Fragments

Sophocles (497/6-406 BC), the second of the great tragedians of Athens and by common consent one of the world's greatest poets, wrote more than 120 plays. Only seven of these survive complete, but we have a wealth of fragments, from which much can be learned about Sophocles' language and dramatic art. This volume presents, in Greek and facing English translation, a collection of all the major fragments, ranging in length from two lines to a very substantial portion of the play "The Searchers". Prefatory notes provide frameworks for the fragments of the known plays. Many of the Sophoclean fragments were preserved by quotation in other authors; others, some of considerable size, are known to us from papyri discovered during the past century. Among the lost plays of which we have large fragments, "The Searchers" shows the god Hermes, soon after his birth playing an amusing trick on his brother Apollo; and "Niobe" tells how Apollo and Artemis punish Niobe for a slight upon their mother, kiling her twelve children. Throughout the volume, we see Sophocles drawing his subjects from legend.