Philoctetes and the Bow
The hero who possessed Heracles' bow without which Troy could not fall, abandoned on Lemnos for ten years due to his festering wound.
The Legend of Philoctetes and the Bow
Philoctetes was the warrior who lit Heracles' funeral pyre on Mount Oeta. In gratitude, the dying Heracles bequeathed him his bow and the arrows dipped in the Hydra's blood — weapons that never missed. Philoctetes joined the Greek expedition to Troy, but on the way, he was bitten by a sacred serpent on the island of Chryse (or Lemnos). The wound festered and would not heal, and its stench and Philoctetes' screams of agony became unbearable. On Odysseus's advice, the Greeks abandoned him on the deserted island of Lemnos. For ten years he survived alone, using the divine bow to hunt birds. Then the seer Helenus, captured by the Greeks, revealed that Troy could only fall with Heracles' bow. Odysseus and Neoptolemus (Achilles' son) returned to Lemnos. After much persuasion — Philoctetes justifiably despised the men who abandoned him — he agreed to come. At Troy, he killed Paris with an arrow.
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Fun Fact
Sophocles' Philoctetes (409 BC) is considered the first great drama about the ethics of using people as instruments. Is it right to manipulate a suffering man because you need his weapon? The play has been staged in military hospitals and veteran treatment centres because its exploration of abandonment, resentment, and reintegration mirrors the experience of wounded soldiers. Edmund Wilson's influential essay "The Wound and the Bow" (1941) used Philoctetes to argue that artistic genius often comes paired with suffering.
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth. See our full guide to English words from Greek mythology.
Explore Further
Philoctetes
🗡 heroArcher abandoned on Lemnos
Philoctetes inherited Heracles' bow and was essential to Troy's fall, yet the Greeks abandoned him for ten years because of a festering wound.
Iphitus
🗡 heroNone recorded
Son of Eurytus who gave Odysseus the great bow and was later murdered by Heracles
Eurytion
🗡 heroHunting, archery
Argonaut and skilled hunter who later participated in the Calydonian Boar Hunt
Telephus
🗡 herofate
Son of Heracles and Auge, king of Mysia, who was wounded by Achilles and could only be healed by the same spear.
Helenus
🗡 heroProphecy, archery
Trojan prince and seer who possessed the gift of prophecy and later aided the Greeks
Diomedes
🗡 heroKing of Argos who wounded gods
Diomedes was the only mortal in the Iliad to wound two Olympian gods in a single day.
Meleager
🗡 heroHero whose life was bound to a burning log
The leader of the Calydonian Boar Hunt whose fate was tied to a charred brand — when it burned out, he died.
Archeptolemus
🗡 heroChariot warfare, service
Trojan charioteer of Hector who was killed by an arrow from Teucer during the battle at the Greek ships
Meleager
🗡 heroLeader of the Calydonian Boar Hunt
Meleager's life was bound to a burning log.
Odysseus
🗡 heroKing of Ithaca, hero of the Trojan War
The cleverest of the Greek heroes, whose ten-year journey home from Troy is one of the greatest stories ever told. Odysseus's cunning was his greatest weapon.
Bellerophon
🗡 heroThe hero who tamed Pegasus
The Corinthian hero who tamed the winged horse Pegasus and slew the Chimera, but fell from heaven when he tried to reach Olympus.
Pandarus
🗡 heroArchery, treachery
Trojan archer from Lycia who broke the truce between Greeks and Trojans by wounding Menelaus