The Cure at Troy

by Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney's version of Sophocles's Philoctetes tells of the wounded hero marooned upon an island by the Greeks during the Siege of Troy. As the conflict comes to a climax, the Greeks begin to realise they cannot win the Trojan war without Philoctetes's invincible bow, and turn back to seek his help.The Cure at Troy dramatises the conflict between personal integrity and political expediency, and explores ways in which the victims of injustice can become as devoted to the contemplation of their wounds as the perpetrators are to the justification of their system. Responsive to the Greek playwright's understanding of the relations between public and private morality, The Cure at Troy is a sharp, fast-paced retelling of the Greek original, shot through with Heaney's own Irish speech and context.History says, Don't hopeOn this side of the grave.But then, once in a lifetimeThe longed-for tidal waveOf justice can rise up,And hope and history rhyme.

Genres: Poetry, Plays, Classics, Drama, Fiction, Mythology, Theatre

98 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Works of Irish poet Seamus Justin Heaney reflect landscape, culture, and political crises of his homeland and include the collections Wintering Out (1972) and Field Work (1979) as well as a translation of Beowulf (1999). He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1995.

This writer and lecturer won this prize "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past."

Heaney on Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The Cure at Troy is Seamus Heaney's version of Sophocles' Philoctetes. Written in the fifth century BC, this play concerns the predicament of the outcast hero, Philoctetes, whom the Greeks marooned on the island of Lemnos and forgot about until the closing stages of the Siege of Troy. Abandoned because of a wounded foot, Philoctetes nevertheless possesses an invincible bow without which the Greeks cannot win the Trojan War. They are forced to return to Lemnos and seek out Philoctetes' support in a drama that explores the conflict between personal integrity and political expediency.

Heaney's version of Philoctetes is a fast-paced, brilliant work ideally suited to the stage. Heaney holds on to the majesty of the Greek original, but manages to give his verse the flavor of Irish speech and context.

My Review: Okay, I don't want to alarm anybody, but I am reviewing and rating a playscript written by a poet. And with high praise.

No, I'm not pixilated and I have not been stricken by apoplexy and aliens have not trans-reversed my brain.

The story of the abandoned Philoctetes, a minor moment in the Trojan War saga, is another passage from myth that speaks to me, like The Song of Achilles was. I think this, the myth of the abandoned who is rescued, speaks to many if not most people, at least the ones who feel themselves abandoned or left behind because of their essential selves.

...their whole life spent admiring themselves
For their own long-suffering.
Licking their wounds
And flashing them around like decorations.
I hate it, I always hated it, and I am
A part of it myself.
.
.
And a part of you,
For my part is the chorus, and the chorus
Is more or less a borderline between
The you and the me and the it of it
.
.
Between
The gods' and human beings' sense of things.
.
.
And that's the borderline that poetry
Operates on too, always in between
What you would like to happen and what will --
Whether you like it or not.

Heaney takes a terrible wrong done to a man who committed no crime and defiled himself with no sin, but whose burden to carry included being too much of a burden for his fellows, his companions, to bear, and cast it in terms we can relate to. Philoctetes is no plaster saint, painted in garish and unreal colors, spouting Love and Tolerance and Forgiveness. He's so goddamned mad he can't see straight and he's so clear-sighted that the nature of the world is plainer to him than to anyone else around him:

Of course. Of course. What else could you expect?
The gods do grant immunity, you see,
To everybody except the true and the just.
The more of a plague you are, and the crueller,
The better your chances of being turned away
From the doors of death. Whose side are gods on?
What are human beings to make of them?
How am I to keep on praising gods
If they keep disappointing me, and never
Match the good on my side with their good?

And there, in a nutshell, is the Problem of Evil. God is good, not evil. Yet evil exists in God's world. What is one to do with that contradiction? (I know my answer; I don't presume to dictate anyone else's; but I will say that, as phrased by Heaney above, isn't the answer glaringly obvious?)

Philoctetes is tormented by hope, Achilles' son has come (with the wily and amoral Odysseus), to charm him out of the sacred can't-miss bow and the sacred must-kill arrows that he had as his inheritance from semi-divine Herakles. Without these weapons (and Philoctetes to wield them), Troy will never fall; and Achilles' son sets himself to woo the angry, hurt, miserable, ill archer back to a war he could never join because Odysseus couldn't bear his flaw, his wound, his agony sent by the gods to burden him.

And now it is that wounded, flawed man who is the only hope of a Greek victory. Ha ha, Odysseus. Ha ha, world at large. And NO THANKS, Philoctetes shouts, no I won't and no you won't make me! Why should I bother with you, you who left me in my pain and with my own company as you were bound for glory? Achilles' son charms him, but there isn't enough charm in the universe to poultice a wound that deep, a wound of rejection of one's essential self, a throwing away of one's future because in the present the body stinks and hurts.

History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
.
.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

Philoctetes, by any reasonable person's standards, could be found justified in telling the Greeks to go fuck themselves on foot and on horseback, and all their dreams too. He does, and he does again, and he even does in the face of threats to drag him off to meet his destiny by force.

But then Achilles' son shows his true mettle, and settles in to stay with Philoctetes. He repents of his charm, he even ceremoniously offers Philoctetes his bow and arrows back; Odysseus comes at that moment, full of fear at the failing quest and rants, to no avail; and then deus ex machina (or in this case ifaísteio) arrives as Divine Herakles speaks for the Greeks. Philoctetes understands that his wounds will only be healed when he completes his journey to Troy and fixes his destiny. This is how we remember him three thousand years later: He accepts his burdens and experiences his emotions and defies his fate by embracing his destiny.

Now it's high watermark
And floodtide in the heart
And time to go
The sea-nymphs in the spray
Will be the chorus now
What's left to say?
.
.
Suspect too much sweet talk
But never close your mind,
It was a fortunate wind
That blew me here. I leave
Half-ready to believe
That a crippled trust might walk
.
.
And the half-true rhyme is love.

Exeunt omnes.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seamus Heaney's take on Sophocles' Philoctetes is shockingly accurate and modern at the same time, retelling the myth of the marooned Greek hero with all the detail of the ancient myth, but in a distinctly individual and contemporary voice!

As in Human Chain and other poetry collections, Heaney excels at producing maximum effect with a few words, evoking a whole life story in a few laments.

The heroes symbolise different ideas regarding honour, honesty, duties and rights within a community. Is it ever acceptable to use lies in order to achieve a greater good? Neoptolemos, Achilles' son, opposes the opportunistic and experienced Odysseus. The goal is to win the Trojan war, and they need Philoctetes' dangerous weapon, and therefore all means are allowed according to the older politician:

"Odysseus:
But experience has taught me: the very people
That go mad at the slightest show of force
Will be eating out of your hand if you take them right
And tell the story so as to suit just them.

Neoptolemos:
Which boils down to a policy of lies."

What is right? The myth does not deliver any definite answer, rather a juxtaposition of different personalities' most common reactions to a situation that requires both sides to forget old stories and conflicts in order for a brighter future to have a chance.

The chorus, in its guiding function, starts the play with the ironical statement that all men involved in the major political meltdown of the Trojan War are driven by the same vanities, thus making it an eternal vicious circle of frustrated hopes and lost glory.

"Philoctetes.
Hercules.
Odysseus.
Heroes. Victims. God and human beings.
All throwing shapes, every one of them
Convinced he's in the right, all of them glad
To repeat themselves and their every last mistake,
No matter what.

People so deep into
Their own self-pity, self-pity buoys them up.
People so staunch and true, they're fixated,
Shining with self-regard like polished stones.

And their whole lives spent admiring themselves
For their own long-suffering.
Licking their wounds
And flashing them around like decorations."

Am I the only one who sees our real world of today in those words, rather than fictional heroes from Antiquity? The power and beauty of poetry lies in visualising those different characters' perception of the world: how do we tell the story so it rings true to all those self-indulgent heroes? They are strong, and proud, and in possession of dangerous weapons: we can't afford to make mistakes when approaching them.

Heaney chooses to introduce the action with a quote by Auden, summing up what he sees as the only way out of a violent dilemma of who wronged whom most over the course of shared history:

"You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart."

Not ignoring the evidence of other people's crookedness, but loving them anyway, remembering our own share in it, is Heaney's suggestion, and it opens up for a future. In the end, Philoctetes breaks his isolation and sets off to a life full of new experiences, knowing full well that the island life has become part of who he is, but that he might add another layer to that by breaking the spell of hate, pride and injured feelings:

"Suspect too much sweet talk
But never close your mind.
It was a fortunate wind
That blew me here. I leave
Half-ready to believe
That a crippled trust might walk

And the half-true rhyme is love."

I will be closing my review with Philoctetes' final words, as I find solace and hope in his brave decision to face the world again!

Needless to say, I am a huge fan of Heaney! And Sophocles!

[Márcio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seamus Heaney gives us here a version of Sophocles' Philoctetes, the master archer in the Troyan war. After being bitten on the foot by a snake at a sacred place, causing excruciating pain and a terrible smell, he is left on the desert island of Lemnos by Odysseus and others. Ten years pass by and a foretelling of the seer Helenus, son of Priam, tells the Greeks they can only win the war by bringing back the master archer Philoctetes who was entitled to keep Hercule's bow.

The play starts with Odysseus back on the island of Lemnos convincing Neoptolemus, Achilles's son, to win Philoctetes back. He refuses at first but then gives in. Yet, Neoptolemus's task is not an easy one.

Sophocles' Philoctetes, as well Heaney's The cure at Troy are concerned with questions about the meaning of the moral/ethical being, not only each person's morality and ethics (in the case of Neoptolemus) but also the constant inner battle about individual and group aspirations.

It also made me think of the meaning of the law (the orders given by Odysseus to Neoptolemus) and justice (the relation established between Neoptolemus and Philoctetes). Law alone is an order, a command that shall be accomplished. Yet, justice goes beyond that, it may even require questioning the objectives and limits of the law in order to fulfill society's goal for a common good. Hannah Arendt gave a spectacular example of the strict obedience to the orders given by a higher authority without a single questioning in her Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.

[Zanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this today on the train and was transported by the opening stage direction (A sea shore. Spacious fetch of sea light…) to Lemnos. The language is absolutely crystalline, the simple story and ethical sophistication of Sophocles' award winning (first prize at the festival of Dionysus, 409BC, apparently) rendered sublimely by the poet.

I love Greek drama, less because it's 'timeless' than because it renders a particular time, place and culture with extraordinary vividness and depth, throwing into relief how people related to the great problems of their lives.

Heaney uses the chorus to create intimacy between text and audience (For my part is the chorus, and the chorus/Is more or less a borderline between/The you and the me and the it of it) using hints of modernity, even anachronism (The police widow in veils/Faints at the funeral home). The chorus also matter (have materiality) in the narrative, making their mediation more effective.

Neoptolemus is young and principled, and we see him learn by trial and error guided by his moral courage and conscience, gaining wisdom and confidence over the course of the brief play. Odysseus comes off as a particularly rule-bound pragmatist, for whom morality consists in doing the gods' bidding by any means necessary. His patronising manner to perceptive, thougtful Neoptolemus is at times quite comical.

Philoctetes himself, wounded and still in agony, is a profound study in trauma. Though he also enacts a personal moral code, his personality is fractured and distorted by injury and pain, and he resists the obviously favourable course of action, one that would lead to the healing of his body, out of bitterness towards those who abandoned him, but also out of fear of the change from a trauma-bound way of being where he has been trapped: a common reaction

His journey through the drama, aided by Neoptolemus (physical help, spiritual help, psychological help mirror each other) who gradually comes to understand the person he is caring for, is the story's essential thread, making for a capricious, unpredictable ride. When Hercules speaks to Philoctetes through the chorus, I felt it was only because his interaction with Neoptolemus had healed his mind enough for him to accept the message, putting human intervention before the divine

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 5 out of 5]

 
To End the Endless War

Seamus Heaney calls his 1990 play The Cure at Troy "a version of Sophocles' Philoctetes." It is one of a number of translations he has done from ancient literature; I have already written on his Beowulf and Aeneid Book VI. But this was more than a straight translation, and the author confessed a specific political purpose: it was written as a tribute to Nelson Mandela, who was released from prison in that year, and as a reflection of the Troubles in his own Northern Ireland. But the Sophocles was a play I did not know, so I read it first in a straight translation, to better understand what Heaney was doing with his version. It turned out that I had a version by Kathleen Freeman (1948) in an anthology I already owned. I also consulted the 1986 translation by Gregory McNamee and the Greek original, both available online.

Philoctetes on Lemnos, by James Barry, 1770

First, some necessary back-story. Philoctetes, a celebrated archer, in possession of the bow and arrows presented to him by Herakles, sets off for the Trojan War. But this has angered Hera who causes him to be bitten on the ankle by a snake. The wound festers, and the smell and the archer's cries of agony are so disturbing that Odysseus abandons him on the island of Lemnos, and goes to war without him. Now nine years have passed and the Greeks have still not captured Troy. They hear a prophecy that Troy will not fall until Philoctetes rejoins the Greek army with his invincible bow. So Odysseus sets out to recruit him. But because Philoctetes hates him for his former betrayal, he cannot intervene directly. In the first scene, therefore, he orders the young Neoptolemus, Achilles' son, to befriend the wounded man by telling him lies.

So the trick you’re going to have to turn is this:
                Sweet talk him and relieve him
Of a bow and arrows that are actually miraculous.

But, of course, son, I know what you are like.
I know all this goes against the grain
And you hate it. You’re a very honest lad.
But, all the same, even you have to enjoy
Coming out ahead.
                Do it my way, this once.
All right, you’ll be ashamed
                but that won’t last.
And once you’re over it,
                you’ll have the whole rest of your life
To be good and true and incorruptible.

This is Odysseus in the Heaney version, which sounds almost colloquial. I suspect that Heaney put in the mid-line breaks to increase the off-hand quality of Odysseus' scheming; there is no equivalent in the Greek. Certainly, it is far from the heroic speech of most Greek Tragedies—but then Odysseus the wily deceiver is no tragic hero either. Heaney takes it farther, but both Freeman and McNamee do something similar. The tone is important as a moral baseline, for this is essentially a play about morality and honor. Neoptolemus reluctantly accepts the order, meets Philoctetes, and gains the sick man's trust. The play quickly adds further layers of deception, but in the end Neoptolemus revolts, determined to do what he knows to be right, regardless of his orders and the fate of Troy. It is a play with little action, even offstage, but huge moral and emotional shifts in the intimate space between the characters. Though classified as a tragedy because it deals with epic events and personal suffering, it ends with a deus-ex-machina appearance by Herakles himself, giving it a positive, uplifting ending.

A scene from the play by François-Xavier Fabre, 1800

So what of Heaney's "version"? As we have seen, he translates most of the action with the no-nonsense everyday diction that has become the hallmark of his translations; my first reaction to his Beowulf, for example, was amazement at how well the poet conceals his poetry. So here is Philoctetes, thinking that Neoptolemus is leaving Troy for good, begging him to take him home:

         You could do it all in a day.
One single day. You can stow me anywhere.
The hold. The stern. Up under the prow.
Wherever I’m the least bother to the men.
Come on now, son. It’s in you to do this.
You’re not going to leave a wounded man behind.
I’m on my knees to you, look, and me not fit
To move hardly. I’m lamed for life. I’m done.

I quote this passage also to call attention to an Irish lilt that comes through the text at times, most notably here at "and me not fit to move hardly." Heaney has written before of hearing familiar Irish voices as he writes. I imagine that this sense was intensified with the obvious reflection of Troy in the long-festering Troubles in Northern Ireland. But this is not a theme that Heaney hammers at all hard. This is not a pièce-à-clef in which one character represents one side of the Irish struggle and someone else the other, although Odysseus has the forked tongue of all too many politicians. The parallels with Mandela are stronger, in that Philoctetes too comes out of his island prison to work for the country that had rejected him. But Heaney does not have to belabor that; it is already there in the text.

Philoctetes.
        Hercules.
                Odysseus.
Heroes. Victims. Gods and human beings.
All throwing shapes, every one of them
Convinced he’s in the right, all of them glad
To repeat themselves and their every last mistake,
No matter what.

                People so deep into
Their own self-pity, self-pity buoys them up.
People so staunch and true, they’re fixated,
Shining with self-regard like polished stones.
And their whole life spent admiring themselves
For their own long-suffering.
                Licking their wounds
And flashing them around like decorations.
I hate it, I always hated it, and I am
A part of it myself.

These first lines of Heaney's play, and the two dozen that follow, are not in the Sophocles at all. For where the poet has felt most free to reshape the original and build on it has been in the Choruses, ordinary people, yearning for normality but tainted with extremism. This new opening works perfectly for the play, which might equally well have begun with such a chorus. But anyone who grew up with first-hand knowledge of Ulster Orangemen and Irish Republicans, as I did, will recognize the truth of that self-regard that flashes ancient wounds around like decorations. A plague on both extremist houses!

A production of Heaney's play in Seattle

All through the play, the most poetic writing is reserved for the Chorus. Heaney does not add any more separate scenes, so far as I can see, but he can radically transform the original material. The most striking example of this is in the deus-ex-machina arrival of Herakles. Here he is in the Kathleen Freeman translation:

Not yet, my Philoctetes.
First listen to me.
You hear the voice,
You see the face, of Heracles.
My care for you has broght me down from Heaven
To reveal the will of God to you
And stay you from your present journey.

With a certain amount of theatrical magic, it could be effective enough. Heaney also calls for special effects: An air of danger, settling into a kind of threatened, pre-thunder stillness. Darker stage, a kind of purpled twilight. But now it is not some god, but the poet himself, speaking through ordinary people like himself and most of his countrymen. It is a text that leaps forward into the twentieth century, whether to South Africa or Northern Ireland. It is a text that has become famous, quoted for example by President Bill Clinton on his 1995 visit to Derry, where the bloodshed all began. And it is a text where the poet has moved from blank verse into rhyme. Here are the first three stanzas:

        Human beings suffer,
        They torture one another,
        They get hurt and get hard.
        No poem or play or song
        Can fully right a wrong
        Inflicted and endured.

        The innocent in gaols
        Beat on their bars together.
        A hunger-striker’s father
        Stands in the graveyard dumb.
        The police widow in veils
        Faints at the funeral home.

        History says, Don’t hope
        On this side of the grave.
        But then, once in a lifetime
        The longed-for tidal wave
        Of justice can rise up,
        And hope and history rhyme.

The final, and perhaps the most important, thing that Heaney has done in his adaptation of Sophocles is give the play a new title. It is no longer some suffering figure marooned on his volcanic island; no longer just a neutral name, but the hint of a something positive, a hoped-for outcome at a place we never see, The Cure at Troy. But Heaney is no sappy optimist; he knows that reconciliation requires work. He expands the final chorus from three lines into twelve. Half-hopeful, yes, but laced with caution:

        What’s left to say?
        Suspect too much sweet talk
        But never close your mind.
        It was a fortunate wind
        That blew me here. I leave
        Half-ready to believe
        That a crippled trust might walk

        And the half-true rhyme is love.

[Vivian · Rating 4 out of 5]

NEOPTOLEMUS:
Philoctetes. Let me educate you
In one short sentence. War has an appetite
For human goodness but it won't touch the bad.

So, it took me a while to get over Odysseus playing a part in this tale; seriously, if there's one thing you can count on from me it is a good rant about Odious Odysseus. That said, when it came down to it, the play revolves primarily around Neoptolemus (Achilles' son) and Philoctetes. Philoctetes is the great warrior who wields Hercules' bow that was gifted to him.

Philoctetes and Neoptolemus are two of the more honorable characters that appear. I actually liked them, understood their decisions, and felt sadness for the events that swept them us in this ridiculousness, the Trojan War. Particularly poignant is Neoptolemus's answers about the fates of those Philoctetes knew. Plus, they both think Odysseus is despicable.

NEOPTOLEMUS:
Candour before canniness. Doing the right thing.
And not just saying it.

This is small side story, but interesting for its perspective. It falls around 3.5 stars, but I rounding up.

[roibean · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of my favourite plays i studied in university still triumphs to this day

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.

The president-elect quoted from the next stanza and apparently that citation secured favor, at least with certain Irish organizations and a smitten columnist for the Guardian. Somehow I find this play more a talisman than a monument. Maybe my thoughts on Joe Biden run similar?

Sophocles issued a warning. His play appears both smooth and catty in the hands of Heaney. During the Trojan War Philoctes armed with the very bow of Hercules is a reckoning force. He's then bit by a snake and the suppurating wound is so repugnant that his compatriots decide to leave him on a desert island. Eventually it is recognized that his lethal prowess is required to break the stalemate and Odysseus and Neoptolemus (son of Achilles) are sent to fetch the warrior with the rotten foot. Odysseus anticipates that Philoctetes won't respond favorably to calls of patriotism or any plea or persuasion from himself as he was central in the decision to maroon poor Philoctetes in the first place. Neoptolemus thus takes the lead and attempts to deceive the deserted archer. Friendship ensues but only until the ruse is revealed. The conclusion appears almost snide, a reluctant acquiescence to popular demand.

[essie · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It was a fortunate wind
That blew me here. I leave
Half-ready to believe
That a crippled trust might walk

And the half-true rhyme is love.”

[Isabella Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

NO BUT YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HOPE AND HISTORY RHYME AND LOVE IS THE SLANT RHYME TO THEM BOTH IM ACTUALLY LOSING MY MIND THIS IS SO GOOD HEANEY IS MY GOD AND I BOW AT THE ALTAR OF IRISH POETRY

[Lisa Nguyen]

it’s hard to rate readings you have to read for your comparative literature classes so i will take the easy way out and won’t!

[Laura Vo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most of the time, when presented with classic Greek and Roman literature, I find myself finding it interesting but not enjoyable. I mainly blame this on the fact that a lot of people doing the translating have lost some of the character of the original piece. In fact it often comes off as being so dry that it's hard to imagine a fun and sport loving group of people to have ever tolerated it in performance. Then the work gets relegated to the world of "scholarly" or "those of us who wish to appear erudite and will condescend if you do not take their stern and sober view of the Arts". It seems that if something might be considered as entertainment it is automatically struck off the list of presumingly good literature. This where Seamus Heaney comes in. He offers up a version of Philoctetes that breathes life into characters that have been inanimate for at least 1500 years. While this play isn't long in length it's depth is so profound that all of the characters are there with you while you read it. If you aren't familiar with the story of Philoctetes or you need a reminder - stop! There are spoilers ahead! Just trust me and go on and read the book. For those of you familiar with the story...we have a marooned Philoctetes, a war between Troy and Greece, a bow of Hercules, a prophecy, the son of Achilles, Neoptolemus, as well as Odysseus and a chorus, (of course). In order for the tides to change for the Greek in the Trojan war they need Philoctetes and Hercules' bow, which is in his possession. Odysseus comes to the island along with Neoptolemus in a ploy to trick the bitter Philoctetes into bringing the bow to Troy and changing the course of the battle. This is the barest of bones of the story. Seamus Heaney gives us a tragic, bitter Philoctetes that has been abandoned, in part by Odysseus, with a festering foot ulcer with nothing more than Hercules' bow. Enter Odysseus and Neoptolemus who are there to bring Philoctetes to Troy. They are sent to encourage Philoctetes to come to Troy to be cured and to help lead Greece to victory over the Trojans. The feelings are so genuine - the grief, the betrayal, the compassion, the suffering, the hardness, the desperation, the victory, the need for expedition. The characters are all accessible and so very human. Seamus Heaney creates in us a sympathy for every character, even Odysseus. This story isn't just about compassion and integrity, it is about the wounds of relationships and finding cures. It is about pride and humanity. You will not walk away from this story feeling like you had to grasp at these themes or take a "scholarly" approach to find them. You will walk away feeling this way and will know them for truth because it is in your heart. Heaney's ability to mold language in a way that touches us deeply shows why he is an excellent storyteller and writer as opposed to someone who just writes well.

[yasmeen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very cool play. Talks about the nature of human suffering and isolation.

[Sam]

gotta read the original now I guess which means I gotta learn Ancient Greek which means I gotta become Greek which means I gotta burn down Troy which means I gotta get bit on the foot which means I gotta sweep out a horse stable which means I gotta

[Micah Resnick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks for the rec President Biden in your first inaugural.



History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longer-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

[Teodora Todorovic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another wonderful play, written in a very interesting way and style!

[Prima · Rating 5 out of 5]

When reading Seamus Heaney one is struck by the magic of his language, its sensual embrace of one's spirit and it is no different here in his poem about pain and trauma, redemption and salvation (cure).

Heaney speaks of the role of the chorus in the play and likens it to the role of poetry in our lives:

I hate it, I always hated it, and I am
A part of it myself.
And a part of you,
For my part is the chorus, and the chorus
Is more or less a borderline between
The you and the me and the it of it
Between
The god's and human beings' sense of
things.

And that's the borderline that poetry
Operates on too, always in between
What you would like to happen and
what will -
Whether you like it or not.
Poetry
Allowed the gods to speak. It was the
voice
Of reality and justice.

More, this is a poem about letting go of our wounds, of looking forward, of not only seeking the cure to the anger and hate that eats at us like an open sore but in believing that such a cure exists. It is a story about honor and loyalty, about bending one's will for individual fulfillment to that of the group's.

Heaney, in the end, in the non-rhyme, tells us all we need to know. The message then, the answer, be foundation upon which justice having risen:

History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

is

What’s left to say?

Suspect too much sweet talk
But never close your mind.
It was a fortunate wind
That blew me here. I leave
Half ready to believe
That a crippled trust might walk

And the half-true rhyme is love.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leaving aside questions of faithfulness to Sophocles, Heaney here has a great little scene that has enormous consequences. He begins with a sort of apology for enabling a fetishizing of damage:
"People so staunch and true, they're fixated,
Shining with self-regard like polished stones.
And their whole life spent admiring themselves
For their own long-suffering.
Licking their wounds
And flashing them around like decorations.
I hate it, I always hated it, and I am
A part of it myself."
Philoctetes is damaged to be sure, damaged in the line of duty and marooned by others acting dutifully and now retrieved by still more dutiful men. Duty asks much of even our top-tier captains, to say nothing of the cannon fodder. What follows is a little test of pragmatism and decency: can a deception against a wronged man (which will lead to a long lingering death for him) be better than trying to undo the wrong done to a very lethal man? Can you ask a man to forgive his betrayers and achieve their goals for them?
There is a long passage at the end which is justly famous and frequently quoted. Heaney knew a thing or two about long simmering conflicts and it infuses a lot of really great lines here. The characters have all lost a great deal, and the only way to make all the death and suffering meaningful is to put an end to it at last and put it behind them.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

In a recent interview with the NYTBR, President Bill Clinton mentioned that he read this book often (yearly?). To prep for reading it myslef, since I have not read Greek Drama in over 30 years, I grabbed a scholarly edition of some of Sophocles plays. Having read a Sophocles translation (heavily annotated, and with loads of ancillary material), and read this, I'll say - go for the scholarly.
The flow and the poetry of Heaney's "version" is nice, but not like Sophocles is any slouch - even in translation. First performed in 1990 (Stephen Rea directed on stage), towards the end Heaney adds a couple stanzas to update the message (N Ireland, although others say S Africa as well).
No notes here, there is enough of the original Sophocles in here that reading an annotated translation makes references understandable. Some obscure references are "explained" in Heaney's text (e. g., "Asclepius, the healer...."), which Sophocles does not do. Sophocles just names people and places, does not "explain" what they are in the text. So that is another thing Heaney adds to the original.
Quick read, and enjoyable enough. Remember that 2 Stars is "It was OK". Read a good, annotated translation instead. For me, this does not add anything to the original (in translation - nope, I don't read Greek).
Read the original. This lacks subtlety.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strong, strong version of Sophocles’s drama of the abandoned Philoctetes, archer extraordinaire, left behind on the way to Troy because a snake had bitten his foot and left him deranged with pain. Odysseus and Achilles’s son come on a mission to bring his bow and arrows to Troy because a seer had prophesized that the city won’t fall until Neoptolemus takes to the battlefield with Philoctetes’s weapons. Odysseus, the man of guile, and Neoptolemus, a guileless man, are an odd pair for the mission, but the latter is needed because Odysseus is seen by Philoctetes as the main agent of his betrayal by his former comrades. Neoptolemus reluctantly accepts Odysseus’s devious plan for a second betrayal: to befriend Philoctetes, secure his weapons, and then spirit him off his island of exile as a helpless prisoner. However, Neoptolemus finds pity and friendship and undoes his successful betrayal. Then, with help from the ghost of Hercules (the enchanted weapons original owner), convinces Philoctetes that not only is he as he first appeared, an honorable and worthy man, but that Philoctetes must come along with his weapons to Troy to fulfill their common fates and rescue his countrymen.

[Vladislav · Rating 4 out of 5]

The agon between pride and duty is sharper, and Philoctetes’ intransigence seems to resound at a much higher pitch. Missing, I feel, is the attempt, clearly present in some of the other translations by classicists, to hint at the possibility of meta-theatric sleight-of-hand in the final deus ex machina scene. The number of actors limited to three being a convention of Sophoclean theater, with the actors playing Philoctetes and Neoptolemus present on stage, it must have occurred to the original audience that the actor playing Heracles is the same one who played Odysseus earlier in the play. It could have also occurred to the original audience – a thrilling possibility – that what appears to be god Heracles, is in fact Odysseus polutropos – the master strategist, the man of many twists and turns – disguised as Heracles, descending from a mekhane of his own invention (a warm-up project for the great wooden horse trick).

Enfin, this is a brilliant interpretation of the Sophoclean classic. A beautiful, contemporized version – and should be read and judged as such, rather than a translation.

[Brendan McKee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of Philoctetes, the wounded archer abandoned by the Greeks on an island only to later be asked by those same Greeks to help defeat Troy, is rendered masterfully here. Part epic poem, part play, Heaney’s verse is peerless here. The simplicity of the story (there are only three characters) helps to underscore the raw emotion and passion captured in each and every line. This may be my favourite work by Heaney in fact, as it is vivid and breathtaking to read. The inspirations for this piece, the Troubles as well as Mandela, are ever present without being over bearing and remind us of the continuing importance of its message:

History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longer-for tidal wave
Of Justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme. (p. 69)

[Lillian · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this gorgeous translation by Seamus Heaney, an archer, Philoctetes, has been abandoned on the island of Lemnos by the rest of the Greek army on their way to Troy. After learning they cannot win the war without Philoctetes’s bow, cunning Odysses and Neopotolemus return to Lemnos to retrieve him and the bow through treachery.
See how a theatre company in Brooklyn New York uses the Greek Tragedies of Sophocles to treat soldiers with PTSD. Literature of the Greeks is timeless!

http://www.outsidethewirellc.com/

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the themes of candor v. canniness and private morality v. public duty. The translation was very well phrased and elegant as well. All good things, but as is the way of most Greek drama, this is some guys talking about stuff. The talking is very well done, the emotion comes across as very real for all the artful verse, but--call me a philistine--more could happen, really.

[Matthieu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a proper translation. This is Heaney's idea of what Philoctetes should be like. Once I reread the Grene translation (and maybe consult the Greek), I'll be able to review this.

[Samir Rawas Sarayji · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heaney's version zooms in on the moral dilemma of Neoptolemus and makes for a great drama.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chorus:

This is terrible talk. I had always heard
Suffering made people compassionate,
But it's only made him harder.

[Michael Arnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

“O, how many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!”
- The Tempest


I am a big fan of Seamus Heaney, have been for most of my life, and this was a book I have known about for some time but have never seen it for sale, and for some reason buying it on Amazon simply never came to mind. However, every time I go into a Waterstones at the moment I see this book. It has been given another push and reprint, with Faber and Faber putting a new edition out just last January. It is a good time for a reprint of this book, in more ways than one, and not the least because it means that this play is now wrapped in the more modern (and frankly more attractive) thick-paper editions.

I've always been to very interested in Classics, and Greek drama and Roman poetry are two things I have a huge passion for, but Sophocles' play Φιλοκτήτης is one of the plays I do not know. That is not to say I do not know Sophocles - I think it was Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy who wrote that Sophocles was the one to add greater psychological depth to his characters (in comparison to Aeschylus). This much is obvious to see here in Seamus Heaney's translation of the play - the characters so often feel like they have their own individual minds, and it often feels at times like actual speech that has been recorded rather than a play written to be performed by actors. This is the sign of a great playwright, the authenticity of feeling and observation that is unmistakable and necessary for making the action and plot feel immediate and important, and so captivating for an audience. This is why depth of character is important in every story-telling medium. The characters in this play are fully realised, and are themselves dangerously intelligent.

The play is a conflict between two men, Odysseus and Philoctetes, and the two men cannot because of their personal histories share the stage together without killing each other. Neoptolemus is Odysseus' friend and son of Achilleas, and he acts as the middle man between Odysseus and Philoctetes - and his loyalty between the two men moves and wains throughout the play. It is not hard to sympathise with Philoctetes and how he was treated by Odysseus during the initial voyage to Troy, and Philoctetes does sympathize. However, this forms a symbolic contrast that is at the heart of the play. Philoctetes is the symbol for the individual's needs, whole Odysseus (always stressing the importance of the army and the war) is a symbol for the larger group, and so of course larger society. With this established and in mind, the play not just becomes an interesting conflict between two very strong and intelligent personalities, it becomes a conflict between two ideological positions. Considering everything going on in the current political situation, the reprint of this play is extremely timely. Perhaps this means that it has always been timely, because it is one of the eternal questions posed by human civilization?

This is underlined even further with this plot apparently being resolved prematurely. Philoctetes and Neoptolemus are agreeing to abandoned Odysseus and Troy and return to Greece as traitors to the cause. They may be damned by 'society' and Odysseus, but at least they are free and making their own decisions, and the play could end there - but it doesn't. It ends with the Chorus being possessed by the spirit of Heracles, who then commands Philoctetes to join the Trojan war while being promised he would be considered a hero and his wound that caused him to be left on Lemnos healed. Philoctetes agrees to this without reserve, and then the play ends. This is an interesting ending, and the sudden shift raises even further questions. Is this really justice? Philoctetes really suffered for ten years on Lemnos alone, and simply healing his wound is not going to cure him of his mistrust of society. There might also be something sinister in the way the gods can command human beings like Philoctetes, but at the same time Greek Tragedy (such as Oedipus Tyrannus) was always struggling with the distinction between fate and free will, as humans have been ever since. We are being invited to question what, if any, balance can be found here, and it too is surely one of the great questions of life.

So far I have stressed the quality of the play itself, the structure and the philosophical questions this play poses for us. But this is, of course, a translation, and a translation by Seamus Heaney.

Compared to Heaney's other translations I have read and am familiar with, Beowulf and Burial at Thebes (his translation of Antigoni, also by Sophocles) this is by far my favourite. Beowulf is beautiful as a poem, and I love it, but it is far from the most accurate translation possible, while Burial at Thebes, whenever I've read it I have for some reason found it lacking compared to the Robert Fagles' translation. This play, however, uses Heaney's talents to perfectly compliment the story. It has some outstanding individual lines and quotations from it that feel like they belong in the play, and are not just there to be quoted. The effect of many, and I do not know if this is in the original play, is to suggest that poetry is a way of exposing truth. This is very Seamus Heaney, who of course was rather invested in poetry, but in a sense this is true of the play - with the religious ending and the gods changing the actions of men. This play could also feed into, and be answered by, the staggeringly genius ending of The Oresteia by Aeschylus, where the union of god and men is formed in a court of law - creating a way for man to in a sense become gods. The effect, then, is of synthesis rather than victory, which is perhaps the most mature way to settle such disputes like the one found here in this play.

With this, the last lines of The Cure at Troy seem so beautifully perfect:

'Now it’s high watermark
and floodtide in the heart
and time to go.
The sea-nymphs in the spray
will be the chorus now.
What’s left to say?

Suspect too much sweet-talk
but never close your mind.
It was a fortunate wind
that blew me here. I leave
half-ready to believe
that a crippled trust might walk

and the half-true rhyme is love.'

[Francisca · Rating 4 out of 5]

i liked this more than i was expecting to.

seamus heaney's writing flows very effortlessly in terms of pacing and pauses without actually relying on stage or dialogue instructions (i counted around five of them throughout the whole play). there's a performative sense within the page itself as the arrangement of each line expresses the shifts and movement of the actors' performance. i've read several of his poetry collections but, this being my first play (adaptation) by him, i was pleasantly surprised by him still retaining the poetical quality of his usual work into this medium.

i should say though that a crash course on The Illiad wouldn't be amiss for someone who has no idea who were the major players--from the greek side. and for those who've read The Odyssey and thought odysseus a jerk, you will feel vindicated.

i am going to read sophocles's original version (Philoctetes soon--just for the sake of comparison.

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There's a courage
And dignity in ordinary people
That can be breathtaking."

So says Neoptolemus (Achilles' son) when he shame facedly returns Hercules' bow to the stricken Philoctetes and this sad sidebar to 'The Iliad' shows the cruel fortunes of war and isolation to the utmost.

Heaney's script is angry and powerful and will linger long in the memory after Biden's use of the play in his Presidential campaign.