Ixion and theatrics in Philoctetes

The sole independent choral ode in the Philoctetes begins with a seemingly remote mythological allusion to Ixion:

Chorus
I have heard a rumor, but never seen with my eyes, 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, that has encountered a doom so repugnant as this of Philoctetes. For though he had wronged no one by force or thievery, [685] but conducted himself fairly towards the fair, he was left to perish so undeservedly. I truly marvel how—how in the world—as he listened in solitude to the breakers rushing around him, [690] he kept his hold upon a life so full of grief.

Χορός

λόγῳ μὲν ἐξήκουσ᾽, ὄπωπα δ᾽ οὐ μάλα, 

τὸν πελάταν λέκτρων ποτὲ τῶν Διὸς 

680

κατὰ δρομάδ᾽ ἄμπυκα δέσμιον ὡς ἔβαλεν παγκρατὴς Κρόνου παῖς: 

ἄλλον δ᾽ οὔτιν᾽ ἔγωγ᾽ οἶδα κλύων οὐδ᾽ ἐσιδὼν μοίρᾳ 

τοῦδ᾽ ἐχθίονι συντυχόντα 

θνατῶν, ὃς οὔτ᾽ ἔρξας τιν᾽ οὔ τι νοσφίσας, 

685

ἀλλ᾽ ἴσος ὢν ἴσοις ἀνήρ, 

ὤλλυθ᾽ ὧδ᾽ ἀναξίως. 

τόδε τοι θαῦμά μ᾽ ἔχει, 

πῶς ποτε πῶς ποτ᾽ ἀμφιπλάκτων ῥοθίων μόνος κλύων, 

690

πῶς ἄρα πανδάκρυτον οὕτω βιοτὰν κατέσχεν: 

The allusion is richly suggestive. As Jebb points out, Ixion, king of the Lapiths is the archetypal ingrate. He'd refused to give his father-in-law bridal gifts, then invited the man to his home, where he tripped him into a fiery pit. The murder was so heinous that no one would purify him. Some say he went mad, until Zeus took pity and, by purifying him, brought him to his senses.

Ixion's senses then told him to try to rape Hera, and he actually believed he'd succeeded, bragging of the feat. In fact Zeus had created a double resembling Hera, named Nephele ("Cloud"). Nephele gave birth to Centaurus, a bestial savage who mated with horses and begat the race of Centaurs.

For his overachieving, Ixion received the signal honor of being bound to a fiery wheel that spins eternally (it is said to have paused only once, when Orpheus enchanted the Underworld with his song.) Ixion, in short, tops the list of the worst mortals ever, in large measure for betraying a benefactor.

There is far too much in this tale to discuss in this brief comment. Ixion comes to the mind of the chorus as the closest analog to the plight of Philoctetes. The poor marooned man's isolation and constant pain makes him, to their imagination, similar to Ixion. This is baffling, though because Philoctetes

 had wronged no one by force or thievery, [685] but conducted himself fairly towards the fair.

Philoctetes is at once like and totally unlike Ixion. In fact, we've just seen his total joy and gratitude upon being told that he will be going home aboard Neoptolemus's ship. No, if anyone here is betraying a trust, of course it's Neoptolemus at the behest of Odysseus. Philoctetes is being seduced by a beautiful lie, much as Ixion fell for the beguiling shape of Nephele.

Just as Dante put those who defrauded kinsmen and benefactors at the bottom of the Infernal pit, the Greeks saw this kind of fraud as beyond remediation. Essentially someone who has received grace or kindness, some good work and will, is perpetrating a calculated crime towards the benefactor - calculated because it requires the fabrication of a complex, coherent lie, coupled with bottomless ill-will.

The wit of the Ixion story lies in the cleverness (sophos) of how Zeus turned the tables, producing a mock-Hera, a similitude. He defrauds the fraudster (and, some say, enjoyed the embraces of Dia, Ixion's wife) and punishes him by making sure that everyone will see him coming from miles away.

So the tale of Ixion is of doubling down on a double-dealer, a tale of disguise and reverse theatrics in pursuit of the truth. The Philoctetes is also about role reversals, reaching layers where those playing roles might no longer be able to tell when role ends and reality begins.

Ixion is as much about how the gods win as it is about the turpitude of the mortal lout. Their power to play with appearances gives them a strategic edge in any game. Yet the containment of Ixion within his burning wheel doesn't provide closure. His deranged rape of a cloud produced a race of man-beasts that are forever ruining marriages, including that of Heracles.

Consider the long view, i.e. Zeus's: The bow of Heracles that Philoctetes carries has been pointing at Paris forever. It's cradled in the arms of the loneliest cripple on earth. And there is no way that arrow, cocked and loaded, is not going to kill its fated target. The wonder of the story is how; the how lies in wonder.

Proleptic Peripety: The surprise of human feeling in Philoctetes

As Kitto and others have long noted, some of the language of the Philoctetes breathes a common air -- the passages evoking the plight of the main character have a simple, observational naturalness combined with a vivid noticing of another's condition and a pathos that is atypical of the regal, even marmoreal, language of the kings and queens that usually dominate the tragic stage. Even as they suffer, Sophocles' Deianira and Euripides' Phaedra speak with royal temper -- they seem more living statues than hulking, crippled human beings in distress.

See how the chorus describes Philoctetes:

Here, he alone was his own neighbor (πρόσουρος), 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.

 . . . 

Ah, joyless was his life, who for ten years never knew the delight of wine, [715] but ever directed his path towards any stagnant pool that he could find as he gazed around him.

 Χορός

ἵν᾽ αὐτὸς ἦν πρόσουρος, οὐκ ἔχων βάσιν, 
οὐδέ τιν᾽ ἐγχώρων κακογείτονα, 
παρ᾽ ᾧ στόνον ἀντίτυπον βαρυβρῶτ᾽ ἀποκλαύσειεν αἱματηρόν: 
ὃς τὰν θερμοτάταν αἱμάδα κηκιομέναν ἑλκέων 
ἐνθήρου ποδὸς ἠπίοισι 
φύλλοις κατευνάσειεν, εἴ τις ἐμπέσοι, 
700φορβάδος ἐκ γαίας ἑλών: 
εἷρπε γὰρ ἄλλοτ᾽ ἀλλαχᾷ 
τότ᾽ ἂν εἰλυόμενος 
παῖς ἄτερ ὡς φίλας τιθήνας ὅθεν εὐμάρει᾽ ὑπάρ- 
705χοι πόρου, ἁνίκ᾽ ἐξανείη δακέθυμος ἄτα:

...

ὦ μελέα ψυχά, 
ὃς μηδ᾽ οἰνοχύτου πώματος ἥσθη δεκέτει χρόνῳ, 
λεύσσων δ᾽ ὅπου γνοίη στατὸν εἰς ὕδωρ, 
ἀεὶ προσενώμα.

The privation of this man, so completely alone that he is "his own neighbor," is compactly rendered with searing images. He's not just alone, but οὐκ ἔχων βάσιν - he does not "possess walking." The word for walk, or step, is βάσιν, the root of our word "basis," and suggests anything that underlies and supports one's ability to move or even stand upright (this is picked up a moment later by the image of the stumbling child.) To lack basis is to not even be "in" the game - you are immobilized and positionless. Unlike those who are supported when they cannot support themselves, Philoctetes has no "social safety net."

The chorus goes on meditate upon this abandoned, purulent life seeking nourishment from stagnant pools: 10 years without wine!

This group of Skyrian friends of Prince Neoptolemus seems to have seen something here. These men have an aroused sense of the limits of bare human existence from acquaintance with this poor creature. Their tone might not be out of place in a journalistic passage from Arundhati Roy depicting the plight of the Dalit.

But we have to indicate two elements of Sophocles' story that decidedly are not to be found in the work of writers like Roy. The first is contained in the verses we omitted in quoting the passage above:

οὐ φορβὰν ἱερᾶς γᾶς σπόρον, οὐκ ἄλλων 
αἴρων τῶν νεμόμεσθ᾽ ἀνέρες ἀλφησταί, 
710πλὴν ἐξ ὠκυβόλων εἴ ποτε τόξων 
πτανοῖς ἰοῖς ἀνύσειε γαστρὶ φορβάν. 

For food he did not gather the fruit of holy Earth, nor anything else that we mortals feed on by our labor, [710] except when on occasion he obtained food to ease his hunger by means of feathered shafts from his swift-striking bow.

In contrast to the meagre, powerless, painfully slow modality of the man, here is the lightning speed and inescapable accuracy of the Bow of Heracles. This instrument comes from the world of high myth, and we need to bear in mind its provenance. Heracles used his bow for many accomplishments - to win Iole; to save Deianira from Nessus; to conquer monsters and cities. In "fact," he used it to kill the eagle that nightly fed on Prometheus's liver! The bow has the aura of a sacred relic combined with the lethal potency of a fleet of weaponized drones.

That Sophocles can smoothly go from such raw "life" to the height of numinal aura without missing a beat is remarkable. It's also is worth bearing in mind as we evaluate the rhetorical thrust of the chorus's speech.

Their rhetoric is the second element that complicates the naturalism of the tale: The chorus is complicit in Odysseus's con game. They have been going along with the elaborate fiction that Neoptolemus, because he's noble and shares the poor man's hatred of Odysseus and the Atreidai, will help Philoctetes get back home.

Right before the choral ode, the matter of trust is ratcheted to a new pitch, as Neoptolemus asks to touch the bow and Philoctetes, in gratitude for his help, agrees to let him hold it, because:

You have raised me up above my enemies
When I was under their feet. (Grene)

A key polarity in the play has to do with the opposition of certain features of Odysseus and of Philoctetes. The wounded man is limited in space and time, he knows nothing of the last decade, and is so filled with need that he hasn't the poise or cleverness (sophos) to be capable of a sophisticated reading of what is happening. He is, essentially, locked in the present, and completely sincere. And he's facing the theatrical chicanery of the cleverest living Greek, and a series of complicit performers who know their parts perfectly.

Yet, it is in this scene that we as onlookers might begin to wonder whether Odysseus's theater piece isn't showing signs of strain. As the chorus beholds this prince reduced to a poor wretch -- not only humbly begging for a berth anywhere on their ship, but also expressing the most sincere gratitude when he believes they are giving him one -- they confront the transformative power of their own wonder:

I truly marvel (θαῦμά) how—how in the world (πῶς ποτε πῶς ποτ᾽) 
—as he listened in solitude to the breakers rushing around him, [690] he kept his hold upon a life so full of grief.

τόδε τοι θαῦμά μ᾽ ἔχει, 
πῶς ποτε πῶς ποτ᾽ ἀμφιπλάκτων ῥοθίων μόνος κλύων, 
690πῶς ἄρα πανδάκρυτον οὕτω βιοτὰν κατέσχεν:

And this man is about commit the ultimate act of trust, handing his bow to Achilles' son. As the chorus witnesses this, something happens to them. They seem surprised by something within themselves, a kind of innocent treason. Their plotted guile appears to be undergoing betrayal by the uncontrollable motion of their hearts.

It is nothing if not Sophoclean to hear in this choral ode the beginning of an unexpected reversal (peripeteia). The friends of Neoptolemus were supposed to sound compassionate, not to be transfixed by human empathy. Yet it is difficult during this choral ode (a separate post will look at its opening) not to detect an undertone of something they weren't meant to have: actual fellow-feeling. The lie of their prepared speech becomes truth as they find themselves meaning, for the first time, what they say. The revolution is not yet overt, but the ode looks ahead to the change of mind (metanoia) Neoptolemus will soon express.

If ever was a ray of hope in Greek tragic drama, it might be here -- if what we are witnessing is indeed the baseless, imponderable power of humanity to usurp the calculated fraud of the cleverest Greek strategist.

Odysseus's acting and direction in Philoctetes

The opening scene of Philoctetes appears to have two action planes, but really has three.

It begins with Odysseus setting the scene for Neoptolemus:

Odysseus
This is the headland of sea-washed Lemnos, land untrodden by men and desolate. It was here, child bred of the man who was the noblest of the Greeks, Neoptolemus son of Achilles, that I exposed [ἐξέθηκ᾽] long ago the native of Malis, Poeas' son, on the express command of the two chieftains to do so, because his foot was all running with a gnawing disease. Neither libation nor burnt sacrifice could be attempted by us in peace, but with his wild, ill-omened cries [10] he filled the whole camp continually with shrieking, moaning.

A moment later, Odysseus is predicting that Neoptolemus will see the cave where Philoctetes was abandoned more than nine years earlier.

Come, it is your task to serve as my ally in what remains, and to seek where in this region there is a cave with two mouths [δίστομος]. During cold weather it provides two seats facing the sun, while in summer a breeze wafts sleep through the tunneled chamber. [20] And a little below, on the left hand, perhaps, you will see water rising from a spring, if it has not failed. Go there silently, and signal to me whether he still dwells in this same place, or is to be found elsewhere, so that the rest of my plan may be explained by me, heard by you, [25] and sped by the joint effort of us both.

As Odysseus speaks, he halts, directing Neoptolemus to go forward. This is clear from how Neoptolemus begins to describe the cave, because he can see it, while Odysseus, who has it in his mind's eye, cannot:

Neoptolemus
King Odysseus, the completion of the task that you set me is not far off, for I believe I see a cave like that which you have described.
Odysseus
Above you, or below? I do not see it.
Neoptolemus
Here, high up—and of footfalls there is not a sound.
Odysseus
[30] See that he is not sheltered there asleep.
Neoptolemus
I see an empty dwelling, without occupants.
Odysseus
And is there no provision inside for human habitation?
Neoptolemus
There is—a bed of leaves, as if for some one who makes his lodging here.

The relevant points of attention now are three: Odysseus, Neoptolemus, and the cave. Two mouths -- one far, one "not far off" -- talking about a cave with two mouths, whose absent inhabitant will be the target of a ruse, a trick -- σόφισμα -- which Odysseus intends to use Neoptolemus to play.

It all depends on what comes out of one's mouth, Odysseus tells the young man:

τὴν Φιλοκτήτου σε δεῖ 

55

ψυχὴν ὅπως δόλοισιν ἐκκλέψεις λέγων. 

You must cheat the mind of Philoctetes by means of a story told as you converse with him. 

A bit further on, in answer to Neoptolemus's asking why they can't just take Philoctetes by force, Odysseus says he used to have a "doing hand." But now, he adds,

νῦν δ᾽ εἰς ἔλεγχον ἐξιὼν ὁρῶ βροτοῖς 

τὴν γλῶσσαν, οὐχὶ τἄργα, πάνθ᾽ ἡγουμένην.

I see that the tongue, not action, is what leads everything among men.

The three planes of action run through the play. Behind the scenes, Odysseus is pulling the strings. Neoptolemus is the shill, Philoctetes the target. Yet a fourth plane subsumes the others: the war at Troy. Odysseus will always maintain that the Atreidae direct him - he's merely carrying out their orders. What is going on here, on this little island, cut off from every civil society, is deeply connected to what is going on there. Far and near are frightfully close, here.

This interplay of planes makes it sometimes difficult to tell whether what one is seeing (or hearing) is action, or acted -- part of the biography of Philoctetes, or of the fiction woven to entrap him. Odysseus keeps telling Achilles' young son that he needs to become "clever," sophos (σοφός). With a master of chicanery like Odysseus (great-grandson of Hermes) one never has the clarifying comfort of knowing the real from the ruse. A real three-card monte of wagging tongues. As we watch Odysseus act and direct, we'll have to ask: What part of Neoptolemus's change of heart does Odysseus not anticipate? What part of Philoctetes' implacable hatred does the Ithacan lord not know precisely how to use to his own ends?