INTRODUCTION
We defy any Englishman without a knowledge of the Greek to make any sense of the third line. So with the Choruses. To preserve in rhyme the correspondence of Strophe and Antistrophe (Turn and Counterturn they are here called), is at best an exhibition of tight-rope dancing.
These seven plays are all that are left to us of some 120, except in fragments and a considerable portion of a Satyric Drama, the Ἱχνευταί or Trackers. The order in which they were composed and produced is largely a matter of conjecture. All we know for certain is that the Antigone was the first (some, however, put the Ajax before it), and the Oedipus Coloneus, produced by the poet’s grandson, three years after the death of Sophocles, was the last of the seven. The following may be taken as an approximation:—Antigone, Elecira, Ajax, Oedipus Rex, Trachiniae, Philoctetes, Oedipus Coloneus.
The Greek text is based on Dindorf (latest edition), but this has been carefully collated with Jebb’s edition and in most cases the English has been preferred to the German editor.
It remains to express my deep obligations not only to the text but to the commentary and prose translation of the great scholar who for more than forty years honoured me with his friendship. I have not
