Seamus Heaney's version of Sophocles' Philoctetes is responsive to the Greek playwright's understanding of the relations between public and private morality. It dramatizes the conflict between personal integrity and political expediency and explores ways in which the victims of injustice can become as devoted to the contemplation of their wounded as the perpetrators are to the justification of their system. This play is the 1990 production of the Field Day Theatre Company.