IV. Limits of inclusion
2. Philoctetes and the end of sympathy
Philoctetes experiences exclusion, through a prism of gradual estrangement, even though he presents himself as one fully in touch with cultural practice and values. However, the adherence to cultural standards he has grown up practising reveals itself to be of little use and even incongruous, in his new situation of life on a desert island. As he has no company to share his values and cultural finesse with, he lives unhappily alone on Lemnos, fighting the elements anew each day.
προ[ς δε[ το θ , μοι βάλοι ῦ ᾽ !
νευροσπαδη[ς τρακτος, α το[ς ν τάλας * ' # ε λυόμην, δύστηνον ξέλκων πόδα,0 # 162
“toward this thing, whatever my arrow drawn back with the bowstring might strike, I, poor wretch, would crawl, dragging my miserable foot towards this (thing)”
(transl. Schein)163
This new found utilitarianism in Philoctetes' disenchanted life has revolutionised his use of Heracles’ bow, now a hunting instrument rather than a piece of equipment for the art of war. He has a healthy survival instinct, that lets him lose the scruples to use his special weapon, that was intended for war, as a way to get himself a picknick (to survive). For Biggs, this represents a triumph over his pain.164 In fact, Philoctetes inadvertently subverts the very reason why he was left there. Officially, he was left there to conserve himself and his bow, as both would be needed at the
162Soph.Phil. 289-92 (Lloyd-Jones & Wilson 1990: 306-7).
163 Schein (2013), 174.
164 Biggs (1966), 232.
close of the war. Yet Philoctetes is not conserving anything, and is using his bow daily. Philoctetes foregrounds the ethical chaos created by life in isolation, and more specifically that of a once very important person. Tinted with numerous references to epic heroism, Philoctetes polarizes two concepts of human life: the successful and socially thriving, versus the diseased and lonesome. The location of the latter could not be more symbolic.
Lemnos, in Greek local legend, symbolizes the antipode of civilization. Mythologies of gruesome murder and carnage are associated with the place. One story tells of how the Lemnian women killed all the island’s men, turning it into a desert. When Philoctetes was presented at the city Dionysia in 409, Lemnos was not at all derelict. Older legends associated with the place gave Lemnos a barbaric profile.165 Sophocles used this literary tradition to dip the action of his play in a murky light of horror and gloom.166 Odysseus landing on Lemnos with Neoptolemus will find offence with Philoctetes' simplistic dwelling in a tunnel-cave, and use many descriptive elements to put one in mind of a wild animal rather than a human being living there.167 Itis the place where Odysseus and the others, ten years prior, had chosen to leave Philoctetes behind. Odysseus doubts there is even drinking water left on the island (Soph.Phil.20-21). The unsanitary conditions are just the tip of the iceberg, for Odysseus thinks that Philoctetes has gradually become more and more dishevelled and unsightly. Odysseus has Neoptolemus terrified by the thought of the cave’s grisly inhabitant with his crippling foot infection.
165Aesch.Ch.631-4; Apollod. 1.9.16; Hdt. 6.138.1-4 166 Segal (1981), 307.
167 Schein (2003), 163.
πόταν
7 δε[ μόλ,
δεινο[ς7δίτης, τ νδ/ ᾽ ο κ4 μελάθρων168 And when he will come,
the dreadful tramp from out the cave
Odysseus is convinced that Philoctetes must have undergone dramatic changes of character beyond all recognition, as a result of his placement on Lemnos. As we learn from Odysseus at the start of the play, Philoctetes was wounded at his foot whilst en route to Troy ten years earlier. The wound never healed, and as a result, he was dumped on Lemnos where he has been not only cut off from everybody that he used to know, but also perpetually in pain for the last ten years. Odysseus explains it for Neoptolemus,
νόσ6 καταστάζοντα διαβόρ6 πόδα:
! ᾽ ο τετ 9 λοιβ ς% )μι[ν ο τε9 θυμάτων παρ ν% 'κήλοις προσθιγε ν( , , ᾽ λλ ,γρίαις κατε χ( ᾽ ,ει[ π ν< στρατόπεδον δυσφημίαις, βο ν/ , ύ0 ζων.169
He was laid low by a disease devouring his foot,170 So that neither our libations nor our sacrificial rites Were possible any more, and instead these wild
Cries that he uttered were filling the camp with ill clamour
Of wailing and of moans
Not without resemblance to the infection emanating from Polyneices' body outside Thebes disturbing Teiresias' religious practices in Antigone, Philoctetes' presence, his wound and the noise of his moans, become the cause wherefore sacrificial
168 Soph.Phil.145-6 (Lloyd-Jones & Wilson 1990: 301).
169 Soph.Phil. 7-11 (Lloyd-Jones 1990: 295).
170 Schein (2013) trans. “dripping in respect to his foot with the disease that was eating through it”.
offerings can not be done in the right way by the Achaeans, prompting the decision to maroon him on Lemnos. But here as there, the disturbance to worship practices comes as an afterthought more than an original cause. Placing Philoctetes outside, where he becomes invisible, is necessary. But the true cause for this necessity may be more complex than the disturbance to worship. It could be the fear of contagion, like in Antigone. It could be the knowledge that medical salves have failed to work on Philoctetes and he is now in the possession of a disease greater than human ingenuity. Much like Ajax's madness eludes the grip of onlookers, Philoctetes' condition was a visualization of how finite the human knowledge really is, how futile and finite the efforts of medical men. These uncomfortable truths emanate from the individual who is the victim of incurable disease, and make Philoctetes uncanny to everybody. It seems as if Philoctetes somehow willed himself not to be cured, as if he somehow “was” the disease. His cries can not be stopped and may continue, but they will no longer be heard by the community. This course of action is also favoured by Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus in Electra. Tired of hearing Electra's lamentations, they threaten to lock her away into a dark room somewhere on the outskirts of their property. Electra practically personifies the royal couple's guilty conscience. Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus wish to repress the murder and death of Agamemnon, to lock it out of the gates of perception, sight and hearing. The execution of this wish is not half as elegant. We overhear Clytaemnestra saying:
, ᾽ ε σιθλλ & ᾽ ε σω& : τήνδε δ᾽ κτοθεν3 βο ν<
3α τά θ᾽ α τ ς4 % και[ τα[ τ ν/ φίλων κακά.171
171Soph.El.802-3 (Lloyd-Jones 1990: 91).
But do come in. This one, we can leave to cry outside over her own ills and those of her loved ones.
When the messenger reaches Clytaemnestra with the news that Orestes has passed away, Electra is taken by an assault of loud wailing. The messenger worries for her emotional well-being, but Clytaemnestra is assured that she should stay outdoors on her own while she will welcome the messenger in her home. This heavy-handed, unmasked exclusion of one person's viewpoint, rings of despotic house rules. Of course the new royal couple have taken justice in their own hand, murdered Agamemnon and banished Orestes, what is to stop them from humiliating Electra and denying her the right to be a part of the family? No secret is made of the reasoning behind the royal couple's attempts to exclude Electra as much as possible from the family, and no secret is made either of their readiness to use brute force if needed. They themselves consider their killing of Agamemnon to be justified, and have driven Orestes out of the city and disowned him.
Electra's permanent reminiscence and lamentation of these circumstances is not welcome in their house. The loud moaning of Philoctetes, by contrast, is rooted in physical pain and the putrefaction eating away his foot. A moral reasoning like that of Clytaemnestra towards Electra has no place here. However, a moral reason is none the less adduced, indeed the point that the noise that Philoctetes made when emitting cries of pain became a disturbance to the all-important sacrificial rituals.
The failure of sacrificial rites is a clear sign that some awful calamity is brewing undiscovered. As Tiresias thinks in Antigone, his sacrifices refuse to burn properly because of unfavourable airborne elements and the malediction of Polyneices' corpse
remaining unburied. The presence of this corpse, as it will emerge, is the cause of these sacrificial failures.
μυδ σα/ κηκι[ς μηρίων τήκετο# κ τυφε* κ νέπτυε..., 172
the sweaty juice of limbs trickled, fumed and spluttered...
The image of these events in Antigone, for Susannetti, brings to mind the Achaean battle field of Homer's Iliad, and also foreshadows the lethal contagion of Oedipus Tyrannus.173 Odysseus' horror of the diseased Philoctetes could make more sense within the context of the Iliadic plague, which has its place in the background of Philoctetes' literary precedents. More specifically, and through the parallel inspection with the failed sacrifice descriptions of Antigone, it appears as if the argument for removing Philoctetes from the social group is based on an alleged dichotomy and mutual exclusivity of, on the one hand, keeping Philoctetes on board, and on the other hand performing the right religious offerings. From this angle, Philoctetes antagonizes the practice of Greek culture. By corollary, Philoctetes is understood as someone lacking a sense of propriety and civilization. As Bernard Knox argued in 1964, Odysseus and the other Achaean soldiers are scared by Philoctetes' cries because to them they sound like animal sounds. More animal and less human, Philoctetes seems to them less similar to themselves. Philoctetes' foot infection becomes the reason for uncontrollable screams of pain. It is this uncontrolled and uncontrollable aspect that is deemed the most disturbing. Austin writes that social exclusion is
172Soph.Ant.1008-9 (Lloyd-Jones 1990: 294).
173 Susannetti (2012), 19.
needed when Philoctetes' treatment-resistant pain tries the limits of human patience, and of human ingenuity. For Austin, this is when “society’s horror (…) must make the diseased person into a monster to preserve the purity of the tribe”.174 Philoctetes' condition exemplifies the failures of medical science to help him, and of society to be kind. Neoptolemus might see in Philoctetes how he could one day be treated by his peers, should he ever have the misfortune of falling so ill. A grand silence and awkwardness engulfs their first encounter. Neoptolemus remains silent for a long time. It is Philoctetes who attempts to coax a few words out of his youg visitor.
και[ μή μ κν᾽ 5 6
δείσαντες κπλαγ τ πηγριωμένον, # % ᾽ , λλ ο κτίσαντες νδρα δύστηνον, μόνον,
, ᾽ 0 *
ρημον δε κ φιλον κακούμενον,
3 ? *
φωνήσατ , ε περ ς φίλοι προσήκετε.᾽ & 1 175
Please do not be taken aback by the fear of as reviled and savage a man as me, but take pity on someone so unfortunate and alone, deserted, and unloved, someone who calls out to you. Do please speak, if indeed you come as friends.
To all this, Neoptolemus says nothing. At the heart of this difficult contact lies not only Philoctetes' physical disease and his current state of health, but also the social exclusion which has gone on for so long it has left its mark on both Philoctetes and the surrounding group. Philoctetes' condition exemplifies the end of human ingenuity. This produces estrangement. The conceptualization as an only animal furthers the acceptance of one's own action, which is to exclude the person formally.
174 Austin (2011), 222.
175 Soph.Phil.225-29 (Lloyd-Jones 1990: 304).