Behold me what I’m suffering, a god from gods!”
Sophocles, too, lets Philoctetes, in his misery and loneliness on the rocky island of Lemnos, call out to the wild beasts and the landscape:—
“Harbours and headlands; and ye mountain-ranging beasts,
Companions mine; ye gnawed and hanging cliffs! Of this
To you I cry aloud, for I have none save you—
You ever present here—to whom to make my cry.”
In his famous ode on the Attic Colonus he describes the natural beauty of his home with particularizing exactness. He has also a wealth of glittering epithet used for local colouring, for symbolism and personification. The contrast of day and night offers to him a welcome mise-en-scène. The sun’s rays are Apollo’s golden shafts and the moon’s light seems to filter through the trees as Artemis roams the uplands:—
“O God of the light, from the woven gold
Of the strings of thy bow, I am fain to behold
Thy arrows invincible, showered around,