Sophocles

"When her dead brother is decreed a traitor, his body left unburied beyond the city walls, Antigone refuses to accept this most severe of punishments. Defying her uncle who governs, she dares to say 'No'. Forging ahead with a funeral alone, she places personal allegiance before politics, a tenacious act that will trigger a cycle of destruction."--Back cover.

Sophocles' Philoctetes begins with their arrival on the island. Odysseus explains to Neoptolemus that he must perform a shameful action in order to garner future glory - to take Philoctetes by tricking him with a false story while Odysseus hides. Neoptolemus is portrayed as an honorable boy, and so it takes some persuading to get him to play this part. To gain Philoctetes's trust, Neoptolemus tricks Philoctetes into thinking he hates Odysseus as well....

Sophocles' play is a famous retelling of Aias's (Ajax's) demise. After the armor is, awarded to Odysseus, Aias feels so insulted that he wants to kill Agamemnon and Menelaus. Athena intervenes and clouds his mind and vision, and he goes to a flock of sheep and slaughters them, imagining they are the Achaean leaders, including Odysseus and Agamemnon. When he comes to his senses, covered in blood, he realizes that what he has done has diminished his...

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. Oedipus is a towering tragic figure whose final years comprise a moving portrayal of the perseverance of human dignity in the face...

Only seven plays of the Ancient Greek dramatist Sophocles have survived to today. Sophocles is best known for his trilogy of dramas known as the "Three Theban Plays", which is comprised of the plays "Oedipus Rex", "Oedipus at Colonus", and "Antigone". The remaining four extant plays are collected together in this volume of "Electra and Other Plays". First in this collection we find "Ajax", the oldest of Sophocles plays, which unfolds the destiny of...

Ajax Sophocles - Ajax is enraged because Achilles' armor was awarded to Odysseus, rather than to him. He vows to kill the Greek leaders who disgraced him. Before he can enact his extraordinary revenge, though, he is tricked by the goddess Athena into believing that the sheep and cattle that were taken by the Achaeans as spoil are the Greek leaders. He slaughters some of them, and takes the others back to his home to torture, including a ram which...

The oldest surviving play of the great Greek tragedian Sophocles, "Aias" or "Ajax" unfolds the destiny of the warrior "Aias" after the Trojan War. He is infuriated with the Greek leaders for awarding the armor of Achilles to Odysseus, and he vows to kill them in his vengeance. When he attempts to seek his revenge, however, the goddess Athena interferes, leading him into disgrace. Determined to end his own life, Aias disregards the pleading of his...

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...

Among the most celebrated plays of ancient Athens, Aias 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 James Scully. Still powerful and remarkably timely thousands of years after its creation, Aias is the moving story of a soldier returning home victorious from the Trojan War, only to discover he has lost his life's purpose....

One of the most famous poets from classical antiquity, Sophocles was one of three important ancient Greek tragedians, the others being Aeschylus and Euripides. Writing during the 5th century BC, Sophocles created some one hundred and twenty three plays during his lifetime, of which only seven have survived in their entirety. Included in this edition are those seven complete plays, as translated by Lewis Campbell and include the following: "Antigone,"...