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    The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes
    The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes
    The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes
    Ebook99 pages1 hour

    The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes

    By Seamus Heaney

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    About this ebook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJan 28, 2014
    ISBN9781466864054
    The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes
    Author

    Seamus Heaney

    Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. His poems, plays, translations, and essays include Opened Ground, Electric Light, Beowulf, The Spirit Level, District and Circle, and Finders Keepers. Robert Lowell praised Heaney as the "most important Irish poet since Yeats."

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      Book preview

      The Cure at Troy - Seamus Heaney

      THE CURE AT TROY

      A VERSION OF SOPHOCLES’

      Philoctetes

      SEAMUS HEANEY

      Farrar, Straus and Giroux

      New York

      The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

      Table of Contents

      Cover

      Title Page

      Copyright Notice

      Start Reading

      Books by Seamus Heaney

      Copyright

      In memory of Robert Fitzgerald

      poet and translator

      1910–1985

      ‘O look, look in the mirror,

      O look in your distress;

      Life remains a blessing

      Although you cannot bless.

      O stand, stand at the window

      As the tears scald and start;

      You shall love your crooked neighbour

      With your crooked heart.’

      W. H. AUDEN

      CHARACTERS

      ODYSSEUS

      NEOPTOLEMUS

      PHILOCTETES

      CHORUS

      Attendants to Neoptolemus, at least three:

      CHORUS LEADER

      SENTRY

      MERCHANT (in disguise)

      HERCULES (in person of chorus leader)

      THE CURE AT TROY was first performed at the Guildhall, Derry, on 1 October 1990.

      The cast included:

      ODYSSEUS

      Seamus Moran

      NEOPTOLEMUS

      Sean Rocks

      PHILOCTETES

      Des McAleer

      CHORUS

      Veronica Duffy

      Siobhan Miley

      Zara Turner

      Directors

      Stephen Rea and

      Bob Crowley

      Designer

      Bob Crowley

      Lighting designer

      Rory Dempster

      Music

      Donal Lunny

      A sea shore. Spacious fetch of sea-light. Upstage right (from audience’s point of view) rocks piled, cliff-face, grass tufts, stunted bushes. A cave mouth/archway visible up there, with small acting area at that level. A sort of strewn pathway, coming downstage, forking towards acting area. Access to cave mouth possible from this point. Access to second entrance of cave is offstage, right. If a volcano can be suggested in background, all the better; but it should not be overemphasized.

      CHORUS discovered, boulder-still, wrapped in shawls. All three in series stir and move, like seabirds stretching and unstiffening. The prologue can be divided among the three voices. By the end of the prologue, CHORUS LEADER has positioned herself where she will speak as HERCULES at the end of the play.

      CHORUS

      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.

      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.

      Poetry

      Allowed the god to speak. It was the voice

      Of reality and justice. The voice of Hercules

      That Philoctetes is going to have to hear

      When the stone cracks open and the lava flows.

      But we’ll come to that.

      For now, remember this:

      Every time the crater on Lemnos Island

      Starts to erupt, what Philoctetes sees

      Is a blaze he started years and years ago

      Under Hercules’s funeral pyre.

      The god’s mind lights up his mind every time.

      Volcanic effects. Lurid flame-trembles, commotions and eruptions.

      Then, a gradual, brightened stillness. The CHORUS are now positioned as lookouts attending the entry of ODYSSEUS

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