To fight uncall’d, a voluntary name; Nor shunn’d the cause, but offer’d you my aid? While he long lurking was to war betray’d: Forced to the field he came, but in the rear, And feign’d distraction to conceal his fear, Till one more cunning caught him in the snare, (Ill for himself,) and dragg’d him into war. Now let a hero’s arms a coward vest, And he who shunn’d all honours gain the best; And let me stand excluded from my right, Robb’d of my kinsman’s arms, who first appear’d in fight. Better for us, at home had he remain’d, Had it been true the madness which he feign’d, Or so believed; the less had been our shame, The less his counsell’d crime, which brands the Grecian name Nor Philoctetes had been left enclosed In a bare isle, to wants and pains exposed, Where to the rocks, with solitary groans, His sufferings and our baseness he bemoans: And wishes (so may Heaven his wish fulfil!) The due reward to him who caused his ill: Now he, with us to Troy’s destruction sworn,