Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/482

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384
PHILOCTETES.

Not guile, that brought thee thus
Within my power; on others launch thy curse,1120
Baleful, and fraught with ill
This is the care that I have most at heart,
That thou should'st not true friendship thrust aside.

Stroph. II.

Phil. Ah, woe is me! he sits,
Where the shore is white with waves,
And laughs within himself,
And tosses in his hands
What fed my wretched life,
By none else borne till now.
Ο bow, of me beloved,
Torn from my loving grasp,
Surely, if thou can'st feel,
Thou lookest piteously1130
On me, the bosom friend of Heracles,
Who never more shall bend thee as of old;
But now thou changest hands,
Art wielded by a man of many wiles,
And seest foul deceits,
A man thou needs must loathe and execrate,
Ten thousand plots from shameful deeds upspringing,
*Such as none else contrived.

Chor. 'Tis a man's part to say that good is right,1140
But having said it out,
Not to thrust forth his carping grief in speech.
He was but one, by many set to work,
And yielding to their will,
Hath wrought a common good for all his friends.

Antistroph. II.

Phil. Ο all ye wingèd game,
And tribes of bright-eyed deer,