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328 me unawares; for he would rather take me than all the Greeks beside.

. Enough, the man is going, and the path shall be watched.—And now, if thou wouldst say more, proceed.

[Exit Attendant, on the spectators' left.

. Son of Achilles, thou must be loyal to thy mission,—and not with thy body alone. Shouldst thou hear some new thing, some plan unknown to thee till now, thou must help it; for to help is thy part here.

. What is thy bidding?

. Thou must beguile the mind of Philoctetes by a story told in thy converse with him. When he asks thee who and whence thou art, say, the son of Achilles,—there must be no deception touching that; but thou art homeward bound,—thou hast left the fleet of the Achaean warriors, and hast conceived a deadly hatred for them; who, when they had moved thee by their prayers to come from home, deemed thee not worthy of the arms of Achilles,—deigned not to give them to thee when thou camest and didst claim them by right,—but made them over to Odysseus. Of me, say what thou wilt,—the vilest of vile reproaches;—thou wilt cost me no pang by that;—but if thou fail to do this deed, thou wilt bring sorrow on all our host. For if yon man's bow is not to be taken, never canst thou sack the realm of Dardanus.

And mark why thine intercourse with him may be free from mistrust or danger, while mine cannot. Thou hast come to Troy under no oath to any man, and by no constraint; nor hadst thou part in the earlier voyage: but none of these things can I deny. And so, if he