Now the arrows of Hercules could be obtained only from Phil-oc-teʹtes, a Greek chief who received them from Hercules himself. These arrows had been dipped in the blood of the hydra, a monster Hercules had slain. This made them poisonous, so that wounds inflicted by them were fatal. Philoctetes was with his countrymen at Aulis when they set sail for Troy, but he was bitten on the foot by a serpent, and the smell of the injured part being so offensive that his comrades could not endure it, he had been left behind, on the advice of Ulysses.
Far in an island, suffering grievous pangs,—
The hallowed isle of Lemnos. There the Greeks
Left him, in torture from a venomed wound
Made by a serpent's fangs. He lay and pined.
Bryant, Iliad, Book II.
Ulysses now resolved to get Philoctetes to come to Troy, if he were still alive, and so, taking Diomede with him, he set out for Lemnos. They found him at the cave where they had left him ten years before. The wound was not yet healed, and he had suffered much, having had no means of existence except game which he had to procure himself.
Exposed to the inclement skies,
Deserted and forlorn he lies;
No friend or fellow-mourner there,
To soothe his sorrows and divide his care.
Sophocles (Francklin's tr.)
Still enraged at their former ill-treatment of him, Philoctetes at first refused the request of the two chiefs. Their mission would have failed had not Hercules appeared to him in a dream and advised him to go to Troy, telling him that his wound would be healed by the famous Machaon. He then gladly went with Ulysses and Diomede. On his arrival at the Grecian camp the great physician cured him by casting him into a deep sleep and cutting away the diseased flesh from the injured foot. He awoke in perfect health and strength, and at once joined his countrymen in the war, resolved to make good use of his fatal arrows.
An opportunity soon offered, for the Trojans now began again to venture out in the open plain, thinking that the Greeks were not so dangerous since the terrible Achilles was no longer at their head. Their new general in chief was Paris, and Philoctetes, happening to encounter him in battle, aimed at him with one of his poisoned arrows and pierced him through the shoulder. Paris was immediately carried back to the city, suffering intense pain, for the poison quickly began to take effect. Then at last the thoughts of Paris turned to the fair Œnone, whom, twenty years before, he had left in sorrow and loneliness on Mount Ida. He remembered her words, that he would one day have recourse to her for help. Hoping, therefore, that she might take pity on him, and perhaps cure him of his wound, for she had been instructed in medicine by Apollo, he ordered his attendants to carry him to where she still dwelt on the slopes of Ida. Œnone had not forgotten his cruel desertion of her, and so she refused to use her skill in his behalf. But when she heard that he was dead, she came down to Troy, and in her grief threw herself on his funeral pyre, and perished by his side.
She rose, and slowly down,
By the long torrent's ever-deepen'd roar,
Paced, following, as in trance, the silent cry.
. . . . . . .
Then moving quickly forward till the heat
Smote on her brow, she lifted up a voice
Of shrill command, "Who burns upon the pyre?"
Whereon their oldest and their boldest said,
"He whom thou wouldst not heal!" and all at once
The morning light of happy marriage broke
Thro' all the clouded years of widowhood,
And muffling up her comely head, and crying
"Husband!" she leapt upon the funeral pile,
And mixt herself with him and past in fire.
Tennyson, Death of Œnone.