The Cure at Troy - Seamus Heaney

"The Cure at Troy" is Seamus Heaney's version of Sophocles' "Philoctetes." The play, written in the fifth century BC, sets before us 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 foul wound to a foot, Philoctetes nevertheless possesses an invincible bow without which the Greeks cannot win the Trojan War. They are forced to return to Lemnos and sue for Philoctetes' support.