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344 son, when thou and I have made a solemn farewell to the homeless home within,—that thou mayest e'en learn by what means I sustained life, and how stout a heart hath been mine. For I believe that the bare sight would have deterred any other man from enduring such a lot; but I have been slowly schooled by necessity to patience.

[Neoptolemus is about to follow Philoctetes into the cave.

. Stay, let us give heed:—two men are coming, one a seaman of thy ship, the other a stranger: ye should hear their tidings before ye go in.

. Son of Achilles, I asked my companion here,—who, with two others, was guarding thy ship,—to tell me where thou mightest be,—since I have fallen in with thee, when I did not expect it, by the chance of coming to anchor off the same coast. Sailing, in trader's wise, with no great company, homeward bound from Ilium to Peparethus with its cluster-laden vines,—when I heard that the sailors were all of thy crew, I resolved not to go on my voyage in silence, without first giving thee my news, and reaping guerdon due. Thou knowest nothing, I suspect, of thine own affairs—the new designs that the Greeks have regarding thee,—nay, not designs merely, but deeds in progress, and no longer tarrying.

. Truly, Sir, the grace shown me by thy