The murder of Clytemnestra by her son Orestes is unique in Greek mythology in that it is the one story for which we have extant versions by all three of the great tragic poets. Consequently, it is insightful to notice how each tragedy privileges different parts of the story. In "Choephoroe" ("The Libation Bearers") by Aeschylus, the middle part of his "Orestia" trilogy, Orestes is obedient to the gods in avenging the death of his father and the pivotal scene is the confrontation between mother and son when Clytemnestra begs for her life. In "Electra" by Euripides the title character has to persuade Orestes to go through with the deed and the dramatic confrontation is now between mother and daughter. In the Sophocles version of "Electra" the emphasis is on the psychological dimensions of the situation; after all, it is from this play that Freud developed his concept of the Electra complex.

Towards that end Sophocles creates a character, Chrysothemis, another sister to both Orestes and Electra. The situation is that Orestes is assumed to be dead and the issues is whether the obligation to avenge the death of Agamemnon now falls to his daughters. There is an attendant irony here in that Clytemnestra justified the murder of her husband in part because of his sacrifice of their oldest daughter Iphigenia before sailing off to the Trojan War (the curse on the House of Atreus, which involves Aegisthus on his own accord and not simply as Clytemnestra's lover, is important but clearly secondary). The creation of Chrysothemis allows for Sophocles to write a dialogue that covers both sides of the dispute. Electra argues that the daughters must assume the burden and avenge their father while Chrysothemis takes the counter position.

Sophocles does come up with several significant twists on the Aeschylus version. For one thing, Sophocles reverses the order of the two murders and has Clytemnestra slain first, which sets up an interesting scene when Aegisthus gets to revel over what he believes to be the corpse of Orestes and makes the death of the usurper the final scene of the play. This becomes part of the most significant difference between the Sophocles version and the others. Whereas Orestes emerges from the skene distraught after the murder of his mother in "Cheophoroe" and is repentant in the Euripides version of "Electra," Sophocles has Orestes calmly declaring that all in the house is well.

Electra is not as central a character to the drama as she is in the Euripides version, mainly because she does not have a functional purpose in this tragedy. Her main purpose is to lament over the death of the father and the supposed death of her brother. She does not provide Orestes with a sense of resolve because in this version he does not consult the oracles to learn whether or not he should kill his mother but rather how he can do the deed. Still, the part of Electra has enormous potential for performance. Ironically, this "Electra" is the least interesting of the three, despite the fact Freud made it infamous: by his standards the Euripides play speaks more to the desire of a daughter to see her mother dead, but since Sophocles wrote "Oedipus the King" it probably seemed fair to point to his version of this tale as well.

I would certainly agree that this is the "worst" of the seven plays of Sophocles that still exist, but "Trachiniae" (a.k.a. "Trachinian Women" and "Women of Trachis") still has value, especially in terms of how it present Heracles, the greatest of the Greek heroes. While he is running around doing his great labors, Heracles has neglected his family. Before his last departure he promised that if he was not back in fifteen months it probably meant he was dead. Well, those fifteen months are up and his wife Deianeira is starting to get worried. However, she soon learns that her husband has not only sacked Oechalia, but that he is in love with the Princess Iole, who has been sent home ahead of him as a captive; certainly there are echoes of the Agamemnon-Clytemnestra-Cassandra triangle following the Trojan War. Determined to save her marriage, Deianeira sends Heracles a garment treated with a special salve given to her long ago by the dying Centaur Nessus, who said it would prevent her husband's love from straying. However, she is but the victim of the Centaur's own plan for revenge, because the salve proves lethal. When she learns this from her son Hyllus, the remorseful Deianeira commits suicide.

In Greek mythology it was well established that Heracles "died" on a funeral pyre: as a demi-god he could not truly die, so the fire burned away his mortal side. But in the hands of Sophocles the tale takes a certain twist. Heracles demands that Hyllus marry Iole. Sophocles presents this not as an act of repentance, but rather as a last attempt to keep Iole, using his son as a surrogate. Ultimately the question Sophocles poses is whether Heracles deserves transfiguration. In this regard it is similar to his play "Ajax," although I do not think the verdict is as clear or as positive in this play, which was performed sometime after 458 B.C. While the psychology of the characters is certainly what we expect from Sophocles, there is a touch of the cynicism we usually associated with Euripides.

The idea behind the Spark Notes study guides is that they are created by Harvard students and therefore do not need to be translated from the ivory tower writings of college professors (at least, that is the implication). This volume looks at "The Oedipus Plays" of Sophocles, organizing the trilogy by the order in which they were written, meaning that "Antigone" comes first instead of last behind "Oedipus Rex" and "Oedipus at Colonus." This Spark Notes volume includes a look at each play in context, plot overviews, a list of key characters, analysis of the major characters (Oedipus, Antigone, Creon, and the Chorus), a summary and analysis of the plays by sections, and explanation of a few key quotations, along with study questions, essay topics, and additional resources.

Of course, it goes without saying (but bears constant repetition), that the analysis sections are of less value to students if they substitute the summaries for actually reading the plays. The best section of this volume looks at the themes, motifs and symbols of the Oedipus trilogy, which includes such things as the power of unwritten law, the limits of free will, and Oedipus's swollen foot. As a teacher of Classical Mythology what I most appreciate is that these analytical elements are defined but not completely argued out. In other words, a student can get an idea from these readings as to an intelligent argument they could make in a paper, but still requires them to put together the supporting evidence from the Sophocles plays and complete the argument.

However, from the perspective of teachers (who can use such study guides for purposes beyond knowing what students have access to that might inadvertently creep into their papers) there is a significant difference between this Spark Notes look at the Oedipus trilogy and what you will find in the Cliff Notes version. The latter offers a more thorough background on Greek tragedies, goes into detail on Aristotle's key concepts or tragedy, and structures each play in terms of prologue/parados, episodes and stasimons, and exodos (this is true of all of the Cliffs Notes volumes dealing with Greek plays). I have a strong preference for this approach because I think the more you know about the traditions and concepts of Greek drama the better you can understand and appreciate the classic tragedies of Sophocles and the other. The approach taken by Spark Notes follows the conventions of the Well-Made Play, so there is a sense of dramatic structure but with a decidedly modern sensibility.

David Seale has delivered a brilliant commentary on stage craft and all its implications in modern theatre. A real eye opener!. "A bloody good read!"

I thought this book was good but not really good. I'm glad I read it but I wouldn't want to read it again. It was interesting and it made me want to keep reading it, but some things about the book I didn't agree with because they were just too drawn out and it made things hard to understand. It got confusing. To me the incest was the main thing that was confusing. If not the only thing. But once I kept talking it over I understood and figured it out. I did like the suspense in the book concerning Oedipus and him knowing the truth about things. And the irony of the book was great because i liked knowing things without the characters knowing them as well. It was good choice to read in senior english. Although, I have to say the movie was HORRIBLE!

Oedipus was one very troubled person in this book. He killed his father he married his mother and had kids with his mother making them his sisters and grandchildren and children. In my thoughts Oedipus rex was an ok book. when you start reading it you will really get into it. i thought that close to the end it got even better because oedipus found out even more about himself and were he came from and who his parents were. If you are thinking about reading this book i would suggest that you read it and see how you like it.

Oedipus Rex is ancient work that still remains popular today. It is one of those works that many of us were forced to read in high school or even college. However, Oedipus Rex can simply be one of those books you can easily read for pleasure. It is a tragic tale of a man who goes through life thinking he is someone that he turns out not to be. Oedipus' life is cursed by an old prophecy that said that he would marry his mother and kill his father, if he was not himself killed as an infant. As it turns out, he is not killed but ends up fulfilling this horrible prophecy. This book has easy to follow dialogue and really gets the readers full attention. Oedipus Rex is a short book that we all can relate to when we are having a bad day or when we feel that nothing is going right for us. After reading this book, you will come to realize that life is nowhere as horrible as that of the tragic hero Oedipus. I encourage everyone who is going through trying times to read this book, and I guarantee it will make him or her feel much better.

This book is very boring. I was very sorry that I had to read it.

oedipus the king, antigone, electra, this are the master pieaces of the greek tragedy. sophocles brings us the wonderfull mitology stories in a fantastic point of view. the bloody legassy that oedipus brings on his family apears on this wonderfull dramas. this tragedies are the finest creation of the greek culture, and a must to reed for any literture fan all over the world. the "hibris"- the crime of pride brings the characters in this dramas to a tragic death, and are realated to the deepest sides in the man soul/

As you might see from its title, this review is specific to Duckworth's reprint of Stanford's edition of the Ajax. I have never had the misfortune to use such a terrible edition of a Greek text in all my life. Stanford himself is, of course, irreproachable. His skill, insight and exhaustive commentary are a must have for any student of Sophocles' Ajax. It is this specific edition reprinted by Duckworth that is not worth the paper it is printed on. First, the paper is of poor quality and very bleached. As a result, the ink has bled ever so slightly making all of the letters appear fuzzy. This is annoying in the Greek text itself, but the letters are large enough that they are still legible. In the commentary section, however, some letters have actually bled into one another. Reading this edition gave me an incredible headache and I have finally come to understand why. Looking at this text is like looking at a normal book with glasses on despite having perfect eyesight. All of the letters are blurred as though out of focus and the paper is so bright that it hurts your eyes to look at it. As a test I gave it to several of my colleagues to look at, and, without my saying anything, each put the book down after only a minute saying that it gave them a headache to look at it. What is the upshot of this tirade? That while Stanford's text and commentary may well be the best around, if possible, it should not be bought from Duckworth.

I have always thought of the character of Ajax from the Trojan War to be the prototype of the "dumb jock" stereotype. Next to Achilles he was the best of the Achean warriors, but Ajax was deeply flawed in that he was stubborn and egotistical. I think his intelligence is further called into question by the myth regarding his death, which is the subject of this play by Sophocles. After the death of Achilles it is decided his glorious armor, forged by Hephaestus, will be given to the worthiest of the chieftains. Ajax expects the prize to come to him, but instead the other chieftains vote to give it to "wily" Odysseus. The inference to be drawn is that craftiness and intelligence are to be prize more than brute strength, which is why I tend to identify Odysseus and Ajax with that distinction between brains and brawn. Enraged by this slight, Ajax decides to kill Odysseus and the other chieftains who have slighted him, but Athena clouds his sight and he thinks the camp's livestock are his intended victims. When he comes to his senses, butchering a sheep he thought was Odysseus, Ajax is humiliated to the point he chooses to kill himself. The climax of this play, the oldest of the seven surviving plays written by Sophocles, is not the suicide of Ajax but rather a debate amongst the Achean leaders as to whether or not Ajax should be buried.

The issue central to the play "Ajax" is whether the title character should or should not be considered a true hero by the Greek audience attending the play. Homer, of course, has nothing to say regarding Ajax's fate in the "Iliad," although in the "Odyssey" when Odysseus encounters the shade of Ajax, the dead hero refuses to speak and turns away. However, in his telling of the tale Sophocles adds an important element to the suicide of Ajax. In his first scene when he is discovered amongst the slaughtered livestock, Ajax realizes that his intentions were wrong and that what he has done will make him look ridiculous; he decides to kill himself, ignores the pleas of the chorus, says his farewells to his son and departs. However, in the next episode Ajax returns, apparently reconciled to life; instead of killing himself he will bury his unlucky sword and live a peaceful life. Then a messenger brings the warning of Calchas that Ajax must be kept out of the battle that day. The next thing we know Ajax is cursing the Atreidae and falling on his sword. The change is significant because it makes Ajax's suicide a more rational act. Instead of taking his life in the heat of his embarrassment over what he has done, Sophocles has the character changing his mind twice and ending his life in the grips of a cold hatred against the chieftains.

This sets the stage for the debate amongst the chieftains regarding the burial of Ajax. When Teucer wants to bury the body he is forbidden to do so by Menelaus, who calls Ajax his murderer, focusing on the intentions behind his rampage. Agamemnon also forbids the burial, making an impassioned argument for the rule of law and warning against the reliance of the army upon the strength of a single man, whether he be Ajax or Achilles. Ironically (and we surely expect no less from Sophocles), it is Odysseus who makes the argument in favor of burial. For Odysseus the good outweighs the bad and it is not right to do a man injury when he is dead. This argument certainly echoes the moral at the end of the "Iliad" with regards to way Achilles treats the corpse of Hector. Certainly Ajax was a arrogant brute, obsessed with self-glorification and unfeeling towards his family and people. But when the Trojan army almost succeeded in burning the Achean ships, it was Ajax who stemmed their attack. For Odysseus, and for Sophocles, it is clear that such a man deserves to be considered a hero and demands an appropriate burial. "Ajax" is a minor play by Sophocles, relative to what little has survived of his work, but it does speak to one of the playwright central themes, which is to find that which is heroic in a tragic situation. Having found that spark in the life of Ajax, Sophocles seeks to redeem the tragic figure in this play.

This reprint (1188 pages) is now in a single volume. It attempts to cover the Greek language as it existed from B.C. 146 to A.D. 1100. Hence it does not completely cover the Byzantine period (through the Palaeologi era).

The lexicon itself is laid out in a two column format, and it is quite legible, it has a fairly complete "Authors Referred To..." section in the introduction which identifies all of the in-text references. The words themselves, are given just a brief English equivalent, but more important terms are given a fuller treatment -- often he shows the essential components of the word (including compound forms). Usually the basic form is shown - nominative (with the genitive ending) and or the form is identified (as an adverb, et cetera).

One of the most valuable aspects of this book is Sophocle's Introduction, in which he gives a nice linguistic survey of the language. In this survey he discusses many influences which other languages had upon this period of Greek.

However, the lexicon is not as thorough as the Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford), yet it does cover a wider range of Greek. It is a bit dated and should be supplemented with the Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford). One wishes that after his fine linguistic introduction, that he would have shown more etymological data, he shows very very little.

Unless you have a distinct need for this tome, it is not really worth the asking price. It is useful for examining the words as used in the periods discussed, it also shows some unusual forms. But for use as a general lexicon for the Greek, it is too general and shallow as far as grammatical usages are concerned. Best for specialists of this period.

I used the JACT Reading Greek course as a Freshman and have recommended it to many people wanting to learn Greek on their own. It focuses more on reading fluency than on syntax-worship (boring Smyth stuff like "dative of throwing by means of rocks") but doesn't neglect formal grammar, has a nice teach-yourself book to accompany it, and has lots of fun readings from Aristophanes.

In other words, unlike most teachers, I *liked* the Reading Greek course a lot. But the point of the course is to introduce you to basic vocabulary and especially the grammatical structure of the language and its peculiarities. Once you've done that by going through the first-year course, what you need is lots of practice with actual texts. That's what the JACT follow-up books like this offer, with "highlights" of different authors and running vocabulary, and if you find that the most helpful, more power too you.

Me personally though, I recommend using the Loeb parallel-text editions, whose texts are good and whose translations have tended over the last many years towards fairly strict literalness. The advantage there is that, even though you'll still want to look many of the words up to see what their central or most basic meaning is (independent of present context), you have a translation there specially designed to guide the language-learner. You won't sit there thinking, "did that say what I think it said?", or start joking with or pontificating to your fellows based on a wrong reading.

The classic second-year text for Greek is Xenophon's Anabasis, which is very repetitious but in a good way. Less conventional but just as appealing are the mythographer Apollodorus, the historian Diodorus Siculus (book 17 is on Alexander the Great), and of course Plato. The first book of Herodotus too, though not Attic, would be an excellent second-year text.

And if you're particularly eager to get into Homer (the best of all) and then the tragedians, I recommend Pharr's excellent Homeric Greek, which is meant as a first-year book but better for a second- or third-year one. He takes the whole first book of the Iliad, a paragraph or so at a time, with notes and full vocabulary. (You might even use it with the very literal Loeb translation by A. T. Murray.) Good luck!

The translation is awkward and there are typos and misspellings as well as just plain wrong words on almost every other page. No one bothered to edit and proofread. Sophocles deserves better. Try another edition.