Philoctetes


Read by LibriVox Volunteers

(4 stars; 14 reviews)

Sophocles' play recounts an episode from the Trojan War, in which the wily Odysseus and Achilles' son Neoptolemus travel to a remote island to persuade Philoctetes to come with them to Troy. A prophet has foreseen that the Greeks will need Philoctetes and his bow (given to him by Heracles before his death) in order to defeat the Trojans. The problem is that years before Odysseus had engineered Philoctetes' abandonment on the island, due to a festering, stinking wound he had received from a snakebite. Will Philoctetes forgive and forget, or will he take his revenge? (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)

Cast
Odysseus: Bruce Pirie
Neoptolemus: mb
Chorus: Delmar H. Dolbier
Philoctetes: Algy Pug
Messenger: Martin Geeson
Heracles/Narrator: Elizabeth Klett

Audio editing: Elizabeth Klett (1 hr 25 min)

Chapters

Part 1 39:32 Read by LibriVox Volunteers
Part 2 46:18 Read by LibriVox Volunteers

Reviews

Interesting play, not so great recording


(3 stars)

The voice of the chorus is filtred with some effect to make it look like a group speaking. It is interesting from a certain perspective, but the result is poor: you can barelly understand anything the chorus say and that compromises a bit your reading of the whole play. The intentions were nice, but the results not so great.