The sailing of the Greeks to the shores of Troy was calm. The wind was blowing all the time. The ships quickly cut through the sea waves. The shores of the island of Lemnos were already visible. Here, not far from Lemnos, was the deserted island of Chrys. There was an altar on it, erected in honor of the patroness of the island, the nymph Chryse. The Greeks had to find this altar and offer a sacrifice to the nymph on it, since it was predicted to them that they would only take Troy if they landed on the shore of Chryse along the way and made a sacrifice on it. The great hero Jason set up an altar on this island when he sailed with his companions, the Argonauts, to distant Colchis for the Golden Fleece. The great son of Zeus, Hercules, also sacrificed on this altar when he launched a campaign against Troy to avenge an insult to King Laomedon. Hercules' friend Philoctetes knew where the altar was. He volunteered to show it to the heroes. The Greek leaders followed Philoctetes. The island was deserted. It was all overgrown with low bushes. Finally, the altar is visible, already half collapsed. The heroes approached him. Suddenly, a large snake guarding the altar crawled out of the bushes and bit the hero Philoctetes in the leg. Philoctetes screamed and fell to the ground. The heroes ran up to him, but it was too late. The snake's venom penetrated into the wound. She began to get terribly sick. Copious pus flowed from the wound, infecting the air with a terrible stench. Philoctetes' suffering was unbearable. He moaned incessantly both day and night. The groans of the unfortunate Philoctetes haunted the Greeks. The warriors began to grumble. They could not stand the stench that Philoctetes' wound spread. Finally, the leaders of the Greeks decided, on the advice of Odysseus, to leave their unfortunate friend Hercules somewhere on the shore. While sailing past the island of Lemnos, the leaders ordered the fallen Philoctetes to be carried to the deserted shore. There, among the rocks, they laid him, leaving him his bow and arrows, clothes and food. Thus the Greeks abandoned that hero, without whose arrows they would not have been able to take Troy. For nine years Philoctetes had to languish on a deserted shore. But the time came when the Greeks themselves had to send for Philoctetes and ask him for help. This happened in the tenth year of the siege of Troy.
Having left Philoctetes, the Greeks set off on a further journey and finally approached the Trojan shores, where so much work, danger and great feats awaited them.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru