Sophocles' Philoctetes and the Great Soul Robbery

10. The Second Kommos (Verses 1081–1217)

10 The Second Kommos (Verses 1081–1217) You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.4.5 T he third episode comes to a close with Odysseus and Neoptolemus exiting the theater, leaving Philoctetes standing at the entrance of his cave and the chorus standing in the orch¯estra below. Their departure marks the moment for the next choral ode. Instead of a second stasimon, an ode sung entirely by the chorus, Sophocles gives us a second kommos, an ode to be sung by both the chorus and the protagonist. In the first kommos the actor (Neoptolemus) was given only four verses in the entire ode; the burden of the ode fell largely on the chorus. In this kommos the principal role has been given to Philoctetes . He is truly here the leader of the chorus.1 This kommos follows the conventional form of the choral ode: a strophe followed by an antistrophe in the same metrical form. Here we are given two sets of strophe and antistrophe. In each strophe Philoctetes leads off the song and sings the larger part, and the chorus makes a brief response. The same format is followed in the antistrophe. This is a dialogue but different from the dialogue of the so-called spoken parts, being more in the nature of an oratorio, with Philoctetes more singer than speaker. Webster, in giving A. M. Dale’s metrical analysis of this ode, writes of the passion and despair conveyed by the ode’s complex 153 metrical schemes.2 Though the kommos had become a form that could be used in a variety of contexts, its original function was lamentation, and here Sophocles returns the form to its origin. This is the protagonist’s death song, its pathos made more intense because the dying man is both the subject of the song and its singer.3 The First Strophe (Verses 1081–1101) T H E T O M B Philoctetes begins this strophe with one extended musical phrase. With the other actors gone from the theater, he sings as if this were his soliloquy . Even when the chorus makes its response, Philoctetes can barely hear it, so fixated is he on his own despair. Philoctetes has already poured forth his heart to Neoptolemus and Odysseus in the third episode. He is done with pleading his case with those who will not answer. His last tragic anthem is addressed to no one but himself. Solipsism is its ultimate theme. Philoctetes begins the strophe by addressing the cave, his only home for so many years, but now to become his tomb. There is no mistaking the meaning here. “This chamber in the hollow rock,” as he calls it, which he was destined never to leave, is now readied for his burial. T H E D A I M O N The chorus completes this first strophe with its six–verse response. Stepping into the vacancy opened up when Neoptolemus abdicated his role as the leader, the chorus has become the counselor. Alas for Philoctetes , the best that the chorus can do is to act less as the counselor than as the judge. Judgment is what Philoctetes least needs now. His real need is for healing, of the serpent’s wound but even more so of the wound inflicted on his self-esteem by his own comrades when they ostracized him from their community. Here is the chorus: suv toi kathxivwsaı, w\ baruvpotme, koujk a[lloqen aJ tuvca a{d∆ ajpo; meivzonoı: eu\tev ge paro;n fronh`sai lwivonoı daivmonoı ei{lou to; kavkion aijnei`n (vv. 1095–1100) [O thou of heavy destiny, this burden—thou hast deemed it right to inflict it upon thyself. No external power holds thee in its grip, 154 The Second Kommos This fate comes not to you from elsewhere, from some greater source. When it was in thy power to use thy mind, thou didst approve thine own worse daimon.] In leaving the chorus in the theater with Philoctetes, thus detaching it from himself and attaching it to Philoctetes, Neoptolemus has now given the protagonist’s role back to Philoctetes. Most significantly, gone completely is the chorus of the parodos, the assistant in the deception. The chorus here reverts to its primitive...