eace, and cried out that they had
come to do him kindness, so he laid down his bow, and they came in and
sat on the rocks, and promised that his wound should be healed, for the
Greeks were very much ashamed of having deserted him. It was difficult
to resist Ulysses when he wished to persuade any one, and at last
Philoctetes consented to sail with them to Troy. The oarsmen carried him
down to the ship on a litter, and there his dreadful wound was washed
with warm water, and oil was poured into it, and it was bound up with
soft linen, so that his pain grew less fierce, and they gave him a good
supper and wine enough, which he had not tasted for many years.

Next morning they sailed, and had a fair west wind, so that they soon
landed among the Greeks and carried Philoctetes on shore. Here
Podaleirius, the brother of Machaon, being a physician, did all that
could be done to heal the wound, and the pain left Philoctetes. He was
taken to the hut of Agamemnon, who welcomed him, and said that the Greeks
repented of their cruelty. They gave him seven female slaves to take
care of him, and twenty swift horses, and twelve great vessels of bronze,
and told him that he was always to live with the greatest chiefs and feed
at their table. So he was bathed, and his hair was cut and combed and
anointed with oil, and soon he was eager and ready to fight, and to use
his great bow and poisoned arrows on the Trojans. The use of poisoned
arrow-tips was thought unfair, but Philoctetes had no scruples.

Now in the next battle Paris was shooting down the Greeks with his
arrows, when Philoctetes saw him, and cried: "Dog, you are proud of your
archery and of the arrow that slew the great Achilles. But, behold, I am
a better bowman than you, by far, and the bow in my hands was borne by
the strong man Heracles!" So he cried and drew the bowstring to his
breast and the poisoned arrowhead to the bow, and the bowstring rang, and
the arrow flew, and did but graze the hand of Paris. Then the bitter
pain of the poison came upon him, and the Trojans carried him into their
city, where the physicians tended him all night. But he never slept, and
lay tossing in agony till dawn, when he said: "There is but one hope.
Take me to OEnone, the nymph of Mount Ida!"

Then his friends laid Paris on a litter, and bore him up the steep path
to Mount Ida. Often had he climbed it swiftly, when he was young, and
went to see the nymph who loved him; but for ma