PHILOCTETES Essay Paper Example For Students

PHILOCTETES Essay Paper A monologue from the play by Sophocles NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from Dramas. Sophocles. London: J.M. Dent Sons, 1906. PHILOCTETES: O what a drudge and sport of Gods am I!Of whose ill plight no whisper ever cameTo my own home, or any coast of Greece,But they who thrust me out unrighteouslyLaugh and keep silence, while my sickness everGrows on me and increases more and more.O boy! O son, calling Achilles sire,I am the man who, may be, thou hast heardWas master of the arms of Heracles,The son of P?as, Philoctetes! whomThe Captains twain and the Cephallenite kingCast out thus shamefullydesertedsickOf a consuming woundpierced through and throughBy the destroying vipers venomous fangs;And in this plight, boy, they exposed me here,Left me, and went! when from the Chrysean coastThey put in hither with their navy, straight,Soon as they saw me sleeping on the beach,Tired with long tossing, in a sheltered cave,They laughed, they went, they left me! casting meA few mean rags, a beggars garniture,And some poor pittance, too, of nourishment,Such as, I pray, be theirs! O then, my son,What sort of waking, think you , from that sleepHad I when they were gone! How did I weep,How did I wail, for my calamities!Seeing the ships which I was leader ofAll gone away, and no man in the placeWho should suffice me, or should comfort meIn the disease of which I laboured; yeaThough I sought everywhere, nothing I foundLeft to me, save my anguish; and, my son,Of that no lack indeed! Hour after hourPassed by me; and I must needs make shift alone,Under this scanty shelter. For my food,This quiver sought out what supplied my need,Hitting the doves on wing; then to the markOf the shot bolt I had to crawl, with pain,Dragging a wounded foot. If upon thisI wanted to get anything to drink,Or, as in winter when the hoar frost lay,To break some sticks to burn, this, creeping forth,I had to manage, in my misery.Ther there would be no fire; but striking hardWith flint on flint I struck out painfullyAn obscure spark, which keeps me still alive.Thus shelter overhead, not without fire,Furnishes all, save healing of my sore. Come now and hear about the isle, my son;No sailor willingly approaches it;For anchorage there is not, or a portWhither a man might sail, and make his martBy traffic, or find welcome; prudent menDo not make voyage here. Some one, perhaps,Might land against his will; for these things oftWill happen in the long-drawn life of men;But such, my son, when they do come, in wordsPity me, and in compassion give me, saySome morsel of food, or matter of attire;But that thing no man, when I hint it, will doTake me safe home; but this tenth year alreadyIn hunger and distress I pine and perish,Feeding the gnawing tooth of my disease.The Atrid?, and Ulysses violence,Have done me all this wrong; the like of which,O boy, may the Olympian Gods give themOne day to suffer, in revenge for me!