The Cure at Troy. A Version of Sophocle’s Philoctetes. London: Faber & Faber, 1990. First Paperback Edition. Pp, 81. A fine copy in wrappers.

Signed by Heaney on title-page in year of publication.

Seamus Heaney’s version of Philoctetes, by Sophocles, the play written in the 5th Century B.C., set before us the predicament of the outcast hero, philoctetes, whom the Greeks marooned on the island Lemnos and forgot about until the closing stages of the Siege of Troy. The Greeks were forced to return to Lemnos and sue for Philoctetses’ support to win the Trojan War.

Heaney’s version is well known for its lines, quoted by President Bill Clinton in his remarks to the community in Derry in 1995 during the Northern Ireland Peace Process:

“History says, Don’t hope on this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up,   and hope and history rhyme.”