Philoctetes (Masterplots, Revised Second Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Sophocles
- First Published: 409
- Type of Work: Drama
- Type of Plot: Tragedy
- Time of Work: Antiquity
- Setting: The island of Lemnos
- Principal Characters: Philoctetes, Neoptolemus, Odysseus, A Sailor, Herakles, Chorus of Sailors
- Genres: Drama, Tragedy
- Subjects: Mythology or myths, War, Islands, Gods or goddesses, Heroes or heroism, Soldiers, Greek or Roman times, Greece or Greek people, Trojan War
- Locales: Islands, Greece, ancient, Lemnos, ancient, Euboea
The Story:
Odysseus had abandoned Philoctetes on the barren island of Lemnos after the warrior had been bitten on the foot by a snake while preparing to make a sacrifice at the shrine on the island of Chrysa. The wound never healed, and the smell that came from it and the groans of suffering of Philoctetes were the reasons Odysseus gave for making him an outcast. Philoctetes, however, with his invincible bow, once the property of Herakles, had become indispensable to the Greeks in their war against Troy. Landing for the second time on Lemnos, Odysseus described the cave in...
[The entire page is 2458 words long]
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