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...

Included herein are the seven surviving plays of Athens' pre-eminent playwright, Sophocles, masterfully translated by Lewis Campbell, M.A., LL.D. The plays included are: 'Antigone,' 'Aias,' 'King Oedipus,' 'Electra,' 'The Trachinian Maidens,' and 'Oedipus at Colonus.'

'The Trachinian Maidens' (also 'Women of Trachis' or 'The Trachiniae') is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles, in which Deianeira, the wife of Heracles, is distraught over her husband's neglect of her family. Unable to cope with the thought of losing him, she decides to use a love charm on him, a magic potion that will win him back.

Philoktetes Sophocles - Among the most celebrated plays of ancient Athens, Philoketes 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. A powerful tale born out of the blood and chaos of the Trojan War, Philoketes tells the story of a wounded soldier exiled by Odysseus, and the devastating consequences of the abandoned...

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...