There was a point at which some critics contended that "Prometheus Bound" was not actually written by Aeschylus, arguing that someone else, perhaps his son Euphorion, who was also a dramatist, was the actual author. The argument hinged on the portrait of Zeus in the play, which is highly critical of the king of the Gods and at odds with the wise and just Zeus Aeschylus presents in the "Orestia." Since we have only a half-dozen complete plays of the ninety Aeschylus is believed to have written, it is difficult to make a judgment regarding his entire body of work. However, we do have fragments from the other plays in the trilogy, "Prometheus Unbound" and "Prometheus the Fire-Carrier," which suggest that what happens in this first play sets the stage for an evolving Zeus, who eventually finds his better nature when he achieves a reconciliation with the rebel Titan. Given the dramatic scope of the "Orestia," with its evolving notion of justice, it seems to me reasonable enough that Aeschylus was attempting something similar with this trilogy.

"Prometheus Bound" finds the titan, who defied Zeus and gave humanity the saving gift of fire (among other sins), bound on a remote mountain peak with iron spikes driven through his flesh by the unwilling Hephaestus and his assistants Might and Violence, allegorical figures who define the source of Zeus's power. The scenes of the play consist of a series of dialogues between Prometheus and the ancient god Oceanus (the chorus consists of the daughters of Oceanus), Io, a woman turned into a cow because of Zeus's attentions, and Hermes, who wants to know the secret held by Prometheus that threatens the power of Zeus. Prometheus (whose name means "foresight") refuses and is then cast into the underworld to be punished further. At the heart of the play is the conflict between the immovable will of Prometheus and the irresistible force of the power of Zeus.

Clearly this tragedy speaks to an archetypal human condition, wherein physical power seeks to break the mind of an individual to its will. The audience is caught in a dilemma, for on one side is the king of the gods and on the other is the savior of humanity, for without the gift of fire early man was doomed. Indeed, that was clearly the intent of Zeus. Consequently, like Prometheus, the audience is caught between their own rock and a hard place. Fortunately, by the end of the trilogy Aeschylus gives his audience an out, for the Zeus who is represented in this play is transformed into a more acceptable deity in the end. Even without those plays and knowing the innovative brilliance of Aeschylus as a tragic dramatist, we can certainly appreciate the overall story arc that begins with this play. For teachers who do not want to contend with the entire "Orestia" or have to contend with editing it down for students, "Prometheus Bound" represents a single work by Aeschylus that is equally as pivotal to our understanding of classical mythology.

The Titan Prometheus has stolen fire from heaven and given it to Earth's mortal inhabitants. He is punished for his presumption by being bound to a rock on Mount Caucasus and tortured. Prometheus, who can foretell the future, refuses to tell Zeus the secret of Zeus' downfall. This is a play of the conflict between force and injustice on one side and intelligence, justice, and altruism on the other. The play greatly influenced a wide spectrum of later writers. It should be required reading in all universities.

The fragments themselves are quite beautiful, but I found the commentary much more interesting. Since so little is known about the subject, the translator provides notes along with each fragment that lets the reader know from where the fragment came. The commentary also includes citations from many writers of Greek lyric poetry. The result is not a work that gives one man's perspective of Sappho but a work that says: "here -- this is what scholars today say about Sappho and her native Greece." The book also includes an interesting essay by the translator, cute sketches, and a glossary of people and places.

Sappho was the greatest lyric poet of Greece, and any modern reader of her poetry can easily see why. Although she admittedly suffers in translation, one must learn to ignore the frustration caused by the occasional awkward translation. One must also try to ignore the fragmentary nature of her poems. There was once a definitive edition which consisted of nine books, but it was burned in hte Middle Ages because of the lesbian love poems. The poems we have now are just papyrus fragments or quotations. However, even in English, even with only a few extant pieces, Sappho's poetry is vibrant and beautiful.

People in my industry (golf) finally have a "Bible" to refer to when it comes to professional irrigation systems. Laid out in a basic, yet thorough format this book has it all, from good photos to useful charts and glossary. Anyone even considering installing a new system should have this book at their side. I wish I had it when our system was designed and "thrown in the ground" by a purported expert.

In the final line of the Euripides tragedy "Medea" the Chorus laments: "Many things beyond expectation do the gods fulfill. That which was expected has not been accomplished; for that which was unexpected has god found the way. Such was the end of this story." This last line has also found its way into the conclusion of other dramas by Euripides, including both "Alcestis" and "Bacchae." The idea embodied in that line, as much as anything, provides a unification for the three Greek tragedies collected in this particular volume:

"Alcestis," the oldest surviving play of Euripides, was the fourth play in a tetralogy, taking the place of the ribald satyr play, which traditionally followed a series of three tragedies. Consequently, this play has more of a burlesque tone, best represented in the drunken speech of Hercules to the butler and his teasing of Admetus at the end. So while "Alcestis" is a tragedy, it does offer up an unusual happy ending. Alcestis, wife of Admetus, is the model wife, for when her husband is to [end life] she alone agrees to [end life]in his place. Euripides adds a key twist in that Alcestis agrees to the sacrifice before she fully understands that her husband will suffer without her. She is brought back from the underworld by Hercules and restored to her relieved husband, but the play clearly characterizes Admetus as a selfish man and it is this view that other writers have imitated every since. "Alcestis" is not a first rate play by Euripides, but it does represent both his cynicism and his attempt to make the audience confront the problematic elements of its belief system.

"Medea" is not really about infanticide, but rather about the way foreigners are treated in Greece (best seen in the odes of the Chorus of Corinthian Women). The other key component of the play is the psychology of Medea and the way in which she constructs events to help convince her self to do the unspeakable deed and [destroy] the two sons she has borne Jason. There is a very real sense in which Jason is the true villain of the piece and I do not think there is a comparable example in the extant Greek tragedies remain wherein a major mythological hero is made to look as bad as Euripides does in this play. Jason assures Medea that his sons will be well treated at the court while the King of Corinth, worried that the sorceress will seek vengeance, banishes her from the land. After securing sanctuary in Athens (certainly an ironic choice given this is where the play is being performed), Medea constructs a rather complex plan. Having coated a cloak with poison, she has her children deliver it to the princess; not only will the princess [end life]when she puts on the cloak (and her father along with her), the complicity of the children in the crime will give her an excuse to justify killing in order to literally save them from the wrath of the Corinthians. But in the end Medea's ultimate vengeance is on Jason as she takes away everything he hold dear.

Greek tragedies were performed at a festival that honored the Dionysus, and in "The Bacchae" he is the god who extracts a horrible vengeance. Pentheus was the son of Echion and Agave, the daughter of Cadmus, the founder of the Royal House of Thebes. After Cadmus stepped down the throne, Pentheus took his place as king of Thebes. When the cult of Dionysus came to Thebes, Pentheus resisted the worship of the god in his kingdom. However, his mother and sisters were devotees of the god and went with women of the city to join in the Dionsysian revels on Mount Cithaeron. Pentheus had Dionysus captured, but the god drove the king insane, who then shackled a bull instead of the god. When Pentheus climbed a tree to witness in secret the revelry of the Bacchic women, he was discovered and torn to pieces by his mother and sisters, who, in their Bacchic frenzy, believed him to be a wild beast. The horrific action is described in gory detail by a messenger, which is followed by the arrival of the frenzied and bloody Agave, the head of her son fixed atop her thytsus. As the fate of Pentheus amply points out, it is not only stupid to ignore the irrational, represented by the worshippers of Dionysus, it is fatal.

This is an interesting trio of Euripides plays to present in a single volume. If "Alcestis" was replaced by "Ion" then we would have a decided emphasis on the cynical view Euripides had of the Greek gods. But with this mix it becomes clear that the unifying theme is the attack on cherished conventions, such as the superiority of men over women, foreigners over natives, and reason over emotion. That certainly provides readers of this book with three different attacks by Euripides on the believes of his Athenian audience (it would be wrong to characterized them as representing all "Greeks"). I particular like this edition of these plays because they make a point of breaking down each play into the structure of a Greek tragedy, not only in terms of scenes and songs, but also in breaking down the later in strophes and antistophes. There are also decent footnotes on pertinent mythological details.

I enjoyed this translation, and I recommend it to anyone unfamiliar with the plays. Its strength is that it is very easy to read in large part because Roche structured the lines as he felt they would have been spoken. He includes some interesting appendices on production, etc, and he has just the right number of footnotes to help us keep up, but not be slowed down.

My beef is that comparing it to other translations I have read is like comparing the clunky dumbed down modern translations of the Bible to the King James Version. Still, the language and the wisdom do sometimes soar together.

If tragedy is, as Aristotle described, the imitation (that is, representation) of great people whose downfall induces a sense of pity and fear in the audience, Sophocles's plays are exemplary illustrations of the genre. The Sophoclean hero suffers, agonizes, despairs because of cruel fate or, more likely, some mistake he or she has made as a result of a character flaw such as pride or anger. Thus the tragedy of "Ajax" is not only that the title character kills himself in shame over having lost out to Odysseus on being awarded Achilles's armor, the ownership of which would have been proof of his heroic deeds in battle, but that his shame might have been alleviated had he known that Odysseus greatly respected his heroism. Similarly, in "Antigone," Creon, king of Thebes, suffers the loss of his wife and son over his stubborn insistence to enforce a law founded on his pride.

Sophocles portrays "noble" sufferers too. In "Electra," the title heroine plots to kill her mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, but she has a good reason -- revenge for killing her father Agamemnon and bounding her to a life of slavish submission. The title hero of "Philoctetes" is marooned on an island through no fault of his own, and furthermore becomes the target of trickery when Odysseus and Neoptolemus, Achilles's son, show up with the intent to obtain a magic bow in his possession which they need to win the Trojan War. Heracles's wife Deianeira, in "The Women in Trachis," catches her husband in the act of intended infidelity; her reaction is to send him a cloak she thinks is a talisman to keep him faithful to her, when in reality it is poisoned. That Electra's plans are fulfilled, Philoctetes receives sympathy, and Deianeira kills herself in grief shows the range of emotions that lead to the end of a Sophoclean tragedy.

The most masterful of these plays is "Oedipus the King," which seeks to maximize pity and fear in the audience by portraying some of the most tragic circumstances imaginable -- a hero who unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother as was prophesied, and then, to his horror, discovers their identities. Does Oedipus, like Deianeira, kill himself in grief? No, that would be too merciful. Instead, he gouges out his eyes in self-punishment and lives to continue suffering, as an abject vagrant in "Oedipus at Colonus."

In this Signet Classics edition, Paul Roche translates these plays in verse rather than prose, which preserves their poeticality, improves their clarity, and significantly increases the enjoyability of reading them. This is the perfect edition for getting acquainted with one of the great Greek dramatists.

I'm not sure how to rate this book. For one thing, I don't know much about Greek drama. However, in some respects no one does. Our author tried to be faithful to the original in ways he feels are important: "I have tried to walk and to run, to rise and to sit, with the Master, but never by imitation, only by analogy, transposition, re-creation." He has given us the three plays in iambic lines of varying length, with inventive syntax and vocabulary (sanctioned by the example of the original). I got annoyed with the verse at various points as it seemed just wrong: the expression seemed not to reflect the intention, and words were used (dare I say it?) sloppily. Now, I know I'm on shaky ground here. For one thing (a big thing!), I have not seen the plays performed. Moreover, our author knows the Greek, and he may be reflecting it quite closely, and my criticism should be directed at the Master. On top of that, Paul Roche, from his introduction, is clearly a good writer, so I must assume that the odd things he does he does deliberately.

But, anyway, as he says in a note on meter in the Appendix, "Indeed, the danger on the stage is not that poetry should sound monotonous but that it should not sound at all." He has quite a bit more to say on the subject, which is an important one. Sophocles wrote in an "iambic" meter rather than prose. In fact, it's possible that writing a play in prose, or good parts of it in prose, made as much sense in classical Athens as writing song lyrics in prose would now, and for roughly the same reason. While the actors may not have sung all the words, certainly the chorus was singing, and song hovered around, heightening the action.

Having said all that, I think our author does some very good things. For one thing, he does give us a good verse translation with all the choral markings - the Episodes, the Strophes and Antistrophes, with nice summaries at their heads. He brings the speech into reasonably colloquial English without sacrificing the "beat". (As an example of that, I particularly liked the byplay between Creon and the sentry in "Antigone". Here he gives the sentry a Cockney accent and Creon the voice of one of those impatient stuffed-shirts in a screwball comedy.) Overall, he achieves the right balance between vivacity of expression and dignity. His introduction and appendix are informative, opinionated, and well-written. In summary, this is an excellent version of these three plays (only a trilogy by coincidence).

This was a lot better than I expected it to be. The reading is easier than Shakespeare - in fact, I like this more. Much of the credit must go to Paul Roche. Watching a clip of a video of these plays (under a different translation) showed that his translation was not just word for word, but - as he says in the introduction - a work of art that retains the melody of the poetry.

I found the sophistication of Shakespeare (and the multiple suicides/murders) - amazing for something written so much earlier. But what was here was something more human. Within the different but wonderful style of speaking (thanks to Sophocles) was a modern voice (thanks to Roche) that made this play not only readable but enjoyable.

This is extraordinary story and easy to follow. It is easily comparable to modern socitey. The tragic flaws in Creon and Oedipus are very defined. This is a classic "must read" !

For those moderately familiar with the Bible, this book provides a well-structured review of key stories along with some critical commentary. The table of contents alone is a valuable survey tool, allowing the reader to see the scope and flow of the narrative and find stories and review their details. It's strength is in conveying the flow of history as seen through the authors of scripture. It does not pretend to give a sense of the development of the legal or ethical norms, and law and prophets are not strongly represented. However, it definitely serves a worthy purpose in renewing our familiarity with Biblical stories and characters and their context in the Bible.

Roche's translations of Euripides' tragedies are intrusive. He adds stage directions and characterizations that influence how the reader views the people in the plays. Readers may believe that these stage directions are from Euripides, but most of them are not. I find it irksome having to differentiate between Roche's interpretation of character and Euripides' text.

I am a theatre director and playwright. I read every translation of Medea I could find. This 1998 translation by Roche, after twenty years of ripening, is fresh, clear, and strong. He prioritized retaining the ( ( ( s o u n d ) ) ) of the ancient greek, and his poet's ear captured its slippery almost-iambic trimeter perfectly. A powerful, haunting, contemporary translation. "Deep is her sobbing from depths of pain/ Shrill is the answer her suffering gives/ To the news of a woman betrayed/ A love gone wrong..." A mature poet's text, translated by an equally sensitive poet. It doesn't get any better than this.

First the 10 Plays -- Alcestis / Hippolytus / Ion / Electra / Iphigenia at Aulis / Iphigenia among the Taurians / Medea / The Bacchae / The Trojan Women / The Cyclops -- together with a pronouncing Glossary of names and places. Tops out at about 575 pages.

Placing the only extant ancient Greek satyr play, Cyclops, at the end, Roche supplies the needed comic relief of Odysseus among the randy, wine-craving satyrs who toil away for the famed one-eyed Polyphemus.

Roche's introductory material is short, clear and useful, especially will thought out his method of translating Greek meters into English verse. Each play has a brief introduction as well.

The translations are vigorous, modern, and to this reader both lyrical and moving. Roche's poetical gifts are obvious and put to effective use.

Let Paul Roche be ivy-crowned, son of Semele, son of Zeus!