زنان تراخیس: ۴.۵
آژاکس: ۴
الکترا: ۲
فیلوکتتس: ۲‌.۵

و بله، هیچ‌کس اوریپید نمیشه :))

For most people, the name Sophocles is synonymous with Oedipus. Yet, both as a reader of literature and a classical educator, I prefer the non-Oedipus plays of Sophocles, the Ajax in particular. These translations of the plays dealing with Ajax, Hercules, Electra and Philoctetes, edited by Richmond Lattimore and David Grene, are accessible, intelligible, and faithful to the original. I have used this translation many times with students and highly recommend it to someone who wants to read Sophocles, whether from a literary, mythological or historical perspective. I would not recommend it for dramatic performance; you can find translations that do a lot better job of poetic interpretation and foreground the plays' continuing resonance (one example might be Seamus Heaney's The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes for the Philoctetes).

Rereading it with an eye toward how it is similar and dissimilar to Hofmannsthal. I had always read that Hofmannsthal stayed close to the Sophocles. Doesn't seem like it to me.

On to Euripides.

روایت‌های اوریپید را بسیار بیشتر دوست دارم. روایت‌های سوفوکل سراسر مردانه‌ و پر از تحقیر زنان‌ه. برعکس اوریپید

I like Sophocles version of the character Electra. She was my main unanswered question after reading the Oresteia. Read Philoctetes and I wish the other versions of this play by other authors survived. I like that it ties into other legends and stories.

☆ 3

This edition is worth picking up since it includes the "recently" found satyr play, "The Trackers". One of only 2 satyr plays ever recovered (the other is a Euripides play, "The Cyclops").
Only about 20 pp, and probably only half the total play, it is still worth a read in order to gain a sense of what a satyr play was, and how it differs from the tragedies it was linked to in the 3 play presentation competition in ancient Greece.
Good Intro to each play, a Glossary for names and places, Textual Notes in the back.
This volume, based in part on the older translation of Richard Lattimore, has more of a feel of poetry with meter to it, and the use of older (not modern) words and phraes. Nice flow to the text.
A little clunkier to use, with no Notes at the bottom fo the text's pages.

Well, 2020 has unequivocally been a year of tragedy. A quarter million dead Americans and the imminent death of the Republic. I, for one, find the bone-deep cynicism of ancient Greek culture comforting. Whether in the Iliad or Herodotus or Sophocles, one incessantly runs into some version of the aphorism with which Solon warns Croesus, "Never account a man lucky until he reaches the end of his days."

I suppose I shouldn't've been surprised by the (relative) wealth of tragedy broadcast online this spring and summer, including a live performance of  at the ancient theater at Epidauros put on by the National Theatre of Greece, a rebroadcast of Antigone in Ferguson, and several Zoom productions of Sophocles by the Theater of War. The Theater of War, founded in 2009 by writer, director and translator Bryan Doerries, presents dramatic readings- mostly classical tragedy to begin, but they have expanded their repertoire to include Shakespeare, the Bible, plays by O'Neill and Williams, speeches by Frederick Douglass and Sermons by Martin Luther King among other texts - followed by town-hall type discussions about salient issues in the readings.

As the name indicates, much of their work initially was directed toward providing programs to combat veterans suffering from PTSD, but they have expanded their audience as well to include other communities wrestling with trauma. Many first-rate actors have volunteered their participation over the years, including Martin Sheen, Paul Giamatti, Adam Driver, and Frances McDormand, whom I was lucky enough to see this year as both Jocasta and Heracles. When the pandemic began, they moved their operation to a Zoom meeting format, which was sometimes powerfully intimate and at other times too rhythmically off (due to bandwidth freezing) to really work emotionally. I'll take what I can get, though.

I love all four of these plays. I had read them before, when I was learning Greek (I read them in translation; I've only read Hippolytus in the original); I even wrote a paper about Ajax and have since believed it to be my favorite tragedy (because it's all about self-regard with me)*. So I wasn't expecting to be as moved as I was on this reading. I think it's because they're all, in some way, about the frustrations and humiliations of inhabiting a body - Philoctetes' festering foot; the shameful, paranoid delusions in the roiling brain of afflicted Ajax; Electra, barred from redemptive action by the severe social limits imposed on her sex; Heracles' skin, blistered and ulcerated by the lethal Hydra poison- and I've reached the age when my own body "misses the mark" in some way or another on an almost hourly basis.

*Even so, on that reading I missed something fundamental about this play. I had thought that Ajax was the essentially blameless victim of Athene, who drives him mad on behalf of Odysseus, with whom he is locked in a power struggle. Ajax is punished, though, for his impious independence. The messenger relates how, when Ajax left Salamis for the war, his father counseled him to strive for victory "always with God's help." "With God's help," Ajax had replied, "even a worthless man could triumph. I propose, without that help, to win my prize of fame." This perverse individualism isn't limited to Sophocles' perspective on this character. In fact, as translator John Moore points out in his introduction, Ajax is the only major hero in the Iliad who never gets assistance from the gods. At one of the dramatic climaxes of the poem it is he, and he alone, who saves the Greeks. So now I have a better reason for loving this play best. Ajax is Existential Man, going it alone to his own destruction like a boss.

Four Tragedies: Ajax, Women of Trachis, Electra, Philoctetes, Sophocles
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: چهارم ماه مارس سال 1973 میلادی
عنوان: الکترا ، فیلوکتتس، زنان تراخیس و آژاکس، نویسنده: سوفوکل؛ مترجم: محمد سعیدی؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، بنگاه ترجمه و نشر کتاب، 1335؛ در 318 ص
عنوان: الکترا، فیل‍وکتتس، زنان تراخیس و آژاکس؛ نویسنده: سوفوکل (سوفوکلس)؛ مترجم: محمد سعیدی؛ تهران، علمی فرهنگی؛ 1335؛ در 297 ص؛ چاپ دوم 1366؛
نمایشنامه الکترا در حدود سالهای 410 پیش از میلاد یا 409 پیش از میلاد نوشته شده‌ است و داستان انتقام گیری الکترا و برادرش اورستس از مادرشان کلوتایمنسترا و پدرخوانده‌ شان آیگیستوس به خاطر کشتن پدرشان آگاممنون را روایت می‌کند.؛
نمایشنامه فیلوکتتس برای نخستی بار در سال 409 پیش از میلاد در جشنواره دیونوسوس اجرا شد و جایزه نخست را نصیب خود کرد. داستان این نمایش برگرفته از حماسهٔ اودیسه هومر شاعر و حماسه‌ سرای شهیر یونانی است و رخدادهای آن پس از داستان ایلیاد و پیش از جنگ تروا رخ می‌دهد. هراکلس پیش از مرگ تیر و کمان خود را به او داد. ا. شربیانی

This was some pretty light reading. The stakes are always very high in Greek drama. They are fun to read, but after awhile all the wailing and gnashing of teeth can get a bit loud in my head. My husband accurately drew the conclusion that Greek drama is sort of like Japanese animation - always screaming, always the most intense of situations. While this is all true, this is the birth of theater and entertainment as we experience it today. It is also interesting that the gods are always causing such huge problems for people, who are just the victims of the gods' whims. Poor people. Why are their gods like that? I can't imagine being Greek going about my life (i.e. doing the laundry) and just waiting for Athena to f things up just because....

Aiace: Bellissimo esempio di onore eroico.
Aiace non può sopportare la vergogna per aver ucciso la mandria credendo che fosse gli Atridi e gli altri guerrieri e per non aver ottenuto le armi di Achille.
Decide perciò di levarsi la vita per morire con onore e non subire la derisione dei compagni d'armi.
Odisseo è descritto in modo negativo nel corso di tutta la vicenda, ma si dimostra valoroso quando afferma che Aiace merita di essere sepolto con tutti gli onori.
Sofocle riesce sempre ad emozionare, qualunque vicenda racconti.

Elettra: una ragazza forte, in preda all'odio per la madre, che ha assassinato l'amato padre.
Questa è Elettra: stremata dal disprezzo, non riesce neanche a fingere sottomissione, ma continua a ribellarsi a coloro che hanno ucciso il suo modello, la sua figura di riferimento.
Non ha vicino a sè neanche il fratello Oreste, allontanato per salvarlo da un destino infausto.
All'improvviso, però, l'amato fratello ritorna e la libera dalla sua condizione di schiavitù, che la faceva tanto soffrire.
Anche mentre la madre sta morendo, sentendo i suoi gemiti di dolore Elettra non prova pietà, ma incita Oreste a colpire ancora e ancora, ad annientare la madre completamente.

Trachinie: Deianira, colpevole solo di amare troppo il proprio marito, e di desiderare la sua attenzione.
Cade perciò nel tranello di un mostro crudele, che illudendola di averle consegnato un filtro d'amore, le fa avvelenare l'amato sposo, rovinandole la vita.
Infine, ella non può far altro che uccidersi per espiare la sua colpa e non subire l'odio del figlio, che l'accusa a gran voce.
Anche Eracle comprenderà la sua innocenza, poco prima di morire, ed ella non sarà ricordata come un'assassina colpevole, ma come una donna ingenua, impossibilitata ad odiare.

Filottete: abbandonato su un'isola deserta a causa della sua putrida e maleodorante ferita, Filottete trascorre dieci anni in solitudine soffrendo terribilmente.
Neottolemo e Odisseo giungono sull'isola per impossessarsi del suo arco, unico mezzo per concludere felicemente la guerra di Troia.
Filottete si lascia facilmente abbindolare dalla gentilezza di Neottolemo e lo supplica di riportarlo a casa, e il prode figlio di Achille prova una forte pietà per lui e, dopo avergli rivelato il losco piano di Odisseo, cerca di convincerlo a tornare a Troia, dove sarà curato e potrà tornare a combattere.
Filottete non si lascerà facilmente convincere, ma l'apparizione di Eracle risolverà felicemente ogni cosa.

With this book, I complete the remaining extant works of Sophocles. Two I'd already read in a different translation, two were new.

Ajax is tells the tale of the death of Trojan War hero Ajax, and the fallout that follows. This is, I think, the third of Sophocle's plays that deals with the honourable burial (or lack thereof) for a polarising figure. Once again, respect for the gods wins out over the commands of kings. I don't really know what to think of Ajax. If he really was going to murder a bunch of people in the night over an inheritance dispute, maybe he was really as pathetic as he claimed once he came back to his senses. An interesting aspect of this play was that it featured Ajax's "captive wife" as a major character. I find the ancient Greek attitude to such slaves quite contradictory. Like Briseis in The Iliad, she is allowed to speak, express her feelings, grieve for the life she has lost and fear for her uncertain future. She is given human agency. Yet, while the objective misery of such a situation is recognised, the acts of attacking a woman's home, killing her family, and making her a sex slave never seem to be recognised as morally wrong. The gods only object to such actions if the woman in question is a priestess of theirs, or otherwise special to them.

Electra is one I've read previously. This time Electra's descent into vengeful madness over the course of the play seemed much more apparent. I don't know if this is a result of the translation, or that I wasn't stopping the action to read the notes all the time.

Women of Trachis was new. It tells of the great hero Heracles's death by poison shirt. When I first read this myth in Robert Graves' book of Greek myths I frankly found the whole idea of a man running about madly while being murdered by his shirt hard to take seriously. Sophocles at least makes it feel dramatic. I found it hard to identify any central theme or message in this one. I suppose it could be "think before acting", or, if we consider the parallels between this story and the Adam and Eve narrative - a woman being tricked into handing her man something that would doom them both - the moral might be "don't trust women". But I didn't really get that vibe. Maybe it's just a story. Maybe it was part of a series that would have clarified the message.

Philoctetes I'd already read too. It's still probably one of my favourites, perhaps because the moral problem it confronts is still relatable today. Also, I'm starting to think Agamemnon was seriously bad at managing people. How does he manage to piss off so many of his friends and allies? Clytaemnestra, Achilles (in the Iliad), Ajax (above) and now Philoctetes. I'm surprised he lasted so long before someone murdered him!