Philoktetes

by Sophocles

"Philoktetes" by Sophocles is a tragedy first performed in 409 BC. The play unfolds during the final year of the Trojan War, when the Greeks learn they need the master archer Philoctetes and his legendary bow to win. Abandoned on a desolate island years earlier after a snake bite, Philoctetes bitterly hates those who left him. Now Odysseus and young Neoptolemus must retrieve him through deception, forcing questions about honor, duty, and the conflict between individual suffering and collective need.