Books by Sophocles

The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus

by Sophocles

Detailed notes accompany modern translations of the stories of Oedipus, a king who is unable to escape his tragic fate and ends his days in exile

Sophocles, The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone

by Sophocles

The critically acclaimed Fitts and Fitzgerald translation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Cycle that chronicles the tragic downfall of the royal family of Thebes.

The ancient myth of Oedipus, which still reverberates to this day, provided Sophocles with material for three great tragedies—Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone—that together recount the downfall of Oedipus, king of Thebes, his death in exile, and the heroic, defiant stand made by his daughter Antigone.

Written for a modern audience, these English translations of Sophocles’ trilogy aim to capture the directness, simplicity, and concentrated richness of Sophocles’ plays in clear, credible English verse that is both readable and actable.

The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone

by Sophocles

Sophocles' play, first staged in the fifth century B.C., stands as a timely exploration of the conflict between those who affirm the individual's human rights and those who must protect the state's security. During the War of the Seven Against Thebes, Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus, learns that her brothers have killed each other, having been forced onto opposing sides of the battle. When Creon, king of Thebes, grants burial of one but not the "treacherous" other, Antigone defies his order, believing it her duty to bury all of her close kin. Enraged, Creon condemns her to death, and his soldiers wall her up in a tomb. While Creon eventually agrees to Antigone's release, it is too late: She takes her own life, initiating a tragic repetition of events in her family's history.

In this outstanding new translation, commissioned by Ireland's renowned Abbey Theatre to commemorate its centenary, Seamus Heaney exposes the darkness and the humanity in Sophocles' masterpiece, and inks it with his own modern and masterly touch.

The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone

by Sophocles

In this outstanding new translation, commissioned by Ireland's renowned Abbey Theatre to commemorate its centenary, Seamus Heaney exposes the darkness and the humanity in Sophocles' masterpiece, and inks it with his own modern and masterly touch.

Sophocles' play, first staged in the fifth century B.C., stands as a timely exploration of the conflict between those who affirm the individual's human rights and those who must protect the state's security. During the War of the Seven Against Thebes, Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus, learns that her brothers have killed each other, having been forced onto opposing sides of the battle. When Creon, king of Thebes, grants burial of one but not the "treacherous" other, Antigone defies his order, believing it her duty to bury all of her close kin. Enraged, Creon condemns her to death, and his soldiers wall her up in a tomb. While Creon eventually agrees to Antigone's release, it is too late: She takes her own life, initiating a tragic repetition of events in her family's history.

Oedipus at Colonus (Dover Thrift Editions: Plays)

by Sophocles

This outstanding drama of classical antiquity, part of the Cadmean trilogy that includes Oedipus Rex and Antigone, was first presented in 405 B.C. Thought to be among Sophocles' last works, it represents the great playwright's crowning achievement in depicting the painful quest for truth and self-knowledge that leads to spiritual triumph.
Blinded and disgraced, Oedipus dwells quietly in Thebes until the kingdom is roiled by discord attributed to his presence and the curse put upon him by the gods. The citizens banish their erstwhile sovereign to years of lonely exile. Finally, the aging king finds refuge in a sacred olive grove at Colonus, near Athens. In the meantime, Oedipus' two sons wage a struggle for control of Thebes. Secure in the protection of Theseus, ruler of Athens, and faithfully attended by his daughters Antigone and Ismene, Oedipus is a towering tragic figure whose final years comprise a moving portrayal of the perseverance of human dignity in the face of an incomprehensible and impersonal universe.
Students, teachers, and lovers of classical drama will welcome this inexpensive edition of an enduring literary and theatrical landmark.

Five Great Greek Tragedies (Dover Thrift Editions: Plays)

by Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides

This anthology brings together five of the greatest, most studied, and most performed Greek tragedies, each in an outstanding translation:
• Oedipus Rex and Electra by Sophocles (translated by George Young), in which the much-admired playwright explores the individual's search for truth and self-knowledge
• Medea and Bacchae by Euripides (translated by Henry Hart Milman), favorites with modern audiences for their psychological subtlety and the humanity of their characters
• Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus (translated by George Thomson), a monumental work that examines relations between humans and the gods
These masterpieces of world literature represent the very apex of Greek drama and are essential for both the home library and the classroom.

The Complete Plays of Sophocles: A New Translation

by Sophocles

“Bagg and Scully’s renderings strike me as the most performable versions of Sophocles I’ve ever encountered…if you’re looking for the translation that best reflects the emotional force and expressive range of the original plays, you would be hard pressed to do better.” — Philadelphia Inquirer
Award-winning poet-playwrights Robert Bagg and James Scully present a gripping new translation of Western literature’s earliest treasures in The Complete Plays of Sophocles. In the tradition of Robert Fagles’ bestselling translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey, and retaining the textual authenticity of Richmond Lattimore’s Aeschylus, Bagg and Scully render Sophocles’ dramas accessible and exciting for the modern reader. Students new to Athenian drama, readers of classical literature, and anyone wishing to kindle anew their passion for Greek tragedy will find no more captivating entrance to these milestones of world literature than in Bagg and Scully’s The Complete Plays of Sophocles.

The Oedipus Cycle: A New Translation

by Sophocles

Award-winning poet and playwright Robert Bagg offers a set of exciting and authentic new translations of Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Kolonos, and Antigone—together known as The Oedipus Cycle.
One of the unquestionable acmes of world literature, Sophocles’s immortal series of plays centers upon the royal family of Thebes, whose struggles for nobility and greatness lead paradoxically to their own tragic downfalls. Portraying humankind at its worst and most fallible even while exploring the heights of virtue and honor, the plays shine a searing light upon questions of fate and free will, destiny and responsibility, hubris and humility, honor and obligation, and more. Robert Bagg’s timely translations allow the power and depth of Sophocles’s masterpieces to shine through clearly to readers today.

Electra and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)

by Sophocles

Four seminal tragedies by the master Greek dramatist, in sparkling new translations

Of the more than one hundred plays Sophocles wrote over the course of his long life, only seven survive. This volume collects four of them, all newly translated. Electra portrays the grief of a young woman for her father, Agamemnon, who has been killed by her mother's lover. Ajax depicts the enigma of power and weakness vis-àvis the fall of the great hero. Women of Trachis dramatizes the tragic love and error of Heracles's deserted wife, Deianeira; Philoctetes examines the conflict between physical force and moral strength.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Greek Tragedy (Penguin Classics)

by Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides

Three masterpieces of classical tragedy

Containing Aeschylus's Agamemnon, Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, and Euripides' Medea, this important new selection brings the best works of the great tragedians together in one perfect introductory volume. This volume also includes extracts from Aristophanes' comedy The Frogs and a selection from Aristotle's Poetics.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Antigone (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)

by Sophocles

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly recreate the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. The series seeks to recover the entire extant corpus of Greek tragedy, quite as though the ancient tragedians wrote in the English of our own time. Under the editorship of Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro, each of these volumes includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the plays.

This finely tuned translation of Sophocles' Antigone by Richard Emil Braun, both a distinguished poet and a professional scholar critic, offers, in lean, sinewy verse and lyrics of unusual intensity, an interpretation informed by exemplary scholarship and critical insight. Braun presents an Antigone not marred by excessive sentimentality or pietistic attitudes.

His translation underscores the extraordinary structural symmetry and beauty of Sophocles' design by focusing on the balanced and harmonious view of tragically opposed wills that makes the play so moving. Unlike the traditionally gentle and pious protagonist opposed to a brutal and villainous Creon, Braun's Antigone emerges as a true Sophoclean heroine with all the harshness and even hubris, as well as pathos and beauty, that Sophoclean heroism requires. Braun also reveals a Creon as stubbornly "principled" as Antigone, instead of simply the arrogant tyrant of conventional interpretations.

Antigone (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)

by Sophocles

Oedipus, the former ruler of Thebes, has died. Now, when his young daughter Antigone defies her uncle, Kreon, the new ruler, because he has prohibited the burial of her dead brother, she and he enact a primal conflict between young and old, woman and man, individual and ruler, family and state, courageous and self-sacrificing reverence for the gods of the earth and perhaps self-serving allegiance to the gods of the sky.
Echoing through western culture for more than two millennia, Sophocles' Antigone has been a touchstone of thinking about human conflict and human tragedy, the role of the divine in human life, and the degree to which men and women are the creators of their own destiny. This exciting translation of the play is extremely faithful to the Greek, eminently playable, and poetically powerful.
For readers, actors, students, teachers, and theatrical directors, this affordable paperback edition of one of the greatest plays in the history of the western world provides the best combination of contemporary, powerful language, along with superb background and notes on meaning, interpretation, and ancient beliefs, attitudes, and contexts.

"Sophocles' text is inexhaustibly actual. It is also, at many points, challenging and remote from us. The Gibbons-Segal translation, with its rich annotations, conveys both the difficulties and the formidable immediacy. The choral odes, so vital to Sophocles' purpose, have never been rendered with finer energy and insight. Across more than two thousand years, a great dark music sounds for us."
--George Steiner, Churchill College, Cambridge

"Produces a language that is easy to read and easy to speak.... Enthusiastically recommended."--Library Journal [Starred Review]

The Theban Plays of Sophocles (The Yale New Classics Series)

by Sophocles

In this needed and highly anticipated new translation of the Theban plays of Sophocles, David R. Slavitt presents a fluid, accessible, and modern version for both longtime admirers of the plays and those encountering them for the first time. Unpretentious and direct, Slavitt’s translation preserves the innate verve and energy of the dramas, engaging the reader—or audience member—directly with Sophocles’ great texts. Slavitt chooses to present the plays not in narrative sequence but in the order in which they were composed—Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannos, Oedipus at Colonus—thereby underscoring the fact that the story of Oedipus is one to which Sophocles returned over the course of his lifetime. This arrangement also lays bare the record of Sophocles’ intellectual and artistic development.

Renowned as a poet and translator, Slavitt has translated Ovid, Virgil, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Ausonius, Prudentius, Valerius Flaccus, and Bacchylides as well as works in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Hebrew. In this volume he avoids personal intrusion on the texts and relies upon the theatrical machinery of the plays themselves. The result is a major contribution to the art of translation and a version of the Oedipus plays that will appeal enormously to readers, theater directors, and actors.

The Theban Plays of Sophocles (The Yale New Classics Series)

by Sophocles

A new and welcome translation of Sophocles’ great Oedipus cycle, by one of the distinguished translators of our era

In this needed and highly anticipated new translation of the Theban plays of Sophocles, David R. Slavitt presents a fluid, accessible, and modern version for both longtime admirers of the plays and those encountering them for the first time. Unpretentious and direct, Slavitt’s translation preserves the innate verve and energy of the dramas, engaging the reader—or audience member—directly with Sophocles’ great texts. Slavitt chooses to present the plays not in narrative sequence but in the order in which they were composed—Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannos, Oedipus at Colonus—thereby underscoring the fact that the story of Oedipus is one to which Sophocles returned over the course of his lifetime. This arrangement also lays bare the record of Sophocles’ intellectual and artistic development.

Renowned as a poet and translator, Slavitt has translated Ovid, Virgil, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Ausonius, Prudentius, Valerius Flaccus, and Bacchylides as well as works in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Hebrew. In this volume he avoids personal intrusion on the texts and relies upon the theatrical machinery of the plays themselves. The result is a major contribution to the art of translation and a version of the Oedipus plays that will appeal enormously to readers, theater directors, and actors.

Sophocles I: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus (The Complete Greek Tragedies)

by Sophocles

Sophocles I contains the plays “Antigone,” translated by Elizabeth Wyckoff; “Oedipus the King,” translated by David Grene; and “Oedipus at Colonus,” translated by Robert Fitzgerald.

Sixty years ago, the University of Chicago Press undertook a momentous project: a new translation of the Greek tragedies that would be the ultimate resource for teachers, students, and readers. They succeeded. Under the expert management of eminent classicists David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, those translations combined accuracy, poetic immediacy, and clarity of presentation to render the surviving masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in an English so lively and compelling that they remain the standard translations. Today, Chicago is taking pains to ensure that our Greek tragedies remain the leading English-language versions throughout the twenty-first century.

In this highly anticipated third edition, Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most have carefully updated the translations to bring them even closer to the ancient Greek while retaining the vibrancy for which our English versions are famous. This edition also includes brand-new translations of Euripides’ Medea, The Children of Heracles, Andromache, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, fragments of lost plays by Aeschylus, and the surviving portion of Sophocles’s satyr-drama The Trackers. New introductions for each play offer essential information about its first production, plot, and reception in antiquity and beyond. In addition, each volume includes an introduction to the life and work of its tragedian, as well as notes addressing textual uncertainties and a glossary of names and places mentioned in the plays.

In addition to the new content, the volumes have been reorganized both within and between volumes to reflect the most up-to-date scholarship on the order in which the plays were originally written. The result is a set of handsome paperbacks destined to introduce new generations of readers to these foundational works of Western drama, art, and life.

Sophocles I: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus (The Complete Greek Tragedies)

by Sophocles

Sophocles I contains the plays “Antigone,” translated by Elizabeth Wyckoff; “Oedipus the King,” translated by David Grene; and “Oedipus at Colonus,” translated by Robert Fitzgerald.

Sixty years ago, the University of Chicago Press undertook a momentous project: a new translation of the Greek tragedies that would be the ultimate resource for teachers, students, and readers. They succeeded. Under the expert management of eminent classicists David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, those translations combined accuracy, poetic immediacy, and clarity of presentation to render the surviving masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in an English so lively and compelling that they remain the standard translations. Today, Chicago is taking pains to ensure that our Greek tragedies remain the leading English-language versions throughout the twenty-first century.

In this highly anticipated third edition, Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most have carefully updated the translations to bring them even closer to the ancient Greek while retaining the vibrancy for which our English versions are famous. This edition also includes brand-new translations of Euripides’ Medea, The Children of Heracles, Andromache, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, fragments of lost plays by Aeschylus, and the surviving portion of Sophocles’s satyr-drama The Trackers. New introductions for each play offer essential information about its first production, plot, and reception in antiquity and beyond. In addition, each volume includes an introduction to the life and work of its tragedian, as well as notes addressing textual uncertainties and a glossary of names and places mentioned in the plays.

In addition to the new content, the volumes have been reorganized both within and between volumes to reflect the most up-to-date scholarship on the order in which the plays were originally written. The result is a set of handsome paperbacks destined to introduce new generations of readers to these foundational works of Western drama, art, and life.

All That You've Seen Here Is God: New Versions of Four Greek Tragedies Sophocles' Ajax, Philoctetes, Women of Trachis; Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound

by Sophocles, Aeschylus

These contemporary translations of four Greek tragedies speak across time and connect readers and audiences with universal themes of war, trauma, suffering, and betrayal. Under the direction of Bryan Doerries, they have been performed for tens of thousands of combat veterans, as well as prison and medical personnel around the world. Striking for their immediacy and emotional impact, Doerries brings to life these ancient plays, like no other translations have before.

Oedipus Trilogy: New Versions of Sophocles' Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone

by Sophocles

Fresh, new translations of Sophocles's three Theban plays by acclaimed theater director Bryan Doerries, which emphasize the contemporary relevance of these classic Greek tragedies.

Here are Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone in fresh new versions for contemporary readers and audiences. Each has been the basis for groundbreaking theatrical performances by Theater of War Productions, in which actors present dramatic readings, followed by town hall-style discussions. These forums are designed to confront social issues by evoking raw, personal reactions to themes highlighted in the plays.

The Oedipus Project is an innovative digital initiative that presents scenes from Oedipus the King as a catalyst for frank and restorative online conversations about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on diverse communities. First performed in 429 BC during the time of a plague that killed one-third of the Athenian population, it is a story of arrogant leadership, ignored prophecy, and a pestilence that ravages the city of Thebes—a story that is as relevant now as it was in its own time.

The Oedipus at Colonus Project presents readings of scenes from Sophocles’ final play, Oedipus at Colonus, for powerful, community-driven conversations about homelessness, the immigration and refugee crises, and the challenges of eldercare during and after the pandemic.

Antigone in Ferguson is a pioneering project that fuses dramatic readings from Antigone with live choral music, culminating in powerful, healing discussions about race and social justice. Antigone in Ferguson was conceived in the wake of Michael Brown's death in 2014, through a collaboration between Theater of War Productions and community members from Ferguson, Missouri, and premiered at Normandy High School, Michael Brown's alma mater.

Sophocles, Volume I. Ajax. Electra. Oedipus Tyrannus (Loeb Classical Library No. 20)

by Sophocles, Hugh Lloyd-Jones

Ancient Athens’ most successful tragedian.

Sophocles (497/6–406 BC), with Aeschylus and Euripides, was one of the three great tragic poets of Athens, and is considered one of the world's greatest poets. The subjects of his plays were drawn from mythology and legend. Each play contains at least one heroic figure, a character whose strength, courage, or intelligence exceeds the human norm―but who also has more than ordinary pride and self-assurance. These qualities combine to lead to a tragic end.

Hugh Lloyd-Jones gives us, in two volumes, a new translation of the seven surviving plays. Volume I contains Oedipus Tyrannus (which tells the famous Oedipus story), Ajax (a heroic tragedy of wounded self-esteem), and Electra (the story of siblings who seek revenge on their mother and her lover for killing their father). Volume II contains Oedipus at Colonus (the climax of the fallen hero's life), Antigone (a conflict between public authority and an individual woman's conscience), The Women of Trachis (a fatal attempt by Heracles' wife to regain her husband's love), and Philoctetes (Odysseus' intrigue to bring an unwilling hero to the Trojan War).

Of his other plays, only fragments remain; but from these much can be learned about Sophocles' language and dramatic art. The major fragments―ranging in length from two lines to a very substantial portion of the satyr play The Searchers―are collected in Volume III of this edition. In prefatory notes Lloyd-Jones provides frameworks for the fragments of known plays.

Sophocles, Volume II. Antigone. The Women of Trachis. Philoctetes. Oedipus at Colonus (Loeb Classical Library No. 21)

by Sophocles

Ancient Athens’ most successful tragedian.

Sophocles (497/6–406 BC), with Aeschylus and Euripides, was one of the three great tragic poets of Athens, and is considered one of the world's greatest poets. The subjects of his plays were drawn from mythology and legend. Each play contains at least one heroic figure, a character whose strength, courage, or intelligence exceeds the human norm―but who also has more than ordinary pride and self-assurance. These qualities combine to lead to a tragic end.

Hugh Lloyd-Jones gives us, in two volumes, a new translation of the seven surviving plays. Volume I contains Oedipus Tyrannus (which tells the famous Oedipus story), Ajax (a heroic tragedy of wounded self-esteem), and Electra (the story of siblings who seek revenge on their mother and her lover for killing their father). Volume II contains Oedipus at Colonus (the climax of the fallen hero's life), Antigone (a conflict between public authority and an individual woman's conscience), The Women of Trachis (a fatal attempt by Heracles' wife to regain her husband's love), and Philoctetes (Odysseus' intrigue to bring an unwilling hero to the Trojan War).

Of his other plays, only fragments remain; but from these much can be learned about Sophocles' language and dramatic art. The major fragments―ranging in length from two lines to a very substantial portion of the satyr play The Searchers―are collected in Volume III of this edition. In prefatory notes Lloyd-Jones provides frameworks for the fragments of known plays.

The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (Modern Library Classics)

by Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides

A landmark anthology of the masterpieces of Greek drama, featuring all-new, highly accessible translations of some of the world’s most beloved plays, including Agamemnon, Prometheus Bound, Bacchae, Electra, Medea, Antigone, and Oedipus the King

Featuring translations by Emily Wilson, Frank Nisetich, Sarah Ruden, Rachel Kitzinger, Mary Lefkowitz, and James Romm

The great plays of Ancient Greece are among the most enduring and important legacies of the Western world. Not only is the influence of Greek drama palpable in everything from Shakespeare to modern television, the insights contained in Greek tragedy have shaped our perceptions of the nature of human life. Poets, philosophers, and politicians have long borrowed and adapted the ideas and language of Greek drama to help them make sense of their own times.

This exciting curated anthology features a cross section of the most popular—and most widely taught—plays in the Greek canon. Fresh translations into contemporary English breathe new life into the texts while capturing, as faithfully as possible, their original meaning.

This outstanding collection also offers short biographies of the playwrights, enlightening and clarifying introductions to the plays, and helpful annotations at the bottom of each page. Appendices by prominent classicists on such topics as “Greek Drama and Politics,” “The Theater of Dionysus,” and “Plato and Aristotle on Tragedy” give the reader a rich contextual background. A detailed time line of the dramas, as well as a list of adaptations of Greek drama to literature, stage, and film from the time of Seneca to the present, helps chart the history of Greek tragedy and illustrate its influence on our culture from the Roman Empire to the present day.

With a veritable who’s who of today’s most renowned and distinguished classical translators, The Greek Plays is certain to be the definitive text for years to come.

Praise for The Greek Plays

“Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm deftly have gathered strong new translations from Frank Nisetich, Sarah Ruden, Rachel Kitzinger, Emily Wilson, as well as from Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm themselves. There is a freshness and pungency in these new translations that should last a long time. I admire also the introductions to the plays and the biographies and annotations provided. Closing essays by five distinguished classicists—the brilliant Daniel Mendelsohn and the equally skilled David Rosenbloom, Joshua Billings, Mary-Kay Gamel, and Gregory Hays—all enlightened me. This seems to me a helpful light into our gathering darkness.”—Harold Bloom

The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (Modern Library Classics)

by Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides

A landmark anthology of the masterpieces of Greek drama, featuring all-new, highly accessible translations of some of the world’s most beloved plays, including Agamemnon, Prometheus Bound, Bacchae, Electra, Medea, Antigone, and Oedipus the King

Featuring translations by Emily Wilson, Frank Nisetich, Sarah Ruden, Rachel Kitzinger, Mary Lefkowitz, and James Romm

The great plays of Ancient Greece are among the most enduring and important legacies of the Western world. Not only is the influence of Greek drama palpable in everything from Shakespeare to modern television, the insights contained in Greek tragedy have shaped our perceptions of the nature of human life. Poets, philosophers, and politicians have long borrowed and adapted the ideas and language of Greek drama to help them make sense of their own times.

This exciting curated anthology features a cross section of the most popular—and most widely taught—plays in the Greek canon. Fresh translations into contemporary English breathe new life into the texts while capturing, as faithfully as possible, their original meaning.

This outstanding collection also offers short biographies of the playwrights, enlightening and clarifying introductions to the plays, and helpful annotations at the bottom of each page. Appendices by prominent classicists on such topics as “Greek Drama and Politics,” “The Theater of Dionysus,” and “Plato and Aristotle on Tragedy” give the reader a rich contextual background. A detailed time line of the dramas, as well as a list of adaptations of Greek drama to literature, stage, and film from the time of Seneca to the present, helps chart the history of Greek tragedy and illustrate its influence on our culture from the Roman Empire to the present day.

With a veritable who’s who of today’s most renowned and distinguished classical translators, The Greek Plays is certain to be the definitive text for years to come.

Praise for The Greek Plays

“Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm deftly have gathered strong new translations from Frank Nisetich, Sarah Ruden, Rachel Kitzinger, Emily Wilson, as well as from Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm themselves. There is a freshness and pungency in these new translations that should last a long time. I admire also the introductions to the plays and the biographies and annotations provided. Closing essays by five distinguished classicists—the brilliant Daniel Mendelsohn and the equally skilled David Rosenbloom, Joshua Billings, Mary-Kay Gamel, and Gregory Hays—all enlightened me. This seems to me a helpful light into our gathering darkness.”—Harold Bloom

An Oresteia: Agamemnon by Aiskhylos; Elektra by Sophokles; Orestes by Euripides

by Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides

In An Oresteia, the classicist Anne Carson combines three different versions of the tragedy of the house of Atreus ― A iskhylos' Agamemnon, Sophokles' Elektra and Euripides' Orestes. After the murder of her daughter Iphigeneia by her husband, Agamemnon, Klytaimestra exacts a mother's revenge, murdering Agamemnon and his mistress, Kassandra. Displeased with Klytaimestra's actions, Apollo calls on her son, Orestes, to avenge his father's death with the help of his sister Elektra. In the end, Orestes is driven mad by the Furies for his bloody betrayal of family. Condemned to death by the people of Argos, he and Elektra must justify their actions ― or flout society, justice and the gods.

Carson's translation combines contemporary language with the traditional structures and rhetoric of Greek tragedy, opening up this ancient tale of vengeance to a modern audience and revealing the essential wit and morbidity of the original plays.

Oedipus the King (Enriched Classics)

by Sophocles

The famed Athenian tragedy in which Oedipus’s own faults contribute to his tragic downfall.

A great masterpiece on which Aristotle based his aesthetic theory of drama in the Poetics and from which Freud derived the Oedipus complex, King Oedipus puts out a sentence on the unknown murderer of his father Laius. By a gradual unfolding of incidents, Oedipus learns that he was the assassin and that Jocasta, his wife, is also his mother.

This Enriched Classic Edition includes:
-A concise introduction that gives readers important background information
-Timelines of significant events in Greek history and theater that provide the book’s historical context
-An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations
-Detailed explanatory notes
-Critical analysis and modern perspectives on the work
-Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
-A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader’s experience

Enriched Classics offers readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.

Series edited by Cynthia Brantley Johnson

Oedipus Rex

by Sophocles

The second Theban play written by Sophocles, "Oedipus Rex", or "Oedipus the King", is the drama which chronologically begins the Oedipus cycle. After Laius, King of Thebes, learns from an oracle that he is doomed to perish by the hand of his own son, he binds the feet of his newborn child and orders his wife Jocasta to kill the infant. Unable to kill her own child, Jocasta entrusts a servant with the task instead, who takes the baby to a mountaintop to die of exposure. A passing shepherd rescues the baby and names it Oedipus, or "swollen feet", taking it with him to Corinth where it is raised by the childless King Polybus as if it were his own. When Oedipus hears a rumor that he is not the biological son of Polybus, he seeks the counsel of the Oracle of Delphi who relates to him the prophecy of patricide. Still believing that Polybus is his father he flees Corinth thus initiating a series of events that would fulfill that which the oracle has prophesied. "Oedipus Rex," along with its Theban counterparts, "Oedipus at Colonus", and "Antigone", established Sophocles as one of the most renowned dramatists of his era. This edition follows the translation of E. H. Plumptre and is printed on premium acid-free paper.

Oedipus Rex

by Sophocles

No detailed description available for "Oedipus rex".

Antigone

by Sophocles, Slavoj Zizek, Jean Anouilh

Antigone is universally celebrated as the ultimate figure of ethical resistance to the state power which oversteps its legitimate scope and as the defender of simple human dignity (more important than all political struggles). But is she really so innocent and pure? What if there is a dark side to her? What if Creon, the representative of state power, also has a valuable point to make? And what if both Antigone and Creon are part of a problem that only a popular intervention can confront?
Žižek's rewriting of this classic play confronts these issues in a practical way: not by theorizing about them, but by imagining an Antigone in which, at a crucial moment, the action takes a different turn, an Antigone along the lines of Run, Lola, Run or of Brecht's learning plays.
A brilliantly funny, moving and political piece for those who are interested in reading and watching Antigone in an entirely new way.

Antigone

by Sophocles, Slavoj Zizek, Jean Anouilh

Full Length Tragedy
Characters: 7 male 4 female
Various sets
This incisive translation of the classic drama is by the noted British playwright translator and director.

Antigone

by Sophocles, Slavoj Zizek, Jean Anouilh

The curse placed on Oedipus lingers and haunts a younger generation in this new and brilliant translation of Sophocles' classic drama. The daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, Antigone is an unconventional heroine who pits her beliefs against the King of Thebes in a bloody test of wills that leaves few unharmed. Emotions fly as she challenges the king for the right to bury her own brother. Determined but doomed, Antigone shows her inner strength throughout the play.
Antigone raises issues of law and morality that are just as relevant today as they were more than two thousand years ago. Whether this is your first reading or your twentieth, Antigone will move you as few pieces of literature can.
To make this quintessential Greek drama more accessible to the modern reader, the Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Classics edition of Antigone includes a glossary of difficult terms, a list of vocabulary words, and convenient sidebar notes.

Antigone

by Sophocles, Slavoj Zizek, Jean Anouilh

Full Length Tragedy / 8m 4f
Produced in modern dress in New York with Katherine Cornell and Sir Cedric Hardwicke the Galantiere version of the Greek legend comes from a Paris that suffered under the heel of tyranny. The play's parallels to modern times are exciting and provocative.
"Its dimensions are noble its intentions uncompromising."-Southwestern University Texas

Oedipus at Colonus (Plays for Performance Series)

by Sophocles

This play forms a bridge between the events in Oedipus the King and Antigone. It begins with the arrival of Oedipus in Colonus after years of wandering; it ends with Antigone setting off toward her own fate in Thebes.

The Theban Plays

by Sophocles

‘O Light! May I never look on you again,
Revealed as I am, sinful in my begetting,
Sinful in marriage, sinful in shedding of blood!’

The legends surrounding the royal house of Thebes inspired Sophocles (496–406 BC) to create a powerful trilogy of mankind’s struggle against fate. King Oedipus tells of a man who brings pestilence to Thebes for crimes he does not realise he has committed, and then inflicts a brutal punishment upon himself. With profound insights into the human condition, it is a devastating portrayal of a ruler brought down by his own oath. Oedipus at Colonus provides a fitting conclusion to the life of the aged and blinded king, while Antigone depicts the fall of the next generation, through the conflict between a young woman ruled by her conscience and a king too confident in his own authority.
E. F. Watling’s masterful translation is accompanied by an introduction, which examines the central themes of the plays, the role of the Chorus, and the traditions and staging of Greek tragedy.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Holderlin's Sophocles: Oedipus & Antigone

by Sophocles, Friedrich Holderlin

Friedrich Holderlin (1770-1843) was one of Europe's greatest poets. David Constantine's Selected Poems of Holderlin won him the 1997 European Poetry Translation Prize. Now he has turned to Holderin's versions of Sophocles, seeking to create an equivalent English for these extraordinary German recreations of the classic Greek verse plays.
Constantine has translated Holderlin's translations, carrying as much of their strangeness as possible into his English. The plays themselves need no introduction or apology. These double translations, links in literature from land to land and from age to age, demonstrate the vitality of ancient and modern poetic tradition.

Sophocles II: Ajax, The Women of Trachis, Electra, Philoctetes, The Trackers (The Complete Greek Tragedies)

by Sophocles

Sophocles II contains the plays “Ajax,” translated by John Moore; “The Women of Trachis,” translated by Michael Jameson; “Electra,” translated by David Grene; “Philoctetes,” translated by David Grene; and “The Trackers,” translated by Mark Griffith.

Sixty years ago, the University of Chicago Press undertook a momentous project: a new translation of the Greek tragedies that would be the ultimate resource for teachers, students, and readers. They succeeded. Under the expert management of eminent classicists David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, those translations combined accuracy, poetic immediacy, and clarity of presentation to render the surviving masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in an English so lively and compelling that they remain the standard translations. Today, Chicago is taking pains to ensure that our Greek tragedies remain the leading English-language versions throughout the twenty-first century.

In this highly anticipated third edition, Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most have carefully updated the translations to bring them even closer to the ancient Greek while retaining the vibrancy for which our English versions are famous. This edition also includes brand-new translations of Euripides’ Medea, The Children of Heracles, Andromache, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, fragments of lost plays by Aeschylus, and the surviving portion of Sophocles’s satyr-drama The Trackers. New introductions for each play offer essential information about its first production, plot, and reception in antiquity and beyond. In addition, each volume includes an introduction to the life and work of its tragedian, as well as notes addressing textual uncertainties and a glossary of names and places mentioned in the plays.

In addition to the new content, the volumes have been reorganized both within and between volumes to reflect the most up-to-date scholarship on the order in which the plays were originally written. The result is a set of handsome paperbacks destined to introduce new generations of readers to these foundational works of Western drama, art, and life.

Sophocles II: Ajax, The Women of Trachis, Electra, Philoctetes, The Trackers (The Complete Greek Tragedies)

by Sophocles

Sophocles II contains the plays “Ajax,” translated by John Moore; “The Women of Trachis,” translated by Michael Jameson; “Electra,” translated by David Grene; “Philoctetes,” translated by David Grene; and “The Trackers,” translated by Mark Griffith.

Sixty years ago, the University of Chicago Press undertook a momentous project: a new translation of the Greek tragedies that would be the ultimate resource for teachers, students, and readers. They succeeded. Under the expert management of eminent classicists David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, those translations combined accuracy, poetic immediacy, and clarity of presentation to render the surviving masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in an English so lively and compelling that they remain the standard translations. Today, Chicago is taking pains to ensure that our Greek tragedies remain the leading English-language versions throughout the twenty-first century.

In this highly anticipated third edition, Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most have carefully updated the translations to bring them even closer to the ancient Greek while retaining the vibrancy for which our English versions are famous. This edition also includes brand-new translations of Euripides’ Medea, The Children of Heracles, Andromache, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, fragments of lost plays by Aeschylus, and the surviving portion of Sophocles’s satyr-drama The Trackers. New introductions for each play offer essential information about its first production, plot, and reception in antiquity and beyond. In addition, each volume includes an introduction to the life and work of its tragedian, as well as notes addressing textual uncertainties and a glossary of names and places mentioned in the plays.

In addition to the new content, the volumes have been reorganized both within and between volumes to reflect the most up-to-date scholarship on the order in which the plays were originally written. The result is a set of handsome paperbacks destined to introduce new generations of readers to these foundational works of Western drama, art, and life.

Sophocles: Ajax (Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries, Series Number 48)

by Sophocles

Sophocles' Ajax describes the fall of a mighty warrior denied the honour which he believed was his due. This new edition of the play presents a text and critical apparatus which take full advantage of recent advances in our understanding of Sophoclean manuscripts and scholarship. The introduction and commentary scrutinise all important aspects of the drama – from detailed analysis of style, language and metre to consideration of wider issues such as ethics, rhetoric and characterisation. Notorious dramaturgical problems, including the staging of Ajax's suicide, receive particular attention; so too do questions of literary history, such as the date of the play and Sophocles' creative interaction with previous accounts of the myth. The translation which accompanies the commentary ensures that this edition will be accessible to Hellenists of all levels of experience, as well as to readers with a general interest in the history of drama.

Sophocles: Fragments

by Sophocles

Ancient Athens' most successful tragedian.

Sophocles (497/6-406 BC), the second of the three great tragedians of Athens and by common consent one of the world's greatest poets, wrote more than 120 plays. Only seven of these survive complete, but we have a wealth of fragments, from which much can be learned about Sophocles' language and dramatic art. This volume presents a collection of all the major fragments, ranging in length from two lines to a very substantial portion of the satyr play The Searchers. Prefatory notes provide frameworks for the fragments of known plays.

Many of the Sophoclean fragments were preserved by quotation in other authors; others, some of considerable size, are known to us from papyri discovered during the past century. Among the lost plays of which we have large fragments, The Searchers shows the god Hermes, soon after his birth, playing an amusing trick on his brother Apollo; Inachus portrays Zeus coming to Argos to seduce Io, the daughter of its king; and Niobe tells how Apollo and his sister Artemis punish Niobe for a slight upon their mother by killing her twelve children. Throughout the volume, as in the extant plays, we see Sophocles drawing his subjects from heroic legend.

This is the final volume of Lloyd-Jones's Loeb Classical Library edition of Sophocles. In Volumes I and II he gives a faithful and very skillful translation of the seven surviving plays. Volume I contains Oedipus Tyrannus, Ajax, and Electra. Volume II contains Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, and Philoctetes.

Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra (Oxford World's Classics)

by Sophocles

This volume of Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra contains three masterpieces by the Greek playwright Sophocles, widely regarded since antiquity as the greatest of all the tragic poets. The vivid translations, which combine elegance and modernity, are remarkable for their lucidity and accuracy, and are equally suitable for reading for pleasure, study, or theatrical performance. With this edition, readers are not only offered the most influential and famous of Sophocles' works in one volume, but they are presented with two plays dominated by a female heroic figure, and the experience of the two great dynasties featured in Greek tragedy--the houses of Oedipus and Agamemnon.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Aiax (Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana)

by Sophocles

No detailed description available for "Aiax".

Trachiniae (Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana)

by Sophocles

No detailed description available for "Trachiniae".

Antigone (Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana)

by Sophocles

No detailed description available for "Antigone".

Philoctetes (Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana)

by Sophocles

No detailed description available for "Philoctetes".

The Complete Sophocles: Volume II: Electra and Other Plays (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)

by Sophocles

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals.

The volume brings together four major works by one of the greatest classical dramarists: Electra, translated by Anne Carson and Michael Shaw, a gripping story of revenge, manipulation, and the often tense conflict of the human spirit; Aias, translated by Herbert Golder and Richard Pevear, an account of the heroic suicide of the Trojan war hero better known as Ajax; Philoctetes, translated by Carl Phillips and Diskin Clay, a morally complex and penetrating play about the conflict between personal integrity and public duty; and The Women of Trachis, translated by C.K. Williams and Gregory W. Dickerson, an urgent tale of mutability in a universe of precipitous change. These four tragedies were originally available as single volumes. This new volume retains the informative introductions and explanatory notes of the original editions and adds a single combined glossary and Greek line numbers.

Oedipus the King: A New Translation

by Sophocles

Among the most celebrated plays of ancient Athens, Oedipus the King is one of seven surviving dramas by the great Greek playwright, Sophocles, now available from Harper Perennial in a vivid and dynamic new translation by award-winning poet Robert Bagg.
Praised by Aristotle as the pinnacle of Greek drama, Oedipus the King is the ancient world’s most shocking and memorable tragedy; the story of Thebes’s resilient hero and his royal family brought to hellish ruin by fate, manipulation of the Olympian gods, and all-too-human weakness. This is Sophocles, vibrant and alive, for a new generation.

Fabulae (Oxford Classical Texts)

by Sophocles

This new text of Sophocles is the product of extensive collaboration between Sir Lloyd-Jones and N.G. Wilson, both highly respected scholars in the field. The volume includes the Greek texts and apparatus criticus for Ajax, Electra, Oedipus Tyrannus, Antigone, Trachiniae, Philoctetes, and Oedipus Coloneus.

Sophocles: Philoctetes (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics)

by Sophocles

Sophocles' Philoctetes is one of the most widely read Greek tragedies today but is a complex and challenging play to interpret. Its representation of Philoctetes as a sufferer of physical and emotional pain gives it remarkable power and intensity. It juxtaposes Homeric and fifth-century institutions and values, explores honor, power and expediency as principles of personal and political life, and represents contrasts and conflicts between innocence and experience, ends and means, and the needs and demands of the individual and those of society. This edition with commentary makes the play accessible to students, teachers, and other readers of Greek literature at all levels. The introduction discusses the main problems of interpretation and gives an account of its reception from antiquity to the present day.

Oidipous Tyrannos (Bryn Mawr Commentaries, Greek) (Ancient Greek and English Edition)

by Sophocles

Sophocles Oidipous Tyrannos

Theban Plays (Hackett Classics)

by Sophocles

This volume offers the fruits of Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff's dynamic collaboration on the plays of Sophocles' Theban cycle, presenting the translators' Oedipus Tyrannus (2000) along with Woodruff's Antigone (2001) and a muscular new Oedipus at Colonus by Meineck. Grippingly readable, all three translations combine fidelity to the Greek with concision, clarity, and powerful, hard-edged speech. Each play features foot-of-the-page notes, stage directions, and line numbers to the Greek. Woodruff's Introduction discusses the playwright, Athenian theatre and performance, the composition of the plays, and the plots and characters of each; it also offers thoughtful reflections on major critical interpretations of these plays.

Philoctetes (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)

by Sophocles

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly re-create the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. Under the general editorship of Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro, each volume includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the play.
En route to fight the Trojan War, the Greek army has abandoned Philoctetes, after the smell of his festering wound, mysteriously received from a snakebite at a shrine on a small island off Lemnos, makes it unbearable to keep him on ship. Ten years later, an oracle makes it clear that the war cannot be won without the assistance of Philoctetes and his famous bow, inherited from Hercules himself. Philoctetes focuses on the attempt of Neoptolemus and the hero Odysseus to persuade the bowman to sail with them to Troy. First, though, they must assuage his bitterness over having been abandoned, and then win his trust. But how should they do this--through trickery, or with the truth? To what extent do the ends justify the means? To what degree should personal integrity be compromised for the sake of public duty? These are among the questions that Sophocles puts forward in this, one of his most morally complex and penetrating plays.

Oedipus the King

by Sophocles

Available for the first time as an independent work, David Grene’s legendary translation of Oedipus the King renders Sophocles’ Greek into cogent, vivid, and poetic English for a new generation to savor. Over the years, Grene and Lattimore’s Complete Greek Tragedies have been the preferred choice of millions of readers—for personal libraries, individual study, and classroom use. This new, stand-alone edition of Sophocles’ searing tale of jealousy, rage, and revenge will continue the tradition of the University of Chicago Press’s classic series.

Praise for David Grene and Richmond Lattimore’s Complete Greek Tragedies
“This is it. No qualifications. Go out and buy it everybody.”—Kenneth Rexroth, Nation

“The translations deliberately avoid the highly wrought and affectedly poetic; their idiom is contemporary. . . . They have life and speed and suppleness of phrase.”—Times Education Supplement

Antigone (Dover Thrift Editions: Plays)

by Sophocles

In his long life, Sophocles (born ca. 496 B.C., died after 413) wrote more than one hundred plays. Of these, seven complete tragedies remain, among them the famed Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus. In Antigone, he reveals the fate that befalls the children of Oedipus. With its passionate speeches and sensitive probing of moral and philosophical issues, this powerful drama enthralled its first Athenian audiences and won great honors for Sophocles.
The setting of the play is Thebes. Polynices, son of Oedipus, has led a rebellious army against his brother, Eteocles, ruler of Thebes. Both have died in single combat. When Creon, their uncle, assumes rule, he commands that the body of the rebel Polynices be left unburied and unmourned, and warns that anyone who tampers with his decree will be put to death.
Antigone, sister of Polynices, defies Creon's order and buries her brother, claiming that she honors first the laws of the gods. Enraged, Creon condemns her to be sealed in a cave and left to die. How the gods take their revenge on Creon provides the gripping denouement to this compelling tragedy, which remains today one of the most frequently performed of classical Greek dramas.

Antigone (Wisconsin Studies in Classics)

by Sophocles

Sophocles’ Antigone ranks with his Oedipus Rex as one of world literature’s most compelling dramas. The action is taut, and the characters embody universal tensions: the conflict of youth with age, male with female, the state with the family. Plot and character come wrapped in exquisite language. Antagonists trade polished speeches, sardonic jibes and epigrammatic truisms and break into song at the height of passion.
David Mulroy’s translation of Antigone faithfully reproduces the literal meaning of Sophocles’ words while also reflecting his verbal pyrotechnics. Using fluid iambic pentameters for the spoken passages and rhyming stanzas for the songs, it is true to the letter and the spirit of the great Greek original.

The Complete Plays of Sophocles

by Sophocles

Oedipus the King • Antigone • Electra • Ajax
Trachinian Women • Philoctetes • Oedipus at Colonus

The greatest of the Greek tragedians, Sophocles wrote over 120 plays, surpassing his older contemporary Aeschylus and the younger Euripides in literary output as well as in the number of prizes awarded his works. Only the seven plays in this volume have survived intact. From the complex drama of Antigone, the heroine willing to sacrifice life and love for a principle, to the mythic doom embodied by Oedipus, the uncommonly good man brought down by the gods, Sophocles possessed a tragic vision that, in Matthew Arnold’s phrase, “saw life steadily and saw it whole.”

This one-volume paperback edition of Sophocles’ complete works is a revised and modernized version of the famous Jebb translation, which has been called “the most carefully wrought prose version of Sophocles in English.”*
*Moses Hadas

Sophocles: Electra (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics)

by Sophocles

In this edition of Sophocles' Electra, one of the greatest tragedies in Greek or any literature, Mr Kells presents the play as a study in revenge, but in a subtle way whose meaning depends upon the continuous use of dramatic irony. He relates the confrontations of principle and character depicted to the social and political controversies of the period in which Sophocles was writing. The introduction describes the background to the play, explains some of the main features of Sophocles' style, and outlines an interpretation which is fully worked out in the detailed commentary. There are appendices on metre and the text. The edition is intended for use by senior school and undergraduate students, and all those concerned to read and appreciate the play in the original.

Sophocles: Trachiniae (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics) (Greek Edition)

by Sophocles

Sophocles' Trachiniae is, in the editor's words, 'a subtle and sophisticated play about primitive emotions'. It is also a play which presents problems to a modern audience. Making full use of recent Sphoclean scholarship, Mrs Easterling attempts in her Introduction a detailed literary analysis of Trachiniae, helping the reader to understand better its intricate structure, the treatment of Deianira and Heracles, and the meaning of the final scenes. The notes in the Commentary of grammar, syntax and style include material which will be helpful to comparative beginners in the language, but the commentary as a whole is intended for anyone with a close interest in Greek tragedy. This is an edition for classical scholars, undergraduates, and students in the upper forms of schools. The Introduction is designed to be of use to readers who do not know Greek, as well as to specialists.

Sophocles: Antigone (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics)

by Sophocles

In this new edition of Sophocles' tragedy Antigone, Mark Griffith combines sophisticated literary and cultural interpretation with close attention to language, meter, and issues of performance, and thus makes the play more fully available to readers of Greek than ever before. The introduction requires no knowledge of Greek and will interest all students of drama and literature.

Oedipus Rex (Wisconsin Studies in Classics)

by Sophocles

Oedipus Rex is the greatest of the Greek tragedies, a profound meditation on the human condition. The story of the mythological king, who is doomed to kill his father and marry his mother, has resonated in world culture for almost 2,500 years. But Sophocles’ drama as originally performed was much more than a great story—it was a superb poetic script and exciting theatrical experience. The actors spoke in pulsing rhythms with hypnotic forward momentum, making it hard for audiences to look away. Interspersed among the verbal rants and duels were energetic songs performed by the chorus.

David Mulroy’s brilliant verse translation of Oedipus Rex recaptures the aesthetic power of Sophocles’ masterpiece while also achieving a highly accurate translation in clear, contemporary English. Speeches are rendered with the same kind of regular iambic rhythm that gave the Sophoclean originals their drive. The choral parts are translated as fluid rhymed songs. Mulroy also supplies an introduction, notes, and appendixes to provide helpful context for general readers and students.

Philoctetes

by Sophocles

The Trojan War has been raging for nine long years.

Desperate for victory and a return home, the Greeks have been told by a seer that there is only one way to defeat Troy: the great archer Philoctetes and his magical bow must be returned from exile.

The Greek army had abandoned Philoctetes years earlier on the remote island of Lemnos after he was bitten by a snake and afflicted by a mysterious illness on the way to Troy. Now, it falls to Odysseus and the young officer Neoptolemus to travel back to Lemnos and trick Philoctetes into joining the battle against the Trojans. But when Neoptolemus confronts his quarry, he finds his task more difficult than anticipated.

Sophocles' play is a timeless story of deception, loyalty and betrayal. This vital and accessible new translation by Brian Doeries brings it powerfully to life.

www.outsidethewirellc.com
www.facebook.com/theaterofwar

Oedipus Tyrannus: A New Translation. Passages from Ancient Authors. Religion and Psychology: Some Studies. Criticism

by Sophocles

This translation is for the contemporary reader. Specifically commissioned for stage production, it rings easily on the modern ear and yet remains faithful to Sophocles' original, avoiding the archaisms of other translations. The text is accompanied by a wealth of carefully chosen background materials and essays.

"Passages from Ancient Authors" includes selections from Homer's Odyssey, Thucydides' account of the plague, and Euripedes' Phoenissae.

The best of ancient and modern criticism is represented, encouraging discussion from psychological, religious, anthropological, dramatic, and literary perspectives.

Under the heading "Religion and Psychology" are included writings on the Oedipus myth by Martin P. Nilsson, Meyer Fortes, Gordon M. Kirkwood, Thalia Phillies Feldman, and Sigmund Freud.

The authors of the selections in "Criticism" are Aristotle, C. M. Bowra, R. C. Jebb, S. M. Adams, A. J. A. Waldock, Albin Lesky, Werner Jaeger, Friedrich Nietzsche, John Jones, D. W. Lucas, Bernard M. W. Knox, Cedric H. Whitman, Richmond Lattimore, Robert Cohen, Francis Fergusson, and H. D. F. Kitto.

The special question of Oedipus's guilt or innocence is addressed in essays by J. T. Sheppard, Laszlo Versenyi, P. H. Vellacott, E. R. Dodds, Thomas Gould, and Philip Wheelwright.

Sophocles: Oedipus Rex (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics)

by Sophocles

'Sophocles ... created a masterpiece that in the eyes of posterity has overshadowed every other achievement in the field of ancient drama ...' With these words Dr Dawe sets out the importance of Oedipus Rex. He investigates why it has for so long fascinated the human mind, devoting his introduction to an examination of the story and to the technique employed by Sophocles to unfold the plot. In this revised edition he also argues for the spurious nature of the play's ending. As with the first edition, the commentary deals authoritatively with problems of language and expression, but is enhanced by reflections on the text developed in the twenty years since the publication of that first edition. Written for classical scholars and students, this is a welcome revised edition of a bestselling text.

The Theban Plays Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone

by Sophocles

The stirring tale of a legendary royal family's fall and ultimate redemption, the Theban trilogy endures as the crowning achievement of Greek drama. Sophocles' three-play cycle, chronicling Oedipus's search for the truth and its tragic results, remains essential reading for English and classical studies majors as well as for all students of Western civilization.
Oedipus Rex unfolds amid a city in the relentless grip of a plague. When an oracle proclaims that only an act of vengeance will lift the curse from Thebes, King Oedipus vows to bring a murderer to justice. His quest engenders a series of keen dramatic ironies, culminating in the fulfillment of a dreaded prophecy. Oedipus at Colonus finds the former ruler in exile. Old and blind, he seeks a peaceful place to end his torment, but finds only challenges from his reluctant hosts and a summons back to Thebes from his warring sons. The trilogy concludes with Antigone, in which Oedipus's courageous daughter defies her tyrannical uncle in a provocative exploration of the demands of loyalty and duty.

Antigone: In a Version by Bertolt Brecht (Applause Books)

by Sophocles

Sophocles, Hölderlin, Brecht, Malina – four major figures in the world's theatre – have all left their imprint on this remarkable dramatic text. Friedrich Hölderlin translated Sophocles into German, Brecht adapted Hölderlin, and now Judith Malina has rendered Brecht's version into a stunning English incarnation. Available for the first time in English.

Oedipus Tyrannus

by Sophocles

Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff’s collaboration on this new translation combines the strengths that have recently distinguished both as translators of Greek tragedy: expert knowledge of the Greek and of the needs of the teaching classicist, intimate knowledge of theatre, and an excellent ear for the spoken word. Their Oedipus Tyrannus features foot-of-the-page notes, an Introduction, stage directions and a translation characterized by its clarity, accuracy, and power.

Four Tragedies: Ajax, Women of Trachis, Electra, Philoctetes

by Sophocles

Meineck and Woodruff's new annotated translations of Sophocles' Ajax, Women of Trachis, Electra, and Philoctetes combine the same standards of accuracy, concision, clarity, and powerful speech that have so often made their Theban Plays a source of epiphany in the classroom and of understanding in the theatre. Woodruff's Introduction offers a brisk and stimulating discussion of central themes in Sophoclean drama, the life of the playwright, staging issues, and each of the four featured plays.

The Other Four Plays of Sophocles: Ajax, Women of Trachis, Electra, and Philoctetes

by Sophocles

Famed translator David Slavitt lends his distinctly contemporary voice to four lesser-known plays of Sophocles.
There are seven surviving tragedies by Sophocles. Three of them form the Theban Plays, which recount the story of Thebes during and after the reign of Oedipus. Here, David Slavitt translates the remaining tragedies―the "other four plays:" Ajax, Women of Trachis, Electra, and Philoctetes.
Punchy and entertaining, Slavitt reads Athena's opening line in Ajax as: "I’ve got my eye on you, Odysseus. Always." By simplifying the Greek and making obscure designations more accessible―specifying the character Athena in place of “aegis-wearing goddess,” for example―his translations are highly performable. The Other Four Plays of Sophocles will help students discover underlying thematic connections across plays as well.
Praise for David R. Slavitt
"Slavitt's translation is . . . lively and sometimes witty."―Times Literary Supplement, reviewing Slavitt's translation of Seneca
"The best version of Ovid's Metamorphoses available in English today . . . It is readable, alive, at times slangy, and actually catches Ovid's tone."―Philadelphia Inquirer, reviewing Slavitt's translation of The Metamorphoses of Ovid
"Slavitt's ability is clearly in evidence . . . These translations are rendered in lucid, contemporary English, bringing before us the atrocities, horrors, and grotesqueries of Imperial Rome."―Classical Outlook, reviewing Slavitt's translation of Seneca
"Excellent translations that suit the ear and strengthen the feeble spirit of the time . . . One will do well to read these hymns, these poems, and find nourishment in them in Slavitt's translations."―Anglican Theological Review, reviewing Slavitt’s translation of Hymns of Prudentius

The Theban Plays: "Oedipus the Tyrant"; "Oedipus at Colonus"; "Antigone" (Agora Editions)

by Sophocles

"These excellent translations will serve a useful purpose in the classroom in the hands of serious students of the profound relationship between literary wisdom and ethical-political thought."
Leslie Rubin, Duquesne University, editor of Justice v. Law in Greek Political Thought
The timeless Theban tragedies of Sophocles—Oedipus the Tyrant, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone—have fascinated and moved audiences and readers across the ages with their haunting plots and their unforgettable heroes and heroines.
Now, following the best texts faithfully, and translating the key moral, religious, and political terminology of the plays accurately and consistently, Peter J. Ahrensdorf and Thomas L. Pangle allow contemporary readers to study the most literally exact reproductions of precisely what Sophocles wrote, rendered in readily comprehensible English. These translations enable readers to engage the Theban plays of Sophocles in their full, authentic complexity, and to study with precision the plays’ profound and enduring human questions.
In the preface, notes to the plays, and introductions, Ahrensdorf and Pangle supply critical historical, mythic, and linguistic background information, and highlight the moral, religious, political, philosophic, and psychological questions at the heart of each of the plays. Even readers unfamiliar with Greek drama will find what they need to experience, reflect on, and enjoy these towering works of classical literature.

Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus (Greek Texts)

by Sophocles

This edition of Oedipus Tyrannus is abridged from the full edition and differs mainly in the omission of an English translation. It contains an introduction, the Greek text and commentary in English. The full editions of all the plays, including Oedipus Tyrannus, are also available from Bristol Classical Press.

Antigone (Hackett Classics)

by Sophocles

Woodruff's work with Peter Meineck makes this text one that is accessible to today's students and could be staged for modern audiences. Line notes printed at the bottom of the page bring a reader further quick assistance. . . . The choral odes as rendered here deserve special notice. After giving a succinct analysis of each in his introduction, Woodruff translates the lyrics into English that is both poetic and comprehensible. . . . Woodruff's rendering of the dialogue moves along easily; these are lines that any contemporary Antigone, Creon or Haemon might speak. Antigone's words on the gods' unwritten laws keep close to the Greek and yet would be authentic for a modern speaker. . . . Woodruff's introduction is a strong, clear, and clever blend of basic traditional information (to those who know Greek tragedy) and fresh insights. . . . Should our drama department ask for my advice as to a playable text, I would certainly suggest Woodruff's new version. --Karelisa Hartigan, The Classical Bulletin

Sophocles: Philoktetes (Focus Classical Library)

by Sophocles

This is an English translation of Sophocles’ tragedy of Philoctetes, an archer who had been abandoned on Lemnos by the rest of the Greek fleet while on the way to Troy. Focus Classical Library provides close translations with notes and essays to provide access to understanding Greek culture.

The Theban Plays: Antigone, King Oidipous and Oidipous at Colonus (Focus Classical Library)

by Sophocles

This anthology includes English translations of three plays of Sophocles' Oidipous Cycle: Antigone, King Oidipous, and Oidipous at Colonus. The trilogy includes an introductory essay on Sophocles life, ancient theatre, and the mythic and religious background of the plays. Each of these plays is available from Focus in a single play edition. Focus Classical Library provides close translations with notes and essays to provide access to understanding Greek culture.

Electra (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)

by Sophocles

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly recreate the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. Under the general editorship of Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro, each volume includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the play.

Although it has been at times overshadowed by his more famous Oedipus Tyrannus and Antigone, Sophocles' Electra is remarkable for its extreme emotions and taut drama.

Electra recounts the murders of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus by Clytemnestra's son Orestes, to avenge their murder of his father Agamemnon, commander of the Greeks at Troy, upon his return home. Sophocles' version is presented from the viewpoint of Electra, Orestes' sister, who laments her father, bears witness to her mother's crime, and for years endures her mother's scorn. Despite her overwhelming passion for just revenge, Electra admits that her own actions are shameful. When Orestes arrives at last, her mood shifts from grief to joy, as Orestes carries out the bloody vengeance.

Sophocles presents this story as a savage though necessary act of vengeance, vividly depicting Electra's grief, anger, and exultation. This translation equals the original in ferocity of expression, and leaves intact the inarticulate cries of suffering and joy that fill the play.

Oedipus at Colonus: Sophocles (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)

by Sophocles

The latest title to join the acclaimed Greek Tragedy in New Translations series, Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus tells the story of the last day in the life of Oedipus. It was written at the end of the fifth century BCE in Athens, in the final years of the "Golden Age" of Athenian culture, and in the last year of Sophocles' own life. At the center of the play is the mysterious transformation of Oedipus from an old and blind beggar, totally dependent on his daughters, to the man who rises from his seat and, without help, leads everyone to the place where he is destined to die. In the background of this transformation stands the grove of the Furies, the sacred place of the implacable goddesses who pursue the violators of blood relationships. Although Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother, is an obvious target of the Furies' vengeance, he enters their grove at the beginning of the play, sure that it is the resting place Apollo has predicted for him. The reversals and paradoxes in the play speak to the struggle that Oedipus' life and the action of the play bring vividly before us: how do we as humans, subject to constant change, find stable ground on which to stand and define our moral lives? Sophocles offers his play as a witness to the remarkable human capacity to persevere in this struggle.

Ajax

by Sophocles

Poetry. Translated from the Greek by John Tipton. Written in the fifth century B.C., Sophocles' tragedy concerns the shame and death of Ajax, a Greek who had won fame for his prodigious strength in the Trojan War. A brutal farewell to the valor and values of the heroic world, the play moves through a series of reversals: old allies become enemies, honor becomes disgrace, and divine power becomes temporal authority. Formally terse, this translation conveys the force and urgency of Sophocles' Greek. Indeed, as Tipton suggests in his afterword, the tragedy has renewed relevance for our times: "AJAX demands our attention, not only for its clear-eyed account of the bitter aftermath of victory but also for its treatment of unscrupulous politics." With a foreword by Stanley Lombardo.

Women of Trakhis A New Translation

by Sophocles

A dynamic and necessary new translation of Sophocles' unsparing drama about a desperate wife's lethal scheme to keep her warrior husband's wavering love

In Women of Trakhis, Sophocles challenges the very ideal of Greek manhood, portraying the classic mythological hero Herakles as a man equally capable of courageous feats and savage acts.

Deianeira is an ordinary woman married to Herakles, the most feared and storied hero of the ancient world. To preserve their marriage she must constantly struggle to keep her husband's affection, cope with her anxieties about his dangerous profession as a hired killer, and endure his amorous pursuits of other women. Though she knows he is resourceful and violent, with a merciless temperament and legendary strength, she attempts to bind him permanently to her with a love potion from a source she should never have trusted, and thus loses everything she values.

This extraordinary new translation by Robert Bagg presents a classic drama in a modern idiom while remaining faithful to the original Greek. Women of Trakhis preserves the depth and subtlety of the dramatist's characters and ideas, and the lyricism of his poetry. This is Sophocles for a new generation.

Philoktetes A New Translation

by Sophocles

One of the most celebrated plays of ancient Athens in a vivid and dynamic new translation by award-winning poet James Scully

Fate, free will, and the sacredness of the social bond are all challenged and reassessed in this tale torn from the midst of the Trojan War.

The soldier Philoktetes was abandoned with a festering, god-inflicted foot wound on the desolate island of Lemnos by the Greeks under Odysseus, who could no longer stand the stench or the soldier's screams of pain. Now, ten years later, the Greeks realize they will never take Troy without Philoktetes and the bow given to him by Herakles. But Philoktetes refuses to rejoin the Greek army, vowing to kill his enemy Odysseus instead—so Neoptolemos, son of the slain hero Achilles, is dispatched to trick Philoktetes into returning. Philoktetes and Neoptolemos, however, are constantly at sea, their minds shifting and re-shifting amid mixed feelings, deceptions, suspicions, and qualms as they struggle with themselves and their strangely evolving relationship.

James Scully's remarkable translation of Sophocles' classic Philoktetes achieves an accurate yet accessibly idiomatic rendering of the Greek original, suited for reading, teaching, or performing. This is Sophocles for a new generation, certain to strike a powerful chord with contemporary audiences everywhere.

Sophocles: The Complete Plays (Signet Classics)

by Sophocles

With new translations and a new afterword

The full texts of the seven extant plays of Sophocles with Paul Roche's revised and updated translations of the Oedipus cycle, and all-new translations of the remaining plays.

Antigone: In a New Translation (Plays for Performance Series)

by Sophocles

One of the greatest, most moving of all tragedies, Antigone continues to have meaning for us because of its depiction of the struggle between individual conscience and state policy, and its delicate probing of the nature of human suffering. Mr. Rudall’s splendid translation brings a new power and speakability to Sophocles’ prose.

Oedipus the King (Plays for Performance Series)

by Sophocles

The tragedy of Oedipus, who unknowingly slays his father and marries his mother, is one of the mythical cornerstones of Western civilization. Nicholas Rudall's new translation remains true to Sophocles original text while fashioning a language of grace and power, with contemporary players and theatergoers in mind.

Elektra A New Translation

by Sophocles

A dynamic and necessary new translation of Sophocles' chilling tragedy of hatred, revenge, and murder

Orestes, the son of King Agamemnon, returns to his homeland to take revenge on his mother, Klytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus, for killing his father in cold blood. Elektra has long awaited her brother's return, bitter and contemptuous of their mother's moral justification for slaughtering Agamemnon, who had sacrificed the life of another daughter, Iphigenia, so the Greek army could sail to Troy. Elektra helps Orestes and his friend Pylades execute an ingenious plan, continuing a bloody cycle that destroys the lives of their enemies and will forever haunt their own.

Robert Bagg's new translation, modern in idiom while faithful to the original, conveys the complex range of emotion experienced by grieving family members who expect vengeance to set them free. This is Sophocles for a new generation.

Oedipus the King and Other Tragedies: Oedipus the King, Aias, Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colonus (Oxford World's Classics)

by Sophocles

Oedipus the King * Aias * Philoctetes * Oedipus at Colonus

Sophocles stands as one of the greatest dramatists of all time, and one of the most influential on artists and thinkers over the centuries. In these four tragedies he portrays the extremes of human suffering and emotion, turning the heroic myths into supreme works of poetry and dramatic action. Oedipus the King follows Oedipus, the 'man of sorrow', who has unwittingly chosen to enact his prophesied course by murdering his father and marrying his mother. In Aias, the great warrior confronts the harrowing humiliation inflicted upon him, while Philoctetes sees a once-noble hero nursing his resentment after ten years of marooned isolation. In Oedipus at Colonus the blind Oedipus, who has wandered far and wide as a beggar, finally meets his mysterious death.

These original and distinctive verse translations convey the vitality of Sophocles' poetry and the vigour of the plays in performance. Each play is accompanied by an introduction and substantial notes on topographical and mythical references and interpretation.

ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Antigone A New Translation

by Sophocles

Sophocles' masterpiece Antigone dramatizes the terrible series of events that results when patriotism clashes with familial duty—and hubris incites the wrath of the gods.

The sons of Oedipus have killed each other on the battlefield, but Thebes' new ruler, their uncle Kreon, decrees that only Eteokles will be granted a hero's burial; Polyneikes, who attacked his own city, is left to rot in dishonor. Their sister Antigone, enraged by the king's heartlessness, defies him by burying Polyneikes' body herself. That decision dooms her, and the consequences destroy Kreon's wife and son. A play that begins with a woman's defiance of a tyrant ends in the havoc caused by Eros, the god of love. A drama abounding with moral conundrums, Antigone is presented in an extraordinary new translation by Robert Bagg, modern in idiom while faithful to the original Greek. Ideally suited for reading, teaching, or performing, this is Sophocles for a new generation to discover and admire.

The Complete Greek Tragedies: Sophocles I

by Sophocles

"These authoritative translations consign all other complete collections to the wastebasket."--Robert Brustein, The New Republic

"This is it. No qualifications. Go out and buy it everybody."--Kenneth Rexroth, The Nation

"The translations deliberately avoid the highly wrought and affectedly poetic; their idiom is contemporary....They have life and speed and suppleness of phrase."--Times Education Supplement

"These translations belong to our time. A keen poetic sensibility repeatedly quickens them; and without this inner fire the most academically flawless rendering is dead."--Warren D. Anderson, American Oxonian

"The critical commentaries and the versions themselves...are fresh, unpretentious, above all, functional."--Commonweal

"Grene is one of the great translators."--Conor Cruise O'Brien, London Sunday Times

"Richmond Lattimore is that rara avis in our age, the classical scholar who is at the same time an accomplished poet."--Dudley Fitts, New York Times Book Review