ABSTRACT
Like Philoctetes, another cripple whose leg was the cause of his woes, House interminably bewails his fate. But unlike Sophocles' master archer, who has been cast away on an island, House remains in the world, where he punishes both colleagues and patients with his cantankerous behavior. Philoctetes, son of Heracles, is a hero of the Trojan War in which his miraculous bow, a gift from his divine father, has earned him the title of master archer. When bitten by a snake, Philoctetes is cursed with an agonizing wound that will not heal, and which drives all away with its appalling stench. Understandably bitter when he is abandoned on a remote island, left to die alone, he somehow manages to survive for ten years, with the help of the marvelous bow which provides him with suf®cient food to keep him just barely alive. Eventually Odysseus tricks him into returning to save the Greeks and Philoctetes is returned to his former glory with the help of his great father, Heracles, in a deus ex machina ®nale.
