Miss Swanwick; E. D. A. Morshead; Campbell (all in verse). Paley (prose).
Versions also appear in Verrall's editions of separate plays (Macmillan).
An admirable volume called Greek Tragedy by G. Norwood (Methuen) contains a summary of the latest views on the art of the Athenian dramatists.
See Symonds' Greek Poets as above.
SOPHOCLES
In Aeschylus' dramas the will of the gods tended to override human responsibility. An improvement could be effected by making the personages real captains of their souls; drama needed bringing down from heaven to earth. This process was effected by Sophocles. He was born at Colonus, near Athens, in 495, mixed with the best society in Periclean times, was a member of the important board of administrators who controlled the Delian League, the nucleus of the Athenian Empire, and composed over one hundred tragedies. In 468 he defeated Aeschylus, won the first prize twenty-two times and later had to face the more formidable opposition of the new and restless spirit whose chief spokesman was Euripides. For nearly forty years he was taken to be the typical dramatist of Athens, being nicknamed "the Bee"; his dramatic powers showed no abatement of vigour in old age, of which the Oedipus Coloneus was the triumphant issue. He died in 405, full of years and honours.
Providence has ordained it that his art, like his country's tutelary goddess Athena, should step perfect and fully armed from the brain of its creator. The Antigone, produced in 440, discusses one of the deepest problems of civilised life. On the morning after the defeat of the Seven who assaulted Thebes Polyneices' body lay dishonoured and unburied, a prey to carrion birds before the gates of the city which had been his home. His two sisters, Antigone and Ismene, discuss the edict which forbids his burial. Ismene, the more timid of the two, intends to obey it, but Antigone's stronger character rises in rebellion.
Loss of burial was the most awful fate which could overtake a Greek—before he died Sophocles was to see his country condemn ten generals to death for neglect of burial rites, though they had been brilliantly successful in a naval engagement. Rather than obey Antigone would die.