Before the play begins, the Greek archer Philoctetes has been abandoned on the island of Lemnos by his fellows because of a foul-smelling wound on his foot, and his agonised cries.

[3] Narratives relating to the Trojan War had attracted Heaney and other Irish poets, sometimes for its resonance with the Northern Ireland conflict.

[5] Joe Biden has also frequently quoted the passage,[6] including in his presidential acceptance speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention[7] and at the memorial service for Sean Collier, a campus police officer who was killed in the line of duty during the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing.

[8] In the opening chorus of the play, Heaney's translation emphasizes the role of poetry as "the voice of reality and justice"[9] in expressing "terrible events".

At the time of its composition, Heaney saw themes of the Philoctetes as consonant with the contemporary political situation in South Africa, as the apartheid regime fell and Nelson Mandela was released from prison without a full-scale war.