Philoctetes, the bowman, is Sophocles' most haunting and ambiguous tragic hero. Does his pain represent the pain to which the world subjects all creative people? How can he keep his simplicity and idealism in a world populated by liars and political opportunists? These age-old existential questions are asked again, and are found to be as relevant as ever, in this translation by Keith Dewhurst.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) was one of the three great tragic playwrights of ancient Greece; he wrote 123 plays during a career of 60 years and was still writing at the age of 90. Only seven tragedies survive, of which the most famous is Oedipus Rex.