چهار نمایشنامه جذاب و خواندنی از سوفوکل ، بزرگترین درام نویس دنیای قدیم و به عقیده ی من تمام دوران ها.بی نهایت از مطالعه ی این کتاب لذت بردم.هر چهار نمایشنامه، شیوا و روان و از لحاظ شخصیت پردازی فوق العاده قوی و ملموس نوشته شده بود

خلاصه ای از نمایشنامه ها
فیلوکتتس ، که فتح باروی تروا باید به دست او صورت گیرد،زندگی اندوهناکی را سپری می کند....هراکلیس و زن او دیانیرا نیز قربانی قهر تقدیر می شوند
سرنوشت آگاممنون ، سپهسالار یونان در جنگ تروا ، و خیانت زنش که به دستیاری عاشق خود هلاک شوهر را موجب می شود ، و انتقام دخترش ، الکترا ، از خون پدر نیز شگفت و عبرت انگیز است.....همین گونه است فرجام آژاکس ، دلاور یونانی ، که بر اثر ارتکاب خطایی چنان پشیمان می شود که خنجر خود را درون سینه ی خویش فرو می برد

Excellent translations make the reading of the four plays easy. Fascinating to see the concerns of then being paralleled today. Good to read the forgotten Ajax (not a cleaning product!) and Philoctetes as well as the more famous Electra.

The standout is the Philoktetes, which is a nice little piece to use as a heuristic for Hegel's theory of tragedy, insofar as Right comes into confrontation with Right, and about which I have written separately. Otherwise--

Aias

Accused of “an act of staggering horror” (22), Aias has “aimed a stroke at the whole Greek army” (44), a stasis in the camp at Troy. Athena here recalls Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, asking “Who was more full of foresight that this man, / Or abler, do you think, to act with judgment?” (119-20). Odysseus laments Aias’ “Terrible yoke of blindness” (123), finding in it “the true state of all us that live” (125). Some condemnation of those who “weave with false art a supposititious tale” (190). Indeed, “how shall I speak a thing that appalls my speech?” (214). Aias is alledegly “clear in mind” (258) and yet “anguish totally masters him” (275). The play comments on its own construction: “how at the start did this catastrophe / swoop down?” (282-3), pointing out that the catastrophe supposedly ends the tragedy, at least in the later definitions of Aristotle, Freytag, and others. Aias apparently believes that “a woman’s decency is silence” (295) and crying is “marks of an abject spirit” (320). The oikos as private abattoir, as in Aeschylus (345). His defect is perceived atimia: “but now in dishonor / I lie abject” (425). “my name is Aias / agony is its meaning” (431-2). “nor less deserving, yet am left an outcast, / shamed by the Greeks, to perish” (439-40). Tecmessa invokes Homeric moments in Andromache’s plea to Hektor (498 ff.) and Priam’s appeal to Achilles (507 ff.). “ignorance is an evil free from pain” (555), the disjunction of aesthetics and gnosis. Murder changes to suicide: “He swooned in death; this sword Hector gave Aias, / who perished on it with a death-fraught fall. / Did not a Fury beat this weapon out?” (1032-4) “Destinies of men, for the gods weave them all” (1038). Denial burial follows, a familiar difficulty—but “laws will never be rightly kept in a city / that knows no fear or reverence” (1073-4). This metaphor, which Menelaus seeks to apply to the army at Troy, violates the constitution thereof: “didn’t he make the voyage here on his own, / as his own master?” (1099-1100). A religious affront, also, in preventing the burial (1131). One of Aias’ complaints had been against Menelaus’ “procuring fraudulent votes” (1135), a democratic concept in this aristocratic myth. “how fugitive is the gratitude / men owe the dead” (1261-2). Odysseus as the voice of reason on the burial issue: “I hated him while it was fair to hate” (1347); “his greatness weighs more than my hate” (1357). The burial is Ananke (1365). Odysseus resolves to be Aias’ friend in death (1377)—cf. the Antigone for the handling of this issue—here, it is not a polis and thus not a stasis: ergo, no need to take sides in a ‘fight’ and no need for amnestia thereafter? No violations of the rules here means no reciprocal punishments required?

Trachiniae

Deianira opens by channeling Solon from Herodotus: “You cannot know a man’s life before the man / has died, then only can you call it good or bad” (2-3), and then insists that despite being alive, her life is “heavy and sorrowful” (5). She laments that Heracles’ war against the chthonians has been difficult: “This has been his life, that only brings him home / to send him out again, to serve some man or other” (34-5), the oikos placed at the service of the polis. She is advised, “if it is proper that the free should learn / from the thought of slaves” (52-3), that she should “use” her sons to sound out the “absent” father. (“This woman is / a slave, but what she says is worthy of the free” (62-3).) His latest resulted in his own taking of slaves: “he selected them when he sacked the city of Eurytus / as possessions for himself and a choice gift for the Gods” (244-5). The war resulted from Heracles’ wanting revenge for his own reduction to servitude (255 et seq.). Others argue that “love alone who bewitched him into this violence” (355), “inflamed with desire” (368). It is that “her city was completely crushed through desire for her” (431-2). Though “he has had other women before” (460), it is un decidable whether “he suffers from this sickness, / or that woman” (446-7), the same undecidability as in Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera and elsewhere, apparently a common refrain, becoming more arguably foundational the more often we trip over it, eros as less a solicitation of the constitutional order but a solicitation that is the constitutional order. Thereafter follows a lover’s revenge poisoning plot: “for this Justice who punishes / and the Fury will requite you” (808-9). Heracles himself appears late in the play, lamenting the lovecraftian problem of confronting “this inexorable flowering of madness” (999). His grievance is not unwarranted: “O most ungrateful of the Greeks, where are all you / for whom I destroyed myself purging so many beasts / from all the seas and woods?” (1011-13). His torment is “a woven, encircling net / of the Furies” (1051-2). “Neither the spear of battle, not the army of / the earth-born Giants, nor the violence of beasts, / nor Greece, nor any place of barbarous tongues, not / the landsi came to purify could ever do this. / woman, a female, in no way like a man, / she alone without even a sword has brought me down” (1058-63). “Long ago my father revealed / to me that I should die by nothing that draws breath / but by someone dead, an inhabitant of Hell” (1159-61).

Elektra

An equivocation of ‘justice’ (37) and ‘revenge’ (34). “no word is base when spoken with profit” (61). Orestes comes as “purifier” to his father’s oikos (68-9). Elektra angry that “like some dishonored foreigner / I tenant in my father’s house in these ugly rags” (188-9). Atreides have problems back to Pelops at least: “for never a moment since / has destruction and ruin / ever left this house” (510-2), the oikos as bearer of the curse. For her part, Clytemnestra thinks “justice it was that took him” (527), citing specifically the sacrifice of Iphigenia, a matter of the oikos—justice ergo a matter of household concern—hence coinciding without remainder in vendetta. Reading the lock (932). “must I then follow your conception of justice?” (1038)—which is to “yield to authority” (396). Tragic dilemma in “it is terrible to speak well and be wrong” (1039)? “no body of Orestes—except in fiction” (1217). “spare me all superfluity of speech” (1288). Matricide is in the oikos but resounds in the polis (1400 ff). “must this house, by absolute necessity, / see the evils of the Pelopidae” (1497). And yet: “justice shall be taken / directly on all who act above the law-- / justice by killing” (1505-7).

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Few works manage to capture the entire breadth of human emotion in a short 30-40 pages, fewer less do it well. Though these works benefit from an established base of characters and events, the craftsmanship of the Attic poets still shines through. Ajax, of the four, remains one of my favorite pieces of drama, peculiar among Sophocles works for having active participation of the Gods despite not being the source of resolution. Either way, incredible stuff.

The value in this book is war. According to the Greeks of the time, war is good and you have to create it in order to win it and therefore win glory.

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!

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.

I'm so excited I finished The Complete Greek Tragedies with this book. So Happy.

Oedipus the King --> I hadn't read the two Oedipus plays since like 2009, so I loved re-reading them. So tragic.
Oedipus at Colonus --> I actually really enjoyed this one a lot more than I was expecting. I'm getting really invested in the Seven of Thebes stories which I Do Not Have Time For right now, but UGH so interested.
Antigone --> One of my fav plays forever. Anne Caron's re-interpretation is my favourite, but I enjoyed Elizabeth Wyckoff's translation (yes! a lady!)
Ajax --> I had read this one already and I remember liking it but... *shakes head* I just. I cannot feel bad for him. He is such a problematic character.
The Women of Trachis --> A Super Misogynistic Play. My heart broke for Deianira and I wanted to sweep her away and protect her from all her internalized sexism. *patpat*
Electra --> So Much Love for this play. I want to play either the insanely grief-stricken Electra or the cold-hearted Clytemnestra. So Much Fun. I read this play out loud, I was so invested/into it. 10/10 recommend.
Philoctetes --> I had read this already but by a different translator (Seamus Heaney's The Cure at Troy), and I preferred the other translation, to be honest (with apologies to David Grene).

Oh, how I love a Greek play!

1. Women of Trachis - 3

2. Ajax - 4

3. Electra - 4. I was wondering why this felt familiar and then realized this is a continuation of "The Oresteia" (which reminds me, I need to re-read that...)

4. Philoctetes - 4. Odysseus, the cunning asshole, always on brand.

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.

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