نمایشنامه صوتی الکترا رو از "پادکست الف" گوش دادم

پادکست الف کار بزرگی در حق من کرد با بازخوانی نمایشنامه های یونان باستان،اگه نبود احتمالش خیلی کم بود که سراغشون برم

نمایشنامه اسطوره‌ای اونم از نوع یونانیش مختصات خاص خودش را داره. با یکسری معیارها میشه سنجید که چقدرش اصیله و چقدر دست خورده. حقیر هم با توجه به مطالعات اندکم به نظرم میاد که به یکسری از نمایشنامه‌های کتاب خطشه وارده. البته هنوز شرح‌ها رو نخوندم و اگه متوجه بشم که اشتباه میکنم، این یادداشت رو اصلاح خواهم کردم.
یکی از نشانه‌های نمایشنامه‌های یونانی حضور خدایان تو نمایشنامه‌ست. البته این حضور معمولا به نحو تجلیه*. به این صورت که مثلا وقتی جنگجویی خوب میجنگه میگن آرس درش متجلی شده. یا در وقت عشق آفرودیته متجلی میشه و قس علی هذا. اما ما تو نمایشنامه فیلوکتتس و آژاکس میبینم که هرکول و آتنا خودشون ظاهر میشن! مخصوصا تو پرده اول آژاکس این برام خیلی عجیب بود.
در کل فیلوکتتس و زنان تراخیس کمتر بوی یونان میداد و آژاکس و مخصوصا الکترا بیشتر.
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خیلی برام جالبه که بدونم چرا یکی از پروژه‌های انتشارات فرانکلین، آثار اسطوره‌ای یونان بوده. جالب‌تر از اون اینه که مترجم این کتاب، محمد سعیدی، نخست‌وزیر زاهدی و از سناتورهای زمان پهلویه!
علی ای حال ترجمه‌ش خیلی خوب نیست و مشخصه که سنت ترجمه هنوز خیلی شکل نگرفته. با توجه به سیاق جملات، احتمال میدم که مترجم جرح و تعدیل‌هایی هم اعمال کرده که از اصالت نمایشنامه کم کرده.


* میدونم این کلمه در سنت ما بار معنایی خاصی داره. با تساهل و تسامح بپذیرید.

Electra, in Sophocles’ telling of her story, is just as single-minded and uncompromising in her quest for vengeance as she is when fellow Athenian playwrights Aeschylus and Euripides tell the same story. The daughter of Agamemnon, in every version of her story, will not rest until the blood of her murdered father has been repaid with the blood of his killers – his wife Clytemnestra (Electra’s own mother), and Clytemnestra’s lover-turned-husband Aegisthus. But Sophocles incorporates his own unique sensibility and insight into Electra’s story, as he does with of the other mythologically based plays included in this volume.

The title of Women of Trachis refers to the play’s chorus – a group of women of the city-state of Trachis in northern Greece, attending upon (and providing a dramatic counterpoint to) Deianeira, the wife of Heracles. As the play begins, Deianeira’s anxiety at her husband’s long absence is mollified when a messenger provides news that Heracles is on his way home. Yet the herald Lichas brings not only additional news of Heracles’ return, but also some unwelcome additions to the Heraclean household: captives Heracles took while sacking Oechalia, including a beautiful young woman named Iole.

Lichas tries to put a brave face on this uncomfortable situation, claiming that Heracles only attacked Oechalia under compulsion, while held in slavery by the Lydian princess Omphale; but the messenger tells Deianeira the whole truth, declaring that “It was all for that beautiful girl [Iole]/That Heracles sacked Oechalia’s lofty towers/And conquered Eurytus. Love was the only god/To charm him into this warlike expedition,/Nothing to do with penal servitude out/In Lydia, under Omphale” (p. 26). Deianeira, feeling the changes of middle age, now has it confirmed that her husband is bringing a young and beautiful mistress into the family household.

Deianeira, however, has -- or thinks she has -- a secret weapon in her romantic arsenal. When the centaur Nessus, years before, tried to abduct Deianeira, Heracles killed him. The dying centaur bade Deianeira take some of his blood and anoint some of Heracles’ clothing with it as a love charm, should Heracles’ love for Deianeira ever start to fade. Deianeira now anoints a full-length robe with the centaur’s blood, and tells Lichas to present it to Heracles as a gift from Deianeira. Poor Deianeira: she thought the centaur was sorry for abducting her and only wanted to do her a good turn, where in fact it was Nessus’ plan to exact a cruel revenge from beyond the grave. Deianeira soon senses that her plan for securing Heracles’ love may have gone awry, telling the women of Trachis that “My hopes were all for the best,/But I fear I shall soon be shown to have done great harm” (p. 37).

Deianeira’s worst fears are soon confirmed. Heracles’ son Hyllus arrives to report that the poisoned robe has eaten into Heracles’ skin and vitals, causing the hero endless, agonizing pain. The unlucky herald Lichas, who brought the robe, has been killed by Heracles, flung out against a rock that protrudes from the sea. Deianeira, overcome with grief and remorse, kills herself with a sword; and Heracles, brought in on a litter, expresses the mortification he feels at being seen in this weakened state: “Here I am, sobbing/And crying away like a girl. No one could ever say/He saw great Heracles weeping before” (p. 51).

While Heracles initially believes that Deianeira deliberately caused him this agony, exclaiming upon the news of Deianeira’s suicide that “I should have killed that woman!” (p. 53), his loyal son Hyllus quickly acquaints him with the facts of the case. Heracles accepts his fate, telling Hyllus first to burn Heracles in a funeral pyre, and then to wed Iole. Hyllus questions the ways of the gods as the play draws to a conclusion, telling the bearers of Heracles’ litter that “the hearts of the callous gods/Feel nothing in all these sorry events./They beget their sons and are called our fathers,/Yet look down calmly on our great pain. No man has a vision of what is to come” (p. 59).

Ajax of Salamis, that larger-than-life warrior who is one of the pre-eminent heroes of the Iliad, is vouchsafed a heroic death in Wolfgang Petersen’s film Troy (2004), dying after a long and heroic battle with Hector. That’s fine for the movies, but the actual circumstances of Ajax’s death, according to the original myths, were much less heroic, as Sophocles chronicles in his play Ajax.

As the play begins, Ajax has already carried out the act that will forever cloud his post-Trojan War glory. Incensed that, in a contest held to determine who would inherit the armour of the dead Achilles, he lost to Odysseus, Ajax planned to take his revenge by murdering the Greek leaders Agamemnon and Menelaus, and torturing his rival Odysseus for good measure. But the goddess Athena misled Ajax, causing him to direct his wrath against sheep and cattle captured in the war, slaughtering them instead.

Sitting among the bodies of the animals he has killed, Ajax is immobilized by his sense of his own disgrace: “Here’s Ajax the brave, the bold-hearted man,/Who never blenched in fight against furious foes,/And now he flaunts his power on poor harmless beasts!/Oh, how they’ll laugh! How I’ve been brought to shame!” (p. 87) The once-admired hero comes to conclude that he must take his own life in order to restore his tarnished honour; in one moving interlude, he holds up his young son Eurysaces and says, “My son, I pray/That you’ll be luckier than your father was” (p. 93).

One of the most famous passages in Sophocles’ Ajax involves the title character meditating on the power of time and fortune. Beginning with a reflection on how “Time, in its long uncounted course, brings forth/The hidden truth, then hides it all from the light” (p. 96), the Salaminian warrior who once considered himself all-powerful proceeds to a serene acceptance of divine will: “In future, then, we’ll know to yield to the gods” (p. 97). Such words are worlds away from the arrogance with which Ajax once spoke, as described by a messenger who is Ajax’s half-brother:

“If you’re born human, you must not entertain
Thoughts higher than a human being should.
Ajax displayed his folly the very moment
That he set out from home. His father’s parting
Words were: ‘Son, let your ambition be
To fight to win, but always with god’s help.’
He boastfully and thoughtlessly replied,
‘Father, with god’s help even a nobody
Can win a victory. I don’t need god’s help.
I trust I’ll land the fish of fame without it!’
Those were his boastful words. Another time,
When the goddess Athena was urging him on and said,
‘Ajax, now use that hand of yours and kill!
He made her this unspeakably rude retort:
‘You can assist the other Greeks, my lady!
The battle line won’t break where I’m on hand.’
That speech incurred Athena’s pitiless wrath.
His mind had flown beyond his human limits.” (pp. 100-01)

Ajax’s earlier words, here cited by his half-brother, seem a textbook example of hubris, ὕβρις, the fatal pride that, in the Olympian belief system, invites divine punishment against the human imprudent enough not to acknowledge the power and authority of the gods.

The chorus leader for Ajax (one of a group of Greek sailors) no doubt reflects the sensibilities of the play’s original audience when he tells Ajax’s half-brother Teucer that “You’d better be thinking how/You’ll bury Ajax” (p. 110); but then Ajax’s erstwhile enemy, the Greek commander Menelaus of Sparta, insists that “No one can have the power to lay his body/To rest in a grave. No, he must be thrown out/On the yellow sand to feed the hungry seabirds” (p. 111). As with Creon’s decision in Sophocles’ Antigone to leave unburied the body of Polyneices, the slain rebel commander from the Theban civil war, Menelaus’ order is a terrible profanation against the gods, as it was said that the stench of the unburied dead would rise to Olympus itself. Surprisingly, it is Odysseus, Ajax’s former enemy and rival, who successfully persuades Menelaus and Agamemnon to permit the honourable burial of Ajax, and it is left to Trucer to remark the irony of it all: “You were the Greek my brother hated most,/But you alone have offered him active help” (p. 122).

Electra is Sophocles’ take on a story that so fascinated the people of ancient Greece that both Aeschylus and Euripides also dramatized it. In Sophocles’ version of how Electra and Orestes avenged the murder of their father by killing their mother, Orestes arrives before the royal palace of Mycenae and describes how he will spread an untrue story of his own accidental death, in order to lull Clytemnestra and Aegisthus into a false sense of security: “Our crafty tale will bring them the glad tidings/That my body has been cremated and now consists/Of nothing but charred remains” (p. 137). Electra, unlike her go-along-to-get-along sister Chrysothemis, openly hopes that Clytemnestra and Aegisthus will be punished for their crimes, and therefore she is treated cruelly by the usurping royal couple. Adding to Electra’s pain is her belief that Orestes is indeed dead, and all hope of vengeance therefore gone: “My hope is gone, all that I had/Swept right away, vanished!” (p. 163).

All three of the great Athenian dramatists make a point of focusing upon the irony of the living Orestes speaking to a sister who thinks he is dead, as Sophocles does when his Orestes says to the grieving Electra that “Only I can share the pain of your suffering” (p. 176). Once Orestes has revealed himself, Electra rejoices, her devotion to vengeance renewed: “I swear, yes I swear, Artemis be my strength,/I’ll never stoop to fear my old foes again” (p. 178). Orestes urges caution, and brother and sister move carefully to the successful accomplishment of their revenge.

Yet as in Shakespeare’s revenge tragedies centuries later, Sophocles suggests that in gaining revenge against one’s enemy, one can become one’s enemy. This theme comes through with special force when Electra, hearing Aegisthus’ pleas for mercy after the killing of Clytemnestra, scornfully replies, “No, Orestes, for god’s sake….Kill him at once; kill him, and then/Throw out his corpse for the dogs and birds to bury/Out of our sight. No other payment/For all I’ve suffered could be enough for me” (pp. 188-89). As in Ajax, and in Antigone from Sophocles’ Theban trilogy, the impious act of leaving a corpse unburied shows the extent to which a character has lost all sense of ethical boundaries. And the play’s chorus of Mycenaean women sound downright existential when they conclude, addressing Electra directly, “O seed of Atreus, how much you have suffered!/But now this attack has forced you out/Into freedom. You’ve come to the ending” (p. 190). Electra is indeed forced out into freedom – compelled to live as the person she has become because of her choices and their attendant consequences.

Philoctetes is a story of war and pain – so much so that readings and stagings of this particular play have been used as a way to help modern combat veterans deal with their own wartime trauma. The background story would have been quite familiar to Athenian audiences of Sophocles’ time: Philoctetes, a great archer, was en route to Troy with the rest of the Greek expeditionary force when he was bitten by a snake on the island of Lemnos and was left behind by the Greeks, his wound stinking and festering and causing him endless pain. Nine years later, as the action of Sophocles’ Philoctetes begins, the Greeks have received a prophecy that Troy will never fall until Philoctetes rejoins the Greek army; and Odysseus has come to Lemnos with Achilles’ son Neoptolemus to get Philoctetes away from Lemnos and over to Troy.

Odysseus, depicted less sympathetically by Sophocles here than in Ajax, plans to use deceit to get Philoctetes onto the boat to Troy, telling Neoptolemus that Philoctetes “mustn’t/Realize I am here. It would wreck the ingenious/Plan I think would ensure his speedy capture” (p. 203). Odysseus knows that the ever-suffering Philoctetes is bitter at having been left behind by the Greeks, and will not want to rejoin the Greek forces; therefore, Odysseus plans to use subterfuge to seize Philoctetes’ sacred bow (a gift from the dying Heracles), and, by that means, to force Philoctetes to accompany them. Philoctetes knows only too well Odysseus’ gift for stratagems; he tells the play’s chorus, a group of Greek sailors, that Odysseus would “use his tongue to forward any/Evil scheme or villainous action, if that/Was likely to serve his wicked ends” (p. 216).

Odysseus’ plan, in brief, is for Neoptolemus to feign sympathy for Philoctetes, and by that means to get his hand on the bow. Neoptolemus goes along at first, but then becomes conscience-stricken, moved by the intensity of the stricken archer’s suffering: “Poor man, I can see you’ve been through hell” (p. 229).

Neoptolemus gets the bow for a time, and it looks as though the bow will end up in the hands of Odysseus – Philoctetes laments that his old adversary now “fondles/My whole means of life in his hands,/Wields what no man wielded before./Trusty bow, so dear to my heart” (p. 242). Yet Neoptolemus has never actually handed over the bow, and soon the all-too-clever Odysseus is shocked to discover that Neoptolemus plans “To undo the wrongs that I did before”, on grounds that “It was shameful and wrong to take [the bow]” (p. 246). The foiled Odysseus retreats from the scene. Philoctetes and Neoptolemus form a friendship and alliance based on trust, and the deified Heracles appears to inform Philoctetes that it is the gods’ will that Philoctetes join the Greek forces outside Troy: “I shall send/Asclepius to heal your wounds in Troy./The citadel must be captured by my bow/A second time” (p. 255). The play ends on a note of hope, with Philoctetes bidding farewell to the island where he lived nine years in torment; and the Athenian audience would know that Philoctetes’ unfinished business at Troy would include the killing of Paris, the man whose abduction of Helen had started the whole war.

This translation by David Raeburn of Oxford University, with introduction and notes by Pat Easterling of Cambridge University, is an excellent way to get to know the four surviving plays of Sophocles other than the better-known Oedipus trilogy.

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).

Sofokles tunnetaan antiikin Kreikan kuuluisimpana tragediakirjailijana, ja onkin kulttuuriteko, että viimein loput neljä vielä suomentamaton draamaklassikkoa on käännetty erinomaisesti suomeksi. Draamojen lisäksi kansien välissä on oivallinen johdanto, kuka Sofokles oikein oli, mikä on hänen merkityksensä ja vieläpä hänen käyttämänsä tragiatekniikat.

Näytelmien jälkeen on ihan kattava selvitys alluusioista ja viittauksista antiikin myytteihin ja taruihin, jotta antiikin kirjallisuuteenkin perehtymätön tunnistaa ne ja hoksaa kulttuurikontekstin jne.

Näytelmät ovat samassa järjestyksessä alla niin kuin kirjan kansien välissä.

Trakhiin naiset

Näytelmä kertoo Sofokleen version Herakleen kuolemaan johtaneista syistä. Näyttämönä toimii Trakhis ja tarkemmin Herakleen palatsin miljöö, ja eletään aikaa muutama vuosi ennen Troijan sotaa.

Herakleen vaimo Deianeira saa tietää puolijumalamiehensä olevan tulossa kotiin, mutta odottavan lempeä himmentää mukana tullut kaunotar-ryöstösaalis Iole. Vaimo siis pelkää menettävänsä puolison rakkauden, ja silloin päättää käyttää kentauri Knessoksen hänelle neuvomaansa rakkauden eliksiiriä. Se paljastuukin hirvittäväksi kiroukseksi, kun Herakleen tappama kentauri olikin ilkeästi neuvonut kuolemansuudelman. Takaumassa päästään hetkeen, jolloin Deianeira muistelee keräämäänsä kuolevan Knessoksen verta, piilottaa sen auringolta ja kutoo tummaan vereen kastetusta kankaasta ihokkaan miehelleen luullen siten saavansa Herakleen varauksettoman rakkauden.

Näin ei käykään, ja ennen pitkää Herakleen uskottu mies Likhas tuleekin ilmoittamaan, että hänen isäntänsä kärsii suunnattomista tuskista, jonka vaimon lähettämä vaatekappale on aiheuttanut. Sitä Deianeira olikin jo pelokkaana ajatellut, kun kentaurin vereen kastettu ja auringonvaloon jäänyt kangassuikale oli leimahtanut tuleen.

Loppuhuipennuksessa Dianeira päätyy itsemurhaan, ja paareilla koriseva Herakles sanelee avustajilleen ohjeita, mitä Hyllos-pojalle tehdään ja miten hänen oma polttohautaus toteutetaan. Siitä alkaa matka Oitavuorelle ja matka jumalaksikorottamiselle. Siinä taustalla ja tapahtumien edetessä kuorona toimii Trakhiin nuoret naiset...

Filoktetes

Tua Korhosen suomentama Filoktetes on hieno näytelmä, joka perustuu Herakles myyttiin ja jonka oli kirjoittanut pari muutakin kirjailijaa aiemmin. Lähtökohtana oli siis Herakleen polttorovion sytyttäneen Filokteteen lahja: jousi ja nuolet, jotka osuvat aina maaliinsa.

Näytelmän taustalla on vangiksi saadun troijalaisen tietäjän ennustus, jonka mukaan Filoktetes tarvitaan jousipyssyineen, jotta Troija kukistuu. Sitä ennen matkalla sotaan, tämä miekkonen on hylätty karulle Lemnoksen saarelle kitumaan hulluuden partaalle ajaneen käärmeenpureman jälkeen, joka oli erään palvontapaikan suojelija.

Odysseus juonittelee Akhilleuksen pojan Neoptolemoksen narraamaan pyssy jousineen, jotta sota voitetaan. Nuorukainen tekeekin työtä käskettyä, mutta omatuntu alkaa soimata, jolloin päättää paljastaa Filoktoteelle petoksen. Siitä yhdeksän vuotta nälkää ja kurjuutta nähnyt kreikkalainen vain huutaa ja vikisee, jolloin jumalten on jälleen puututtava tapahtumiin. Seuraa klassinen deus ex machina, jolloin Herakles pyyhältää taivaalta kertomaan, että Filokteteesta tulee sankari ja hänen märkivä käärmeenpuremansa parannetaan, kunhan lähtee vihamiehensä Odysseuksen ja miehistön mukaan.

Näytelmässä on päähenkilön eksistentiaalista ahdistusta ja yksinäisyyttä, ja toisaalta moraalista pohdintaa, voiko hyvän tarkoituksen vuoksi pettää ystävänsä. Odysseuskin sanojensa mukaan tällainen: ” Olen sellainen mies jota kulloinkin tarvitaan.” Moraalinen ylevyys ja jumalan puuttuminen tilanteeseen voittaa ithakalaisen opportunistin tällä kertaa. Kuoron virkaa toimittaa Neoptolemoksen laivan miehistö.

Aias

Tommi Nuopposen Aias-tragedia on onnistunut käännös ja mukaaansa tempaava tragedia järkensä menettäneestä kreikkalaisesta sotasankarista Troijan-sodan loppuvaiheessa.

Nimihenkilö Aias päätyy puolessavälissä näytelmää itsemurhaan, ja sikäli huippukohta ajoittuukin lopun sijasta toisen näytöksen alkuun. Myös ajan ja paikan ykseys tässä draamassa rikkoutuu, kun alussa ollaan Aiaan Teltassa ja sen liepeillä ja toisessa näytöksessä yksinäisellä paikalla rannikolla Troijan edustalla.

Muutoin näytelmä noudattelee perinteistä tragedian kaavaa, niin kuin Sofokleella tapaa ollakin, eli tässä Aias aiheuttaa jumalan koston (Pallas Athene). Häntä oli siis varoitettu olemaan liian ylimielinen ja turvautua jumalien apuun, mutta toisin kävi. Aias oli väkevin soturi Akhilleuksen kuoleman jälkeen eikä piitannut vanhasta ennustuksesta. Jumala sekoitti miehen pään, kun tämä oli käymässä taistoon sekä Atreuksen poikia (Spartan kuningas Menelaosta ja koko joukon johtajaa Agamemnonia vastaan). Hulluuden vallassa Aias teurastikin ison joukon eläimiä ja niiden paimenia.

Näytelmän alussa ollaan Aiaan teltassa, kun järki alkaa pikku hiljaa palailemaan, ja puoliso Tekmessa poikansa kanssa yrittää auttaa onnetonta. Kuorona toimii Aiaan sotureita.

Toinen näytös lähtee liikkeelle, kun ennustaja Kalkhaalt tulee viesti, ettei Aiasta saa päästää mihinkään, tai huonosti käy. Teukros, joka puolestaan Aiaan velipuoli, lähtee miehineen etsimäään, kunnes löytävätkin Hektorin kaksiteräiseen miekkaan syöksyneen prinssin. Näillä miehillä oli yhteinen isä, kuningas Telamon, ja Teukroksen äiti puolestaan oli edellisen Troijan sodan hävinneen kuningas Laomedeen tytär Hesione.

Surmapaikalla tulevat vuoroin räyhäämään niin Menelaos kuin Agamemnonkin, ja jälleen kerran viekas Odysseus, Ithakan kuningas, onnistuu hoitamaan hommat parhain päin, ja kaikki onnistuvat säilyttämään kasvonsa. Lopulta veli hautaa veljensä.

Elektra

Vesa vahtikarin suomentama Elektra on luettavissa myös Euripiden ja Aiskhyloksen näytelmänä. Tässä versiossa puherooleja on yhteensä kuusi, ja niistä on enintään kolme yksittäisessä kohtauksessa.

Tarina on sama kuin muissakin Elektra-tragedioissa: Mykenen karkotettu prinssi tulee kostamaan isänsä surmaa eli hän tappaa äitinsä ja kuninkaan murhaajan. Agamemnonin paluun jälkeen hänen valtaistuimensa anastaa Aigisthos-serkku, ja teurastukseen oli osallisena myös Klytaimnestra eli Oresteen ja Elektran äiti.

Tapahtumahetkellä on käsillä entisen kuninkaan surman vuosipäivä, ja varsinkin Elektra ”surun morsian” ilmentää vaikerruksellaan ja valituksellaan kärsimäänsä tuskaa eli veljensä ja isänsä menetystä. Muutoinkin hän on hovissa kuin orjan asemassa ja muiden nöyryytettävänä.

Orestes saapuu vanhan palvelijansa ja ystävänsä Pyladeen kanssa panemaan ennustusta toimeen. Siitä kertoo muun muassa mykeneläisistä naisista koostuva kuoro.

Klytaimnestra teeskentelee miehensä surman olleen oikeutettu, ja tuskin malttaa odottaa, että Aigisthos tulee rankaisemaan tytärtään.

Muutamien juonenkäänteiden jälkeen päästäänkin loppuhuipennukseen, ja Elektran epätoivo vaihtuu Oresteen rinnalla iloon. Sitä ennen nuorempi sisar Khrysothemis yrittää kaikin keinoin Elektraa jo hyväksymään Tuhkimon osansa. Lopulta mennään sermin taakse ja hakataan yllätetyn Aigistoksen pää poikki.

Continuing the tradition of greek tragedy reviewing.

Sophocles is by all definitions one of the greatest playwrites of all time. He focuses on the psyche, and often on characters who fall by doing the right thing: who define themselves by honorable traits until it kills them. These plays may be less known on the whole, but still pack a punch.

I did notice that these plays had little affect on me in comparison to certain others by Sophocles, but I believe this may partially be a result of translation; these translations feel less biting, less sharp, more direct meaning than emotion.

Reviewed Plays from this Collection
→Ajax ★★★☆☆ Sophocles← (c.445 BCE) (from a diff. volume)
Ajax is a man with a name that shrieks: the Greeks would have called him Aias. The vocative, when speaking to him, would've sounded like aiai, the Greek exclamation. In this play, following Ajax's final day after a prophesy comes he will kill himself, he certainly lives up to that. After this one day, the time for his fate to come will expire, and he may live. Ajax dies upon a Trojan sword, on Trojan ground, but he has placed it himself.

Tecmessa, Ajax's wife and war-bride, plays a much wider role in this than expected: she garners respect, in contrast to the expectations for war brides. Yet she still has a fragile role. The consequences for her if Ajax dies are not just losing him, but losing everything. His son, Eurysaces, would be considered illegitimate; indeed, this is the fate of his half-brother, Teucer. The contrast between him and Teucer is also interesting: while Teucer is an archer, associated with cowards (Paris) and tricksters (Odysseus), Ajax is a straight-shooting fighter. But the 'deception' speech to Tecmessa complicates this, using arrow imagery around his upcoming death.

The breaks in convention are notable: the play breaks typical narrative structure, the location shifts, the chorus leaves and comes back, and Ajax dies on stage, rather than off.

Notable Lines (John Moore translation):
CHORUS: Strangely the long & countless drift of time brings all things forth from darkness into light. (646)
AJAX: My speech is womanish for this woman's sake. (652)

→Electra ★★★★★ Sophocles← (unk)
Reviewed here.

→Women of Trachis ★★★★★ Sophocles← (unk)
The saddest of these plays... to me, anyway. Following Deianira, wife of Heracles, as she is tricked by the dead into killing her husband, this play pulls its audience in. Deianira is hopeless, but never pathetic—she uses what agency she has to great renown.

This play made me feel genuinely claustrophobic. We, as the audience, know from the beginning that Deianira is killing her husband through her actions: as she battles with whether to stand still or act, we know she should stand still. But it is impossible to fully want that for her. It is her willingness to act that makes her so compelling; it gives her the chance to fix her life, and eventually destroys her life.

→Philoctetes ★★★☆☆ Sophocles← (409 BCE)
This play revolves around the consequences of an evil trick played by the Greeks (as per usual). Ten years ago, the Greek army abandoned war hero Philoctetes on an abandoned island. Now, as per a prophecy, trickster Odysseus and young Neoptolemus must retrieve him. The character of Neoptolemus here must grapple with the bones he's standing on, but also keep the peace with both parties.

This play is interesting in that, like Ajax, it's a story about war that occurs removed from war. This is a recurring theme of Greek tragedy: the battles are not actually the topic of drama. It is the psychological trauma of war and the dynamics of heroism that are up for debate.

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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

Sophocles...he is great...:)

Sophocles made a lot of big changes in his time, and E.F. Watling takes the time to make readers appreciate it. Take a look at my thoughts in much more detail and 500 more words on my blog!

The plays are excellent, based on myths containing sensationalist material such as matricide, fratricide, revenge killings, suicide, adultery and deception. Sophocles definitely deserves his legendary status. The ability of these ancient dramatists to portray these stories with the limited resources and technology available at the time is ingenious.

This edition contains good prefaces to the plays which includes an explanation of how the plays might have been staged. However, there is a good general explanation of the set up the Greek theatre in the appendix at the back of the book, which would have been better put at the front. The endnotes to the plays are copious and I found them a bit excessive. I prefer it if the notes are limited to an explanation of references that might be unknown to the general reader but the notes in this edition give quite extensive commentary on each scene. However, anyone who wished to stage the play might find these helpful.

Electra: E's brother Orestes returns home and kills their mum & her lover in revenge for killing their dad.

Ajax: A goes mad when dead Achilles' armour is given to Odysseus and kills some cows thinking he is killing the Greek generals. A kills himself. O makes sure his body is buried with honour.

Women of Trachis: Heracles' wife Deianira gives H a poisoned robe after learning that H plans to take a mistress.

Philoctetes: P has been stranded on a island with his magic bow for years because of a poisoned foot. Neoptolemus and Odysseus try to steal the magic bow by trickery.

آشنایی زیادی با یونان و نمایشنامه‌هاش ندارم. به‌عنوان کسی که فقط آواز آشیل و پنلوپیاد خونده اینا رو هم خیلی دوست داشتم.

فیلوکتتس: کسی که ادیسیوس و نئوپتولموس پسر آشیل خواستند با حیله راضی به بازگشت و تسلیم کردن کمانش کنند.


زنان تراخیس: تلاش دیرانیرا برای جلوگیری همسرش هراکلس از معشوقه گرفتن به فاجعه منتهی می‌شه...

الکترا: انتقام دخترِ آگاممنون از سلاخی پدرش توسط مادر و معشوقه‌ی وی با بازگشت برادرش اورستس محقق می‌شه.

آژاکس: داستان زوال و نابودی قهرمان جنگ‌های یونان و تروا (چقدر دراماتیک و بچه‌ان اینا=)))ا

like surprisingly stellar