 | The Philoctetes of Sophocles |  |
The ARGUMENT.
To
give some Light into the following Tragedy,
it will not be amiss to give a short Account
of the Persons concerned in it, that by knowing
their Characters beforehand, the Reader
may better judge of the Author's Performance.
The first who appears upon the Stage is
Ulysses, of whom I shall give the following short History.
Ulysses was King of Ithaca, Cephalenia, and Dulichium,
(Islands in the Ionian Sea). Homer makes him
remarkable for his great Experience, Eloquence, Counsel, and
Skill in Military Affairs. And likewise very famous for his
Stratagems. It was he who detected Achilles, disguised among
the Daughters of Lycomedes; It was he who contriv'd
the bringing of Philoctetes and his Arrows
against Troy; who stole off the Ashes of Laomedon; the
Palladium, or Image of Minerva; who killed Rhesus King
of Thrace, and brought away his Horses, before they drank
of the River Xanthus. For all these Conditions were necessary
to be fullfilled; or Troy could never be taken.
Neoptolemus in the Original signifies a young
Warriour; his true Name was Pyrrhus. He was the Son
of Achilles. A young Man of strict Virtue and Honour, and
he was ambitious. This was the only weak Part where
Ulysses could attack him, which we find he took Advantage
of, with great Art and Subtlety. Yet, what gives us
great Pleasure in the Catastrophe of this Tragedy, we find,
upon the moving Exclamations and Complaints of Philoctetes,
that his good Nature, and the great Sense he had
of Justice, prevails over all other Considerations.
As for the CHORUS it is the only thing unaccountable
in the antient Tragedians. To examine nicely into the whole
Conduct of it would require a particular Treatise, and therefore
I pass it by for many Reasons, which would rather be impertinent
to the Reader, than any way agreeable, or improving;
However it will not be amiss to set down here what, Horace
says of the Chorus, in his Art of Poetry.
And hath a gen'rous and a manly Part;
Bridles wild Rage, loves rigid Honesty,
And strict Observance of impartial Laws,
Sobriety, Security, and Peace,
And begs the Gods to turn blind Fortune's Wheel,
To raise the Wretched, and pull down the Proud.
But nothing must be sung between the Acts
But what some way conduces to the Plot.
Philoctetes, Son of Pæan, went with seven Ships
of his own a Voluntier to Troy; and, as Sophocles relates
it, he was stung by a Viper in one of his Feet, which occasioned
such an offensive Smell, and so great a Pain, that the
Disturbance which he gave the Greeks with his Exclamations
oblig'd the Grecian Generals to expose him in the Wilds of
Lemnos. For which monstrous and ungrateful Treatment nothing
less than the Ghost of Hercules appearing to him
could make him join a second time against the Trojans.
The Merchant is a Person unknown, introduced by the Poet
to make out the Stratagem of Ulysses.
Hercules, the Son of Jupiter and Alcumena; much
persecuted by Juno because he was the Off-spring of a stoln Amour.
Hence arise the great Number of Fables of his prodigious
Exploits all over the World.
| The Philoctetes of Sophocles | |