,
‘We bore the brunt, not you.
When you should have been with us, you went missing.
So rant and rave your fill, but you will never
Be seen in your famous armour on Scyros Island.’
That was enough. There was nothing else to do
But turn round for home, humiliated
By the lowest of the low.
But Odysseus
In the end is less responsible
Than the ones who held command.
People in high office are bound to rule
By the force of their example. Bad actions come
From being badly influenced. What you see
Is what you do yourself.
Anyway.
That’s all I have to say. But you’ll understand
Why I consider anyone a friend
That suffered at the hands of that alliance.
Chorus
I asked the ground to open under them,
Menelaus and Agamemnon,
When they demeaned this man.
They robbed him of his father’s arms. But worse:
They robbed him of dignity. He lost face.
He was openly insulted by Odysseus.
I asked Earth herself, the mother of Zeus,
The mistress of the bull-killing lions,
Native of gold Patroclus, spirit of mountains.
Philoctetes
Well, there’s nothing I can teach you
You don’t know already. Odysseus
Is contemptible and plausible and dangerous.
And always was. But what about Ajax?
I am astonished Ajax made no moves.
Did he take no hand at all?
Neoptolemus
Ajax, friend, had died before this started.
If he had been alive, the arms were mine.
Philoctetes
Say that again, child. Ajax is dead and gone?
Neoptolemus
Ajax has gone away out of the light.
Philoctetes
And the ones that never should have seen the light
Are thriving still.
Neoptolemus
They are.
The whole seed, breed and generation of them.
The biggest names in the Greek army now.
Philoctetes
But there was one good influence. One good man.
Nestor. My friend, old Nestor of Pyleus.
What has become of him?
Neoptolemus
He’s losing ground.
His son, Antilochus, was a casualty
And that weakened Nestor’s own position.
Philoctetes
This is terrible news. Of all people,
Those two are the last I’d want to think of
Being dead. But they are the ones, of course.
And the one man that does deserve to die –
Odysseus – Odysseus walks free.
Neoptolemus
Odysseus can outfox most opposition.
But long runs the fox that isn’t caught at last.
Philoctetes
Gods! I forgot! Patroclus. Where was Patroclus
When you needed him? Where was your father’s friend?
Neoptolemus
Philoctetes. Let me educate you
In one short sentence. War has an appetite
For human goodness but it won’t touch the bad.
Philoctetes
I’m not going to contradict you there. No,
But there was a certain
Gifted, sharp-tongued, useless nobody –
Neoptolemus
You mean Odysseus?
Philoctetes
No. Not him.
But a man you couldn’t bear to listen to
And therefore the man you had to listen to
Incessantly. I mean Thersites.
Neoptolemus
I didn’t see him. But I know he’s still alive.
Philoctetes
Of course. Of course. What else could you expect?
The gods do grant immunity, you see,
To everybody except the true and the just.
The more of a plague you are, and the crueller,
The better your chances of being turned away
From the doors of death. Whose side are gods on?
What are human beings to make of them?
How am I to keep on praising gods
If they keep disappointing me, and never
Match the good on my side with their good?
Neoptolemus
One thing’s certain in all this. I intend
To get very far away from that crew camped at Troy.
Once sharks and tramps start being in charge,
All ordinary decency is gone.
In future, the rocks and backwardness
Of my old home will mean far more to me …
Which is why I’m bound for Scyros. I have to go
Back down to the ship now. I am sorry,
Philoctetes, but I must say goodbye.
I hope the gods relent and your sores get cured.
We have to head on. Goodbye again, my friend.
Philoctetes
Are you going away again as soon as this?
Neoptolemus
We are. The minute the weather’s right.
We have to be standing by for speedy boarding.
Philoctetes
No. Wait, son. Listen. And when I ask
What I am asking of you now, remember
Your own father and mother.
You know how your heart lifts when you think of home?
Well, think of what it’s like to be me here,
Always homesick, abandoned every time.
; Take me with you. As a passenger.
The state I’m in, I know I’m the last thing
A crew would want on board. But, do it, son,
Even so. Make yourself go through with it.
Generous people should follow their instincts.
Saying no is not your natural way
And even if you do, you’ll suffer for it.
So go with your impulse, take me to Oeta,
And you’ll be proud, and people will be proud
Of you.
You could do it all in a day.
One single day. You can stow me anywhere.
The hold. The stern. Up under the prow.
Wherever I’m the least bother to the men.
Come on now, son. It’s in you to do this.
You’re not going to leave a wounded man behind.
I’m on my knees to you, look, and me not fit
To move hardly. I’m lamed for life. I’m done.
Take me out of here. Take me home with you
To your place, or somewhere in Euboea.
It’ll be easy from there to get to Oeta,
And the Trachinian Hills and the Sperchius,
The River Sperchius, flowing away there still.
And my father too.
So long ago, my father.
But I am afraid, not any more.
Time
After time, when they would sail away,
I would send word. But my predicament
Was the last thing on their minds. So probably
He never got my news. Or else he’s dead.
But you’ll take my message this time, and take me
As well.
Life is shaky. Never, son, forget
How risky and slippy things are in this world.
Walk gently when the cup’s full, and don’t ever