Publisher's description: Echoing through western culture for more than two millennia, Sophocles' play 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 new translation of the Antigone is both extremely faithful to the Greek and poetically striking and convincing.

'Electra' is arguably the greatest of all the Greek tragedies. This volume includes translations of 'Electra', 'Ajax', 'Women of Trachis' and 'Philoctetes'.

The least developed of all Sophocles' tragedies in terms of structure and action, Women of Trachis dramatizes the unfortunate and accidental death of Ancient Greece's greatest hero, Heracles. The play is set before the royal palace at Trachis, fifteen months since the region's king, Heracles, has left his home to go on one of his adventures. His queen, Deianira, is worried due to the lack of news, so she sends her son Hyllus to find out what has become...

Donated by Sydney Harris.

Bearer of an almost unspeakable, immutable fate, Oedipus yet feels himself a man chosen--that is, favored--by the gods. Now an old man, blind and outcast, Oedipus wanders through Greece guided by his daughter Antigone until he comes to Colonus, where he knows he will die. This second play of the Oedipus saga finds Oedipus railing against the indignities of old age, possibly reflecting the authors own sentiments, as Sophocles was nearly 90 at the time...

Sophocles often won the leading prize at the Dionysia, the principal dramatic festival of Athens; but Oedipus the King was a runner-up, winner of the second prize. Posterity, however, considers the play second to none. The play tells the beginning of the Oedipus saga, setting the stage and creating the characters who will continue the story to its conclusion in Antigone. With Michael Pennington, John Gielgud, and Claire Bloom.

First in a set of reading plans for the Great books of the Western world series. Study guide.