Sophocles

• Born: ca. 496 B.C.
• Birthplace: Colonus (now Kolonos), Greece
• Died: ca. 406 B.C.
• Best Known As: Greek dramatist who wrote Oedipus Tyrannus

Sophocles was a Greek dramatist whose long career came between his contemporaries Aeschylus and Euripides. A respected public figure of Athens, he was both a priest and a general (an elected position), but he is best known for the many dramatic prizes he won after 468 B.C. Like the elder Aeschylus, Sophocles was known as an innovator. He is credited with introducing a third actor, expanding the chorus from 12 to 15 players and replacing the trilogy form with self-contained tragedies. It is estimated he wrote more than 120 plays, of which only seven are extant (hundreds of fragments survived also). His most famous play, Oedipus Tyrannus (also known as Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King), is considered by many to be the apex of Greek dramatic irony. His other plays include Antigone, Electra, Trachiniae (The Women of Trachis) and Oedipus at Colonus (produced after his death).

Sophocles was also an actor and performed in many of his early works... Reliable sources for the dates of his plays are scarce, other than for Oedipus at Colonus, produced in 401 B.C.... Because they involve themes associated with Thebes, the plays Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannus and Oedipus at Colonus are sometimes referred to as the "Theban plays" or "Theban trilogy" (though scholars are quick to point out the plays are not, in fact, a trilogy).

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The Greek tragedian Sophocles (496-406 B.C.) ranks foremost among Greek classical dramatists and has been called the poet of Greek humanism par excellence.

The son of Sophilus, a well-to-do industrialist, Sophocles was born in Colonus near Athens and grew up in the most brilliant intellectual period of Athens. Nothing concrete is known about his education, though it is known that he had a reputation for learning and esthetic taste. He was well versed in Homer and the Greek lyric poets, and because of his industriousness he was known as the "Attic Bee." His music teacher was a great man of the old school, Lamprus. Tradition says that because of his beauty and talent Sophocles was chosen to lead the male chorus at the celebration of the Greek victory at Salamis.

In 468 B.C., at age 28, Sophocles defeated Aeschylus in one of the drama contests that were then fashionable. During the remainder of his career he never won less than second prize and gained first prize more than any other Greek tragedian. He was also known for his amiability and sociability which epitomized the ideal Athenian gentleman (kaloskagathos). In public life he distinguished himself as a man of affairs. In 443-442 he held the post of Hellenotamias, or imperial treasurer, and was elected general at least twice. His religious activities included service as priest of the healing divinity, and he turned over his house for the worship of Asclepius until a proper temple could be built. For this he was honored with the title Dexion as a hero after his death. He is reported to have written a paean in honor of Asclepius. Sophocles had two sons, lophon and Sophocles, by his first wife, Nicostrata, and he had a third son, Ariston, by his second wife, Theoris.

Style and Contributions to Theater

Of approximately 125 tragedies that Sophocles is said to have written, only 7 have survived. Since we have but a fraction of the plays he wrote, general comments on Sophoclean drama are based on the extant plays. However, Plutarch tells us that there were three periods in Sophocles's literary development: imitation of the grand style of Aeschylus, use of artificial and incisive style, and use of the best style and that which is most expressive of character. It is only from the third period that we have examples.

It is often asserted that Sophocles found tragedy up in the clouds and brought it down to earth. For Aeschylus, myth was an important vehicle for ideas, for highlighting man's relation to the gods. Sophocles dealt with men and showed how a character reacts under stress. The tragedy of Sophocles has been described as a tragedy of character as contrasted to Aeschylus's tragedy of situation. Sophocles's principal subject is man, and his hero is suffering man. The protagonist is subjected to a series of tests which he usually surmounts.

It was Sophocles who raised the number of the chorus from 12 to 15 members and initiated other technical improvements, such as scene painting and better tragic masks. He abandoned the tetralogy and presented three plays on different subjects and a satyr play. A supreme master in the delineation of character, he is credited with the invention of the heroic maiden (Antigone, Electra) and the ingenuous young man (Haemon). Sophocles's choral songs are excellent and structurally, as well as situationally, beautiful.

The Plays

The dates of the seven extant plays of Sophocles are not all certain. Three are known: Antigone, 442/441; Philoctetes, 409; and Oedipus at Colonus, 401 (posthumously). C. H. Whitman has argued for 447 for the Ajax, about 437-432 for the Trachiniae, about 429 for the Oedipus Rex, and 418-414 for the Electra.

In the Ajax, the hero, whom the Iliad describes as second only to Achilles, is humiliated by Agamemnon and Menelaus when they award the arms of Achilles to Odysseus through intrigue. He vows vengeance on the Greek commanders as well as on Odysseus, but the goddess Athena makes him believe that he is attacking the Greeks when he is in fact attacking sheep. When he realizes his folly, he is so appalled that he commits suicide. Menelaus and Agamemnon try to prevent a proper burial, but Odysseus intercedes to make it possible. In the Ajax, Sophocles is pointing up the tragedy that may result from an insult to a man's arete (Homeric recognition of a man's excellence).

The Antigone is one of three plays on the Oedipus theme written over a period of some 40 years. Antigone is the young princess who pits herself against her uncle, King Creon. She defies his cruel edict forbidding burial of her brother Polyneices who, in attempting to invade Thebes and seize the throne from his brother Eteocles, slew him in mortal combat and, in turn, was slain. Against the pleas of her sister Ismene and fiancé Haemon, Antigone goes to her death holding to her defiance.

The Antigone has been interpreted as depicting the conflict between divine and secular law, between devotion to family and to the state, and between the arete of the heroine and the inadequacy of society represented by an illegal tyrant.

In the Trachiniae, Heracles's wife, Deianira, worries about the 15-month absence of her husband, who has acquired a new love, Princess Iole, and is bringing her home. In her sincere attempt to regain her husband's love, Deianira sends him a poisoned robe which she falsely believes has magical powers to restore lost love. Her son Hyllus and her husband, before dying, denounce Deianira, who commits suicide.

In this play Sophocles poignantly raises the question, "Why can knowledge hurt?" He stresses the dilemma of the person who unintentionally hurts those whom he loves. The question of the role of knowledge in human affairs prepares us for the Oedipus, his greatest play and the work that Aristotle considered the perfect Greek play and many have considered the greatest play of all time.

Oedipus Rex is a superb example of dramatic irony. It is not a play about sex or murder; it is a play about the inadequacy of human knowledge and man's capacity to survive almost intolerable suffering. The worst of all things happens to Oedipus: unknowingly he kills his own father, Laius, and is given his own mother, Jocasta, in marriage for slaying the Sphinx. When a plague at Thebes compels him to consult the oracle, he finds that he himself is the cause of the affliction.

No summary can do this amazing play justice. Sophocles brings up the question of justice. Why is there irrational evil in the world? Why does the very man who is basically good suffer intolerably? The answer is found in the concept of dikē - balance, order, justice. The world is orderly and follows natural laws. No matter how good or how well intentioned man may be, if he violates a natural law, he will be punished and he will suffer. Human knowledge is limited, but there is nobility in human suffering.

The Electra is Sophocles's only play that can be compared thematically with works of Aeschylus (Libation Bearers) and Euripides (Electra). Again Sophocles concentrates on a character under stress. Described as the most grim of all Greek tragedies, Electra suggests a flaw in the universe. It is less concerned with moral issues than the other two Electra plays. An oppressed and harassed Electra anxiously awaits the return of her avenging brother, Orestes. He returns secretly, first spreading the news that Orestes was killed in a chariot accident. Electra is constantly at the tomb of her father but is warned by her sister, Chrysothemis, about her constant wailing. Clytemnestra, disturbed by an ominous dream, sends Chrysothemis to offer libations at the tomb. A quarrel between Clytemnestra and Electra demonstrates the impossibility of reconciliation between mother and daughter. A messenger announcing the death of Orestes and carrying an urn with his ashes stirs up maternal feelings in Clytemnestra, despair in Chrysothemis, and determination to wreak vengeance on her mother and Aegisthus, her mother's consort, in Electra. The appearance of Orestes rejuvenates Electra, and together they do away with Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. The chorus rejoices that justice has triumphed.

The Electra of Sophocles may have been written as an answer to Euripides's Electra. Matricide and murder are fully justified, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus are completely and utterly evil, and Electra avenges her father's death relentlessly and almost psychopathically.

In the Philoctetes, Odysseus is sent with young Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, from Troy to the allegedly uninhabited island of Lemnos to bring back Philoctetes with his bow and his arrows to effect the capture of Troy. Urged by Odysseus to do his assignment, Neoptolemus, after gaining Philoctetes's confidence suffers pangs of conscience over the old man and refuses to deceive him. He returns Philoctetes's weapons and promises to take him home. A deus ex machina finally convinces Philoctetes to return to Troy voluntarily. The Philoctetes clearly shows how man and society can come into conflict, how society can discard an individual when it does not need him, and how the individual with technological knowhow can bring society to its knees.

The Oedipus at Colonus, produced posthumously, is the most loosely structured, most lyrical, and longest of Sophoclean dramas. It brings to a conclusion Sophocles's concern with the Oedipus theme. Exiled by Creon, in concurrence with Eteocles and Polyneices, Oedipus becomes a wandering beggar accompanied by his daughter Antigone. He stumbles into a sacred grove of the Eumenides at Colonus, and the chorus of Elders is shocked to discover his identity. Oedipus justifies his past and asks that Theseus be summoned. Theseus arrives and promises him asylum, but Creon, first deceitfully, then by force, tries to remove Oedipus. Theseus comes to the rescue and thwarts Creon. The arrival of his son Polyneices produces thunderous rage in Oedipus, who curses both him and Eteocles. Oedipus soon senses his impending death and allows only Theseus to witness the event by which he is transfigured into a hero and a saint.

"Many are the wonders of the world," says Sophocles in the first stasimon of the Antigone, "but none is more wonderful than man." Sophocles's humanism is nowhere more concisely manifest than in this famous quotation. Man is able to overcome all kinds of obstacles and is able to be remarkably inventive and creative, but he is mortal and hence limited, despite an optimistic, progressive outlook. Suffering is an inherent part of the nature of things, but learning can be gained, and through suffering man can achieve nobility and dignity.

Further Reading

The bibliography on Sophocles is extensive, and in recent years some very stimulating and imaginative interpretations have appeared. Among the most significant works are C.M. Bowra, Sophoclean Tragedy (1944); Robert F. Goheen, The Imagery of Sophocles' Antigone (1951); Cedric H. Whitman, Sophocles: A Study of Heroic Humanism (1951); Sinclair M. Adams, Sophocles the Playwright (1957); Bernard M.W. Knox, Oedipus at Thebes (1957); George M. Kirkwood, A Study of Sophoclean Drama (1958); H.D.F. Kitto, Sophocles, Dramatist and Philosopher (1958); and Michael J. O'Brien, ed., Twentieth Century Interpretations of Oedipus Rex (1968).

Sophoclēs (c.496–406/5 BC), one of the great Athenian tragedians, born at Colōnus near Athens, the son of Sophilus, a wealthy manufacturer of armour. The anonymous ancient biography of the poet gives a great deal of information about him, no doubt much of it unreliable. His beauty and his skill in music and dancing early attracted attention; as a boy he led the chorus which sang the paean in honour of the Greek victory over the Persian invaders at Salamis in 480 BC. His first victory in the tragic competitions was at the Great Dionysia in 468 BC, at his first attempt it is said, when he defeated Aeschylus. His early life coincided with the expansion of the Athenian empire, and though he took no active part in politics as far as is known, he was twice elected strategos (‘general’). After the failure of the Sicilian Expedition in 413 he was made one of the probouloi (‘commissioners’) to deal with the crisis. Amiable and popular, he was a good citizen who lived and died in Athens; he is said to have refused invitations to visit the courts of kings (unlike Aeschylus and Euripides). Aristophanes in the Frogs, writing a year after Sophocles' death, summed up his character in the line (82), ‘contented among the living, contented among the dead’; only a few months before his death Sophocles presented his chorus and actors at the proagon in mourning garb for the death of Euripides. He left two sons: by Nicostratē, Iophon the tragedian; and by Theōris of Sicyon, Agathon, father of the younger Sophocles, also a tragedian.

He is said to have composed 130 plays, of which seven were later judged to be spurious, and to have won twenty-four dramatic competitions with his tetralogies (i.e. ninety-six plays were successful); with the rest he came second, never third. Seven tragedies are extant; the suggested dates seem likely but (except for Philoctētēs and Oedipus Coloneus) by no means certain: Antigonē 441; Trachiniae and Ajax probably earlier; Oedipus Tyrannus soon after 430; Electra between 418 and 410; Philoctetes 409; Oedipus Coloneus probably written 406/5, produced posthumously in 401 by the younger Sophocles. For the plots of these plays see their individual titles. A large fragment of his satyr-play Ichneutae (‘trackers’; see SATYRIC DRAMA) has been recovered from a papyrus found in modern times. Its plot concerned the theft of Apollo's cattle by Hermes soon after the latter's birth. As well as writing tragedies he was the author of a prose treatise, ‘On the Chorus’.

According to Aristotle in the Poetics, Sophocles was an innovator in tragedy: he added a third to the previously accepted two actors, introduced ‘scene painting’, and increased the chorus from twelve to fifteen; he also abandoned the Aeschylean practice of writing trilogies on related events (see TRAGEDY 1), instead giving each play a self-contained plot. Since the actors in Greek tragedy might play more than one part, the introduction of the third actor enabled Sophocles to make plot, dialogue, and the relationship of characters much more complex. His characters were admired by Aristotle for being ‘like ourselves only nobler’; Sophocles is said to have remarked that he depicted people as they ought to be, Euripides as they are; nevertheless his characters are not wholly idealized but remain manifestly human. His heroes and heroines are placed in circumstances in which they must act, and by their actions, which often have tragic consequences, they show their heroic stature. More than those of the other tragedians, Sophocles' heroes and heroines give the impression that it is their innate characters that initiate the action, and that they could not have behaved otherwise. When, as in Ajax, Antigone, and Trachiniae, the main character dies well before the end of the play and the plot takes a turn in another direction, some slackening of the tension is inevitably felt; but even so, the concluding part still seems to follow necessarily from what has preceded. In the other plays the unity is complete; in particular, the tightknit plot of Oedipus Tyrannus (which for Aristotle represented Greek tragedy at its greatest) is handled with amazing dexterity and at a rapid pace.

Sophocles rarely introduces into the self-contained world of the play ideas that relate more to contemporary affairs, a factor that makes dating the plays on internal evidence difficult. He was a master of dialogue, both in speeches and in stichomythia. One feature for which he became famous is dramatic irony, of the kind where the speaker's words have an underlying significance for the audience, already familiar with the outlines of a story drawn from a well-known body of myth (see TRAGEDY 1). The language of Sophocles is dignified, avoiding the grandiose and over-naturalistic, and often dense, rather in aid of economy than at the expense of clarity. Some of the lyric odes are outstanding, moving the action on to a different plane. According to Plutarch, Sophocles distinguished three periods in his own style: the first, when he imitated the ‘high-flown’ style of Aeschylus; the second, when his style was ‘harsh and artificial’; and the third, when it was ‘most suitable for expressing characters and best for drama’. All his extant plays seem to belong to the third period.

The plays show a conventional but deeply felt piety: that the gods enforce their justice upon human life, and the wise act as best they may in accordance with divine will. In this connection Matthew Arnold's judgement of Sophocles (in his sonnet, To a Friend) as one ‘who saw life steadily and saw it whole’ is often quoted. The poet Shelley had a volume of Sophocles in his pocket when he was drowned in 1822.

Quotes:

"For the dead there are no more toils."

"To be doing good deeds is man's most glorious task."

"I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating."

"To him who is in fear everything rustles."

"There is no sense in crying over spilt milk. Why bewail what is done and cannot be recalled?"

"The dice of Zeus always fall luckily."

See more famous quotes by Sophocles

Sophocles
Nationality	Athenian
Writing period	Theatre of ancient Greece
Genres	Tragedy and Satyr plays

Sophocles (pronounced /ˈsɒfəkliːz/ in English; ancient Greek Σοφοκλῆς Sophoklēs, probably pronounced [sopʰoklɛ̂ːs]; c. 496 BC-406 BC) was the second of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides. According to the Suda, a 10th century encyclopedia, Sophocles wrote 123 plays during the course of his life, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, Trachinian Women, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus.^[1] For almost 50 years, Sophocles was the most-awarded playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens that took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia. Sophocles competed in around 30 competitions; he won perhaps 24 and never received lower than second place; in comparison, Aeschylus won 14 competitions and was defeated by Sophocles at times, while Euripides won only 4 competitions.^[2]

The most famous of Sophocles' tragedies are those concerning Oedipus and Antigone: these are often known as the Theban plays, although each play was actually a part of different tetralogy, the other members of which are now lost. Sophocles influenced the development of the drama, most importantly by adding a third actor and thereby reducing the importance of the chorus in the presentation of the plot. He also developed his characters to a greater extent than earlier playwrights such as Aeschylus.^[3]

Contents 1 Life 2 Sophocles as erastês 3 Works and legacy 3.1 The Theban plays 3.1.1 Subjects 3.1.2 Composition and inconsistencies 3.2 Other plays 3.3 Fragmentary plays 3.4 Sophocles' view of his own work 4 Notes 5 References 6 See also 7 External links

Life

A marble relief of a poet, perhaps Sophocles.

Sophocles, the son of Sophillus, was a wealthy member of the rural deme (small community) of Colonus Hippius in Attica, which would later become a setting for his plays, and was probably born there.^[4][5] His birth took place a few years before the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC: the exact year is unclear, although 497/6 is perhaps most likely.^[6][4] Sophocles' first artistic triumph was in 468 BC when he took first prize in the Dionysia theatre competition over the reigning master of Athenian drama, Aeschylus.^[4][7] According to Plutarch the victory came under unusual circumstances. Instead of following the custom of choosing judges by lot, the archon asked Cimon and the other strategoi present to decide the victor of the contest. Plutarch further contends that Aeschylus soon left for Sicily following this loss to Sophocles.^[8] Although Plutarch says that this was Sophocles' first production, it is now thought that this is an embellishment of the truth and that his first production was most likely in 470 BC.^[5] Triptolemus was probably one of the plays that Sophocles presented at this festival.^[5]

Sophocles became a man of importance in the public halls of Athens as well as in the theatres. Sophocles was chosen to lead the paean, a choral chant to a god, at the age of 16 celebrating the decisive Greek sea victory over the Persians at the Battle of Salamis. This rather insufficient information about Sophocles’ civic life implies he was a well-liked man who participated in activities in society and showed remarkable artistic ability. He was also elected as one of ten strategoi, high executive officials that commanded the armed forces, as a junior colleague of Pericles. Sophocles was born extremely wealthy (his father was a wealthy armour manufacturer) and was highly educated throughout his entire life. Early in his career, the politician Cimon might have been one of his patrons, although if he was there was no ill will borne by Pericles, Cimon's rival, when Cimon was ostracized in 461 BC.^[4] In 443/2 he served as one of the Hellenotamiai, or treasurers of Athena, helping to manage the finances of the city during the political ascendancy of Pericles.^[4] According to the Vita Sophoclis he served as a general in the Athenian campaign against Samos, which had revolted in 441 BC; he was supposed to have been elected to his post as the result of his production of Antigone.^[9]

In 420 he welcomed and set up an altar for the icon of Asclepius at his house, when the deity was introduced in Athens. For this he was given the posthumous epithet Dexion (receiver) by the Athenians.^[10] He was also elected, in 413 BC, to be one of the commissioners crafting a response to the catastrophic destruction of the Athenian expeditionary force in Sicily during the Peloponnesian War.^[11]

Sophocles died at the venerable age of ninety in 406 or 405 BC, having seen within his lifetime both the Greek triumph in the Persian Wars and the terrible bloodletting of the Peloponnesian War.^[4] As with many famous men in classical antiquity, Sophocles' death inspired a number of apocryphal stories about the cause. Perhaps the most famous is the suggestion that he died from the strain of trying to recite a long sentence from his Antigone without pausing to take a breath; another account suggests he choked while eating grapes at the Anthesteria festival in Athens. A third account holds that he died of happiness after winning his final victory at the City Dionysia.^[12] A few months later, the comic poet wrote this eulogy in his play titled The Muses: "Blessed is Sophocles, who had a long life, was a man both happy and talented, and the writer of many good tragedies; and he ended his life well without suffering any misfortune."^[13] This is somewhat ironic, for according to some accounts his own sons tried to have him declared incompetent near the end of his life; he is said to have refuted their charge in court by reading from his as yet unproduced Oedipus at Colonus.^[14] Both Iophon, one of his sons, and a grandson, also called Sophocles, followed in his footsteps to become playwrights themselves.^[15]

Sophocles as erastês

It was common in fifth-century Greece for men of the upper classes to cultivate sexual relationships with adolescent boys. Sophocles was one such participant in the relationship between the erastês ("lover") and eromenos ("beloved").^[16]

Athenaeus reports two stories of this kind, one, if authentic, from a contemporary: a symposium in which Sophocles cleverly steals a kiss from the boy sitting next to him,^[17] and another in which Sophocles entices a young boy to have sex outside the walls of Athens, and the boy takes Sophocles' cloak.^[18] According to Plutarch, when he caught Sophocles admiring a young boy's looks, Pericles rebuked him for neglecting his duty as a strategos.^[19] Sophocles' sexual appetite reportedly lasted well into old age. In The Republic (1.329b-329c) Plato tells us that when he finally succumbed to impotence, Sophocles was glad to be free of his "raging and savage beast of a master."^[20] it is debatable how far such anecdotes were invented as references to this well-known passage.

In yet another such account, a satirical one by Machon involving a hetaira known for her ironical sense of humor, we are told that, "Demophon, Sophocles' minion, when still a youth had Nico, already old and surnamed the she-goat; they say she had very fine buttocks. One day he begged of her to lend them to him. 'Very well,' she said with a smile,—'Take from me, dear, what you give to Sophocles.'"^[21][22]

Works and legacy

v • d • e Plays by Sophocles Ajax · Antigone · Women of Trachis · Electra · Oedipus the King · Philoctetes · Oedipus at Colonus

Portrait of the Greek actor Euiaon in Sophocles' Andromeda, c. 430 BC.

Among Sophocles' earliest innovations was the addition of a third actor, which further reduced the role of the chorus and created greater opportunity for character development and conflict between characters.^[3] Aeschylus, who dominated Athenian playwrighting during Sophocles' early career, followed suit and adopted the third character into his own work towards the end of his life.^[3] Aristotle credits Sophocles with the introduction of skenographia, or scenery-painting. It was not until after the death of the old master Aeschylus in 456 BC that Sophocles became the pre-eminent playwright in Athens.^[4]

Thereafter, Sophocles emerged victorious in dramatic competitions at 18 Dionysia and 6 Lenaia festivals.^[4] In addition to innovations in dramatic structure, Sophocles' work is also known for its deeper development of characters than earlier playwrights.^[3] His reputation was such that foreign rulers invited him to attend their courts, although unlike Aeschylus who died in Sicily, or Euripides who spent time in Macedon, Sophocles never accepted any of these invitations.^[4] Aristotle used Sophocles's Oedipus the King in his Poetics (c. 335 BC) as an example of the highest achievement in tragedy, which suggests the high esteem in which his work was held by later Greeks.^[23]

Only two of the seven surviving plays can be dated securely: Philoctetes (409 BC) and Oedipus at Colonus (401 BC, staged after Sophocles' death by his grandson). Of the others, Electra shows stylistic similarities to these two plays, which suggests that it was probably written in the latter part of his career. Ajax, Antigone and The Trachiniae are generally thought to be among his early works, again based on stylistic elements, with Oedipus the King coming in Sophocles' middle period. Most of Sophocles' plays show an undercurrent of early fatalism and the beginnings of Socratic logic as a mainstay for the long tradition of Greek tragedy.^[24][25]

The Theban plays

The Theban plays consist of three plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King (also called Oedipus Tyrannus or Oedipus Rex), and Oedipus at Colonus. All three plays concern the fate of Thebes during and after the reign of King Oedipus.^[26] They have often been published under a single cover.^[27] Sophocles, however, wrote the three plays for separate festival competitions, many years apart. Not only are the Theban plays not a true trilogy (three plays presented as a continuous narrative) but they are not even an intentional series and contain some inconsistencies between them.^[28] He also wrote other plays having to do with Thebes, such as The Progeny, of which only fragments have survived.^[29]

Subjects

Each of the plays relates to the tale of the mythological Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother without knowledge that they were his parents. His family is fated to be doomed for three generations.

In Oedipus the King, Oedipus is the protagonist. He becomes the ruler of Thebes after solving the riddle of the sphinx. Before solving this riddle, Oedipus had met at a crossroads a man accompanied by servants; Oedipus and the man fought, and Oedipus killed the man. Oedipus continued on to Thebes to marry the widowed Queen, who was, unknown to him, his mother. Oedipus eventually learns that his mother and father gave him up when he was just an infant in fear that he would kill his father and fulfill the Delphic Oracle's prophecy of him. Upon learning of the completed prophecy, his mother, Jocasta, realizes the incest and commits suicide; Oedipus, in horror of what he has seen, blinds himself and leaves Thebes. The couple had four children, who figure in the remaining plays of the set.

In Oedipus at Colonus, the banished Oedipus and his daughters Antigone and Ismene arrive at the town of Colonus where they encounter Theseus, King of Athens. Oedipus dies and strife begins between his sons Polyneices and Eteocles.

In Antigone the protagonist is Oedipus' daughter. Antigone is faced with the choice of allowing her brother Polyneices' body to remain unburied, outside the city walls, exposed to the ravages of wild animals, or to bury him and face death. The king of the land, Creon, has forbidden the burial of Polyneices for he was a traitor to the city. Antigone decides to bury his body and face the consequences of her actions. Creon sentences her to death. Eventually, Creon is convinced to free Antigone from her punishment, but his decision comes too late and Antigone commits suicide. Her suicide triggers the suicide of two others close to King Creon: his son, Haemon, who was to wed Antigone, and his wife who commits suicide after losing her only surviving son.

Composition and inconsistencies

The plays were written across thirty-six years of Sophocles' career and were not composed in chronological order, but instead were written in the order Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at Colonus. As a result, there are some inconsistencies: notably, Creon is the undisputed king at the end of Oedipus the King and, in consultation with Apollo, single-handedly makes the decision to expel Oedipus from Thebes. Creon is also instructed to look after Oedipus' daughters Antigone and Ismene at the end of Oedipus the King. By contrast, in the other plays there is some struggle with Oedipus' sons Eteocles and Polynices in regards to the succession. In Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles attempts to work these inconsistencies into a coherent whole: Ismene explains that, in light of their tainted family lineage, her brothers were at first willing to cede the throne to Creon. Nevertheless, they eventually decided to take charge of the monarchy, with each brother disputing the other's right to succeed. In addition to being in a clearly more powerful position in Oedipus at Colonus, Eteocles and Polynices are also culpable: they condemn their father to exile, which is one of his bitterest charges against them.^[30]

Other plays

Other than the three Theban plays, there are four surviving plays by Sophocles: Ajax, The Trachiniae, Electra, and Philoctetes, the last of which won first prize.^[31]

Ajax focuses on the prideful hero of the Trojan War. He is driven to treachery and eventually his own death. Ajax becomes gravely upset when Achilles’ armor is presented to Odysseus instead of himself. Despite their enmity toward him, Odysseus persuades the kings Menelaus and Agamemnon to grant Ajax a proper burial.

The Trachiniae (named for the Trachinian women who make up the chorus) dramatizes Deianeira's accidentally killing Heracles after he had completed his famous twelve labors. Tricked into thinking it is a love charm, Deianeira applies poison to an article of Heracles' clothing; this poisoned robe causes Heracles to die an excruciating death. Upon learning the truth, Deianeira commits suicide.

Electra Corresponds roughly to the plot of Aeschylus' Libation Bearers. It details Electra and Orestes' avenging their father Agamemnon's murder by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.

Philoctetes retells the story of its title character, an archer who had been abandoned on Lemnos by the rest of the Greek fleet while on the way to Troy. After learning that they cannot win the Trojan War without Philoctetes' bow, the Greeks send Odysseus and Neoptolemus to retrieve him; due to the Greeks' earlier treachery, however, Philoctetes refuses to rejoin the army. It is only Heracles' deus ex machina appearance that persuades Philoctetes to go to Troy.

Fragmentary plays

Fragments of The Tracking Satyrs (Ichneutae) were discovered in Egypt in 1907.^[32] These amount to about half of the play, making it the best preserved satyr play after Euripides' Cyclops, which survives in its entirety.^[32] Fragments of The Progeny (Epigonoi) were discovered in April 2005 by classicists at Oxford University with the help of infrared technology previously used for satellite imaging. The tragedy tells the story of the second siege of Thebes.^[33] A number of other Sophoclean works have survived only in fragments, including:

• Aias Lokros (Ajax the Locrian)
• Akhaiôn Syllogos (The Gathering of the Achaeans)
• Aleadae (The Sons of Aleus)
• Creusa
• Eurypylus
• Hermione
• Inachos
• Lacaenae (Lacaenian Women)
• Manteis or Polyidus (The Prophets or Polyidus)
• Nauplios Katapleon (Nauplius' Arrival)
• Nauplios Pyrkaeus (Nauplius' Fires)
• Niobe
• Oeneus
• Oenomaus
• Poimenes (The Shepherds)
• Polyxene
• Syndeipnoi (The Diners, or, The Banqueters)
• Tereus
• Thyestes
• Troilus
• Phaedra
• Triptolemus
• Tyro Keiromene (Tyro Shorn)
• Tyro Anagnorizomene (Tyro Rediscovered).

Sophocles' view of his own work

There is a passage of Plutarch's tract De Profectibus in Virtute 7 in which Sophocles discusses his own growth as a writer. A likely source of this material for Plutarch was the Epidemiae of Ion of Chios, a book that recorded many conversations of Sophocles. This book is a likely candidate to have contained Sophocles' discourse on his own development because Ion was a friend of Sophocles, and the book is known to have been used by Plutarch.^[34] Though some interpretations of Plutarch's words suggest that Sophocles says that he imitated Aeschylus, the translation does not fit grammatically, nor does the interpretation that Sophocles said that he was making fun of Aeschylus' works. C. M. Bowra argues for the following translation of the line: "After practising to the full the bigness of Aeschylus, then the painful ingenuity of my own invention, now in the third stage I am changing to the kind of diction which is most expressive of character and best."^[35]

Here Sophocles says that he has completed a stage of Aeschylus' work, meaning that he went through a phase of imitating Aeschylus' style but is finished with that. Sophocles' opinion of Aeschylus was mixed. He certainly respected him enough to imitate his work early on in his career, but he had reservations about Aeschylus' style,^[36] and thus did not keep his imitation up. Sophocles' first stage, in which he imitated Aeschylus, is marked by "Aeschylean pomp in the language".^[37] Sophocles' second stage was entirely his own. He introduced new ways of evoking feeling out of an audience, like in his Ajax when he is mocked by Athene, then the stage is emptied so that he may commit suicide alone.^[38] Sophocles mentions a third stage, distinct from the other two, in his discussion of his development. The third stage pays more heed to diction. His characters spoke in a way that was more natural to them and more expressive of their individual character feelings.^[39]

Notes

1. ^ Suda (ed. Finkel et al.): s.v. Σοφοκλῆς.
2. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
3. ^ ^{a b c d} Freeman: 247
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Sommerstein (2002): 41
5. ^ ^{a b c} Sommerstein (2007): xi
6. ^ Lloyd-Jones 1994: 7
7. ^ Freeman: 246
8. ^ Life of Cimon 8. Whatever the merit of the rest of the story, Plutarch is obviously mistaken about Aeschylus' death during this trip; he went on to produce dramas in Athens for another decade.
9. ^ Beer 2004, 67.
10. ^ Clinton, Kevin "The Epidauria and the Arrival of Asclepius in Athens", in Ancient Greek Cult Practice from the Epigraphical Evidence, edited by R. Hägg, Stockholm, 1994.
11. ^ Lloyd-Jones: 12-13
12. ^ Schultz 1835, 150-1
13. ^ Lucas 1964, 128.
14. ^ Cicero recounts this story in his De Senectute 7.22.
15. ^ Sommerstein (2002): 41-42
16. ^ For the erastês-eromenos relationship in ancient Greece, see (e.g.) Johnson/Ryan 2005, 3-4.
17. ^ Athenaeus attributes this to the Encounters of Ion of Chios. See Hubbard 2003, 80.
18. ^ From the Historical Notes of Hieronymus of Rhodes. See Hubbard 2003, 81.
19. ^ Life of Pericles 8.5.
20. ^ Plato, The Republic, 1.329c.
21. ^ Friederich Karl Forberg, Manual of Classical Erotology (De Figuris Veneris); p.74 N26
22. ^ Lee Alexander Stone, The Power of a Symbol, p.229
23. ^ Aristotle. Ars Poetica.
24. ^ Lloyd-Jones 1994: 8-9
25. ^ Scullion, pp. 85–86, rejects attempts to date Antigone to shortly before 441/0 based on an anecdote that the play led to Sophocles' election as general. On other grounds, he cautiously suggests c. 450 BC.
26. ^ Sophocles, ed Grene and Lattimore, pp. 1–2.
27. ^ See for example: "Sophocles: The Theban Plays", Penguin Books, 1947; Sophocles I: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, University of Chicago, 1991; Sophocles: The Theban Plays: Antigone/King Oidipous/Oidipous at Colonus, Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company, 2002; Sophocles, The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Harvest Books, 2002; Sophocles, Works, Loeb Classical Library, Vol I. London, W. Heinemann; New York,Macmillan, 1912 (often reprinted) - the 1994 Loeb, however, prints Sophocles in chronological order.
28. ^ Sophocles, ed Grene and Lattimore, pp. 1–2.
29. ^ Murray, Matthew, "Newly Readable Oxyrhynchus Papyri Reveal Works by Sophocles, Lucian, and Others", Theatermania, 18 April 2005. Retrieved 9 July 2007.
30. ^ Sophocles, ed. Grene and Lattimore, pp. 1–2.
31. ^ Freeman: 247–248
32. ^ ^{a b} Seaford: 1361
33. ^ Murray, Matthew, "Newly Readable Oxyrhynchus Papyri Reveal Works by Sophocles, Lucian, and Others", Theatermania, 18 April 2005. Retrieved 9 July 2007.
34. ^ Bowra: 386
35. ^ Bowra: 401
36. ^ Bowra: 389
37. ^ Bowra: 392
38. ^ Bowra: 396
39. ^ Bowra: 385–401

References

• Finkel, Raphael; et al. (eds.). "Suda On Line: Byzantine Lexicography". pp. s.v. Σοφοκλῆς. http://www.stoa.org/sol/. Retrieved 2007-03-14. 
• Beer, Josh (2004). Sophocles and the Tragedy of Athenian Democracy. Greenwood Publishing. ISBN 0313289468
• Bowra, C. M. (1940). "Sophocles on His Own Development" (JSTOR access required). American Journal of Philology 61 (4): 385–401. doi:10.2307/291377. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9475%281940%2961%3A4%3C385%3ASOHOD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E. Retrieved 2007-11-24. 
• Freeman, Charles. (1999). The Greek Achievement: The Foundation of the Western World. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0670885150
• Hubbard, Thomas K. (2003). Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: a Sourcebook of Basic Documents.
• Johnson, Marguerite & Terry Ryan (2005). Sexuality in Greek and Roman Society and Literature: a Sourcebook. Routledge. ISBN 0415173310, 9780415173315
• Lloyd-Jones, Hugh (ed.) (1994). Sophocles. Ajax. Electra. Oedipus Tyrannus. Harvard University Press.
• Lucas, Donald William (1964). The Greek Tragic Poets. W.W. Norton & Co.
• Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
• Schultz, Ferdinand (1835). De vita Sophoclis poetae commentatio.‎ Phil. Diss., Berlin.[1]
• Scullion, Scott (2002). Tragic dates, Classical Quarterly, new sequence 52, pp. 81–101.
• Seaford, Richard A. S. (2003). "Satyric drama". in Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth. The Oxford Classical Dictionary (revised 3rd edition ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 1361. ISBN 0-19-860641-9. 
• Smith, Philip (1867). "Sophocles". in William Smith. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 3. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. pp. 865–873. http://ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/3198.html. Retrieved 2007-02-19. 
• Sommerstein, Alan Herbert (2002). Greek Drama and Dramatists. Routledge. ISBN 0415260272
• Sommerstein, Alan Herbert (2007). "General Introduction" pp.xi-xxix in Sommerstein, A.H., Fitzpatrick, D. and Tallboy, T. Sophocles: Selected Fragmentary Plays: Volume 1. Aris and Phillips. ISBN 0856687669
• Sophocles. Sophocles I: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone. 2nd ed. Grene, David and Lattimore, Richard, eds. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991.
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. "Macropaedia Knowledge In Depth." The New Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 20. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2005. 344-346.

See also

• Theatre of ancient Greece

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Sophocles

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Sophocles

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sophocles

• Works by Sophocles at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Sophocles at the Internet Archive
• Works by Sophocles at the Perseus Digital Library (Greek and English)
• Works by or about Sophocles in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Fragmentary Tragedies of Sophocles Project
• Films based on Sophocles plays
• SORGLL: Sophocles, Electra 1126-1170; read by Rachel Kitzinger

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Persondata
NAME	Sophocles
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	One of the three major ancient Greek tragic playwrights whose works have survived into modern times.
DATE OF BIRTH	496 BC
PLACE OF BIRTH	Colonus Hippius
DATE OF DEATH	ca. 406 BC
PLACE OF DEATH	Athens

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