The death of King Agamemnon

πολλῶν πάροιθεν καιρίως εἰρημένων 
τἀναντί᾽ εἰπεῖν οὐκ ἐπαισχυνθήσομαι.  

Much have I said before to serve my need 
and I shall feel no shame to contradict it now.  1372-73

These are the opening words spoken by Clytemnestra as the palace doors open, and the bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra move forward so the entire arena of spectators in the theater can see what's happened.

Works spoken καιρίως -- "to serve my need" in Smyth's translation -- are the specialty of the rhetorician -- words twisted to the service of one particular moment and willed intent, then discarded as mere words.

ὡς μήτε φεύγειν μήτ᾽ ἀμύνεσθαι μόρον, 
ἄπειρον ἀμφίβληστρον, ὥσπερ ἰχθύων, 
περιστιχίζω, πλοῦτον εἵματος κακόν. 

That he should not flee nor keep off the end, 
an endless net around as to fish
I threw round, fatal wealth garment.

Here I twisted Smyth's translation to track more faithfully Aeschylus's highly packed lines. Most translators "unpack" the sense to a more familiar order. Here's how Smyth actually put it:

Round him, as if to catch a haul of fish, I cast an impassable net—fatal wealth of robe—so that he should neither escape nor ward off doom

There's no claim here that mine is better. The more of Smyth I see, the more I appreciate his tenacity.

I've created a play on words that is not in the original - where mine says:

    . . . nor keep off the end, 
an endless net . . .

I wish it were there, because the word that I render as endless is apeiron, i.e., ἄπειρον -- the word used by the philosopher Anaximander to invoke the unbounded. The Infinite.*

A few lines earlier, Clytemnestra spoke of

the contest of an ancient feud, pondered by me of old,

οὐκ ἀφρόντιστος πάλαι νείκης παλαιᾶς ἦλθε  1377-78

Twice she uses πάλαι -- "ancient" -- the quarrel is ancient, as is, more literally, her "not unmindfulness" of it.

Clytemnestra weaves her much pondered words around the dead Agamemnon and his prophetess-slave. They are rich, dark, unbounded, like the deed she takes credit for. Indeed, she's so plain in her desire for all to know "I did this" that the contrast with her earlier veil of lies and misdirections can be unsettling. After what we just learned, how can we trust anything she says, including her proud "confession"?

I don't want to get into an endless debate about "did she or didn't she?" --- the point here is that by negating everything she's said up to now, and then coming straight out with unequivocal statements, Clytemnestra jolts us into an awareness, a distrust of predication that lingers even as she claims to speak the truth. This is fitting, that with the king lying dead before our eyes, the truth from now on comes wrapped in a rich, infinite garment from which there is no escape for fish or king.

No wonder the chorus wonders:

We are shocked at your tongue, how bold-mouthed you are,  

θαυμάζομέν σου γλῶσσαν, ὡς θρασύστομος

If Cassandra is doomed to speak truth that will not be taken as true (as Simon Goldhill astutely notes), Clytemnestra's marvelous mouth, after ending the prophetess's speaking, cannot be disbelieved. In speaking, she undoes the possibility of speaking truth.

*ἄπειρος (B), ον, (πεῖραρ, πέρας)

A.boundless, infinite, “σκότος” Pi.Fr. 130.8; “τὸν ὑψοῦ τόνδ᾽ ἄ. αἰθέρα” E.Fr.941; ἤπειρον εἰς ἄ. ib.998; of number, countless,“πλῆθος” Hdt.1.204; “ἀριθμὸς ἄ. πλήθει” Pl.Prm.144a; “ἄ. τὸπλῆθος” Id.R.525a, al.; “εἰς ἄ. τὴν ἀδικίαν αὐξάνειν”Id.Lg.910b; “χρόνος ἄ.” OGI383.113 (i B.C.): Comp. “-ότερος”Dam.Pr.50, Phlp.in Mete.17.15; τὸ ἄ. the Infinite, as a first principle, Arist.Ph.203a3, etc.; esp. in the system of Anaximander, D.L.2.1, etc.; but τὰ ἄπειρα individuals, opp. τὰεἴδη, Arist.Top.109b14, cf. Metaph.999a27, al.; ἄπειρος, opp. πεπερασμένος, Ph.202b31; εἰς ἄ. ἰέναι, προϊέναι, ἥκειν, etc., APo.81b33, Ph.209a25, EN1113a2, etc.; [“γῆ] ἐπ᾽ ἄπειρονἐρριζωμένη” Str.1.1.20; also, indefinite, “ὕλη” Stoic.2.86.

2. in Trag., freq.of garments, etc., in which one is entangled past escape, i.e. without outlet,“ἀμφίβληστρον” A.Ag.1382; “χιτών” S.Fr.526; “ὕφασμα” E.Or.25.

3. endless, i.e. circular, ἀ. δακτύλιος a simple hoop-ring, = ἄλιθος (Poll. 7.179), Arist.Ph.207a2; cf. ἀπείρων (B) 1.3. Adv. -ρως, θρυφθῆναι into an infinite number of fragments, Id.Pr.899b16.

Unmasking heaven: Paradiso 30

It's often remarked that the late canti of Paradiso are redolent with Virgilian echoes, prompting commentators to ponder why, since Virgil ceded his guiding role to Beatrice in Purgatorio 30, his text seems to return with such sonorous and imagistic presence 30 cantos later.

An indirect approach might help. I'll break it into three parts - the critical impasse that the pilgrim experiences, and moves beyond, in Paradiso 30; the presence of some of Virgil's most far reaching passages in the canto, and finally an effort to read Dante's juxtaposition of his own poetic impasse with Virgil's tale of Orpheus's defeat and Aristaeus's renewal in the Fourth Georgic.

As noted previously, Paradiso 30 seems to partake more intimately of music than of statement, description, or question and answer. The muted opening scene of earth's shadow bowing to the sun is a sort of preludium that modulates into the equally quiet confession that the man who loved Beatrice since he first saw her perhaps half a century earlier, who would follow her still, cannot keep up -- she has risen to a level beyond his art.

ché, come sole in viso che più trema,
così lo rimembrar del dolce riso
la mente mia da me medesmo scema.

For as the sun the sight that trembles most,
  Even so the memory of that sweet smile
  My mind depriveth of its very self. (30.25-27)

The poet is about to have his power of sight strengthened to a point of being able to look unhindered at anything. But before that, just the memory of the changed Beatrice is overpowering -- it blots out the mind in the act of remembrance. Remembering dismembers.

The poem is interweaving antinomic extremities: On one hand, the poet says he's split, divided from his own memory, from his muse, from his mimetic powers as poet -- as his voyage brings him ever closer to that Reality which exceeds the realism of his artistry.*

Yet at the same time, in the very moment of this decisive defeat, his powers of vision are expanded and strengthened:

“Sempre l'amor che queta questo cielo
 accoglie in sé con sì fatta salute,
 per far disposto a sua fiamma il candelo.”

Non fur più tosto dentro a me venute 

queste parole brievi, ch'io compresi 

me sormontar di sopr' a mia virtute;

"Ever the Love which quieteth this heaven
  Welcomes into itself with such salute,
  To make the candle ready for its flame."

No sooner had within me these brief words
  An entrance found, than I perceived myself
  To be uplifted over my own power,   (30:52-57)

Led by Virgil to the top of Purgatory, the pilgrim there was crowned and mitered over himself (Purg. 27). Here the words of Beatrice enter the poet and empower a self-surmounting, a rising above oneself. Then,

e di novella vista mi raccesi
tale, che nulla luce è tanto mera,
che li occhi miei non si fosser difesi;

And I with vision new rekindled me,
Such that no light whatever is so pure
But that mine eyes were fortified against it. (30:58-60)

As extraordinary as this novella vista is, however, it merely permits the pilgrim to see foreshadowings (umbriferi prefazi) -- the river, the sparks and flowers. To see that which is foreshadowed by these figures, he still must "drink" of this light to cure a lack in himself.

Up to this point, one could argue that Paradiso has been accommodating itself to the Pilgrim's limitations. His vision is strong, but he's still seeing illusion, a mask.

After his eyelids drink in the river's light, the mask is removed, and the pilgrim beholds the glorious courts of heaven. We are now in the throes of the paradox built into the canto: coming from nature, we do not have the poetic means to extricate and explicate what lies behind the appearances of nature. Yet that apparent dead end has an unanticipated twist.

A look into the return of Virgil's text seems necessary here.

========

*For a very helpful distinction between the poetics of realism vs. the nature of reality, see the fine commentary, Dante and Reality / Dante and Realism (Paradiso) by Teodolinda Barolini. 

II. Virgilian echoes

The sense of intuiting divinity without being able to speak it is Virgil's limit -- he intimates a numinous reality within the natural world, but lacks the revelation to be able to speak it.

This sense of something looming behind is present from the richly Virgilian echoes in the canto's opening:

quando 'l mezzo del cielo, a noi profondo,
 comincia a farsi tal, ch'alcuna stella
 perde il parere infino a questo fondo;

When the middle of the heavens, to us profound,
  Begins to make itself such that here and there a star
  Ceases to appear so far down as this depth,

This is a modified form of Longfellow's translation - the original is here: Par. 30:4-6. The link of cielo . . . profondo prompts many commentators to point to a passage that seems to have its own profundity in Virgil's fourth Georgic:

His quidam signis atque haec exempla secuti  220
esse apibus partem divinae mentis et haustus
aetherios dixere; deum namque ire per omnes
terrasque tractusque maris caelumque profundum.
Hinc pecudes, armenta, viros, genus omne ferarum,
quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas;  225
scilicet huc reddi deinde ac resoluta referri
omnia nec morti esse locum, sed viva volare
sideris in numerum atque alto succedere caelo.

Led by these tokens, and with such traits to guide,
Some say that unto bees a share is given
Of the Divine Intelligence, and to drink
Pure draughts of ether; for God permeates all—
Earth, and wide ocean, and the vault of heaven—
From whom flocks, herds, men, beasts of every kind,
Draw each at birth the fine essential flame;
Yea, and that all things hence to Him return,
Brought back by dissolution, nor can death
Find place: but, each into his starry rank,
Alive they soar, and mount the heights of heaven.

Bees exemplify the kind of sign that lends credence to a reading of the world as instinct with divine motion through all things, leaving no place for death. Such passages make Virgil much more than the singer of Roman history and conquest.

Virgil had used the same phrase in the Fourth Eclogue:

Adgredere o magnos—aderit iam tempus—honores,
cara deum suboles, magnum Iovis incrementum!
Aspice convexo nutantem pondere mundum,         50
terrasque tractusque maris caelumque profundum!
Aspice, venturo laetentur ut omnia saeclo!

Assume thy greatness, for the time draws nigh,
dear child of gods, great progeny of Jove!
See how it totters—the world's orbed might,
earth, and wide ocean, and the vault profound,
all, see, enraptured of the coming time!

The tone carries prophetic power -- the foresense of a child whose birth will shake the fixed contours of earth and sea and sky, leading to a paradisal new epoch.

Dante is summoning these heightened, luminous moments in Virgil's text, moments in which something shines through a teeming world filled with tears, violence, and war. At the end of the Fourth Eclogue, the poet calls upon a child and its mother to smile, because in this mutual smile he sees the sign of a better future. Juxtaposed with the smile of Beatrice, along with the Virgin and Child, these lines might have struck Dante as harboring an extraordinary premonition, that of a seer doomed never to know what his prescience so vividly foretells. 

If Dante shared the then-common view of Virgil's poetry as vatic, its profundity was in the mode of the pilgrim's novella vista of the river, sparks, and flowers -- a realm of umbriferi prefazi beneath the mask of nature.

When that mask is removed, as occurs after the pilgrim, like a famished infant, "drinks" from the river, there is no longer a translucence of something discerned obliquely in the depths. Taking off a mask is an instantaneous act in which the veil is not seen through, but lifted away -- a literal act of revelation:

Poi, come gente stata sotto larve, 
che pare altro che prima, se si sveste 
a sembianza non süa in che disparve,  

così mi si cambiaro in maggior feste 
i fiori e le faville, sì ch'io vidi 
ambo le corti del ciel manifeste. 

Then as a folk who have been under masks
  Seem other than before, if they divest
  The semblance not their own they disappeared in, 

Thus into greater pomp were changed for me
  The flowerets and the sparks, so that I saw
  Both of the Courts of Heaven made manifest. (91-96)

The moment in a plot when a key player is unmasked often pivots the tale. It can "turn into" a comedy, if the "boy" desperately in love with the male protagonist turns out to be a beautiful woman; it turns tragic if the honest friend turns out to be Iago. Moments of unmasking are moments of truth. Depending on that truth is the determination as to what genre of literature, what sort of story, we have.

For readers of the Commedia, the unmasking of heaven is that moment. The pastoral world of Virgil's Elysium -- that pregnant dream -- is peeled back, replaced by a maggior feste beyond his Roman guide's ken.

Virgil's text here suffers a destiny much like the starry night at the canto's opening -- its lights are dimmed by a divine light that doesn't move through the world, but rises from a place beyond, dispatching the stars into the depths of a brightening sky.

e come vien la chiarissima ancella
del sol più oltre, così 'l ciel si chiude
di vista in vista infino a la più bella.

And as advances bright exceedingly
  The handmaid of the sun, the heaven is closed
  Light after light to the most beautiful; (30:7-9)

This has already become too long. The third part will be in a subsequent post. 

Ambiguous equation: What we don't know in the Philoctetes

We've looked at the lonely anguish of the abandoned Philoctetes, and how even the chorus was moved by the wounded man's condition:

Chorus
Here, he alone was his own neighbor, powerless to walk, with no one in the land to be his companion while he suffered—no one to whom he could cry out a lament that would be answered [695] for the plague that gnawed his flesh and drained his blood—no one to lull with healing herbs gathered from the nourishing earth the burning blood which oozed from the ulcers of his [700] envenomed foot, whenever the torment attacked him. Instead he would then creep this way or that, stumbling like a child without his kind nurse, to any place from where his needs [705] might be supplied, whenever the devouring anguish withdrew.

Indeed, it's the almost involuntary compassion evinced by the sailors that enables us to understand and be persuaded that Neoptolemus too, after taking on the role that Odysseus had assigned him of seeming to be Philoctetes' friend, actually becomes that friend, vowing to take him home to Oeta.

The relationship of Neoptolemus and Philoctetes is complex. At first, the younger man is clearly playing the role assigned him - getting Philoctetes to hand him the bow while he falls into a deep sleep after suffering excruciating pain that then subsides. When Neoptolemus reveals that he is in fact conspiring with Odysseus to bring Philoctetes to Troy for a good cause, Philoctetes is stunned, and confronts the truth: that he has been fooled, tricked into giving up the weapons of Heracles, and now faces an inevitable death alone on Lemnos.

Philoctetes Hollow in the caverned rock, now hot, now frosty, how true it seems, then, that I was sadly fated never to leave you! [1085] No, you will witness my death, too. Ah, ah, me! Sad dwelling, so long filled with the pain welling from my flesh, what will be my daily portion hereafter? [1090] Where, from what provision, shall I, unhappy, find any hope of sustenance? Above my head the tremulous doves will go on their way through the whistling wind. I can stop their flight no more.

Let's look at this from Odysseus's point of view. With Neoptolemus's help, he's succeeded in obtaining the weapon, but Philoctetes is choosing to starve to death rather than rejoin the Greek cause, so great is his detestation of the Atreidai and Odysseus, and his disappointment in the treachery of Neoptolemus.

Odysseus and Neoptolemus then leave Philoctetes with the chorus while they go to the ships. The chorus, which had been deeply sympathetic, now expresses a more calculated judgment:

Chorus
[1095] It was you, you, I say, doomed one, that chose this fate; and this fortune to which you are captive comes from no other source, nor from a stronger man's compulsion. For when in fact it was in your power to show sense, [1100] you chose to reject the better fate, and to accept the worse.

The lengthy scene allows Philoctetes to explore every nuance of his plight, and to reaffirm that nothing will persuade him to give in and willingly return to Troy. In a moment of severe pain, he cries:

Philoctetes
Never, never—of that be certain! Not even if the lord of the fiery lightning comes to wrap me in the blaze of his thunderbolts! [1200] Ilium be damned, and as many of the men before its walls as dared reject this foot of mine! But oh, friends, grant me one wish!

The wish turns out to be that they give him a weapon with which he can dismember himself -- this is a man who has lost everything except his indomitable will.

At this point a normal emissary would concede that this man is beyond persuasion.

Odysseus and Neoptolemus now return. They are arguing, because, Neoptolemus says, he's had a change of heart, is sorry for his part in the deceit, and intends to give the bow back. They nearly come to blows, but Odysseus backs off and leaves. Neoptolemus then attempts to recapture the good graces of Philoctetes, but the wounded man refuses to believe his words:

Neoptolemus
Take heart and listen to my words.

Philoctetes
I am afraid. Beautiful words did me evil once before, when I believed [πεισθεὶς] your promises.

Neoptolemus
[1270] Is there no room, then, for change of heart [μεταγνῶναι]?

Philoctetes
You spoke just like this, when you were seeking to steal my bow—a "trusted" [πιστός] friend, with my destruction in his treacherous heart.

Neoptolemus
I assure you, I am not so now. I merely wish to know whether you have resolved to stay here and endure, or to sail with us.

Philoctetes
[1275] Stop, not another word! Whatever you may say will be said in vain.

No words will persuade Philoctetes, but Neoptolemus now goes beyond words. Quietly he extends his hand, holding the sacred bow, to Philoctetes. The reaction is immediate:

Philoctetes
Am I being tricked a second time?

Φιλοκτήτης
πῶς εἶπας; ἆρα δεύτερον δολούμεθα;

Philoctetes is beyond the reach of any words, but being offered his bow, along with an oath to Zeus that this act of Neoptolemus is genuine, changes his mind. He is persuaded that the young man is on his side.

Of course, it's at this moment that Odysseus springs from his concealment and confronts them.

Odysseus
But I forbid it, as the gods are my witnesses, in the name of the Atreids and the entire army!

Interestingly Odysseus doesn't use the usual word for "witness"; rather, he uses ξυνίστορες, which carries more the sense of "one who is in on, privy to" some secret plot.

The word is doubly, or perhaps trebly suggestive at this crucial moment, which requires us to ask -- who is in on this scheme here? Has Odysseus lost, thanks to Neoptolemus' change of heart? Or is it more complicated than that?

Anyone familiar with the wiliness of Odysseus might wish to consider three possibilities:

1. Odysseus has indeed lost the game. Neoptolemus is helping Philoctetes.
2. Odysseus's ploy is working, thanks to the ongoing collusion of Neoptolemus, whom he coached when they left the stage.
3. Odysseus's ploy is working without any collusion on the part of Neoptolemus, whom he knew would have a change of heart -- in fact, he counted on it.

Let's remember: Odysseus swore to the army to bring back Philoctetes and his bow, and to persuade him with "winning words" -- without force. He was confident enough to say they could separate his head from neck if he failed. He has never shown the slightest doubt that he'll succeed. But here he's running for his life from the deadly poison arrows. Yet he keeps affirming that his task is ordered not just by the generals, but by Zeus.

A fair reading ought to consider these options. To do so enriches the play immeasurably, because it truly pits the broken heart, mind, and body of Philoctetes, along with his unbroken will, against Odysseus's limitless cleverness and considerable powers of illusion.

If we try on the notion that Neoptolemus is furthering Odysseus's scheme - knowingly or unknowingly - we see that Odysseus still has a card or two to play. Indeed, in the next scene we find that while Neoptolemus has completely won over Philoctetes' trust, he has not completely gone over to his side. Rather the boy offers some rather profound insight into the soul of Philoctetes,

It is true that men are compelled to bear the fortunes given by the gods; but when they cling to self-inflicted miseries, as you do, [1320] no one can justly excuse or pity them. You have become savage [σὺ δ᾽ ἠγρίωσαι]: you welcome no counselor, and if someone admonishes you, even if he speaks in all good will, you detest him and consider him an enemy who wishes you ill.

and adds for good measure a large-scale interpretation of the working out of the dark forces of divine intent:

you suffer this plague's affliction in accordance with god-sent fate, because you came near to Chryse's guardian, the serpent who secretly watches over her home and guards her roofless sanctuary. Know also that you will never gain relief from this grave sickness, [1330] as long as the sun still rises in the east and sets in the west, until of your own free will you come to the plains of Troy, find there the sons of Asclepius, our comrades, be relieved of this infection, and, with this bow's [1335] aid and mine, be hailed as the sacker of Troy's towers.

Neoptolemus is showing penetrating insight into human motives and an interpretive confidence worthy of Odysseus -- quite possibly because he's been listening to him. The snakebite was not random, but fully part of a sacred plan. He reveals in great detail the prophecies forced out of Helenus by Odysseus, which include all the enticements that any sane man could ask for.

Whether Neoptolemus's transformation is real or feigned, he is still on script -- Odysseus's script (we noted here how this uncertainty is built into the structure of the play).

It is not unreasonable to believe that Odysseus here is playing his last card, having Neoptolemus bring out every argument. They are powerful arguments -- restored health, heroic work, glory, obedience to Zeus -- which, in this renewed moment of trust, might persuade Philoctetes to undergo his own change of heart [μεταγιγνώσκω].

If we read this scene this way, it in fact conforms to an extended uncertainty that runs spinelike throughout the play, which has everything to do with whether something is actual, or simply represented, pretended, feigned. It's present when the chorus sings the tale of Ixion, itself a story of doubles and redoubled trickery:

Chorus
I have heard a rumor, but never seen with my eyes [λόγῳ μὲν ἐξήκουσ᾽, ὄπωπα δ᾽ οὐ μάλα,], how the man who once approached the bed of Zeus was bound upon a [680] swift wheel by the almighty son of Cronus. But of no other mortal do I know, either by hearsay or by sight [οἶδα κλύων οὐδ᾽ ἐσιδὼν], that has encountered a doom so repugnant as this of Philoctetes.

Here and in other lines, Sophocles makes it clear that he is taking up a large epistemological problem -- how we know what we know, and whether it is indeed something we truly experience via our sovereign senses, or whether, on the contrary, we "know" a thing simply because someone has repeated an account of it to us. And this problem is relevant for the basic reason that it goes to the root of the event of persuasion.

Philoctetes has suffered enough not to trust men's words, especially after he's found Neoptolemus to have deceived him. Yet he rebounds because he cannot dispute deeds, and Neoptolemus has given him back his bow. But then Neoptolemus both prevents him from killing Odysseus, and pours on the full-court press of reasons for rejoining the Greeks -- more words!

Philoctetes
How can I not be persuaded [ἀπιστήσω] by this man's words, when he exhorts me with good will?

πῶς ἀπιστήσω λόγοις τοῖς τοῦδ᾽, ὃς εὔνους ὢν ἐμοὶ παρῄνεσεν; 

The play grapples richly and in nuanced fashion with the cognitive problems bound up with seeming and knowing, with words and deeds, and, as evinced by Philoctetes here, a widening rift of uncertainty about what to believe, and why, and how. It would be unfortunate to reduce our reading to simply one side of the ambiguous equation. It's far more interesting to open up our "witness" to the possibility that there are more layers to this plot, more possible readings here, stemming from more calculated lies or useful truths, than first appeared.

With this in mind, another question beckons. Has Odysseus now played his last card?

Tough sell: The agon of rhetoric in the Philoctetes

One reason that the Philoctetes is an extraordinary work -- a classic -- is that it takes on one of the most difficult confrontations imaginable, between the isolated, socially and physically wounded Philoctetes, and Odysseus, the fully networked lieutenant and executor of the will of the generals, and of the general will.

These characters move through an intense and fascinating duel -- Odysseus's task is to convince Philoctetes to return willingly to the Trojan War. Odysseus has a tantalizing story of restoration of honor, health, and eventually the prize of glory -- everything a Greek Prince could ask for. But a man who's been abandoned for nine and a half years no longer dreams. Philoctetes's dearest wish is to kill Odysseus with the bow of Heracles, which never misses, and is always lethal. It's going to be a tough sell.

Sophocles has designed the play to amplify the profound dichotomy between the two older characters, with Neoptolemos serving as a kind of bridge between them. If we look more closely at the features of both the archer and the captain, we'll see why Odysseus has his work cut out for him.

In his singular isolation, Philoctetes has been nearly reduced to an inhuman creature -- not unlike the Cyclops Polyphemus whose episode the play richly echoes (see νήπιος: Philoctetes and Polyphemus). He speaks out of a neglected, asocial existence with such lyric power that he might well be the archetypal voice of the outcast, the existential loner, the underground man, the forlorn self persuaded by Nietzsche's potent argument that "God is dead."

In part, Philoctetes can lay claim to being an outcast as his lameness and abandonment so closely replicate that of the first outcast on Lemnos, the fire god Hephaestus.

Philoctetes

O Lemnos, and you all-conquering flame kindled by Hephaestus, will you indeed endure it that this man should take me from your domain by force?

While there are no women in the play, a consciousness of the absence of womanly nature is pervasive. Hephaestus was sent away, or thrown down, from Olympus to land on Lemnos because he displeased Hera, his mother. Unlike the other gods, he was ugly, comical, lame. The cruelty of the mother here, seconded through the play's allusions to Cybele, underscore the pathos of a child experiencing a harsh nature, a world without a mother's tenderness.

Philoctetes speaks with a heart-driven immediacy -- his world is this small rocky place where his pain and hunger drive him to use the bow of a hero to eke out a life:

Philoctetes 

Hollow in the caverned rock, now hot, now frosty, how true it seems, then, that I was sadly fated never to leave you! [1085] No, you will witness my death, too. Ah, ah, me! Sad dwelling, so long filled with the pain welling from my flesh, what will be my daily portion hereafter? [1090] Where, from what provision, shall I, unhappy, find any hope of sustenance? Above my head the tremulous doves will go on their way through the whistling wind. I can stop their flight no more.

Φιλοκτήτης

ὦ κοίλας πέτρας γύαλον 
θερμὸν καὶ παγετῶδες, ὥς σ᾽ οὐκ ἔμελλον ἄρ᾽, ὦ τάλας, 
λείψειν οὐδέποτ᾽, ἀλλά μοι καὶ θνῄσκοντι συνείσει. 
ὤμοι μοί μοι. 
ὦ πληρέστατον αὔλιον 
λύπας τᾶς ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ τάλαν, 
τίπτ᾽ αὖ μοι τὸ κατ᾽ ἆμαρ 
1090ἔσται; τοῦ ποτε τεύξομαι 
σιτονόμου μέλεος πόθεν ἐλπίδος; 
πέλειαι δ᾽ ἄνω 
πτωκάδες ὀξυτόνου διὰ πνεύματος 
ἐλῶσιν: οὐκέτ᾽ ἴσχω.

No one else in the play speaks with such poetic power. When Philoctetes addresses nature, he speaks out of a profound loss of human companionship and of hope of any divine succor. He has formed bonds with birds, rocks and waves akin to those of an child, or an animal. His speech is highly figural, rhythmical, sonorous, and emotively addresses Being as "you," as he does at the close:

Philoctetes 

Farewell, chamber that shared my watches. Farewell, [1455] nymphs of stream and meadow, and you, strong pounding of the sea-lashed cape, where often in the cavern's inmost recess my head was wetted by the south wind's blasts, and where many times the Hermaean mount sent an echo [1460] to my sad groans in the gale of my sorrow! But now, clear springs and Lycian fount, I am leaving you, leaving you at last, though such a hope had never buoyed me! Farewell, sea-wrapped Lemnos, [1465] and send me off with sailing fair to my heart's content . . .

No Greek character could be farther from this mode of speaking than the hero of the Odyssey. Here he's describing himself after Philoctetes has spurned the request to join Odysseus and Neoptolemus who will return to battle:

Odysseus 

I could say much in answer to his claims, if time allowed; but now I can say one thing only. What kind of man the occasion demands, that kind of man am I. [1050] And accordingly, where the judgment at hand is of just and good men, you could find no man more pious than me. 

Never at a loss for words, Odysseus's facility makes him the ideal broker/facilitator. He fluidly goes with whatever role is required of him, rapidly appraises every situation and devises clever solutions to problems most men would find daunting. He continues:

Victory, however, is my inborn desire in every field—save with regard to you. To you, in this case, I will gladly give way. Yes, release him, and lay not another finger upon him. [1055] Let him stay here. We have no further need of you, now that we have these weapons. For Teucer is there among our forces, well-skilled in this craft, as am I, and I believe that I can master this bow in no way worse than you, and point it with no worse a hand. [1060] So what need is there of you? Farewell! Enjoy your strolls on Lemnos! We must be going. And perhaps your onetime prize will bring me the honor which ought to have been your own.

He not only poses as a "winner," but denies the uniqueness of Philoctetes, the actual need of him. If this stubborn man won't do it, we'll find another who can. Of course, he's bluffing -- they do need the actual, one and only Philoctetes. This is the calculating mind of the strategist, pretending that identities are fungible, and individuals matter little as men become pawns on a field of action.

It is entirely in keeping with his plan -- to persuade Philoctetes that he must come back with them -- that Odysseus here speaks with pointed cruelty, but still, it's devastating:

. . . what need is there of you? Farewell! Enjoy your strolls on Lemnos! We must be going. 

No wonder in later times Odysseus was often characterized as heartless and false. But he's about more than mere trickery. Ask him and he'll tell you: His larger task is that of the politician who is trying to hold together a social order that's coming apart at the seams. This too is part of who he is, at a level above that of the strategist and broker.

Let's remember it was Odysseus who captured Helenus and gained the intelligence of how to defeat Troy. For all his machinations, Odysseus is not a traitor to the Greeks as Helenus was to his family and his people. He is tasked with reintegrating the most alienated Greek warrior (more even than Achilles!) for the larger good.

If we put these elements together, we have something like this:

1. The task of persuading Philoctetes is the action of the play. 
2. It is complicated by the fact that Odysseus was the perpetrator of the original abandonment of Philoctetes.
3. Yet Odysseus is the most capable man for the job.
4. The outcome of the Trojan War, and, possibly, of the Greek world, hangs on whether Philoctetes can be turned around to return and fight for those who threw him away.

In a word, what Sophocles has staged is a duel with everything at stake. If Philoctetes is the immovable object, the power of Odysseus's rhetorical and theatrical skills is the irresistible force. When we look more closely at the play's structure, we'll find the stratagems to persuade Philoctetes are scrupulously explored from every angle.

Over and over, variants of the word for persuasion (πείθω) include power, trust, truth and even obedience. Here's Neoptolemus:

What can I do, then if my pleading lacks power [δυνησόμεσθα] to persuade [πείσειν] you of anything that I say? [1395]

τί δῆτ᾽ ἂν ἡμεῖς δρῷμεν, εἰ σέ γ᾽ ἐν λόγοις  

πείσειν δυνησόμεσθα μηδὲν ὧν λέγω;  

Without the use of force, doing and saying are all that Odysseus and Neoptolemus have to work with, aren't they?

The duel of Odysseus and Philoctetes is the agon of truth and lie, of rhetoric and reality. It yields this playwright's mature meditation on the powers and limitations of words, deeds, trust, knowledge and illusion. We'll look at how this plays out in another post.