Phil. Begone. Chor. It is a friendly bidding--we obey-- Come, let us go. To ship, my comrades. Phil. No-- No, do not go--by the great Jove, who hears Men's curses--do not go. Chor. Be calm. Phil. Sweet strangers! In mercy, leave me not. * * * * * * Chor. But now you bade us! Phil. Ay--meet cause for chiding, That a poor desperate wretch, maddened with pain, Should talk as madmen do! Chor. Come, then, with us. Phil. Never! oh--never! Hear me--not if all The lightnings of the thunder-god were made Allies with you, to blast me! Perish Troy, And all beleaguered round its walls--yea; all Who had the heart to spurn a wounded wretch; But, but--nay--yes--one prayer, one boon accord me. Chor. What wouldst thou have? Phil. A sword, an axe, a something; So it can strike, no matter! Chor. Nay--for what? Phil. What! for this hand to hew me off this head-- These limbs! To death, to solemn death, at last My spirit calls me. Chor. Why? Phil. To seek my father. Chor. On earth? Phil. In Hades. Having thus worked us up to the utmost point of sympathy with the abandoned Philoctetes, the poet now gradually sheds a gentler and holier light over the intense gloom to which we had been led. Neoptolemus, touched with generous remorse, steals back to give the betrayed warrior his weapons--he is watched by the vigilant Ulysses-- an angry altercation takes place between them. Ulysses, finding he cannot intimidate, prudently avoids personal encounter with the son of Achilles, and departs to apprize the host of the backsliding of his comrade.--A most beautiful scene, in which Neoptolemus restores the weapons to Philoctetes--a scene which must have commanded the most exquisite tears and the most rapturous applauses of the audience, ensues; and, finally, the god so useful to the ancient poets brings all things, contrary to the general rule of Aristotle [373], to a happy close. Hercules appears and induces his former friend to accompany Neoptolemus to the Grecian camp, where his wound shall be healed.. The farewell of Philoctetes to his cavern--to the nymphs of the meadows--to the roar of the ocean, whose spray the south wind dashed through his rude abode--to the Lycian stream and the plain of Lemnos--is left to linger on the ear like a solemn hymn, in which the little that is mournful only heightens the majestic sweetness of all that is musical. The dramatic art in the several scenes of this play Sophocles has never excelled, and scarcely equalled. The contrast of character in Ulysses and Neoptolemus has in it a reality, a human strength and truth, that is more common to the modern than the ancient drama.