Philoktetes'i okudum. Böylece Sophokles'İn günümüze ulaşan 7 tragedyasının tamamını okumuş oldum.

Philoktetes mitolojide önemli bir figür. Herakles'in dinmeyen acılarını sona erdirmesi karşılığında Herakles tarafından Herakles'in hedefinden şaşmayan yay ve oklarıyla ödüllendirilmiştir. Philoktetes Troya Savaşı'na katılmak için Akhalara katılır ama yolculuk sırasında bir yılan tarafından ısırılır ve feci ıstıraplar çeker. Akhalar Philoktetes'den çığlıklarından ve yarasından akan irin nedeniyle oluşan kokudan bıkıp onu bir adaya bırakıp kaçarlar. Daha sonra bir kahin Philoktetes olmadan Troya'nın fethedilemeyeceğini söyleyince Philoktetes'i adadan getirmek için birilerini yollarlar.

Bu kitapta da Akhaların Philoktetes'i savaşa katılması için ikna etmeye çalışmalarını konu alıyor.

Oyun çok güzeldi. Çeviri ve editörlük açısından bir soruna rastlamadım. Herkese tavsiye ederim. ( )

This short play did not really do it for me. The themes expressed, as well as the plot and character development, were not to my liking and seemed to be sorely lacking. These reasons are why I give it it's low ranking.

2 stars. ( )

A new translation of the old play, this is rendered in modern English, including modern slang. While keeping the basic storyline intact, it loses most of its original poetry. The goal here was plainly to make it more accessible to modern readers who don't want to work too hard at their literature. The ease of reading does not make up for the loss of the ancient sound. The story is another stage in the Trojan war, of a Greek hero left by his shipmates to die of his wounds on a deserted island; now the Greeks want his weapons, which were left with him, and they determine to get them back by deceit or force. A concise telling, not a lot of wasted time, and an interesting legend. ( )

Almost one of the all-time great dramatizations of the wounded heart and psyche. Philoctetes is rejected by his fellows for the stinking wound that he incurs committing an act of kindness that no one else will (lighting Heracles’s funeral pyre); he is exiled to an island, Homo sacer, anti-sirene, to writhe alone and scream and hear his screams echo from the cliffs, mocking his solitude, his lost humanity. But then they need him! And he can speak to people again! And then he’s a person again! And he weeps when Neoptolemus finds him and just sits with him for a while. But it's all a trick—sleazy Odysseus wants his mighty bow for the war effort; and while that hurts, it also puts him in the position fantasized about by everyone who ever felt alone and unloved: the one who can tell them to fuck off and have them beg him to come back and say a hundred times how sorry they are. But just like in real life, they don’t give any more of a shit than they ever did; rather than beg, they trick him again, hurt him once more, compound his trauma. It’s an unresolvable knot, and the play shows that so well—which is why it’s such a shame when Heracles deus ex machinates in to tell Mr Moral High Ground to fucking get in the boat and go kill Paris already. Cheap, I mean by “a shame.” Probably there’s some Greek drama rule why that ending is better and not worse that Aristotle could explain to us, but Aristotle’s not here right now and so this play gets a perhaps unnecessarily punitive four stars. ( )

Philoctetes is the story of the moaning hero that Odysseus left on an island but has returned to with Neoptolemus (son of Achilles) to retrieve the bow. In convincing Neoptolemus to take part in his ploy: "I well know, my son, that by nature thou are not apt to utter or contrive such guile; yet, seeing that victory is a sweet prize to gain, bend they will thereto; our honesty shall be shown forth another time. Son of brave sire, time was when I too, in my youth, had a slow tongue and a ready hand: but now, when I come forth to the proof, I see that words, not deeds, are ever the masters among men." ( )