Philoctetes

but Neoptolemus the son of Achilles, quite young, and Philoctetes, formerly disregarded because of his disease, and such helps from home, weak and scanty.

and Alexander dies, shot down by Philoctetes.

But when Philoctetes in no way yields nor is persuaded, but begs Neoptolemus, as he had promised, to convey him to Hellas, he promises and is ready to do this, until Heracles, appearing, persuades Philoctetes to sail willingly to Troy.

Wherefore it must be thought base — I do not say to feel pain, for that is sometimes necessary — but to defile that Lemnian rock with the cry of Philoctetes, 'which, resounding with his wailing, lament, groan, and roarings, gives back, all dumb, his tearful voice.

then, what is that slackening, when both the memory of past pain is fresh, and the fear of pain to come and impending torments him?

He, when he was tortured by unbearable pains, yet prolonged his life by fowling — 'slow, he pierced the swift with the stroke of his arrows, standing, the flying,' as it is in Accius — and made coverings for his body from the weaving of feathers.

Can you, then, call Philoctetes there a brave man, or great-souled, or patient, or grave, or one who despises human things —?

\" But if the pain is as great as that of Philoctetes?

Look at Philoctetes, to whom one must grant his groaning;

They say the Myrmidons returned home safely under Achilles' son Neoptolemos;

Philoctetes was the only man who could shoot better than I could when we Achaeans were before the dêmos of the Trojans.

O my son, boy whose father was Achilles, here I am before you, the man of whom you have perhaps heard as lord of the bow of Heracles, Philoctetes the son of Poeas.

It was here, child bred of the man who was the noblest of the Greeks, Neoptolemus son of Achilles, that I exposed long ago the native of Malis, Poeas’ son, on the express command of the two chieftains to do so, because his foot was all running with a gnawing disease.

King Odysseus, the completion of the task that you set me is not far off, for I believe I see a cave like that which you have described.

For before Philoctetes had been wounded by the serpent’s bite, what cause was contained in the nature of things that he was going to be left on the island of Lemnos?

so that ‘Philoctetes will be wounded’ was true through all the ages before, and ‘He will not be wounded’ was false—unless perhaps we wish to follow the opinion of the Epicureans, who say that such propositions are neither true nor false, or, when they are ashamed of that, nonetheless say what is more shameless still:

And those that held Methone and Thaumacia, with Meliboia and rugged Olizon, these were led by the skillful archer Philoctetes, and they had seven ships, each with fifty oarsmen all of them good archers;

and while they are feasting, Philoctetes, struck by a water-snake, is left behind on Lemnos because of the foul stench;