Sophocles' Philoctetes

Sophocles' Philoctetes

“No word. Then I am nothing” (950)

“Who will say word of greeting to me?” (1354)

In his lecture Oedipus at the Crossroads, Simon Goldhill addresses the idea that the incest between mother and son results in the collapse not only of the characters, but of language itself: or rather, of the language the characters use to express their despair. The fact that Oedipus stumbles on the words “Daughter, sister…” reflects this breakdown of language. In Sophocles’ Philoctetes, there is a similar sense of shattered language, but here it is more a case of being abandoned by language, of language and civilisation being so intrinsic to each other that being left behind by one implies being left behind by both. The Chorus’s description of what they imagine Philoctetes’s solitary existence to be like reflects this: “He cries out in his wretchedness;/there is only a blabbering echo,/that comes from the distance speeding/from his bitter crying”(187), using lack of dialogue to represent his solitude. Similarly, it is significant that it is not distinct words that announce Philoctetes’s approach the first time he comes on stage, but rather “the voice of a man wounded” and “a bitter cry” (209,210). And it is no coincidence that upon meeting Neoptolemus, Philoctetes’ greeting becomes an insistent, repetitive cry: “Take pity on me; speak to me; speak/ speak if you come as friends. / No—answer me/ If this is all/ that we can have from one another, speech, this, at least, we should have” (230). Just as, when Odysseus’ plan has been revealed and the men are preparing to leave, Philoctetes’ supplication is “Your voice has no word for me, son of Achilles? / Will you go away in silence?”(1065). Speech is equated with pity, di...

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...sation. The Chicago version of this passage reads: “Farewell […] the deep male growl of the sea-lashed headland […] where many a time in answer to my crying in the storm of my sorrow the Hermes mountain sent its echo!” (1460) while in the Francklin version he states, perhaps more aptly (as his passiveness is felt much more), “Farewell the noise of beating waves, which I so oft have heard from the rough sea […]Oft th' Hermaean mount Echoed my plaintive voice”. In both cases there is a keen sense of release, of breaking free, of the relief of knowing that one’s words will bear fruit to something other than a dim reflection of themselves, that one’s attempts at dialogue will not be met with a wall of silence. It is an ending that resounds with possibility and potential: the world Philoctetes is about to re-enter is a veritable blank page. A “great destiny” awaits him.