Fragments
Ancient Athens’ most successful tragedian.
Sophocles (497/6–406 BC), the second of the three 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 a collection of all the major fragments, ranging in length from two lines to a very substantial portion of the satyr play The Searchers. Prefatory notes provide frameworks for the fragments of 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…