Bear me away and lay me, if thou may'st, Where none may look upon my agony. If that would pain thee from this hated coast Ship me at least, and let me not die here." Obedient to his wish, with much ado We laid him in the hold and hither brought Convulsed and bellowing. Ye will see him soon, Lingering upon life's verge or newly dead. Mother, of these dark crimes thou stand'st convict, For which may heaven's high justice deal with thee And the Erinnyes, if that prayer is meet For a son's lips; and thou hast made it meet By murdering, of all dwellers upon earth, The noblest man, whose peer thou ne'er shalt see. CHORUS. (_To_ DEIANIRA _who leaves the scene_.) Canst thou depart in silence and not see That silence pleads on the accuser's side? HYLLUS. Let her go where she will. Fair be the wind That bears out of my sight that hated barque. A mother's name is but a hollow sound When all her doings are unmotherly. May joy go with her, and such happiness Be hers, as she has made my sire to feel. PHILOCTETES. Philoctetes is the possessor of the bow and arrows of Hercules, without which Troy, which has now been besieged for ten years, cannot be taken. Suffering from an ulcer caused by the bite of the Hydra, and becoming intolerable by his yells of anguish to the Hellenic camp, he has been put ashore by Ulysses on the lonely island of Lemnos, and there left for the ten years, whence he has conceived a deadly hatred of Ulysses and the Hellenic host. His bow and arrows being indispensable, the crafty Ulysses undertakes the task of inveigling him, and goes to Lemnos for that purpose, taking with him Neoptolemus, the young and generous son of Achilles, as a decoy. Neoptolemus, at the instance of Ulysses, filches from Philoctetes the bow and arrows, but being overcome by his nobler nature restores them. Here is now a crisis worthy of the intervention of a god. Hercules descends upon the scene, bids Philoctetes go to Troy with his bow, and promises to send Aesculapius to heal him of his sickness. * * * * * _THE DECOY._ Ulysses explains the plan of action to Neoptolemus, and labours to bend him to his purpose. LINES 1-134. ULYSSES.