Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Philoctetes

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It is interesting to compare the Odysseus of this play—

Odysseus.

one of the poet's latest works—with that of the Ajax, which was one of the earliest. There, Odysseus appears as one who has deeply taken to heart the lesson of moderation, and of reverence for the gods, taught by Athena's punishment of his rival; and, if there is no great elevation in his character, at least he performs a creditable part in dissuading the Atreidae from refusing burial to the dead. Here, he is found avowing that a falsehood is not shameful, if it brings advantage (v. 109); he can be superlatively honest, he says, when there is a prize for honesty; but his first object is always to gain his end (1049 ff.). He is not content with urging Neoptolemus to tell a lie, but adds a sneer at the youth's reluctance (84 f.). Yet, as we learn from Dion, he is ‘far gentler and simpler’ than the Odysseus who figured in the Philoctetes of Euripides. The Homeric conception of the resourceful hero had suffered a grievous decline in the later period of the Attic drama; but Sophocles, it would seem, was comparatively lenient to him.

In the Ajax, it will be remembered, Odysseus is terrified at the prospect of meeting his insane foe, and Athena reproves his ‘cowardice’ (74 f.). His final exit in the Philoctetes is in flight from the bent bow of the hero, who remarks that he is brave only in words (1305 ff.). And, at an earlier moment in the play, he is ironically complimented by Neoptolemus on his prudence in declining to fight (1259). All these passages indicate that the conventional stage Odysseus to whom Attic audiences had become accustomed was something of a poltroon. But it is instructive to remark the delicate reserve of Sophocles in hinting a trait which was so dangerously near to the grotesque. For it is no necessary disparagement to the courage of Odysseus that he should shrink from confronting Ajax,—a raging maniac intent on killing him,—or that he should decline to be a target for the ‘unerring’ shafts of Philoctetes,—or that he should refrain from drawing his sword on a young comrade, Neoptolemus.

Topography.