The Journey to Troy: Philoktetes and Tennes (page 589)

Chapter 16, The Trojan War

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Od 8.75-82 – Homer, Odyssey

even the quarrel of Odysseus and Achilles, son of Peleus, how once they strove with furious words at a rich feast of the gods, and Agamemnon, king of men, was glad at heart that the best of the Achaeans were quarrelling; for thus Phoebus Apollo, in giving his response, had told him that it should be, [80] in sacred Pytho, when he passed over the threshold of stone to enquire of the oracle. For then the beginning of woe was rolling upon Trojans and Danaans through the will of great Zeus.  Greek Text

Mor 74a – Plutarch, Moralia

 Greek Text  Greek Text and English Translation

Il 2.716-25 – Homer, Iliad

And they that dwelt in Methone and Thaumacia, and that held Meliboea and rugged Olizon, these with their seven ships were led by Philoctetes, well-skilled in archery, [720] and on each ship embarked fifty oarsmen well skilled to fight amain with the bow. But Philoctetes lay suffering grievous pains in an island, even in sacred Lemnos, where the sons of the Achaeans had left him in anguish with an evil wound from a deadly water-snake. There he lay suffering; [725] yet full soon were the Argives beside their ships to bethink them of king Philoctetes.  Greek Text

Od 8.219-20 – Homer, Odyssey

Only Philoctetes excelled me with the bow [220] in the land of the Trojans, when we Achaeans shotGreek Text

Py 1.50-55 – Pindar, Pythian Odes

But now he has gone to battle in the manner of Philoctetes; and under compulsion even a haughty man fawned on him for his friendship. They say that the god-like heroes went to bring from Lemnos that man afflicted with a wound, the archer son of Poeas, who sacked the city of Priam and brought an end to the toils of the Danaans; [55] he went with a weak body, but it was fatedGreek Text

DP 52 – Dion Chrysostomos of Prusa, Orationes

[2] These tragedies were the work of topmost artists, I may say, Aeschylus and Sophocles and Euripides, all dealing with the same theme, which was the theft — or should I say the seizure? — of the bow of Philoctetes. However that may be, Philoctetes was portrayed as being deprived of his weapons by Odysseus and as being carried off to Troy along with them, for the most part willingly, though in some measure also yielding to the persuasion of necessity, since he had been deprived of the weapons which furnished him with not only a living on his island, but courage in his sore affliction, and at the same time fame.  Continue Reading   Greek Text

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Edited by Elena Bianchelli, Retired Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, January 2023

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