Background and Preliminaries

• Produced ca. 409 BC, late in Sophocles' life
• As a late play, the unusual (for Sophocles!) use of the deus ex machina perhaps not so unexpected
• link to growingly bad military situation in the war that Athens is currently engaged in, which itself depends, in the view of many at the time, upon a series of cunning "persuasions" that in the event prove disastrous
• Background to the contemporary military situation
• Note how the play ends: hardly a "tragedy" in Aristotle's sense (and thus ours!): but remember that Aristotle lived two generations or so after Sophocles! [Joseph]

 
• Heracles' bow
• The following tale is not directly told in Sophocles, so we cannot be sure what version of the myth he assumes; but that the audience will know something like the following seems likely
• Story is variously told, but more or less like this: Philoctetes (or his father) agrees to light the funeral pyre for Heracles and never to tell Heracles' place of death; in return, Heracles gives him the famous bow, whose arrows always kill
• Later, however, Philoctetes does make it known where the gravesite is, but he signals it by thumping with his foot rather than by "telling"
• Though strictly speaking he has not violated his oath, Philoctetes is now cursed by Heracles; this eventually leads to the horrible snake bite
• (Note that after his death, Heracles is made a god: thus his appearance at the end of this play)
• Note that IF Sophocles' audience knows this story, or something like it, the opposition painted in the tale between the "honest" Philoctetes and the "cunning" Odysseus becomes much more complicated

 
• Chryse and the snake
• In Sophocles, both island and goddess are named Chryse (in other versions, the island is Tenedos)
• Philoctetes by accident steps into the sacred precinct
• The sacred snake thus bites him, which leads to a (supernatural) never-ending wound, characterized by a foul smell and periodic bouts of extreme pain
• Philoctetes is thus a problem: for either the foul smell, or his frequent cries, disturb the divine sacrifices, and of course make him a disagreeable companion: thus the Greek leaders decide to leave him behind on the desolate of Lemnos, which plan is executed (by a trick) by devious Odysseus
• What did Philoctetes DO to offend the gods? [Christie, Jessica]
• Explicitly at line 683ff: Philoctetes, who wronged no one, nor killed / but lived, just among the just, and fell in trouble past his deserts"
• compare lines 446ff with the reports of Ajax' impiety! (lines 764ff & 773ff of the Ajax)

 
 
• Cunning by proxy: the reputation of Odysseus [Chris, Jessica]
• In this play, the cunning, the wiliness of Odysseus (which in the Odyssey is a positive trait) becomes a thoroughly bad characteristic (and cf. the Iphigenia at Aulis of Euripides, etc.)
• Note that the point of suffering, when Phil.'s wound kicks in, is the point at which Neoptolemus can no longer continue with the deception: to which compare Odysseus himself in the Ajax!

Logos (words, argument) versus Ergon (deed) : Odysseus versus Achilles/Neoptolemus

• In 409 B.C., the debate about whether one should look to words (that is, the power of persuasion) or deeds (that is, straightforward action) had heated up tremendously
• The contemporary military situation had made many in Athens very suspicious of the clever words of politicians
• Remember that all decisions were made, under the radical democracy, by the Athenian assembly, an assembly of common citizens who were persuaded by the cunning words of the leaders, the politicians
• Odysseus, the quintessential clever, wily man: a man of words, of persuasion not deeds
• Odysseus, 96ff: "everywhere among men  it is the tongue that wins and not the deed"
• Neoptolemus, as son of Achilles, is emblemmatic of the man of action, of deeds
• Neoptolemus, 94f: "I prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating," as he at first rejects Odysseus' cunning ways
• but in the play, Neopt. becomes a man of clever, cunning words as he acts, by proxy, for Odysseus
• This opposition between the man of words, the man of action, and the man of action forced to play the man of words is central to the play
• e.g. 628ff: with cruel irony, Philoctetes underestimates the power of cunning words, and in his innocence does not conceive of the way Odysseus in fact reaches him, that is, by proxy
• e.g. 604ff: an example of the power of Odysseus' cunning by proxy, here using one of his sailors dressed up like a trader
• Figures like the trader, or most especially Neoptolemus himself, put Odysseus into a very special role
• like a playwright: he writes the lines that the "actors" deliver
• or like the gods: he uses men like puppets to achieve his purposes: see the next paragraph!

The Oracle: the (divine?) nature of persuasion & deception

• The terms of the Oracle: as usual, divinely cunning, which leads to human failing
• Note first the exact terms of the oracle itself, as reported by the spy: lines 610ff
• Note now the exact terms of Odysseus' reply: lines 615ff
• Compare: Do the terms agree? (no!)
• What does this tell us about Odysseus? Note esp. the supreme self-confidence of 618f!
• cf Herodotus, Croesus story, for one of many examples where it becomes clear that oracles must be read with exactitude! (cf. also Oedipus!)
• Now note the reply of Philoctetes: lines 622ff.:
• Philoctetes seems to understand better the exact terms of the oracle (that he must go willingly)
• But Philoctetes seems also to underestimate vastly the power of words, of human cunning (see paragraph above!)
• The question is raised then, as to the limits of (human) cunning: what constitutes "persuasion" (see line 612!), what constitutes force by deception?
• and, interestingly, this question, while at the surface, posed for men, also by extension, is asked also of the divine "cunning", that deceptive divine use of words in the form of the oralce
• A new spin on the struggle between the will of gods and the will of man we saw in the Oedipus Rex
• Men can be just as blind, obstinate, intrusive when the gods wish to glorify them as when the gods wish to humiliate them!
• The gods' plan is simple, but the human passions which intrude upon it create a very human complexity
• Men however left to their own devices come to a conclusion which is honorable [Michelle], but contrary to the gods' purpose: thus the need for Heracles at the end

Philoctetes: de-cultured man, innocent sufferer
 

• Philoctetes is like a man from whom all culture has been stripped away, for good and for evil
• savage: 183f, 226
• no grain, no wine: 708ff
• unable to be attendant at sacrifices: his screams breaks the ritual silence, and the loathesome smell from his wound spoil the feast
• like a child: 703, a curious sort of innocence, reminiscent of the "noble savage," a de-cultured man who has lost any of those suspect "refinements" we see in a thoroughly overcultured, cunning man of persuasion like Odysseus
• extreme isolation from humans: e.g. 183f; extreme loneliness
• but of course he also has none of those vices of culture, such as clever speaking, ways of cunning
• A figure of innocent suffering
• he's done NOTHING WRONG

explicitly, 662ff. (chorus)
• note how different is Philoctetes' "impious" statement at 446ff from those of Ajax! His speech here sounds less like something impious, and more like grudging, resentful, cynical realism-- given the circumstances.
• why then must he suffer? what does this tell us about the role of the gods in the lives of men? how is it that he can be so honorable and so oppressed?
• note that Neoptolemus (whose name means "new to war") is also presented as a babe in the woods, a figure of innocence next to the overcultured, wily Odysseus: note that he is honest and honorably by nature, as we are repeatedly told (e.g. 86, 903, 971)
• The ending thus is very curious: for it at once asserts that men honorable by nature can stay that way, and can come to honorable terms even in the most pressed circumstances; but at the same time strips away this honorable result in one fell swoop, as the forces of the divine intervene to compel the conclusions favored by the forces of cunning and dishonor!
• Profoundly questions the role of the gods in determining human affairs-- disturbingly capricious? Look at 995f: the question of free will versus determinism by a disturbingly uncaring "Zeus"

• Odysseus, as Sophocles depicts him
• Philoctetes
• Neoptolemus (= "New-to-war")
• Heracles (deus ex machina, to resolve the play at the end)