Ajax, Electra, The Women of Trachis and Philoctetes

Summary

These are the four surviving tragedies of Sophocles that stand outside the Theban cycle of Oedipus and Antigone. Their dates are mostly uncertain; only Philoctetes is securely dated, to 409 BC, when it won first prize, and Ajax and The Women of Trachis are usually thought earlier than Electra. Lewis Campbell's verse translation, attached here, calls the hero Aias and the wife of Heracles Dêanira. In Ajax the Greek army has awarded the dead Achilles' armour to Odysseus rather than to Ajax, its greatest remaining fighter. Ajax sets out by night to kill the generals, but Athena clouds his mind and he butchers the army's captured cattle instead, believing them his enemies. In the prologue the goddess displays the deluded man to Odysseus, who answers with pity. Restored to sanity and overwhelmed by shame, Ajax takes leave of his concubine Tecmessa and their small son, deceives his friends with a speech about time and change, and falls on the sword Hector once gave him, in one of the very few deaths a Greek tragedy shows on stage. The last third of the play is a quarrel over his corpse, which Menelaus and Agamemnon would leave unburied until Odysseus, his enemy, persuades them to allow the rites. In Electra, Orestes returns secretly to Mycenae to avenge Agamemnon, murdered by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. His tutor brings a false report that Orestes has died in a chariot race at the Pythian games, and Electra, who has kept faith with her father's memory through years of humiliation, is handed an urn she believes holds her brother's ashes. Her lament over it is the play's emotional height, and recognition and the killings of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus follow swiftly, with none of the Furies that pursue Orestes in Aeschylus. In The Women of Trachis, Deianira learns that Heracles, long absent, is bringing home the captive princess Iole as a second wife. Hoping to win back his love, she sends him a robe smeared with blood the dying centaur Nessus told her was a love charm. It is poison; Heracles is consumed in agony, Deianira kills herself, and Heracles, recognising an old oracle fulfilled, orders his son Hyllus to burn him on Mount Oeta. In Philoctetes, Odysseus brings Achilles' young son Neoptolemus to Lemnos, where the Greeks marooned Philoctetes ten years earlier because of his festering snake-bite, to win by lies the bow without which Troy cannot fall. Neoptolemus's growing pity for the suffering man and his inborn honesty break the plan, and only the appearance of the deified Heracles sends Philoctetes to Troy and to healing. Across all four plays Sophocles sets inflexible heroes against changing circumstance and asks what nobility, friendship and reverence for the gods require.

Plot or Argument

• Ajax: madness in the night

  Athena tells Odysseus that she turned Ajax's murderous attack on the generals against the army's flocks and calls the deluded hero out to gloat over his supposed revenge. Odysseus refuses to laugh, seeing in Ajax the frailty of all mortals, and Athena warns him against proud words toward the gods.

• Ajax: shame and farewell

  The chorus of Salaminian sailors and Tecmessa describe the night's slaughter and Ajax's waking to what he has done. Ajax resolves that a noble man must live or die with honour, bids farewell to his son Eurysaces, and then speaks of time bending even the hardest will, so that his hearers believe he has relented. A messenger reports Calchas's warning that Athena's anger will last only this one day; the search begins too late, and Ajax falls on Hector's sword alone on the shore.

• Ajax: the fight over the body

  Teucer, Ajax's half-brother, returns to find him dead and defends the corpse against Menelaus and then Agamemnon, who forbid burial to a traitor. Odysseus intervenes: the gods' laws require burial, and a man once great deserves it from his enemies. Agamemnon yields, and Teucer and the boy lead the funeral.

• Electra: the waiting daughter

  Orestes, his old tutor and Pylades arrive at dawn and plan their deception. Electra laments her father and her servitude; her sister Chrysothemis urges prudent submission and reports that Clytemnestra has dreamed of Agamemnon's sceptre sprouting into a tree that shades the land. Electra and Clytemnestra debate the killing of Agamemnon and the sacrifice of Iphigenia.

• Electra: the false death and the urn

  The tutor's long account of Orestes' fatal chariot crash at Delphi brings Clytemnestra relief and Electra despair. When Chrysothemis brings news of offerings at the tomb, Electra will not believe her and resolves to kill Aegisthus herself. The disguised Orestes hands her the urn; her lament reveals her identity to him, and brother and sister are reunited.

• Electra: the vengeance

  Orestes kills Clytemnestra inside the palace while Electra keeps watch. Aegisthus returns expecting to see Orestes' corpse, uncovers his wife's body instead, and is driven indoors to die where Agamemnon died.

• The Women of Trachis: the long absence

  Deianira recalls her courtship by the river-god Achelous and her rescue by Heracles, and fears an oracle naming this season as the end of his labours. A herald, Lichas, brings captives from Oechalia; a messenger reveals that Heracles sacked the city for love of Iole. Deianira, without anger in her words, sends Heracles a robe anointed with the centaur's blood.

• The Women of Trachis: the poisoned robe

  The tuft of wool used to apply the charm crumbles in the sunlight, and Deianira understands too late. Hyllus reports Heracles' agony at the sacrifice on Cenaeum and his killing of Lichas, and curses his mother, who goes in and kills herself. Heracles is carried home raving with pain, learns of Nessus, recognises that he was destined to be killed by one already dead, and binds Hyllus to burn him on Oeta and to marry Iole.

• Philoctetes: the plan of deceit

  Odysseus explains to Neoptolemus that Philoctetes and his bow must be brought to Troy by trickery, since force and persuasion will fail. Neoptolemus protests that he would rather fail honourably than win by wrong, but yields. He wins Philoctetes' trust with a false story of being cheated of his father's arms, and a sailor disguised as a merchant hurries the departure.

• Philoctetes: the bow given and returned

  An attack of pain overwhelms Philoctetes, who entrusts the bow to Neoptolemus and falls asleep. Pity and shame bring the young man to confess; Odysseus seizes control, but Neoptolemus returns the bow and keeps Philoctetes from shooting Odysseus. Philoctetes still refuses to go to Troy, and Neoptolemus agrees to take him home instead.

• Philoctetes: Heracles appears

  Heracles, now a god, commands Philoctetes to go to Troy, where Asclepius will heal him and he will share in taking the city, and bids both men hold the gods in awe. Philoctetes bids farewell to his cave and to Lemnos.

Characters

• Ajax (Aias), Greek warrior, son of Telamon

  The bulwark of the Greeks at Troy, who prefers death to a life of shame after his failed revenge and is buried only through the generosity of his enemy.

• Tecmessa, Ajax's captive consort

  A Phrygian princess taken in war who pleads with Ajax for herself and their son with an eloquence that echoes Andromache's plea to Hector.

• Odysseus, Ajax's rival; Neoptolemus's commander

  Pitying and magnanimous in Ajax, cold and calculating in Philoctetes, where he defends lying for the common good.

• Electra, daughter of Agamemnon

  Unyielding in grief and in loyalty to her father, mistreated in her own house, whose hope for justice rests entirely on her brother's return.

• Chrysothemis, Electra's sister

  Shares Electra's sympathies but chooses accommodation to power, offering a contrast in prudence and courage.

• Clytemnestra, queen of Mycenae

  Defends her murder of Agamemnon as just punishment for the sacrifice of Iphigenia, and greets the news of her son's death with relief.

• Orestes, son of Agamemnon

  Returns at Apollo's direction to avenge his father, using deceit to reach his enemies.

• Deianira, wife of Heracles

  Gentle, fearful and forgiving toward her rival, she destroys her husband by trusting the wrong counsel and dies by her own hand.

• Heracles, hero; later a god

  Conqueror of monsters, undone by a dead centaur's revenge in The Women of Trachis; in Philoctetes he returns deified to resolve the deadlock.

• Hyllus, son of Heracles and Deianira

  Curses his mother before learning her innocence and must obey his father's hardest commands.

• Philoctetes, marooned archer

  Owner of Heracles' bow, abandoned for ten years on Lemnos with a festering wound, whose suffering has made him both bitter and fiercely honest.

• Neoptolemus, son of Achilles

  A young man whose first test is whether to obey a commander's order to deceive, and who discovers what his father's nature requires of him.

Lessons

• Pity for a ruined enemy

  Ajax opens and closes with Odysseus. In the prologue he refuses Athena's invitation to mock the maddened Ajax, because he sees in him the frailty of every mortal; at the end he persuades Agamemnon to allow the burial of a man who had tried to kill them both. The play makes magnanimity toward a fallen enemy the mark of true wisdom, set against the vindictiveness of the Atreidae and the hero's own unbending pride.

  • Why does Odysseus pity Ajax when Athena invites him to laugh?
  • What arguments do Menelaus and Agamemnon give for refusing burial, and how does Odysseus answer them?
  • Compare Odysseus's treatment of Ajax with Christ's command to love one's enemies. Where are they alike and where different?

• Ajax's speech on time

  After resolving to die, Ajax speaks of how time brings all things to light and bends even iron wills, of winter yielding to summer and night to day, and his friends believe he has decided to live. Readers still argue whether he meant to deceive, spoke ironically, or briefly glimpsed a way of yielding he could not take. The speech is a test of close reading: its images say one thing, its context another.

  • What images of change does Ajax use, and what do the chorus conclude from them?
  • Is Ajax lying, speaking in double meanings, or thinking aloud? Support your view from the text.
  • Ajax says a foe's gift is no gift. How does Hector's sword bear out the saying?

• Lying for the common good

  Philoctetes poses a direct moral question: may a young man lie at his commander's order if the war's success depends on it? Odysseus argues that words, not deeds, rule men and that one short shame earns lasting honour. Neoptolemus first consents, then finds that pity for Philoctetes and his own nature will not let him complete the fraud. Sophocles lets each side speak forcefully before honesty proves the harder and nobler course.

  • What reasons does Odysseus give for deception, and which of them is strongest?
  • At what moment does Neoptolemus's resolve begin to break, and why?
  • Philoctetes tells Neoptolemus that he is not base but has learned baseness from base men. Can character be corrupted by bad company, and recovered?

• A good intention and a fatal trust

  Deianira means only to keep her husband's love; she feels no hatred for Iole and blames love itself rather than the girl. Yet she trusts the counsel of an enemy, the dying Nessus, and applies the charm before testing it. Her discovery comes too late. The play asks how far good intentions excuse a deed, and what prudence would have required of her.

  • Why does Deianira decide to use the charm, and what doubts does she have beforehand?
  • Is Deianira guilty of Heracles' death? Distinguish her intention, her negligence and the centaur's malice.
  • Hyllus curses his mother before he learns the truth. What does the play teach about judging before knowing?

• Grief that will not be consoled

  Electra keeps mourning when everyone around her counsels moderation, and her loyalty to her murdered father becomes the measure of her life. Her lament over the urn, holding what she believes is her brother's dust, shows love and hope collapsing into nothing. The play honours her constancy while letting students ask whether a life built on vengeance can be whole, and why Sophocles ends the matricide without the Furies.

  • How do Chrysothemis and the chorus try to moderate Electra's grief, and why does she refuse?
  • Reread the urn speech. What does Electra mourn besides Orestes' death?
  • Aeschylus sends the Furies after Orestes; Sophocles does not. What difference does that make to how we judge the vengeance?

Context

Sophocles' career ran from the 460s to his death in 406 BC, spanning Athens' imperial height under Pericles and the long war with Sparta. Tragedies were performed at the City Dionysia in competition, each poet offering three tragedies and a satyr play, with a chorus of citizens and at most three speaking actors. Ajax draws on a cult hero honoured at Athens, whose island of Salamis was Athenian territory; Philoctetes, produced late in the Peloponnesian War, when Athens was divided over the return of the exiled general Alcibiades, has invited political readings about recalling a wronged man for the city's sake, though the play names no contemporary.

Composition

Only Philoctetes is securely dated, to the festival of 409 BC, where it won first prize. Ajax is often placed in the 440s on grounds of style and structure, The Women of Trachis is uncertain (estimates range from the 450s to the 420s), and Electra is usually dated to the last two decades of the fifth century, near Euripides' Electra. Lewis Campbell's translation was first published in 1883 and reissued in the World's Classics in 1906.

Reception

Aristotle cited Sophocles as the model tragedian, and the plays were copied in Byzantine schools, Ajax and Electra among the most read. Electra was often staged and adapted from the Renaissance onward, and Philoctetes drew the attention of Lessing, whose Laocoön (1766) discusses its portrayal of physical pain. In recent decades Ajax and Philoctetes have been staged for military audiences as plays about the aftermath of war, an interpretive use rather than the plays' original purpose. The four plays were chosen for the Great Books of the Western World (2nd ed., 1990), volume 4.

Comparisons

• The Theban Plays

  The Theban plays and these four share Sophocles' isolated, unyielding protagonists, but differ in scope: Oedipus and Antigone belong to one cursed house and one city, while here the heroes come from the Trojan and Heraclean legends and the conflicts are between comrades, siblings and spouses rather than between ruler and citizen.

• The Iliad

  Ajax and Philoctetes take place in the shadow of the Iliad: Ajax's sword was Hector's gift in Iliad Book VII, Tecmessa's plea echoes Andromache's in Book VI, and Neoptolemus measures himself against Achilles. Sophocles turns Homer's question of honour among warriors toward what happens to honour after defeat or abandonment.

• The Oresteia

  Aeschylus's Libation Bearers tells the same story as Electra, but centres on Orestes and ends with the Furies pursuing him toward trial at Athens. Sophocles makes Electra the centre, dwells on her suffering and resolve, and closes on the act of justice without the matricide's consequences.

• The Trojan Women and Other Plays

  Euripides' Electra, roughly contemporary with Sophocles', sets the heroine in a farmer's cottage and treats the killing of Clytemnestra as horrifying rather than justified. The two versions make an instructive pair on how dramatists can judge the same myth differently.

• Poetics

  Aristotle's Poetics, written about a century later, draws many examples from Sophocles and praises recognitions that arise from the action itself. The urn scene of Electra and Neoptolemus's reversal in Philoctetes are good tests of his account of recognition and reversal.

Quotes

Medical Lens

Three of the four plays put bodily or mental affliction at their centre. Ajax's madness is presented as sent by Athena, a divine delusion lasting one night, followed by lucid shame; the play describes his raving, his recovery and his deliberate suicide, and Tecmessa's account of his waking is an unusually close description of a disordered mind returning to itself. Modern readings that compare Ajax to combat trauma are interpretive; the play itself frames his state as a god's punishment for pride. The Women of Trachis turns on a poison mistaken for a love charm and describes its action on Heracles' body in graphic detail, with paroxysms of pain separated by exhausted respite. Philoctetes is among the most sustained portrayals of chronic pain and of the social isolation of an offensive wound in ancient literature: the festering foot, the sudden attacks, the sleep that follows, the herb he uses to ease it, and the promise that Asclepius will heal him at Troy. Electra's unconsoled mourning is presented as fidelity, not illness. Sophocles' own priestly service to Asclepius is reported by later ancient sources.

• Ajax, prologue

  Athena displays the deluded Ajax, who believes he has captured and is torturing Odysseus and the generals, when he has slaughtered cattle.

  Madness Psychosis
• Ajax, first episode (Tecmessa's narrative)

  Tecmessa describes Ajax's night of slaughter, his return to his senses among the carcasses, and his silent, motionless grief.

  Madness Psychosis Grief
• Ajax, suicide speech

  Alone on the shore, Ajax fixes Hector's sword in the ground, prays to Zeus, Hermes and the Furies, and falls on it.

  Suicide
• The Women of Trachis, Hyllus's report and exodos

  The robe clings to Heracles' flesh and devours it; his spasms, cries and alternating collapse are described and then enacted when he is carried on stage.

  Pharmacology Poisons Pain
• The Women of Trachis, Deianira's death

  The nurse reports Deianira's silent suicide inside the house after Hyllus's curse.

  Suicide Grief
• Philoctetes, the attack of pain

  Philoctetes is seized by agony from his wounded foot, begs Neoptolemus to cut it off, gives him the bow and sinks into sleep.

  Pain Disability Deformity
• Philoctetes, exodos

  Heracles promises that Asclepius will be sent to Troy to heal the wound.

  Ancient Medicine

Creative Prompts

• Dialogue

  Write the conversation between Neoptolemus and his father's ghost that might have taken place the night before he returned the bow, in which Achilles asks what kind of victory his son wants.

• Fiction

  Retell the night of Ajax's madness from Tecmessa's point of view, from the moment he takes up his sword in the dark to the morning when he sits silent among the slaughtered beasts.

• Essay

  Ajax, Electra, Deianira and Philoctetes each refuse to bend. Write an essay judging which of them shows true constancy and which mere stubbornness, using specific scenes from at least two plays.

• Classroom

  Stage the agon between Electra and Clytemnestra in groups of three, with one student as director. After performing it, write a paragraph on whose argument the audience found stronger and why.

Further Reading

• Sophocles: An Interpretation, R. P. Winnington-Ingram

  A classic study with chapters on each of the seven plays, attentive to the gods and the heroic temper.

• The Heroic Temper: Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy, Bernard Knox

  Knox's influential account of the Sophoclean hero who will not yield, with an extended reading of Ajax.

• Laocoön, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

  Chapter IV and following discuss how Sophocles represents Philoctetes' physical pain on stage.