Dec 24, 2009

The Oxford Dictionary of Plays | Philoctetes

Philoctetes (Philoktetes)

Author: Sophocles

First Performance: 409 BC, Athens

First English Translation: 1725

Genre: Greek drama in verse

Setting: Before a cave on the Island of Lemnos, during the Trojan War

Cast: 5m, chorus (m)

On the way to Troy, the heroic Greek archer Philoctetes is bitten in the foot by a snake. The festering wound stinks so strongly that the Greeks abandon him on the Isle of Lemnos and continue to the war without him. Having now received a prophecy that Troy will never be defeated without Philoctetes' bow and arrows, Odysseus and Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, return to the island, hoping to induce Philoctetes to come to Troy with them. Knowing that Philoctetes will refuse to lend support to those who so mercilessly abandoned him nine years previously, Odysseus resorts to cunning. He uses...

[The entire page is 417 words long]

The Oxford Dictionary of Plays | Philoctetes

Join eNotes