Philoctetes (Aeschylus play): Difference between revisions
odysseus |
getting the bow |
||
| Line 5: | Line 5: | ||
In the original versions of the story, [[Diomedes]] was sent to recover Philoctetes and bring him back to Troy.<ref name=frag/> However, in Aeschylus' play, [[Odysseus]], who was largely responsible for Philoctetes being marooned on Lemnos was sent to fetch him.<ref name=frag/> The plot point of having Odysseus being sent to recover Philoctetes after being responsible for his abandonment is a plot point that Euripides and Sophocles retained in their ''Philoctetes'' plays. |
In the original versions of the story, [[Diomedes]] was sent to recover Philoctetes and bring him back to Troy.<ref name=frag/> However, in Aeschylus' play, [[Odysseus]], who was largely responsible for Philoctetes being marooned on Lemnos was sent to fetch him.<ref name=frag/> The plot point of having Odysseus being sent to recover Philoctetes after being responsible for his abandonment is a plot point that Euripides and Sophocles retained in their ''Philoctetes'' plays. |
||
Philoctetes did not recognize Odysseus at first as a result of the suffering Philoctetes endured for the prior ten years alone.<ref name=frag/> Odysseus gained Philoctetes' trust by falsely telling him that [[Agamemnon]], who was also responsible for Philoctetes' abandonment, had died and that Odysseus had been executed for committing a shameful crime.<ref name=frag/> |
Philoctetes did not recognize Odysseus at first as a result of the suffering Philoctetes endured for the prior ten years alone.<ref name=frag/> Odysseus gained Philoctetes' trust by falsely telling him that [[Agamemnon]], who was also responsible for Philoctetes' abandonment, had died and that Odysseus had been executed for committing a shameful crime.<ref name=frag/> It is not known exactly how Odysseus ultimately secured Philoctetes bow and cooperation, or whether he took them by force as he attempted to do in Euripides' and Sophocles' versions.<ref name=frag/> |
||
==References== |
==References== |
||
Revision as of 18:34, 14 July 2012
Philoctetes is a play by the Athenian poet Aeschylus. It is now lost except for a few fragments. We do know the broad outline of the plot from a comparison by Dio Chrysostom of the Aeschylus' Philoctetes with Euripides' Philoctetes (431 BCE) and Sophocles' Philoctetes (409 BCE).[1]
Philoctetes is mentioned briefly in Homer's Iliad, and his story was expanded on in Lesches' Little Iliad and Arctinus' Iliupersis.[1] The Greeks had abandoned Philoctetes on the island of Lemnos on their way to Troy because they could not stand his screams of pain and the odor from his wound after he was bitten by a poisonous snake.[1] However, ten years into the Trojan War they found out that Phioctetes and his bow and arrows were required to conquer Troy.[1]
In the original versions of the story, Diomedes was sent to recover Philoctetes and bring him back to Troy.[1] However, in Aeschylus' play, Odysseus, who was largely responsible for Philoctetes being marooned on Lemnos was sent to fetch him.[1] The plot point of having Odysseus being sent to recover Philoctetes after being responsible for his abandonment is a plot point that Euripides and Sophocles retained in their Philoctetes plays.
Philoctetes did not recognize Odysseus at first as a result of the suffering Philoctetes endured for the prior ten years alone.[1] Odysseus gained Philoctetes' trust by falsely telling him that Agamemnon, who was also responsible for Philoctetes' abandonment, had died and that Odysseus had been executed for committing a shameful crime.[1] It is not known exactly how Odysseus ultimately secured Philoctetes bow and cooperation, or whether he took them by force as he attempted to do in Euripides' and Sophocles' versions.[1]