Oration 52
Imperial Dio Chrysostom Greek- Having risen about the first hour of the day, both because of the weakness of my body and because the air was rather cold owing to the dawn, and most like autumn though it was the middle of summer, I tended to myself and offered my prayers. Then I mounted the carriage and went round many circuits in the hippodrome, the team drawing me along as gently and painlessly as could be. And after this, having walked about, I rested a little while. Then, having anointed and bathed and eaten a little, I fell to reading certain tragedies.
- They were, well-nigh, by the foremost of men — Aeschylus and Sophocles and Euripides — all on the same theme. For it was the theft, or whether one should call it the seizure, of Philoctetes' bow; at any rate Philoctetes was being deprived of his arms by Odysseus, and was himself being carried off to Troy, for the most part willingly, but in part also through a compulsory persuasion, since he had been robbed of the weapons which afforded him, on the one hand, his livelihood on the island, and, on the other, courage amid such a disease, and at the same time good repute.
- So I feasted upon the spectacle and reckoned to myself that, had I then been at Athens, I could not have shared in the contest of those men with one another; for some shared in the contest of Sophocles with Aeschylus, as of a young man with an old, and with Euripides, as of an older man with a younger; but Euripides was too late, by reason of his age, for Aeschylus, and at the same time they did not perhaps often, or ever, compete with the same play. And I seemed to myself to be living altogether luxuriously, and to have a new solace for my infirmity.
- So I furnished myself the chorus-leading very brilliantly, and tried to attend, like a judge of the first tragic choruses. Except that on oath I could not have declared anything, nor for my part would any of those men have been worsted. For the magnanimity of Aeschylus, and his antique quality, and besides the boldness of his thought and diction, appeared befitting to tragedy and to the ancient characters of the heroes — nothing contrived, nor garrulous, nor mean.
- Since indeed he brought in Odysseus as keen and crafty, as men were in those days, but far removed from the present-day malice, so that in truth he would seem antique beside those who now wish to be simple and high-minded. And he had no further need of Athena altering his appearance so that he should not be recognized by Philoctetes for who he was — just as Homer, and Euripides following him, made it. So that one of those who do not love the poet might perhaps charge that he cared nothing how Odysseus should be convincing in not being recognized by Philoctetes.
- But he would have a defence, as I think, against such a charge. For the time, perhaps, was not so great that the features should not be brought to mind, ten years having passed; but the disease of Philoctetes, and his suffering, and his having lived in solitude in the meanwhile, made this not impossible. For many ere now, some through weakness, others through misfortune, have experienced this very thing. And indeed his chorus had no need of an apology, like that of Euripides.
- For both made the chorus out of the Lemnians. But Euripides at once made them making a defence concerning their former neglect, that in so many years they had neither approached Philoctetes nor given him any help. But Aeschylus simply brought in the chorus, which is in every way more tragic and simpler; whereas the other is more political and more exact. For if they could escape all the inconsistencies in the tragedies, perhaps it would have had reason not to pass this over either; but as it is, they often make the heralds arrive in a single day from a journey of several days.
- And then it was not in any case possible that none of the Lemnians should approach him nor take any care of him; for it seems to me that he would not have survived the ten years had he met with no help at all; but it is likely that he did meet with some, though rarely and nothing great, and that no one chose to receive him into his house and nurse him, because of the loathsomeness of the disease. Euripides himself, at any rate, brings in Actor, one of the Lemnians, as coming to Philoctetes as an acquaintance and one who had often met with him.
- Nor, then, does that seem to me a thing one might justly blame — his relating to the chorus, as though it did not know, the circumstances of his being left behind by the Achaeans and the things that had generally befallen him. For unfortunate men are often wont to recall their calamities, and they trouble even those who know exactly and have no need to hear, ever relating their story. And indeed the deceit of Odysseus toward Philoctetes, and the speeches by which he won him over, are not only more decorous, and befitting a hero — not those of a Eurybatus or a Pataecion — but also, as it seems to me, more convincing.
- For what need was there of intricate art and plotting against a sick man, and that too an archer, beside whom, if only one stood near, his prowess would have become useless? And the announcing of the calamities of the Achaeans — that Agamemnon was dead and Odysseus accused on a charge as disgraceful as could be, and that in general the army had been ruined — was not only useful, so as to gladden Philoctetes and to make him receive the more readily the company of Odysseus, but also in a way not unconvincing, on account of the length of the expedition and of the things that had befallen not long before in the anger of Achilles, when Hector came within a little of burning the ships' station.
- And the sagacity of Euripides, and his care about everything, so as to leave nothing unconvincing or neglected, nor to handle the matters simply, but with all power in speaking — this is, as it were, the counterpart to that of Aeschylus, being most political and most rhetorical, and able to furnish the greatest profit to those who meet with it. At any rate, straightway Odysseus is made to speak the prologue, turning over in himself, among other things, political reflections, and first of all raising the question about himself — whether perhaps he may seem to the many to be wise and surpassing in sagacity, but be in fact the opposite.
- For though it is in his power to live painlessly and without trouble, he ever willingly comes into troubles and dangers. And he says the cause of this is the ambition of well-natured and noble men. For, longing for good repute and to be of good fame among all men, they willingly undertake the greatest and hardest toils; "for nothing was ever born so eager for glory as a man." Then clearly and exactly he sets forth the theme of the play, and
- the reason for which he has come to Lemnos; and he says that he has been altered by Athena, so that, meeting Philoctetes, he should not be recognized by him — imitating Homer in this; for that poet too made Odysseus, in meeting both others and Eumaeus and Penelope, altered by Athena — and he says that an embassy is about to come from the Trojans to Philoctetes, to beg him to furnish himself and his arms to them for the kingdom of Troy — thereby making the play more intricate and discovering occasions for speeches, in which, arguing for the opposite sides, he appears most resourceful and most competent against anyone whatever.
- And he made Odysseus arrive not alone, but with Diomedes — this too in Homeric fashion; and, on the whole, as I said, throughout the play he displays the greatest sagacity and convincingness in the matters, and an irresistible and marvellous power in the speeches; and the iambics are clear and natural and political, and the lyric measures hold not only pleasure but also much exhortation to virtue.
- And Sophocles seems to be midway between the two, having neither the boldness and simplicity of Aeschylus, nor the exactness and keenness and political quality of Euripides, but a poetry august and magnificent, most tragic and most beautiful in diction, so that there is the greatest pleasure together with loftiness and dignity. And he has employed the most excellent and most convincing arrangement of the matters, having made Odysseus arrive with Neoptolemus, since it was fated that Troy be taken by Neoptolemus and by Philoctetes using the bow of Heracles; and he keeps himself concealed, but sends Neoptolemus to Philoctetes, suggesting to him what he must do; and the chorus he made not, as Aeschylus and Euripides did, out of the natives, but out of those sailing in the ship with Odysseus and Neoptolemus.
- And the characters are marvellously august and noble — that of Odysseus much gentler and simpler than Euripides made it, and that of Neoptolemus surpassing in simplicity and noble birth: first, in his unwillingness to overcome Philoctetes by guile and deceit, but rather by strength and openly; then, persuaded by Odysseus and having deceived him and gained control of the bow, when the other perceives it and, as one deceived, complains bitterly and demands back the arms, he does not keep them, but is ready to give them back — even though Odysseus appears and forbids it — and at last gives them; and having given them, he tries by argument to persuade him to follow willingly to Troy.
- But when Philoctetes in no way yields nor is persuaded, but begs Neoptolemus, as he had promised, to convey him to Hellas, he promises and is ready to do this, until Heracles, appearing, persuades Philoctetes to sail willingly to Troy. And the lyric parts have not much of the sententious nor of exhortation to virtue, like those of Euripides, but a marvellous pleasure and magnificence — so that it was not idly that Aristophanes said such things about him: "But he, in turn, licked round the mouth of Sophocles, the honey-anointed, as of a little jar."