The young chief acts his assumed part well. It is easy to imagine, from the frequent breaks in the appeal made to him by Philoctetes, the by-play of hesitation—now turning to depart, and now apparently half relenting—with which he listens to the sufferer's entreaties. The Chorus are moved to pity. They pray their young captain to assent. They, for their own part, are quite willing to bear the inconvenience of such a passenger, though his grievous affliction will, as he warns them, make him no very pleasant companion on ship-board. So he yields to this double solicitation, and Philoctetes turns to bid a pathetic farewell to the scene of his long and miserable exile, to which he nevertheless bears some sort of affection, when two men are seen approaching. They are two of the ship-guard—one of them disguised as a merchant, who professes to have just landed on the island, and, hearing of Neoptolemus's presence there, has come to bring him important news from the coast of Troy, whence he himself has lately sailed. It is, in fact, an additional stratagem of Ulysses, brought into play apparently for the purpose of hurrying Philoctetes on board the vessel. The pretended merchant's tale is that the Greeks, in their wrath at the defection of Neoptolemus, have despatched an expedition to overtake him and bring him back by force. Another party has also sailed under Ulysses and Diomed, in quest of a certain Philoctetes, without whom the Fates have declared Troy cannot be taken, and whom Ulysses has pledged himself—and offered his own head as a forfeit if he fails—to bring into the Grecian camp either by force or by persuasion. Great
