PHILOCTETES Essay Thesis Example For Students

PHILOCTETES Essay Thesis A monologue from the play by Sophocles NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from Dramas. Sophocles. London: J.M. Dent Sons, 1906. PHILOCTETES: O thou fire!Thou universal horror! MasterpieceAbominable, of monstrous villainy!What hast thou done to me? How hast thou cheated me!Art not ashamed, O rogue, to look at meThy supplicant, me thy petitioner?Thou has robbed me of my life, taking my bow.Give it back, I beg thee! Give it back, I pray!By our fathers gods, son, do not take my life!Woes me! he does not even answer me!He means to keep itsee, he turns away!You bays, you promontories, O you hauntsOf mountain brutes, O cliffs precipitous,To youfor other hearers I have nonePresent, my old familiars, I appeal;See how Achilles son is wronging me!Swearing to take me home, to Troy he drags me;And pledging his right hand, he has obtainedRelic of Jove-born Heraclesmy bow,Meaning in the Argives sight to flourish it;Like some strong prisoner, by force he drags me,And knows not he is killing a dead man,A vapours shadow, an unsubstantial shade!For in full strength he never had captured me,Since even thus he had not, save by gu ile;But now, unhappy, I have been deceived.What must I do? Nay, give it back to me;Nay, even yet, be thy true self once more;What sayst thou? Thou art dumb! I am lost, unhappy!O double-portalled frontal of the rock,Back, once again, I come and enter thee,Bare, without means of life; but I shall starveHere, in the fields alone; not killing nowWinged bird, or silvan quarry, with my bow,But I myself, wretched, when I am dead,Yielding a meal to things on which I fed.Creatures I chased before will now chase me;And I shall pay for bloodshed with my blood,By practice of a seeming innocent!O mayst thou perish!not yet, until I knowWhether thou wilt repent, and change thy purpose;But if thou wilt not, evil be thine end!