On the eastern coast of Greece, just north of Thermopylae,
lies a region which in ancient times was called Malis, ‘the sheep-land.’ This was the country of Philoctetes,—the home to which, in the play of Sophocles, his thoughts are constantly turning
1. It will be well to form some idea of its chief features and associations.
Pindus, the spine of northern Greece, terminates at the south in Typhrestus, a great pyramidal height from which two mountain-ranges branch out towards the eastern sea. One of these is Othrys, which skirts the southern border of Thessaly; the other, south of it, is Oeta, which, like Malis, takes its name from its pastures. The deep and broad depression between them is the fertile valley of the Spercheius (the ‘hurrying’ or ‘vehement’) —which rises at the foot of Typhrestus, and flows into the Malian Gulf. A few miles from the sea, the valley opens. While Othrys continues its eastward direction, Oeta recedes southward, and then, with a sudden bend to the south-east, sweeps down upon Thermopylae, where the fir-clad and snowy summit of Callidromus rises above the pass. Precipitous cliffs are thrown forward from this part of the Oetaean range, forming an irregular crescent round the southern and western sides of the plain. These cliffs were called of old ‘the Trachinian Rocks.’ Trachis, the ‘city of the crags,’ stood on a rocky spur beneath them, a little north of the point where they are cleft by the magnificent gorge of the Asopus,—that steep ravine by which Hydarnes led his Persians up through the mountain oak-woods, on the night before he surprised Leonidas. Between the Asopus and the Spercheius are the narrow channels of two lesser streams, anciently known as the Melas and the Dyras
2. The name Malis denoted this whole seaboard plain, with the heights around it, from the lower spurs of Othrys on the north to those of Oeta on the south and west. Just opposite the entrance of the Gulf, the bold north-west promontory of Euboea, once called Cape Cenaeum, runs out towards the mainland. There was a peculiar fitness in the phrase of Sophocles, when he described this district, with its varied scenery, as ‘the haunt of Malian Nymphs
3,’ those beings of the forest and the river, of the hills and the sea.
It was in this region that legend placed the last deeds of Heracles, and his death, or rather his passage from earth to Olympus. After taking Oechalia in Euboea, he was sacrificing on Cape Cenaeum when the fatal robe did its work. He was carried to his home at Trachis; and then he commanded that he should be borne to the top of Mount Oeta, sacred to Zeus, and burnt alive. He was obeyed; as the flames arose on the mountain, they were answered from heaven by the blaze of lightning and the roll of thunder; and by that sign his companions knew that the spirit of the great warrior had been welcomed to the home of his immortal father. Somewhere in the wilds of those lonely summits tradition showed the sacred spot known as ‘the Pyre’; and once, at least, in later days a Roman Consul, turning aside from a victorious progress, went up to visit the solemn place where the most Roman of Greek heroes had received the supreme reward of fortitude
4.
Heracles had constrained his son Hyllus to aid in pre-
The legend in epic poetry. |
paring the funeral-pile, but could not prevail upon him to kindle it. That office was performed, at his urgent prayer, by the youthful Philoctetes, son of Poeas, king of Malis
5. In token of gratitude, Heracles bequeathed to Philoctetes the bow and arrows which he himself had received from Apollo.
In the myths relating to the Trojan war a most important part belonged to the man who had thus inherited the invincible weapons. Homer, indeed, does not say much about him; but the
Iliad contains only an episode in the tenth year of the war: the part played by Philoctetes came before and after that moment. The allusion in the Second Book of the
Iliad is, however, significant; it glances backwards and forwards. He is there mentioned as a skilful archer, who had sailed from Greece in command of seven ships, but had been left behind in Lemnos, wounded by the bite of a deadly water-snake. And then the poet adds that the Greeks at Troy will soon have cause to bethink them of Philoctetes
6 In the
Odyssey he is named only twice; in one place, as having been the best bowman at Troy; in another, as one of those heroes who came safely home
7 But his adventures were fully told in other epics. The events preceding the action of the
Iliad were contained in the
Cypria, an epic whose reputed author, Stasînus of Cyprus, lived early in the eighth century B.C. That poem described how Philoctetes was bitten by the snake,—while the Greeks, on their way to Troy, were at Tenedos,—and was abandoned in Lemnos. His later fortunes were narrated in the
Little Iliad, ascribed to Lesches of Mitylene (
circa 700 B.C.), and in the
Iliupersis, or ‘Sack of Troy,’ by Arctînus of Miletus (
c. 776 B.C.). The contents of these lost works are known chiefly from the prose summaries of the grammarian Proclus (140 A.D. ), as partly preserved by Photius in his
Bibliotheca. The following is an outline of the story in its epic form.
When the Greeks under Agamemnon were about to sail against Troy, it became known that an oracle had commanded them to offer sacrifice, in the course of their voyage across the Aegean, at the altar of a deity named Chrysè. All the accounts placed this altar somewhere in the north-east of the Archipelago. The prevalent version assigned it to a small island which, like the deity herself, was called Chrysè, and lay close to the eastern shore of Lemnos. Jason, it was said, had sacrificed at this altar when he was leading the Argonauts in quest of the golden fleece. Heracles had paid it a like homage when he was levying war against Laomedon.
Philoctetes, with his seven ships, was in the fleet of Agamemnon, and undertook to act as guide. He alone knew where the isle of Chrysè was to be found; for, in his early youth, he had been present at the sacrifice offered there by Heracles.
The altar stood in a sacred precinct, under the open sky. When, followed by the Greek chieftains, he approached it, he was bitten in the foot by a serpent. The wound mortified, and became noisome. His cries of pain made it impossible to perform the religious rites, which required the absence of all ill-omened sounds. The fetid odour of his wound also made his presence a distress to the chiefs. They conveyed him from the islet of Chrysè to the neighbouring coast of Lemnos, where they put him ashore; and then sailed for Troy.
It should be noticed that the circumstances of this desertion, as set forth in the early legend, were probably less inhuman than they appear in the version adopted by Sophocles. In the first place, it can hardly be doubted that these cyclic poets, like Homer, imagined Lemnos as an inhabited island
8 And, according to one account, some followers of Philoctetes were left in charge of him
9.
Ten years elapsed. The sufferer was still languishing in Lemnos; his former comrades were still on the shore of the Hellespont, besieging the city which they could not capture. Achilles had already fallen; Ajax had died by his own hand. In their despondency, the Atreidae turned to the prophet who had so often admonished or consoled them; but Calchas replied that the fate of Ilium must now be learned from other lips than his. They must consult the Trojan Helenus, son of Priam,—a warrior whom they had often seen in the front of battle on the plain; a seer who, as rumour told, had warned, though he could not save, his brother Hector.
Helenus was made prisoner by a stratagem of Odysseus, and then declared that, before the Greeks could prevail, two things must be done. First, Philoctetes must be brought back from Lemnos: Troy could never fall, until he launched against it the arrows of Heracles. Secondly, Neoptolemus, the youthful son of Achilles, must come from the island of Scyros, and must receive his due heritage, the wondrous armour wrought for his father by the god Hephaestus.
Both injunctions were obeyed. Diomedes went to Lemnos, and brought Philoctetes. Odysseus went to Scyros, and brought Neoptolemus. Philoctetes was healed by the physician Machaon, son of Asclepius. He then slew Paris in single combat, and shared with Neoptolemus the glory of final victory over Troy.
Characteristics of the epic version. |
In this epic form of the story, two points deserve remark. (1) The mission to Lemnos and the mission to Scyros are entrusted to different persons, and are conceived as simultaneous, or nearly so. In the
Little Iliad of Lesches, the voyage to Lemnos seems to have been related first. (2) Diomedes has apparently no difficulty in persuading Philoctetes to accompany him. For the purposes of epic narrative, it would evidently suffice that Diomedes should announce an oracle which promised health to the sufferer and honour to the exile. The epic Philoctetes would accept these overtures in a speech of dignified magnanimity; and all would be happily settled. This particular point is curiously illustrated by Quintus Smyrnaeus, though in other respects he has varied widely from the old epic version. He represents the wrath of Philoctetes as immediately disarmed by the first soothing words of the Greek envoys (Diomedes and Odysseus). Indeed, that brevity which sometimes marks the poet of Smyrna is seldom quainter than in this passage of his ninth book. At verse 398 Philoctetes is preparing to shoot his visitors. At verse 426 they are carrying their recovered friend, with pleasant laughter, to their ship:—
“
οἱ δέ μιν αἶψ᾽ ἐπὶ νῆα καὶ ἠϊόνας βαρυδούπους καγχαλόωντες ἔνεικαν ὁμῶς σφετέροισι βελέμνοις”.
But all this was changed when Philoctetes became a
The story as a theme for drama. |
subject of tragic drama. The very essence of the situation, as a theme for Tragedy, was the terrible disadvantage at which the irony of fate had placed the Greeks. Here was a brave and loyal man, guiltless of offence, whom they had banished from their company,—whom they had even condemned to long years of extreme suffering,—because a misfortune,—incurred by him in the course of doing them a service,—had rendered his person disagreeable to them. For ten years he had been pining on Lemnos; and now they learned that their miserable victim was the arbiter of their destinies. It was not enough if, by force or fraud, they could acquire his bow. The oracle had said that the bow must be used at Troy by Philoctetes himself. How could he be induced to give this indispensable aid?
A dramatist could not glide over this difficulty with the facile eloquence of an epic poet. If the Lemnian outcast was to be brought, in all his wretchedness, before the eyes of the spectators, nature and art alike required the inference that such misery had driven the iron into his soul. It would seem a violation of all probability if, when visited at last by an envoy from the camp, he was instantly conciliated by a promise—be the sanction what it might—that, on going to Troy, he would be healed, and would gain a victory of which the profit would be shared by the authors of his past woes. Rather the Philoctetes of drama would be conceived as one to whom the Greeks at Troy were objects of a fixed mistrust, and their leaders, of an invincible abhorrence; one to whom their foes were friends, and their disasters, consolations; one who could almost think that his long agony had been an evil dream, if he could but hear that they were utterly overthrown, and that it was once more possible for him. without misgiving or perplexity, to recognise the justice of the gods
10.
Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles—to place their
The three great dramatists. |
names in the chronological order of their plays on this subject— solved the problem each in his own manner. A comparison of their methods is interesting. That it is possible, is due in great measure to a fortunate accident. Dion, surnamed the goldenmouthed, eminent as a rhetorician and essayist, was born at Prusa in Bithynia about the middle of the first century, and eventually settled at Rome, where he enjoyed the favour of Nerva and of Trajan. The eighty ‘discourses’ (“
λόγοι”) extant under his name are partly orations, partly short pieces in the nature of literary essays,—many of them very slight, and written in an easy, discursive style. In one of these (no. LII.) he describes how he spent a summer afternoon in reading the story of Philoctetes at Lemnos, as dramatised by Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles. He reflects that, even if he had lived at Athens in their time, he could not have enjoyed precisely this treat,—of hearing the three masters, one after another, on the same theme. And, as the result of his perusal, he declares that, if he had been a sworn judge in the Dionysiac theatre, it would have puzzled him to award the prize. After such a preface, it is rather disappointing that he does not tell us more about the two plays which are lost. However, his little essay, which fills scarcely seven octavo pages, throws light on several points of interest; and in another of his short pieces (LIX.) he gives a prose paraphrase of the opening scene in the
Philoctetes of Euripides. Apart from these two essays of Dion, the fragments of the plays themselves would not help us far. From the Aeschylean play, less than a dozen lines remain; from the Euripidean, about thirty-five. Such, then, are the principal materials for a comparison.
The Philoctetes of Aeschylus. |
In the play of Aeschylus, the task of bringing Philoctetes from Lemnos to Troy was undertaken, not by Diomedes,— as in the epic version,—but by Odysseus. This change at once strikes the key-note of the theme, as Tragedy was to handle it. Odysseus was the man of all others whom Philoctetes detested; no envoy more repulsive to him could have been found. On the other hand, the choice of that wily hero for the mission implies that its success was felt to depend on the use of stratagem. As Dion shows us, Aeschylus boldly brought Odysseus face to face with Philoctetes, and required the spectators to believe that Philoctetes did not recognise his old enemy. The excuse which Dion suggests for this improbability is not that the appearance of Odysseus was greatly altered, but that the memory of Philoctetes had been impaired by ten years of suffering. It may be inferred that the text of Aeschylus supplied no better explanation.
The unrecognised Odysseus then proceeded to win the ear of Philoctetes by a false story of misfortunes to the Greeks at Troy; Agamemnon was dead; Odysseus, too, was gone—having been put to death for an atrocious crime (Dion does not say what): and the whole army was in extremities. This story having won the confidence of Philoctetes, the Aeschylean Odysseus perhaps seized the arms while the sick man was in a paroxysm of his disease. A fragment indicates that Aeschylus described the bow as hanging on a pine-tree near the cave. How Philoctetes was finally brought away, we do not know: but it may be assumed that there was no
deus ex machina, and also that Odysseus had no accomplice. The play probably belonged to a period when Aeschylus had not yet adopted the third actor. Inhabitants of the island formed the Chorus. These Lemnians, Dion says, vouchsafed no apology for having left Philoctetes unvisited during ten years; and he told them his whole story, as if it were new to them. But, as the essayist adds, the unfortunate are always ready to speak of their troubles, and we may charitably suppose that some Lemnians had occasionally cheered his solitude.
The general impression made on Dion's mind by the play of Aeschylus was that of a simplicity and dignity suitable to ideal Tragedy. It had an austere grandeur of diction and of sentiment which sustained the characters on the heroic level
11; though in some respects the management of the plot was open to the cavils of a more critical and more prosaic age.
The
Philoctetes of Euripides was produced in 431 B.C.
12,
The Philoctetes of Euripides. |
—some forty years or more, perhaps, after that of Aeschylus. Euripides combined the epic precedent with the Aeschylean by sending Diomedes along with Odysseus to Lemnos. A soliloquy by Odysseus opened the play
13. The astute warrior was in a highly nervous state of mind. ‘Such,’ he said in effect, ‘are the consequences of ambition! I might have stayed at Troy, with a reputation secured; but the desire of increasing it has brought me here to Lemnos, where I am in great danger of losing it altogether, by failing in this most ticklish business.’ He then explained that, when the Atreidae had first proposed the mission to him, he had declined, because he knew that all his resources of persuasion would be thrown away on Philoctetes, the man to whom he had done a wrong so terrible. His first appearance would be the signal for an arrow from the unerring bow. But afterwards his guardian goddess Athena had appeared to him in a dream, and had told him that, if he would go to Lemnos, she would change his aspect and his voice, so that his enemy should not know him. Thus reassured, he had undertaken the task. We note in passing that Euripides was here indirectly criticising Aeschylus, who had assumed that Odysseus could escape recognition. The device of Athena's intervention was borrowed from the
Odyssey, where she similarly transforms her favourite at need. But Euripides, in his turn, invites the obvious comment that such a device was more suitable to epic narrative than to drama
14.
Continuing his soliloquy, Odysseus said that, as he had reason to know, a rival embassy was coming to Philoctetes from the Trojans, who hoped by large promises to gain him for their side. Here, then, was a crisis that demanded all his energies. At this moment, he saw Philoctetes approaching, and, with a hasty prayer to Athena, prepared to meet him. Philoctetes limped slowly forward,—clad (according to Dion's paraphrase) in the skins of wild beasts which he had shot
15. On finding that his visitor is a Greek from Troy, Philoctetes pointed an arrow at him
16 But he was quickly appeased by learning that the stranger was a cruelly wronged fugitive,—a friend of that Palamedes whom the unscrupulous malice of Odysseus had brought to death on a false charge of treason
17. ‘Will Philoctetes befriend him?’ ‘Hapless man!’—was the reply —‘the ally whom you invoke is more forlorn than yourself. But you are welcome to share his wretched abode, until you can find some better resource.’ Philoctetes then invited his new friend into his cave.
Presently the Chorus entered,—composed, as in the Aeschylean play, of Lemnians. They began by excusing themselves for their long neglect of the sufferer. This was another glance at Aeschylus, whose Lemnians had made no such apologies. As the judicious Dion says, however, that was perhaps the wiser course. But Euripides had a further expedient for redeeming the character of the islanders; he introduced a Lemnian called Actor, who had occasionally visited the sick man
18. The climax of dramatic interest must have been marked by the arrival of that Trojan embassy which Odysseus had foreshadowed in the prologue. It came, probably, before the seizure of the bow, and while, therefore, Odysseus was still disguised. Two verses, spoken by him in the play, run thus:—
“
ὑπέρ γε μέντοι παντὸς Ἑλλήνων στρατοῦ αἰσχρὸν σιωπᾶν βαρβάρους δ᾽ ἐᾶν λέγειν”
19.
Such words would be fitting in the mouth of a Greek speaker who pretended to have been wronged by his countrymen. They suggest a context of the following kind;—‘(Although I have been badly treated by the Greek chiefs,) yet, in the cause of the Greek army at large, I cannot be silent, while barbarians plead.’ The leader of the Trojan envoys—perhaps Paris—would urge Philoctetes to become their ally. Then the appeal to Hellenic patriotism would be made with striking effect by one who alleged that, like Philoctetes himself, he had personal injuries to forget. This scene would end with the discomfiture and withdrawal of the Trojan envoys. It may be conjectured that the subsequent course of the action was somewhat as follows. Philoctetes was seized with an attack of his malady; the disguised Odysseus, assisted perhaps by the Lemnian shepherd, was solicitous in tending him; and meanwhile Diomedes, entering at the back of the group, contrived to seize the bow. Odysseus then revealed himself, and, after a stormy scene, ultimately prevailed on Philoctetes to accompany him. His part would here give scope for another great speech, setting forth the promises of the oracle. Whether Athena intervened at the close, is uncertain.
This play of Euripides struck Dion as a masterpiece of declamation, and as a model of ingenious debate,—worthy of study, indeed, as a practical lesson in those arts. When he speaks of the ‘contrast’ to the play of Aeschylus, he is thinking of these qualities
20. With regard to the plot, no student of Euripides will be at a loss to name the trait which is most distinctive of his hand. It is the invention of the Trojan embassy,—a really brilliant contrivance for the purpose which he had in view. We cannot wonder if, in the period of classical antiquity during which controversial rhetoric chiefly flourished, the
Philoctetes of Euripides was more generally popular than either of its rivals.
The originality of Sophocles can now be estimated.
Hitherto, one broad characteristic had been common to epic and dramatic treatments of the subject. The fate of Philoctetes had been considered solely as it affected the Greeks at Troy. The oracle promised victory to them, if they could regain him: to him it offered health and glory. This was an excellent prospect for him: if he would not embrace it voluntarily, he must, if possible, be compelled to submission. But there had been no hint that, outside of this prospect, he had any claim on human pity. Suppose him to say,—‘I refuse health and glory, at the price of rejoining the men who cast me forth to worse than death; but I pray to be delivered from this misery, and restored to my home in Greece.’ Would not that be a warrantable choice, a reasonable prayer? Not a choice or a prayer, perhaps, that could win much sympathy from a Diomedes or an Odysseus, men who had consented to the act of desertion, and who now had their own objects to gain. But imagine some one in whom a generous nature, or even an ordinary sense of justice and humanity, could work without hindrance from self-interest;— might not such a man be moved by the miseries of Philoctetes, and recognise that he had human rights which were not extinguished by his refusal to obey the summons of the Atreidae?
Again, the two plays on this subject which Sophocles found existing, both depended, for their chief dramatic interest, on the successful execution of a plan laid by the envoys. The Odysseus of Aeschylus, the Odysseus and Diomedes of Euripides, alike carry a stratagem to a triumphant issue.
In associating Odysseus with Neoptolemus, the youthful son of Achilles, Sophocles chose the person who, if any change was to be made in that respect, might most naturally be suggested by the epic version of the fable. But this new feature was no mere variation on the example of his predecessors. It prepared the way for a treatment of the whole story which was fundamentally different from theirs.
This will best be shown by a summary of the plot. The events supposed to have occurred before the commencement of the play can be told in a few words. Achilles having fallen, his armour had been awarded to Odysseus, and Ajax had committed suicide. Then Helenus had declared the oracle (as related above, § 3). Phoenix and Odysseus had gone to Scyros, and had brought the young Neoptolemus thence to Troy; where his father's armour was duly given to him. (In his false story to Philoctetes, he represents the Atreidae as having defrauded him of it.) Then he set out with Odysseus for Lemnos,—knowing that the object was to bring Philoctetes, but not that any deceit was to be used. The chiefs had told him that he himself was destined to take Troy; but not that the aid of Philoctetes was an indispensable condition.
Analysis of the play. I. Prologue: 1—134. |
The scene is laid on the lonely north-east coast of Lemnos. Odysseus and Neoptolemus have just landed, and have now walked along the shore to a little distance from their ships
21, which are no longer visible. Odysseus tells his young comrade that here, long ago, he put Philoctetes ashore, by command of the Atreidae. He desires the youth to examine the rocks which rise above their heads, and to look for a cave, with a spring near it. Neoptolemus presently finds the cave, with traces in it which show that it is still inhabited.
A seaman, in attendance on Neoptolemus, is then despatched to act as sentry, lest Philoctetes should come on them by surprise.
Odysseus explains that it is impossible for
him to face Philoctetes; he must remain concealed, on peril of his life; Neoptolemus must conduct the parley. Neoptolemus must tell Philoctetes truly who he is—but must pretend that he has quarrelled with the Greeks at Troy, for depriving him of his father's arms, and is sailing home to Greece.
The youth at first refuses to utter such a falsehood; but yields at last to the argument that otherwise he cannot take Troy. Odysseus now departs to his ship,—promising that, after a certain time, he will send an accomplice to help Neoptolemus in working on the mind of Philoctetes. This will be the man who had been acting as sentry; he will be disguised as a sea-captain.
The Chorus of fifteen seamen (from the ship of Neoptolemus)
now enters. They ask their young chief how they are to aid his design. He invites them to look into the cave, and instructs them how they are to act when Philoctetes returns. In answer to their words of pity for the sufferer, he declares his belief that heaven ordains those sufferings only till the hour for Troy to fall shall have come.
Philoctetes appears. He is glad to find that the strangers
II. First episode: 219—675. |
are Greeks; he is still more rejoiced when he learns that the son of Achilles is before him. He tells his story; and Neoptolemus, in turn, relates his own ill-treatment by the chiefs. The Chorus, in a lyric strophe, confirm their master's fiction. After some further converse about affairs at Troy, Philoctetes implores Neoptolemus to take him home. They are on the point of setting out for their ship, when two men are seen approaching.
The supposed sea-captain (sent by Odysseus) enters, with a sailor from the ship of Neoptolemus. He describes himself as master of a small merchant-vessel, trading in wine between Peparethus (an island off the south coast of Thessaly) and the Greek camp at Troy. He announces that the Greeks have sent emissaries in pursuit of Neoptolemus:—also that Odysseus and Diomedes have sailed in quest of Philoctetes. He then departs.
Philoctetes is now more anxious than ever to start at once. Accompanied by Neoptolemus, he enters his cave, in order to fetch his few necessaries.
In the choral ode which follows, the seamen give full expression to their pity for Philoctetes. They have heard of Ixion, but they have never seen any doom so fearful as that of this unoffending man.
III. Second episode: 730—826. |
Just as he is leaving the cave with Neoptolemus, Philoctetes is seized with a sharp attack of pain. He vainly seeks to hide his agony. Neoptolemus is touched, and asks what he can do. Philoctetes, feeling drowsy, says that, before he falls asleep, he wishes to place the bow and arrows in his friend's hands. Thus Neoptolemus (still with treason in his heart) gets the bow into his keeping.
A second and sharper paroxysm now comes upon Philoctetes. In his misery, he prays for death—he beseeches his friend to cast him into the crater of the burning mountain which can be seen from the cave. Neoptolemus is deeply moved. He solemnly promises that he will not leave the sick man; who presently sinks into slumber.
Kommos (taking the place of a second stasimon): 827—864. |
Invoking the Sleep-god to hold Philoctetes prisoner, the Chorus urge Neoptolemus to desert the sleeper, and quit Lemnos with the bow. Neoptolemus replies that such a course would be as futile as base,—since the oracle had directed them to bring not only the bow, but its master.
IV. Third episode: 865—1080. |
Philoctetes awakes, and, aided by Neoptolemus, painfully rises to his feet. They are ready to set out for their ship. And now Neoptolemus has reached the furthest point to which the deception can be carried; for at the ships Philoctetes will find Odysseus. Shame and remorse prevail. He tells Philoctetes that their destination is Troy.
The unhappy man instantly demands his bow—but Neoptolemus refuses to restore it. And then the despair of Philoctetes finds terrible utterance. The youth's purpose is shaken. He is on the point of giving back the weapon, when suddenly Odysseus starts forth from a hiding-place near the cave, and prevents him. Philoctetes—whom Odysseus threatens to take by force—is about to throw himself from the cliffs, when he is seized by the attendants. In answer to his bitter reproaches, Odysseus tells him that he can stay in Lemnos, if he chooses:— other hands can wield the bow at Troy. Odysseus then departs to his ship, ordering his young comrade to follow; but, by the latter's command, the Chorus stay with Philoctetes, in the hope that he may yet change his mind.
In a lyric dialogue, Philoctetes bewails his fate, while the
Second Kommos (taking the place of a third stasimon): 1081— 1217. |
Chorus remind him that it is in his own power to escape from Lemnos. But at the bare hint of Troy, his anger blazes forth, and he bids them depart. They are going, when he frantically recalls them. Once more they urge their counsel—only to elicit a still more passionate refusal. He craves but one boon of them—some weapon with which to kill himself.
They are about to leave him—since no persuasions avail—
when Neoptolemus is seen hurrying back, with the bow in his hand,—closely followed by Odysseus, who asks what he means to do. Neoptolemus replies that he intends to restore the bow to its rightful owner. Odysseus remonstrates, blusters, threatens, and finally departs, saying that he will denounce this treason to the army.
The youth next calls forth Philoctetes, and gives him the bow. Odysseus once more starts forth from ambush—but this time he is too late. The weapon is already in the hands of Philoctetes, who bends it at his foe, and would have shot him, had not Neoptolemus interposed. Odysseus hastily retires, and is not seen again.
Philoctetes now hears from Neoptolemus the purport of the oracle; he is to be healed, and is to share the glory of taking Troy. He hesitates for a moment—solely because he shrinks from paining his friend by a refusal. But he cannot bring himself to go near the Atreidae. And so he calls upon Neoptolemus to fulfil his promise—to take him home.
Neoptolemus consents. He forebodes the vengeance of the Greeks—but Philoctetes reassures him: the arrows of Heracles shall avert it. They are about to set forth for Greece, when a divine form appears in the air above them.
Heracles has come from Olympus to declare the will of Zeus. Philoctetes must go to Troy with Neoptolemus, there to find health and fame. He yields to the mandate of heaven, brought by one who, while on earth, had been so dear to him. He makes his farewell to Lemnos; and the play closes as he moves with Neoptolemus towards the ships, soon to be sped by a fair wind to Sigeum.
General scope of the treatment. |
Even a mere outline of the plot, such as the above, will serve to exhibit the far-reaching consequences of the change made by Sophocles, when he introduced Neoptolemus as the associate of Odysseus. The man who retains the most indelible memory of a wrong may be one who still preserves a corresponding depth of sensibility to kindness; the abiding resentment can coexist with undiminished quickness of gratitude for benefits, and with loyal readiness to believe in the faith of promises. Such is the Philoctetes of Sophocles; he has been cast forth by comrades whom he was zealously aiding; his occasional visitors have invariably turned a deaf ear to his prayers; but, inexorably as he hates the Greek chiefs, all the ten years in Lemnos have not made him a Timon. He is still generous, simple, large-hearted, full of affection for the friends and scenes of his early days; the young stranger from the Greek camp, who shows pity for him, at once wins his warmest regard, and receives proofs of his absolute confidence. It is the combination of this character with heroic fortitude under misery that appeals with such irresistible pathos to the youthful son of Achilles, and gradually alters his resolve. But this character could never have been unfolded except in a sympathetic presence. The disclosure is possible only because Neoptolemus himself, a naturally frank and chivalrous spirit, is fitted to invite it. In converse with Diomedes or Odysseus, only the sterner aspects of Philoctetes would have appeared.
Nor, again, was it dramatically possible that Diomedes or Odysseus should regard Philoctetes in any other light than that of an indispensable ally: they must bring him to Troy, if possible: if not, then he must remain in Lemnos. Hence neither Aeschylus nor Euripides could have allowed the scheme of Odysseus to fail; for then not even a
deus ex machina could have made the result satisfactory. It was only a person like Neoptolemus, detached from the past policy of the chiefs, who could be expected to view Philoctetes simply as a wronged and suffering man, with an unconditional claim to compassion. The process by which this view of him gains upon the mind of Neoptolemus, and finally supersedes the desire of taking him to Troy, is delineated with marvellous beauty and truth. Odysseus is baffled; but the decree of Zeus, whose servant he called himself, is performed. The supernatural agency of Heracles is employed in a strictly artistic manner, because the dead-lock of motives has come about by a natural process: the problem now is how to reconcile human piety, as represented by the decision of Neoptolemus, with the purpose of the gods, as declared in the oracle of Helenus. Only a divine message could bend the will of Philoctetes, or absolve the conscience of the man who had promised to bring him home.
Thus it is by the introduction of Neoptolemus that Sophocles is enabled to invest the story with a dramatic interest of the deepest kind. It is no longer only a critical episode in the Trojan war, turning on the question whether the envoys of the Greeks can conciliate the master of their fate. It acquires the larger significance of a pathetic study in human character,— a typical illustration of generous fortitude under suffering, and of the struggle between good and evil in an ambitious but loyal mind. Dion, in his comparison of the three plays on this subject, gives unstinted praise, as we have seen, to the respective merits of Aeschylus and of Euripides; but he reserves for Sophocles the epithet of ‘most tragic
22.’ Sophocles was indeed the poet who first revealed the whole capabilities of the fable as a subject for Tragedy.
While the general plot of the
Philoctetes is simple and lucid, there are some points in it which call for remark.
In the first place, some questions suggest themselves with regard to the oracle which commanded the Greeks to bring Philoctetes from Lemnos. Helenus appears to have said that he must be brought by persuasion, not by force (vv. 612, 1332). Odysseus, indeed, offered to compel him, if necessary (618); and, at one moment, threatens to do so (985). But it would be in keeping with his character—as depicted in this play— that he should think it unnecessary to observe the letter of the oracle in this respect. If his stratagem had succeeded, force would have been needless.
Then at v. 1340 Helenus is quoted as saying that Troy is doomed to fall in the summer. The Greeks could understand this only in a conditional sense, since he had told them that their victory depended on the return of Philoctetes (611 f.). But the absolute statement in v. 1340 is intelligible, if the seer be conceived as having a prevision of the event, and therefore a conviction that, by some means, Philoctetes would be brought.
Again,—is the ignorance of the oracle shown by Neoptolemus at v. 114 inconsistent with the knowledge which he shows afterwards? (197 ff.: 1337 ff.) I think not. The only fact of which v. 114 proves him ignorant is that Troy could not be taken without Philoctetes. What he says afterwards on that point could be directly inferred from what Odysseus then told him (v. 115). He may have known from the first that Philoctetes was a desirable ally, and that, if he came to Troy, he would be healed.
At v. 1055 Odysseus declares his willingness to leave Philoctetes in Lemnos. It is enough that the bow has been captured. But the oracle had expressly said that Philoctetes himself must be brought (841). Indeed, the difficulty of securing
him is the basis of the whole story. Therefore, in 1055 ff., Odysseus must be conceived as merely using a last threat, which, he hopes, may cause Philoctetes to yield. The alternative in the mind of Odysseus—we must suppose—was to carry him aboard by force. In vv. 1075 ff. Neoptolemus directs the Chorus to stay with Philoctetes—on the chance of his relenting—until the ship is ready, and then to come quickly, when called. It would certainly seem from this that Neoptolemus understood his chief as seriously intending to leave Philoctetes behind. And the words of the Chorus at v. 1218 suggest the same thing. But it does not follow that they had penetrated the real purpose of their crafty leader.
In the opening scene Odysseus orders Neoptolemus
Episode of the merchant (vv. 542 —627). |
to remain at the cave, while he himself returns to his ship. ‘If’ (he says in effect) ‘you seem to be staying here too long—that is, if there is reason to fear some hitch in our plan—then I will send one of your men to the cave, disguised as the captain of a merchant-ship. He will tell an artful story, from which you can take hints.’ Neoptolemus has already won the confidence of Philoctetes (who believes that he is to be taken home), when this pretended merchant appears (v. 542). Feigning to come from Troy, he reports that Odysseus and Diomedes have sailed for Lemnos in quest of Philoctetes, while other emissaries are in pursuit of Neoptolemus. This story quickens the impatience of Philoctetes to leave Lemnos (v. 635), while it also strengthens his sympathy for the son of Achilles. It brings out, too, the feeling with which he regards the errand of Odysseus. ‘Sooner would I hearken to that deadliest of my foes, the viper which made me the cripple that I am’ (vv. 631 f.). But the episode has a further result. It supplies a motive for the transfer of the bow. Philoctetes, feeling drowsy after an attack of pain, fears that his enemies may arrive in Lemnos and seize his weapons while he is asleep. He therefore hands the bow and arrows to Neoptolemus, begging him to keep them safe (vv. 763—773)
23.
The management of the Chorus deserves notice. If Sophocles had followed the example of Aeschylus and Euripides, he would have composed it of Lemnians. He felt, probably, that it was better to avoid raising the question which was then suggested,—viz., why some effective succour had not been rendered to Philoctetes in the course of the ten years. But there was a further motive for the change. The attitude of a Lemnian Chorus would be that of a sympathetic visitor, leading Philoctetes to recount his sufferings, and speaking words of comfort in return; while, with respect to the scheme of Odysseus for bringing him to Troy, it would be neutral. But the dramatic effect of the situation is heightened by every circumstance that contributes to the isolation of the central figure. As in the
Antigone the heroine is the more forlorn because the Theban elders support Creon, so here the loneliness of Philoctetes becomes more complete when the Chorus is formed of persons attached to the Greek chiefs. In these ten years he has seen no human face, and heard no voice, save when some chance vessel put in at the coast, only to mock him with a gleam of delusive hope. And now he stands alone against all.
The key-note of the part played by the seamen is their wish to second the design of their master, Neoptolemus; but they also feel genuine pity for Philoctetes. This is powerfully expressed in the stasimon (676 ff.), where they are alone upon the scene; though, at the close of that ode, when the sufferer returns, they once more seek to deceive him with the belief that he is going home to Malis (718 f.). But there is one passage which is in startling discord with the general tone of their utterances: it is where they press Neoptolemus to seize the moment while Philoctetes sleeps, and to decamp with the bow (833 ff.). It would be a poor excuse to suggest that they regard his sleep as the presage of imminent death (861 “
ὡς Ἀΐδᾳ πάρα κείμενος”). The dramatic motive of this passage is, indeed, evident: it elicits a reproof from Neoptolemus, and illustrates his honourable constancy (839 ff.). As for the Chorus, it may at least be said that this jarring note is struck only once. The humane temper which they had shown up to that point reappears in the sequel.
The Chorus of this play is essentially an active participator in the plot—aiding the strategy of Neoptolemus, and endeavouring to alter the purpose of Philoctetes (1081—1217). Hence it is natural that there should be only one stasimon. The other lyrics subsequent to the Parodos either form parentheses in the dialogue (391 ff., 507 ff.), or belong to the “
κομμοί”.
It is interesting to compare the Odysseus of this play—
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.
A few words must be added concerning the topography of the play
24. Mount Hermaeum, which re-echoed the cries of Philoctetes, may safely be identified with the north-eastern promontory of Lemnos, now Cape Plaka. His cave was imagined by the poet as situated in the cliffs on the north-east coast, not far south of Hermaeum (
cp. 1455 ff.), and at some height above the shore (v. 1000: cp. v. 814). The east coast is probably that on which the volcano Mosychlus (visible from the cave) once existed; and the islet called Chrysè lay near it. Philoctetes describes Lemnos as uninhabited (v. 220), and as affording no anchorage (v. 302). This raises a curious point as to the degree of licence that a dramatist of that age would have allowed himself in a matter of this sort,—and as to the choice which he would have made between two kinds of improbability. In the time of Sophocles, Lemnos had long been a possession of Athens, and it was a fact familiar to Athenians that the island possessed excellent harbours on every side except the east. Then, if an Athenian audience were required to suppose that, in the heroic age, Lemnos was a desert island, they would at once remember the ‘well-peopled’ Lemnos of the
Iliad. Hence, the simplest supposition—viz., that Sophocles chose to make Lemnos desolate for the nonce—is not really so easy as it might appear. One asks, then, did he mean us to remember, here also, the maimed condition of Philoctetes, who could not move many yards from his cave in the eastern cliffs? The centres of population, in ancient times, were on the west and north coasts. The area of Lemnos has been computed as about a hundred and fifty square miles, or nearly the same as that of the Isle of Wight
25. It would not, then, be absurd to suppose that, even in the space of many years, no Lemnian had chanced to find that particular spot, at the extreme verge of a desolate region, in which the sick man was esconced.
The fortunes of the hero after his return to Troy
Other literature of the subject. |
formed the subject of another play by Sophocles (“
Φιλοκτήτης ὁ ἐν Τροίᾳ”). The healing of Philoctetes, and his slaying of Paris, must have been the principal incidents; but the few words which remain give no clue to the treatment. It is only a conjecture— though a probable one—that Asclepius himself was introduced as aiding the skill of his sons
26.
Besides the three great dramatists, other tragic poets of the
same period wrote on the story of Philoctetes
27. Nothing of interest is known concerning these lost works,—except, indeed, one curious detail. Theodectes, whose repute stood high in the time of Aristotle, represented the sufferer as wounded in the hand, not in the foot
28. The motive of this innovation is not difficult to divine. Aristophanes touches on the predilection of Euripides for maimed heroes; and in the comedies which had been written on the subject of Philoctetes his disabled foot had doubtless been made a prominent trait
29. Theodectes wished to avoid all associations of burlesque. His expedient for dignifying the warrior's misfortune is very characteristic of the decadence.
§ 18. In the best age of Roman Tragedy, Attius (
c. 140 B.C.) composed a
Philocteta, of which some small fragments remain,— less than fifty lines in all. Much ingenuity has been expended on conjectures as to the plot. But the evidence is too scanty to warrant any conclusion
30. Many of the verses have a rugged power,—as these, for instance, spoken by the hero in his agony:—
Heu! qui salsis fluctibu' mandet Me ex sublimo vertice saxi? Iamiam absumor: conficit animam Vis vulneris, ulceris aestus.
The adventures of Philoctetes after the Trojan war were
related by Euphorion of Chalcis (
c. 220 B.C.), in a short epic (“
Φιλοκτήτης”), of which only five lines, preserved by Stobaeus, are extant, but of which the contents are partly known from a note of Tzetzes on Lycophron
31. Philoctetes arrived in southern Italy, and there founded the city of Cremissa, near Crotona. He raised a shrine to Apollo the protector of wanderers
32, and dedicated in it the bow of Heracles. He was slain while aiding an expedition of Rhodians against some Achaeans of Pellene who had settled in Italy.
Once, at least, in modern literature the story of Philo-
ctetes has been treated with a really classical grace. The mind of Fénelon was in natural sympathy with the spirit of ancient Greek poetry; and the twelfth book of the
Télémaque, where Philoctetes relates his fortunes to Telemachus, is marked by this distinction. Fénelon varies the earlier part of the legend, following a version which is given by Servius
33. Heracles, when about to perish on Mount Oeta, wished that the resting-place of his ashes should remain unknown. Philoctetes swore to keep the secret. Odysseus afterwards came in search of Heracles, and at last prevailed on Philoctetes to reveal the spot,—not, indeed, by words, but by stamping upon it. It was for this that Philoctetes was punished by the gods. One of the arrows of Heracles—tinged with the venom of the Lernaean hydra—dropped from his hand, and wounded the offending foot. For almost all that part of the story which passes in Lemnos, Fénelon has closely followed the play of Sophocles. Many passages are translated or paraphrased with happy effect. He wished, however, to present the father of Telemachus in a more favourable light; and so it is Odysseus, not Neoptolemus, who restores the bow.
‘Farewell, thou promontory where Echo so often repeated
my cries’—says the Philoctetes of Fénelon,—true to the text of Sophocles. The
Télémaque appeared in 1699. More than half a century later, these laments of Philoctetes became the starting-point of a discussion destined to have fruitful results. Winckelmann, speaking of the Laocoon, had observed that the marble indicates no loud cry, but rather ‘a subdued groan of anguish’: ‘Laocoon suffers, but he suffers like the Philoctetes of Sophocles.’ Lessing, in his
Laocoon (1766), pointed out that the Philoctetes of Sophocles shrieks aloud, and that Heracles, in the
Trachiniae, does the same. ‘The ancient Greek uttered his anguish and his sorrow; he was ashamed of no mortal weakness.’ If, then, the poet expresses the cry of bodily pain, while the sculptor refrains from expressing it, the reason must be sought in the different conditions of the two arts. At the time when Lessing wrote, the general tendency of contemporary taste was in agreement with the view on which Cicero insists, that any outward manifestation of pain is unworthy of a great mind, and that a wrong had been done to the heroic character by those poets who had permitted their heroes to utter lamentations
34. This maxim is exemplified in the tragedies of the stoic Seneca, whose persons are forcibly described by Lessing as ‘prize-fighters in buskins
35’: it had also been observed on the classical stage of France.
In a passage of excellent criticism,—which has lost nothing of its value because it closed the aesthetic controversy which it concerns,—Lessing shows how Sophocles, in the
Philoctetes, has reconciled the necessary portrayal of physical suffering with the highest requirements of tragic art. He takes up three points. (1) The nature of the suffering itself. The wound is a divine punishment, and there is a supernatural element in its operation: ‘a poison worse than any to be found in nature’ vexes the victim. Then this affliction is joined to other evils,—solitude, hunger, hardship. (2) The expression of the suffering. It is true that, in the scene where Philoctetes utters his cries of pain (vv. 730 ff.), he believes that he is about to be rescued from Lemnos: his anguish, there, is physical only. But these cries are wrung from him by extreme torment, despite his efforts to stifle them (vv. 742 f.). They detract nothing from the heroic firmness of his character,—displayed not only in the strength of his attachments, but also (as ancient Greeks would deem) in the fixity of his resentments. ‘And then we are asked to suppose that Athenians would have scorned this rock of a man, because he reverberates to waves which cannot shake him
36!’ (3) The effect of this expression upon the other persons. As Lessing acutely remarks, the dramatic inconvenience of a hero who cries aloud from bodily pain is that such a cry, though it need not excite contempt, seems to demand
more sympathy than is usually forthcoming. Sophocles has forestalled this difficulty ‘by causing the other persons of the drama to have their own interests.’ That is, when Philoctetes shrieks, the mind of the spectator is not occupied in gauging the precise amount of sympathy shown by Neoptolemus, but rather in watching how it will affect his secret purpose. ‘If Philoctetes had been able to hide his suffering, Neoptolemus would have been able to sustain his deceit... Philoctetes, who is all nature, brings back Neoptolemus to his own nature. This return is excellent, and the more affecting because it is the result of pure humanity.’
The last words allude to a French drama in which a different
motive had been employed. Châteaubrun, in his
Philoctète (1755), had given the hero a daughter named Sophie, who (with her
gouvernante) visited Lemnos; and the romantic passion with which Sophie inspired Neoptolemus became his chief reason for assisting her father. Two other French dramas of the same title, those of Ferrand (1780) and La Harpe (1781), are noticed by M. Patin
37; but a comparative respect for the example of Sophocles is the highest merit which he ascribes to either.
The legend of Philoctetes, as embodied in classical
Art.poetry, is illustrated at every step by extant monuments of classical art,—vase-paintings, engraved gems, reliefs, or wallpaintings,—ranging in date from the fifth century B.C. to the second or third century of the Christian era
38. He is seen assisting, in his youth, at the sacrifices offered to Chrysè by Heracles and by Jason;—standing beside the pyre of Heracles on Oeta; —wounded by the serpent, at his second visit to Chrysè's shrine; —abandoned in Lemnos;—finally, tended by the ‘healing hands’ at Troy, and victorious over Paris.
A peculiar interest belongs to the representations of his sufferings in Lemnos, since they exhibit three principal types, each of which can be traced to the influence of an eminent artist. (i) The sculptor Pythagoras of Rhegium (
c. 460 B.C.), famous especially for his athletes, excelled in the expression of sinews and veins. One of his best-known works was a statue at Syracuse, which represented a man limping, with a sore in his foot. ‘Those who look at it,’ says Pliny, ‘seem to feel the pain
39.’ There can be no doubt that the subject was Philoctetes. As an example of the later works which were probably copied, more or less directly, from this statue, may be mentioned a cornelian intaglio, now in the Museum of Berlin
40. Philoctetes is walking, with the aid of a stick held in his left hand: in his right he carries the bow and quiver: his left foot,—the wounded one, as a bandage indicates,—is put forward, while the weight of the body is thrown on the right foot. The figure illustrates a principle which Pythagoras of Rhegium is said to have introduced,—viz., a correspondence between the attitude of the left leg and that of the right arm, or
vice versa,—a symmetry obtained by an artificial balance of movements
41. It is noteworthy that a standing or walking Philoctetes occurs only on engraved gems, and in one mural painting at Pompeii (of about 30 B.C.) which may also have been suggested by the Syracusan statue. (ii) A very beautiful Athenian vase-painting, of about 350 B.C., shows Philoctetes sitting on a rock in Lemnos, under the leafless branches of a stunted tree; his head is bowed, as if in dejection; the bandaged left foot is propped on a stone, and the left hand clasps the left knee
42. He wears a sleeveless Doric chiton, girt round the waist; at his right side the bow and arrows rest on the ground. It is probable that the source of this vase-painting was a picture by Parrhasius, who is known to have taken Philoctetes for his subject at a date slightly earlier than that to which the vase is referred. The distinctive feature here is the predominance of mental over physical pain;—a conception which might have been suggested to the painter by the Attic dramatists. (iii) In a third series of representations, Philoctetes reclines on the ground, fanning his wounded foot with the wing of a bird, or with a branch. This type occurs only on gems, and appears to have been originated by Boethus of Chalcedon, a gem-engraver of high repute, who lived probably in the early part of the third century B.C.
43
Some other scenes found on works of art, in which Philoctetes is no longer alone, were directly inspired by Attic Tragedy. An engraved gem, now in the British Museum, represents the theft of the bow by Odysseus, as Aeschylus appears to have imagined it
44. Euripides has been the source of some reliefs on alabaster urns of the second century B.C.; two Trojan envoys, on the left hand of Philoctetes, are inviting him to follow them, while on his right hand are Odysseus and Diomedes, in an attitude of remonstrance; or Philoctetes, in acute pain, is tended by Odysseus, while Diomedes, at the sufferer's back, seizes the bow and quiver
45. Nor has Sophocles been neglected; Odysseus instructing Neoptolemus appears on a marble medallion
46 of the first or second century A.D. ; and a sarcophagus
47 of the same period shows the moment when Odysseus starts forward to prevent his more generous comrade from restoring the bow to its despairing master (v. 974).
The scene of the sacrifice. |
But the most valuable contribution of art to the interpretation of the play is a vase-painting of Philoctetes wounded at the shrine of Chrysè. This incident, like the personality of Chrysè herself, is left indistinct by the allusions in the poet's text; and such indistinctness,—easily tolerated by ancient audiences in matters which lay ‘outside of the tragedy,’—tends to weaken a modern reader's grasp of the story. It is therefore interesting to know how the whole scene was conceived by a Greek artist nearly contemporary with Sophocles. The painting occurs on a round wine-jar (“
στάμνος”), found at Caere in southern Etruria, and now in the Campana collection of the Louvre: the date to which it is assigned is about 400 B.C.
48
The place is the sacred precinct of Chrysè—‘the roofless sanctuary’ of which Sophocles speaks—in the island of the same name, near the eastern coast of Lemnos. Philoctetes, who has just been bitten in the foot by the snake, is lying on the ground, overcome by pain, and crying aloud, as the open mouth indicates. The laurel-wreath worn by him, as by all the other persons of the group, denotes that he had been sacrificing. A beardless youth who bends over the sufferer, as if about to raise him in his arms, is probably Palamedes; his chlamys is girt about his loins in the manner used by sacrificers. On the left, the image of Chrysè is seen behind her burning altar; the snake, ‘the lurking guardian’ of her shrine (v. 1327 f.),— which had crept forth as Philoctetes approached—is again seeking its hiding-place, while Agamemnon strikes at it with his sceptre. Next to him on the right is the beardless Achilles, with chlamys girt at the waist, and a piece of flesh, roasted for the sacrifice, on a spit (“
ὀβελός”) in his hand: then the bearded Diomedes, wrapt in his himation: and, on the extreme right, a similar form, possibly Menelaus
49. The attitudes express horror at the disaster
50. If the followers of the Greek chiefs are imagined as gathered around this group, awe-struck spectators of the interrupted rite, nothing is wanting to a picture of the moment indicated by Sophocles, when the ‘ill-omened cries’ of Philoctetes ‘filled the camp,’ and at length prompted the cruel resolve to carry him across the narrow strait, and abandon him on the lonely shore of Lemnos.
A further point of interest in this vase-painting is its
representation of the mysterious Chrysè. Her image has the rigid character of a primitive temple-image (“
ξόανον”). The high “
κάλαθος” or “
πόλος” on her head seems to indicate a Chthonian power, as in the case of Demeter, Artemis Tauropolos, and Artemis Orthia. A very similar representation of her occurs on another vase—a ‘vinegar-cup’ (oxybaphon) of the fifth or fourth century B.C., now in the Lamberg collection at Vienna
51. The scene there depicted is the first sacrifice of Philoctetes at Chrysè's altar, in company with Heracles; and there, as here, her identity is made certain by her name being written above. There, too, her hands are uplifted; but she wears a corona, not the calathus; and a broad stripe, which runs down her robe from neck to feet, is studded with two rows of discs, which appear to symbolise stars. Here, also, such discs are seen, though only on the girdle and on the lower edge of the garment. According to one theory, Chrysè was merely a form of Athena,—the epithet ‘golden’ having been substituted for the personal name,—and the serpent at her shrine is to be compared with the guardian of the Erechtheum (
see on 1327 ff.). But there is more probability in the view of Petersen
52, that Chrysè is a Greek form of Bendis. The Thracian Bendis was a lunar deity, sharing some attributes of Artemis (with whom the Greeks chiefly associated her), Hecate, Selene, and Persephone. The worship of Bendis seems to have existed in Lemnos, as at Athens. On the other hand, Chrysè is always connected with places near the Thracian coasts. Lenormant, adopting this view, remarked that, if the name Bendis meant ‘bright
53,’ then “
Χρύση” (=“
χρυσῆ”) may have been a direct translation of it
54. Thus, when Heracles, Jason and Agamemnon—all bound on perilous enterprises—offered sacrifice at Chrysè's altar, they might be regarded as seeking to conciliate an alien deity. Sophocles imagines her as a cruel being (“
ὠμόφρων”) whom higher powers—for their own good purpose—have permitted to wreak her anger; but he does not further define her supernatural rank.
Supposed political reference. |
The
Philoctetes was produced at the Great Dionysia, late in March, 409 B.C., and gained the first prize
55. Sophocles, according to the tradition, would then have been eighty-seven. Able critics have favoured the view that his choice of this subject was in some way connected with the return of Alcibiades
56. It was in 411 B.C. that Thrasybulus had prevailed on the democratic leaders at Samos to send for Alcibiades, and to elect him one of the ten generals
57,—a measure by which, as Grote says, ‘he was relieved substantially, though not in strict form,’ from the penalties of banishment. In 410 Alcibiades had been the principal author of the Athenian victory at Cyzicus. Thus, at the date of the
Philoctetes, men's minds had already been prepared for his formal restitution to citizenship—which took place on his return to Athens in 407 B.C. It is easy to draw a parallel between the baffled army at Troy, with their fate hanging on an estranged comrade, and the plight of Athens, whose hopes were centred on an exile. Nay, even the passage where Philoctetes learns who have perished, and who survive, in the Greek army has been read as a series of allusions to dead or living Athenians. Then Neoptolemus is Thrasybulus: and the closing words of Heracles (“
εὐσεβεῖν τὰ πρὸς θεούς”) convey a lesson to the suspected profaner of the Mysteries. Now, to suppose that Sophocles intended a political allegory of this kind, is surely to wrong him grievously as a poet. At the same time it must be recognised that the coincidence of date is really remarkable. It is not impossible that his thoughts may have been first turned to this theme by the analogy which he perceived in it to events of such deep interest for his countrymen
58. But the play itself is the best proof that, having chosen his subject, he treated it for itself alone.
The diction of the
Philoctetes has been regarded by
Schneidewin and others as somewhat deficient in the lofty force of earlier compositions. But this criticism is not warranted by those passages which gave the fittest scope for such a quality,— as the invocation of the Great Mother (391—402),—the noble stasimon (676—729),—and the denunciations by Philoctetes of the fraud practised against him (927—962: 1004—1044). If, in the larger part of the play, the language is of a less elevated strain, this results from the nature of the subject; since the gradual unfolding of character, to which the plot owes its peculiar interest, is effected by the conversations of Neoptolemus with Odysseus or with Philoctetes, in which a more familiar tone necessarily predominates.
The versification, however, clearly shows, in one respect, the general stamp of the later period. If the
Philoctetes is compared (for example) with the
Antigone, it will be apparent that the structure of the iambic trimeter has become more Euripidean. The use of tribrachs is very large. Two such feet occur consecutively in the same verse (
1029 “
καὶ νῦν τί μ᾽ ἄγετε; τί μ᾽ ἀπάγεσθε; τοῦ χάριν;”): a tribrach precedes a dactyl (
1232 “
παρ᾽ οὗπερ ἔλαβον τάδε τὰ τόξ̓, αὖθις πάλιν”): or follows it (
932 “
ἀπόδος, ἱκνοῦμαί ς᾿, ἀπόδος, ἱκετεύω, τέκνον”). In two instances a verse ends with a single word which forms a ‘paeon quartus’ (
1302 “
πολέμιον”,
1327 “
ἀκαλυφῆ”),—a licence used, indeed, by Aeschylus, but in a trimeter which belongs to a lyric passage (
Eum. 780). An anapaest in the first place of the verse occurs not less than thirteen times (
308,
470,
486,
544,
742,
745,
749,
898,
923,
939,
941,
967,
1228),—without counting
815 (“
τί παραφρονεῖς”, where the first foot may be a tribrach),
549 (a proper name), or
585 (“
ἐγώ εἰμ̓”, a case of synizesis). Not a single instance occurs in the
Antigone; and in no other play are there more than five. These relaxations of metre in the
Philoctetes may be partly explained, perhaps, by the more colloquial tone which prevails in much of the dialogue. But at any rate the pervading tendency to greater freedom is unmistakable, and is certainly more strongly marked than in any other of the poet's plays.
