The Theban Plays of Sophocles (The Yale New Classics Series)

254 Pages·2007·0.41 MB·English

by  Sophocles

Yale New Classics

The Theban Plays of
Sophocles
Translated by David R. Slavitt
Yale University Press
New Haven and London
Published with assistance from the Kingsley Trust Association Publication
Fund established by the Scroll and Key Society of Yale College.
Copyright © 2007by David R. Slavitt. All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustra-
tions, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107and108
of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press),
without written permission from the publishers.
Set in Adobe Garamond type by The Composing Room of Michigan, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sophocles.
[Selections. English. 2007]
The Theban plays of Sophocles / translated by David R. Slavitt.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN:978-0-300-11776-9(alk. paper)
1. Sophocles—Translations into English. 2. Oedipus (Greek mythol-
ogy)—Drama. 3. Antigone (Greek mythology)—Drama. I. Slavitt,
David R., 1935– II. Title.
PA4414.A2S53 2007
882(cid:2).01—dc22
2006026965
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the
Council on Library Resources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for Don Gastwirth

Contents
Translator’s Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Antigone 1
Oedipus Tyrannos 59
Oedipus at Colonus 137
Glossary of Names 229
Notes 239

Translator’s Preface
This isn’t a trilogy. The Theban plays were not conceived or presented
as parts of a unified whole as were the plays of the Oresteiaof Aeschy-
lus. Instead, the story of the house of Laius was one to which Sopho-
cles returned again and again for the bright light it could shed on
the human condition. His voice changes over the years: Oedipus at
Colonusis an old man’s play, dreadful in its venomous confrontations
and, at the same time, exalting in the reconciliation of its mysterious
ending. It is altogether different in timbre and texture from the earlier
works, and we can see in the course of the dramatist’s development the
outlines at least of an intellectual, artistic, and spiritual biography.
I was delighted—if also intimidated—to be invited by Yale Uni-
versity Press to try my hand at these masterpieces. My mentor at An-
dover was Dudley Fitts, and the versions that he and Robert Fitzgerald
did of these masterworks seemed to me quite satisfactory and, indeed,
unbeatable. But taking another look at them, I realized that they go
back a long way: their Antigonewas published in 1939. The poetic con-
ventions and the style of that time are not those of today. Fitts’s dia-
logue holds up pretty well, but Fitzgerald’s choral odes are just a bit
fussy for twenty-first-century tastes. I supposed I could not do any
more harm to them than I could to Sophocles himself. So why not
treat myself to an enormously rich and engaging experience? To hear