Signet Classics: Sophocles The Complete Plays

With new translations and a new afterword

The full texts of the seven extant plays of Sophocles with Paul Roche's revised and updated translations of the Oedipus cycle, and all-new translations of the remaining plays.

About the Author

Sophocles (c. 497/496 – c. 406/405), the Greek tragic dramatist, was born at Colonus near Athens. Although hopelessness and misfortune plague the characters in his great plays, Sophocles’s own life was a long, prosperous one. His first dramatic production, in 468, won the prize over Aeschylus’s. He wrote two dozen more plays before 450, by which date he had made important changes in the form of tragedy by adding a third speaking actor to the traditional two, by reducing the importance of the chorus, and by improving the stage scenery. Sophocles wrote over 120 plays; seven complete plays survive (plus half a light satyr play, some fragments, and ninety titles).