Ph. Then thou hast not even heard my name, or any rumour of those miseries by which I was perishing?
Ne. Be assured that I know nothing of what thou askest.
Ph. O wretched indeed that I am, O abhorred of heaven, that no word of this my plight should have won its way to my home, or to any home of Greeks! No, the men who wickedly cast me out keep their secret and laugh, while my plague still rejoices in its strength, and grows to more!
O my son, O boy whose father was Achilles, behold,260 I am he of whom haply thou hast heard as lord of the bow of Heracles,—I am the son of Poeas, Philoctetes, whom the two chieftains and the Cephallenian king foully cast upon this solitude, when I was wasting with a fierce disease, stricken down by the furious bite of the destroying serpent; with that plague for sole companion, O my son, those men put me out here, and were gone,—when from sea-girt Chrysè they touched at this coast270 with their fleet. Glad, then, when they saw me asleep—after much tossing on the waves—in the shelter of a cave upon the shore, they abandoned me,—first putting out a few rags,—good enough for such a wretch,—and a scanty dole of food withal:—may Heaven give them the like!
Think now, my son, think what a waking was mine, when they had gone, and I rose from sleep that day! What bitter tears started from mine eyes,—what miseries were those that I bewailed when I saw that the ships with which I had sailed were all gone,280 and that there was no man in the place,—not one to help, not one to