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Telemachus Transformed? The Origins of Neoptolemus in Sophocles' Philoctetes1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Mary Whitby
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Extract

Sophocles' Philoctetes contains many moments of high drama and of tension between conflicting protagonists. The prologue scene between Odysseus and Neoptolemus lays the foundations for the development of the dramatic crisis by portraying their fundamental disagreement as to the best means of bringing Philoctetes back to Troy, while the long first episode (219–675) depicts the evolution of the intense relationship between Philoctetes and the youthful Neoptolemus, who has in the prologue reluctantly agreed to implement Odysseus' plan to deceive Philoctetes. The first stage of this interaction is the mutual communication of past histories: Philoctetes describes his abandonment and life on Lemnos, and in return Neoptolemus tells how Odysseus fetched him to Troy from Scyros with the story that, since Achilles was now dead, his son was required to take the city.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , April 1996 , pp. 31 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1996

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References

NOTES

2. Cf. Taplin, O., ‘The mapping of Sophocles' Philocletes’, BIOS 34 (1987), 69–77, at 69 fGoogle Scholar.

3. ἐκδακρύσας: Zn, accepted by Wilson and Lloyd Jones OCT, for the simple verb of other mss.

4. καϒαλγήσας: the compound is rare: LSJ cite only PIb. 3. 80. 4.

5. See West, S. on Od. 2. 81Google Scholar, A. Hoekstra on 16. 191.

6. Eg., Knox, B., The Heroic Temper (Berkeley, 1966), 122–4Google Scholar, Blundell, M. W., ‘The Phusis of Neoptolemus in Sophocles' Philocleles’, G&R 35 (1988), 137–48, at 137–44Google Scholar. On Philoctetes as an Achilles figure, see section IV below.

7. Tr. Lattimore. Note especially Od. 2. 81, δάκρυ' ἀναπρήσας. As in the Sophocles, the act of weeping is described by another rare verb, previously only at Il. 9. 433 (of Phoenix).

8. I am indebted to Stephen Halliwell for detailed points of comparison with Odyssey 1.

9. Od. 3. 111f, Soph, . Phil. 424fGoogle Scholar.

10. Davies, Malcolm, The Epic Cycle (Bristol, 1989), 56Google Scholar; cf. Pi. P. 6. 28–42. Antilochus (cf. also Od. 4. 186–202) is relevant to the father/son theme in both texts: see further below section IV for Phil.

11. Nestor mentions Philoctetes among those who got safely home from Troy, (Od. 3. 190)Google Scholar. His reference (270f.) to Aegisthus' marooning of the bard entrusted by Agamemnon with the care of Clytemnestra provides a curious parallel to the Philoctetes story.

12. Menelaus' daughter Hermione is to wed Neoptolemus, an allusion which hints at the parallelism beween the two youths: had Odysseus returned home like Menelaus, Telemachus might have expected to be celebrating his wedding too.

13. Like Neoptolemus, Telemachus is also duplicitous in asserting that Odysseus is dead (1. 396, 413–16) and in sustaining Athene's alibi (1. 417–20).

14. Like Achilles, Neoptolemus is motivated by loyalty to the beloved individual rather than to the wider heroic community. See further below section IV, for discussion of the view that Neoptolemus betrays the ideals of the fifth-century polis.

15. Neoptolemus' later fortunes are mentioned by Homer, : Od. 11. 505–37Google Scholar, his prowess at Troy is described to Achilles by Odysseus (in lieu of news of Peleus); Od. 4. 5–9, marriage to Hermione (n. 12). More detail, generally hostile, is given by later writers: slaughter of Priam, , Little Iliad and Iliou Persis, Davies (n. 10), 71, 75Google Scholar; death at Delphi, Pindar, , Pae. 6. 98–120Google Scholar, Nem. 7. 34–47; aftermath of Troy, Euripides, Andr., Hec, Tro.: only Andr. is sympathetic; see further Taplin (n. 2), 75–6. But there is little evidence in extant literature for the youthful career of Neoptolemus. At Il. 19. 330–3 Achilles says he had hoped that Patroclus might have taken Neoptolemus from Scyros back to Phthia to show off his possessions, and Sophocles' Scyrians is thought to have recounted his fetching from Lemnos by Odysseus. Hence Sophocles is likely to have had a free hand in creating his portrait in Phil.

16. According to Heracles (1434–7), who describes how Philoctetes and Neoptolemus will protect one another like two lions. Sophocles is characteristically ambiguous at the beginning of the play, where it is implied (68f, 115, 199f.; cf. 1055–62) that the capture of Philoctetes' bow alone might be sufficient, but the False Merchant, whose story includes signifiant elements of truth, declares (612 f.) that Philoctetes too is required; cf. 839–41.

17. T. B. L. Webster in the introduction to his edition (Cambridge, 1970), 7; cf. Rose, P. W., ‘Sophocles' Philocleles and the Teachings of the Sophists’, HSCP 80 (1976), 49–105Google Scholar, who relates the play to contemporary sophistic analysis of society.

18. Blundell (n. 6), 142f.

19. P. Vidal-Naquet, ‘Sophocles' Philocleles and the Ephebeia’in Vernant, J.-P. and Vidal-Naquet, P., Tragedy and Myth in Ancient Greece (Brighton and Atlantic Highlands, 1981), 175–99Google Scholar.

20. ‘The Great Dionysia and Civic Ideology’, JHS 107 (1987), 58–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 74 = id. in Winckler, J.J. and Zeitlin, F. I. (edd.), Nothing to do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in its Social Context (Princeton, 1990), 97–129, at 124Google Scholar.

21. Tom Stinton with characteristic hard-headedness advocated a minimalist view: in so far as allusion was dramatically important, the poet made it readily understandable; oblique allusions are of little or no importance for understanding a play as a play, Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1990), no. 25Google Scholar ‘The Scope and Limits of Allusion in Greek Tragedy’, 454–92, at 454.

22. Ancient sources and modern analyses are conveniently collected by Mossman, Judith, Wild Justice: a Study of Euripides' Hecuba (Oxford, 1995), 20 n. 5Google Scholar.

23. App. D.L. 4. 20.

24. Miller, H. W., ‘ὁφιλόμηρος Σοφοκλῆς and Eustathius’, CP 41 (1946), 99–102Google Scholar.

25. ‘The tragic Homer’, BICS 31 (1984), 1–8Google Scholar, discussing Ajax and Tecmessa in relation to Homer's Hector and Andromache.

26. Mossman (n. 22), 21–2.

27. Vidal-Naquet (n. 19), 178.

28. Davies(n. 10), 65 f.

29. Summarized by Webster (n. 17), 3–5. In Euripides' version, however, Odysseus was assisted by Diomedes, in some ways an Iliadic Neoptolemus (tears of frustration, 23. 385–6; an instinctive fighter, 9. 31–49; aide to Odysseus in the Doloneia, 10).

30. According to Plutarch (de prof, in virt. 7) Sophocles regarded his most mature style as ‘the best and most expressive of character’.

31. The parallel with Telemachus undermines any suggestion that Sophocles intended Neoptolemus to be regarded as intrinsically bad. So, for example, Calder, W. M. III, ‘Sophoclean Apologia: Philoctetes’, GRBS 12 (1971), 153–74Google Scholar. He is shown rather at a point where his character is still being formed, and issues are not hardened as they are for either Odysseus or Philoctetes: so Blundell (n. 6), 145–7. See further Halliwell, S., ‘Traditional Greek Conceptions of Character’, in Pelling, C. B. R. (ed.), Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature (Oxford, 1990), 32–59Google Scholar. The wicked Neoptolemus of later life (see n. 15) should not be read into Sophocles' portrait, although Sophocles does indicate his potential for corruption.

32. Goldhill (n. 20) stresses the tension between the civic ceremonies which preceded the Great Dionysia and the tragic texts presented there, and discusses (71–4) Sophocles' Neoptolemus in this connection.

33. Cf. n. 14.

34. Od. 4. 335–40, 724, 814; 6. 130–6; 22. 401–6.

35. The latter parallel is suggested by the similar language used of Achilles and Philoctetes in the Iliad, 2. 694; cf. 724 (I owe this point to Stephen Halliwell); cf. Garner, R., From Homer to Tragedy: the Art of Allusion in Greek Poetry (London, 1990), 146fGoogle Scholar.

36. Tragedy and Civilization: an Interpretation of Sophocles (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 353, 359.Google Scholar

37. E.g., Blundell (n. 6), 144f: ‘Philoctetes, rather than Neoptolemus, is the Achillean figure in this play.’ Taplin (n. 2), 75 notes that Heracles' promise to Philoctetes of nostos after glory at Troy reverses Thetis' promise to Achilles (Il. 9. 412f). Angus Bowie has observed (in a paper delivered to the Classical Association AGM, St Andrews 1995) that the same multiple intertext applies to possible hints at Alcibiades in the play: while Philoctetes has obvious affinities with the longed for but awesome exile, elements of Alcibiades can also be recognized in Odysseus the persuasive and adventitious politician, and in the youthful, aristocratic, and wilful Neoptolemus, who is ambivalent in his allegiance.

38. Cf. Garner (n. 35), 147f.

39. Other examples: West on Od. 1. 179ff. Sophocles' False Merchant must of course have been played by the Odysseus actor, thereby offering scope for metatheatrical effects in making his Odysseusidentity clear to the audience and Neoptolemus, while duping the innocent Philoctetes.

40. Although Neoptolemus is identified as Achilles' son as early as line 4, Odysseus' designation of him as ‘child’ (79, 130) and his authoritative role in the prologue suggest the analogy between Neoptolemus and Telemachus from the outset.

41. Cf. 1428–30 where Heracles promises that Philoctetes will carry the spoils of Troy home ‘for the joy of Poeas thy sire, even to thine own Oetaean heights’.

42. At 334 Achilles expresses the fear that Peleus actually is already dead.

43. Cf. n. 37. Knox (n. 6), 138 suggests that Neoptolemus' decision to renounce future glory to atone for past misconduct (1402) surpasses Achilles' nobility in yielding to Priam's plea and surrendering Hector's body for burial; cf. Taplin (n. 2), 76: Philoctetes' happy ending is won at the price of Neoptolemus'.

44. ‘Character in Sophocles’, G & R 24 (1977), 121–9Google Scholar; repr. in E. Segal (ed.), Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1983), 138–45, at 142f. and in McAuslan, I. and Walcot, P. (edd.), Greek Tragedy (Greece & Rome Studies 2, Oxford, 1993), 58–65, at 63Google Scholar. She comments: ‘… almost everything he says can be interpreted in two ways, either as direct deceit or as an indication of his growing reluctance to take part in the trickery at all.’ Cf. ead., ‘Constructing Character in Greek Tragedy’, in Pelling (n. 31), 83–99.