Sophocles

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....

Edipo Rey es una obra cuya fuerza radica en que nos presenta de un modo magistral la enigmática relación que, con mayor frecuencia de la deseada, existe entre el dolor y el destino. Su lectura nos revela el sello casi indeleble que impone el azar en la vida de cada ser humano. Por ello, Edipo Rey es una gran tragedia, ya que además nos manifiesta una de las más extrañas paradojas de la vida: el hecho de que quien intenta escapar desesperadamente...

AN EPIC TRAGEDY, WIDELY CONSIDERED TO BE A MASTERPIECE Oedipus Rex, Sophocles' finest play is considered by many to be the greatest of the classic Greek tragedies. First produced sometime around 429 BC, it exhibits near-perfect harmony of character and action and is a work of extraordinary power which has circulated throughout world culture for thousands of years. After Laius, King of Thebes, learns from an oracle that he is doomed to perish by...

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...

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 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...

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....

The doomed king of Thebes brings shame on his family in this iconic three-play cycle of ancient Greek literature, a foundational work of Western drama. Oedipus Rex: As a young man, Oedipus was told of a prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Fleeing his home to escape his destiny, he becomes the king of Thebes by marrying the former king's widow. But now Thebes is cursed until Oedipus discovers who killed his predecessor-a...

Excerpt: "The Hellenic spirit has been repeatedly characterized as simple Nature-worship. Even the Higher Paganism has been described as 'in other words the purified worship of natural forms.'[1] One might suppose, in reading some modern writers, that the Nymphs and Fauns, the River-Gods and Pan, were at least as prominent in all Greek poetry as Zeus, Apollo, and Athena, or that Apollo was only the sweet singer and not also the prophet of retribution."...

The story begins with Deianeira, the wife of Heracles, relating the story of her early life and her plight adjusting to married life. She is now distraught over her husband's neglect of her family. Often involved in some adventure, he rarely visits them. She sends their son Hyllus to find him, as she is concerned over prophecies about Heracles and the land he is currently in. After Hyllus sets off, a messenger arrives with word that Heracles, victorious...