Death, black death, how can I call on you again, and you not come to take me away? Boy, take my body and burn it away on a Lemnian pyre, in the volcano's heart. I did this for a man, a child of Zeus, and won the weapons you now keep safe. Will you do it, boy? Why don't you speak? Where are you, boy? NEOPTOLEMOS I grieve for you, sir. Your pain is mine. PHILOKTETES No, boy, be brave. The disease comes quickly and leaves me with equal speed. I beg you, do not leave me here. NEOPTOLEMOS Don't worry. We will stay here with you. PHILOKTETES You'll stay? NEOPTOLEMOS Surely. PHILOKTETES I find it unfitting to make you swear to it. NEOPTOLEMOS I cannot leave this place without you. PHILOKTETES Give me your hand on that. NEOPTOLEMOS I give it to you, and with you it stays. PHILOKTETES Now take me away. NEOPTOLEMOS What do you mean? PHILOKTETES Up there... NEOPTOLEMOS What madness is now upon you? Why do you look at the summit above us? PHILOKTETES Let me go! NEOPTOLEMOS Where? PHILOKTETES Let me go. NEOPTOLEMOS I cannot allow it. PHILOKTETES Touch me, and you kill me. NEOPTOLEMOS I am letting go. You are saner now. PHILOKTETES O Earth, take my body from me now. The illness no longer allows me to stand. NEOPTOLEMOS Soon, I think, sleep will overcome him. He nods his head. Sweat drenches his body, and a black bitter flood of pus and blood has broken and runs from his foot. Let us leave him to sleep, friends. Let us leave him quietly. CHORUS Sleep, stranger to pain and suffering, descend upon us kindly now. Cover his eyes with your radiance, come down, Healer, come down. Boy, look now at where you stand, at where you are going, at what I hold for the future. Do you see him? He sleeps. Why are we waiting? The right moment decides everything and wins many sudden victories. NEOPTOLEMOS Yes, he hears nothing. But we have needlessly hunted, captured nothing if we take the bow, and sail without him. The crown of victory belongs to the one whom Zeus commanded that we bring back. A boast that cannot be carried out is a lie. That boast is a shameful disgrace. CHORUS Zeus will attend to such things, my boy. Answer me now; whisper softly. The sleep of a sick man, aware of all things, sees all. It is a sleep that is no sleep. Think as far ahead as you can of how you might secretly do as I say. You know of whom I am thinking now. If your decision is the same as his, then anyone with eyes can see trouble ahead. A fair wind is rising. The man is blind and helpless now, stretched out in the darkness--- he is master not of hand, not of foot, not of anything. He is one lying down in Hades's chambers. Look to see if the time is right for what you intend: the best work is that which causes no fear. NEOPTOLEMOS Quiet, now! Have you lost your senses? The man's eyes are opening. He raises his head. PHILOKTETES