Philoctetes
Sophocles409 BCESophocles wrote a play about a wounded hero whose suffering is both pitiable and necessary.
Read this if you…
- want to finish out all of Sophocles
- like the character of Odysseus, and want to see him as villain
Skip this if you…
- haven't already read oedipus to decide if you like Sophocles
Why It Matters
Sophocles wrote a play about a wounded hero whose suffering is both pitiable and necessary. The Greeks need his bow, but they are the ones who dumped him on a deserted island for ten years. It is the most psychologically subtle of the surviving Greek tragedies, asking whether you can demand help from someone you wronged. That moral knottiness makes it a favorite of modern directors.
The 
Take
More solid Sophocles written when he was in his 80s. Fun to see Odysseus seen as immoral in his wiles. Also love throwing Hercules in there. Odysseys and Hercules in the same story ain’t bad. Kinda deep looking at how sad Philoctetes solitude was
Where to go next
- The Iliad by Homer. Philoctetes built on it. - Sophocles's marooned hero first appears in the *Iliad* — named in the Catalogue of Ships alongside Achilles, both fighters set apart, absent, in pain - *Philoctetes* is constructed along the lines of *Iliad* 9's embassy to Achilles: the same scene of envoys trying to talk a wronged man back into a war he's done with - Read the *Iliad* and you'll recognize Achilles's wrath and withdrawal living again in Sophocles's bitter, abandoned archer
- The Odyssey by Homer. Philoctetes built on it. - The Odysseus who manipulates this play is the resourceful schemer of the *Odyssey*, recast as a tactician who loses control of his own ruse - Sophocles sets that Odyssean cunning against Achillean honesty and compassion — a moral argument staged through Homer's most famous deceiver - Knowing the admirable trickster of the *Odyssey* first sharpens how unsettling his methods become here
Depicted in Art
A youthful Philoctetes recoils on a cave floor, twisting away from his snake-bitten foot; bow propped against the rock behind him.
Francesco Hayez, 1820
A muscular Philoctetes contorts on the ground, head thrown back in agony, his bandaged foot drawn up beneath him; bow and arrows lie nearby.
Nicolai Abildgaard, 1775
Philoctetes crouches on a windswept rock, raising his bow as a vulture circles overhead; the wounded foot is bared toward the viewer.
Guillaume Guillon-Lethière, 1798
A bearded, half-naked Philoctetes sits isolated against a barren rocky coast, gripping his wounded leg, bow at his side.
James Barry, 1770
Recommended Editions
David Grene
University of Chicago Press · 2013
Grene's version from the Chicago Complete Greek Tragedies. Direct, unadorned, and the isolation lands. The betrayal scene with Neoptolemus is brutal in English without any theatrical puffing.
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Deep Dive
What It's About
This summary gives away plot details.
Notable Quotes
“History says, Don't hope on this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime, the longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme.”
“But now, when I come forth to the proof, I see that words, not deeds, are ever the masters among men.”
More by Sophocles
- Women of Trachis
c. 450 BCE · Tragedy
- Antigone
441 BCE · Tragedy
- Ajax
c. 440 BCE · Tragedy
- Oedipus Rex
c. 429 BCE · Tragedy
- Electra
c. 410 BCE · Tragedy
- Oedipus at Colonus
401 BCE · Tragedy