Philoctetes and the Bow
heroThe hero who possessed Heracles' bow without which Troy could not fall, abandoned on Lemnos for ten years due to his festering wound.
The Myth
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.
Parents
Poeas
Symbols
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:
Explore Further
Philoctetes
heroPhiloctetes inherited Heracles' bow and was essential to Troy's fall, yet the Greeks abandoned him...
Odysseus
heroThe cleverest of the Greek heroes, whose ten-year journey home from Troy is one of the greatest...
Paris
heroParis was the Trojan prince whose judgement of three goddesses and abduction of Helen ignited the...
Lemnos
placeLemnos was a volcanic island in the northern Aegean sacred to Hephaestus, where the god of the...
Achilles
heroThe greatest warrior in the Greek army at Troy, nearly invulnerable thanks to being dipped in the...
Helen
heroThe most beautiful woman in the world, daughter of Zeus. Her elopement with Paris of Troy triggered...
Helen of Troy
heroHelen was the most beautiful woman in the world, daughter of Zeus and Leda, whose abduction by...
Heracles
heroThe greatest hero of Greek mythology, son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene. Famous for his...
Heracles (Labours)
heroHeracles performed twelve seemingly impossible labours as penance for killing his family in a...
Neoptolemus
heroNeoptolemus was Achilles' fierce son, brought to Troy because a prophecy declared the city could...
Odysseus (Trickster)
heroOdysseus was the most cunning of all Greek heroes — the man of polytropos (many turns), whose...
Diomedes
heroDiomedes was the only mortal in the Iliad to wound two Olympian gods in a single day.