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Poicephalus

Parrot Forum

Communication and miscommunication in Sophocles’ Philoctetes

“No word. Then I am nothing” (950)
“Who will say word of greeting to me?” (1354)


In his lecture Oedipus at the Crossroads, Simon Goldhill addresses the idea that the incest between mother and son results in the collapse not only of the characters, but of language itself: or rather, of the language the characters use to express their despair. The fact that Oedipus stumbles on the words “Daughter, sister…” reflects this breakdown of language. In Sophocles’ Philoctetes, there is a similar sense of shattered language, but here it is more a case of being abandoned by language, of language and civilisation being so intrinsic to each other that being left behind by one implies being left behind by both. The Chorus’s description of what they imagine Philoctetes’s solitary existence to be like reflects this: “He cries out in his wretchedness;/there is only a blabbering echo,/that comes from the distance speeding/from his bitter crying”(187), using lack of dialogue to represent his solitude. Similarly, it is significant that it is not distinct words that announce Philoctetes’s approach the first time he comes on stage, but rather “the voice of a man wounded” and “a bitter cry” (209,210). And it is no coincidence that upon meeting Neoptolemus, Philoctetes’ greeting becomes an insistent, repetitive cry: “Take pity on me; speak to me; speak/ speak if you come as friends. / No—answer me/ If this is all/ that we can have from one another, speech, this, at least, we should have” (230). Just as, when Odysseus’ plan has been revealed and the men are preparing to leave, Philoctetes’ supplication is “Your voice has no word for me, son of Achilles? / Will you go away in silence?”(1065). Speech is equated with pity, dialogue with company, and language if not with salvation then with something akin to it.
       Throughout the play there is a sense that language eludes Philoctetes: that he is, as it were, on the “wrong” end of it. Abandoned on the island, he has been bereft of words, but now that he is no longer alone he is still at odds with them, for this time words are being used to deceive him or to tell him what he does not want to hear.
At the very beginning of the play, Odysseus urges Neoptolemus to “Ensnare/ the soul of Philoctetes with your words” (56) and Odysseus himself is described by the chorus in terms of his use of language: “He is a hard man, Odysseus, this stranger, / and hard his words” (1045). Philoctetes in turn denounces the fact that “Odysseus should think that there are words soft enough to win me” (629) and, later, repeatedly stresses his position at the mercy of others’ deceiving words as well as the peril of misunderstanding, of not hearing correctly, of falling into the trappings of language. Again and again he asks “What are you saying, boy? I do not understand” (914),  “What can you mean?” (916), “What do you mean, Neoptolemus? What are you saying?” (1037). There is a sense that if he only gets the meaning right or understands what is being said to him, he will be somehow closer to others, less of an outsider—consequently, each misunderstanding is a slap in the face, a reminder of his status as castaway.
        Misunderstanding, miscommunication and incoherent utterances in the play are concomitant with the role of the victim. The physical pain in which Philoctetes is in defies expression, so that when Neoptolemus asks him “What ails you? Tell me: do not keep silence” (740), he can only cry and moan. His speech in this passage is fraught with moans, each statement repeatedly interrupted by cries, stilting dialogue and cutting him off further (782-793). And while one cannot go so far as to claim that Odysseus becomes the victim when Neoptolemus decides to return the bow to Philoctetes, it is nevertheless interesting that his words, “What do you mean, Neoptolemus? What are you saying?” (1237) quite strikingly echo those of Philoctetes. With the loss of power comes the dependence on others’ utterances.
       Matters, however, are complicated by the fact that the figure of Philoctetes is not simply that of the victim. It is also that of the stubborn man who, once betrayed, will no longer be swayed: who, having been cast off by society, retaliates by cutting himself off and accepting no reparations. Thus Neoptolemus’s “I would only have you listen” (1266) is met with  “I heard you before, and they were good words, too. / But they destroyed me when I listened” (1268). His words are steeped in the tones of the victim (eg “Unmarked, the crafty words of a treacherous heart stole on me” 1110), so that it almost becomes a matter of pride, of identity, that he has been wronged. Neoptolemus is denouncing just that when he states “Your anger has made a savage of you. You will not accept advice, although the friend advises […] Yet I will speak. May Zeus, the God of Oaths, be my witness! Mark it Philoctetes, write it in your mind” (1320). Another version of these lines (Thomas Francklin’s 1759 translation of the text) is just as significant, if not more so: “listen to my words and mark me well […] thy savage soul, impatient of advice, rejects the wholesome counsel of thy friend, and treats him like a foe: but I will speak, Jove be my witness! Therefore hear my words, and grave them in thy heart”. In both cases we have a sense of words being returned to Philoctetes: but while the intent of these words is not to inflict further harm through deceit or betrayal, neither is it to make amends for past wrongs or to act as a soothing balm. Rather, they are new words, serving to teach, to begin a new dialogue in which there are neither lies nor deaf ears, but counsel and attendance: a discourse in which words are spoken and heeded, in which men “restrain [their] tongue[s] from rancour and taunt (1140)—something that has not occurred up until this moment. The sense is that if Philoctetes is to leave his prison he must open his ears as well as demand to be heard, listen to others’ advice as well as to their stories. It is fitting, then, that when Heracles appears, he insists that Philoctetes “Hearken to [his] words” (1416), and that Philoctetes’s answer is “Voice that stirs my yearning when I hear […] I will not disobey” (1446).
       The play ends with Philoctetes leaving the island with the Greeks to go win Troy. The certainty about the Greeks’ future victory is essential, for it ensures that Philoctetes and his bow, as agents of the victory, will pass into the pages of history. From outcast on the margins, or, one could say, the wings (one recalls his dismay when Neoptolemus insists he has never heard of him) he will alight onto the centre of the page or centre stage. In leaving the island he will not only re-enter the world of dialogue (or, if we want to be ornate, the script that is life) but become the subject of others’ dialogue. Fittingly, Philoctetes’s last words address this transition from wilderness to civilisation, solitude to company, monologue to dialogue. In bidding farewell to his solitary existence he refers to the inanimate surroundings and the echo of his cries which for years have been his only companions of conversation. The Chicago version of this passage reads: “Farewell […] the deep male growl of the sea-lashed headland […] where many a time in answer to my crying in the storm of my sorrow the Hermes mountain sent its echo!” (1460) while in the Francklin version he states, perhaps more aptly (as his passiveness is felt much more), “Farewell the noise of beating waves, which I so oft have heard from the rough sea […]Oft th' Hermaean mount Echoed my plaintive voice”. In both cases there is a keen sense of release, of breaking free, of the relief of knowing that one’s words will bear fruit to something other than a dim reflection of themselves, that one’s attempts at dialogue will not be met with a wall of silence. It is an ending that resounds with possibility and potential: the world Philoctetes is about to re-enter is a veritable blank page. A “great destiny” awaits him.