Philoctetes is a play by Sophocles (Aeschylus and Euripides also each wrote a Philoctetes but theirs do not survive). It was first performed at the Festival of Dionysus in 409 BC, where it won first prize. The story takes place during the Trojan War (after the events of the Iliad, and before the Trojan Horse). It describes the attempt by Neoptolemus and Odysseus to bring the crippled Philoctetes with them to Troy.
When Heracles was near death (the subject of another play by Sophocles - The Trachiniae), he wished to be burned on a funeral pyre while still alive. No one but Philoctetes would light the fire, and in return for this favor Heracles gives him his bow. Philoctetes leaves with the others to participate in the Trojan War, but gets bitten on the foot by a snake. The bite leaves him in constant agony, and emits a horrible smell. For this he is left by Odysseus on the desert island Lemnos.
Ten years pass, and the Greeks capture the Trojan seer Helenus, son of Priam. He...
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