1 what do you know about the life of Sophocles. Sophocles - biography, information, personal life

Sophocles (May 496 BC, Colona - 406 BC) is the second great tragedian of Greece after Aeschylus. The first tetralogy, staged by Sophocles in 469 BC, captivated the audience and gave him victory over the sixty-two-year-old Aeschylus, opening a series of victories won on stage in competitions with other tragedians. The critic Aristophanes of Byzantium attributed 123 tragedies to Sophocles. His works took first place 20 times.

Sophocles was born in Colonus near Athens. Back in 480 BC, when he was only 16 years old, he participated in the ephebe choir that performed in honor of the victory at Salamis. Thanks to his father, who most likely was a man of middle income, Sophocles received compulsory musical and gymnasium education. This helped the poet in the future, since he himself subsequently composed music for the metrical parts of his tragedies.

Sophocles was a handsome man, a trendsetter, a poet and even a doctor. It is important to note that Sophocles was not only a playwright. In his youth he was close to the aristocrat Cimon, the leader of the agricultural party, who won a number of victories over the Persians. When Pericles replaced Cimon, Sophocles took the position of treasurer of the state treasury and then strategist. Together with Pericles, he took part in the campaign against Samos. In 411 BC. Sophocles participated in the revision of the Athenian constitution after the anti-democratic coup. It is well known that Sophocles was a friend of Pericles. It is believed that the poet reflected his fall in his most famous tragedy, “Oedipus the King,” staged in 429 BC.

The historian Herodotus and the philosopher Archelaus, with whom Sophocles was close, also belonged to Pericles’ circle. It is also believed that he communicated with the sophists, whose teaching he later criticized in some of his tragedies.

Sophocles lived 90 years. In the year of his death he wrote the tragedy Oedipus at Colonus.

Sophocles' achievements in the field of theater were very great. He introduced decorative painting, wrote a treatise on the chorus, in which he talks about its importance in drama, increased the number of choruses from 12 to 15, added a third to two actors, and increased the dialogic part. The action of the drama began to strictly center around the first person. The composition of the tragedies has become much more complex than that of, and the denouement is well prepared.

In his tragedies, Sophocles poses pressing problems for his time: the attitude towards religion ("Electra"), divine, unwritten laws and written laws ("Antigone"), the free will of man and the will of the gods ("Oedipus the King", "The Trachinian Women"), interests of the individual and the state (“Philoctetes”), the problem of honor and nobility (“Ajax”). His works reveal the spiritual world of an ideal human citizen. He depicts people doing great things. Sophocles takes the plots for his tragedies from myths, but chooses those nodes of the myth that are more consistent with his tasks, and explains what is happening in accordance with the moral images of his time.

According to the ancients, Sophocles wrote over 120 tragedies, but only seven of them have reached us: “Ajax”, “The Trachinian Women”, “Antigone”, “Oedipus the King”, “Electra”, “Philoctetes”, “Oedipus at Colonus” and large excerpts from the satyr drama "The Pathfinders", the plot of which was inspired by the Homeric hymn to Hermes.

Sophocles created the greatest tragic image - a man alien to compromise, who himself takes the blow and chooses a heroic death. Sophocles faced a dilemma: faith in the infinite possibilities of man and the tragedy of man, which lies in ignorance. There is a lot of unknowns in the world. According to Sophocles, the meaning of life is not revealed; the smarter a person is, the more difficult it is for him to curb himself to the extent. Man does not know the boundaries assigned to him in the world.

The biography of the three great tragedians was united by the Battle of Salamis: Sophocles took part in it, glorified it, and Euripides was born at that time.

Bibliography

Film adaptations of works, theatrical performances

Oedipus the King (Oedipus Rex; Italy, 1909), dir. D. Di Ligoro
Oedipus Rex (UK, 1911), dir. T. Frenkel
Antigone (Sweden, 1960), dir. H. Dahlin
Antigone (Antigoni; Antigone; Greece, 1966), dir. D. Katsourides, G. Dzavellas
Oedipus the King (Edipo re; Italy, 1967), dir. P. Paolo Pasolini
Oedipus the King (UK, 1967), dir. F. Saville
Antigone (USA, 1974), dir. D. Friedman
Antigone (France, 1974), dir. S. Lorenzi
Antigone (UK, 1984), dir. D. Taylor
Oedipus the King (UK, 1984), dir. D. Taylor
Oedipus at Colonus (UK, 1984), dir. D. Taylor
Antigone (Germany - France, 1992), dir. D. Huillet, J.-M. Straub
Oedipus Rex (Japan, 1992), dir. D. Taymor
Oedipus the King (Edipo alcalde; Oedipus Mayor; Colombia - Spain - Mexico, 1996), dir. H.Ali Triana

(c. 496/5 BC, Athenian suburb of Colon - 406 BC, Athens)

en.wikipedia.org

Biography

Born in February 495 BC. e., in the Athenian suburb of Colon. The poet sang the place of his birth, long since glorified by the shrines and altars of Poseidon, Athena, Eumenides, Demeter, Prometheus, in the tragedy “Oedipus at Colonus”. He came from a wealthy Sofill family and received a good education.

After the Battle of Salamis (480 BC) he participated in the national festival as the leader of the choir. He was twice elected to the position of military commander and once served as a member of the board in charge of the union treasury. The Athenians chose Sophocles as their military leader in 440 BC. e. during the Samian War, under the influence of his tragedy "Antigone", the production of which, therefore, dates back to 441 BC. e.

His main occupation was composing tragedies for the Athenian theater. The first tetralogy, staged by Sophocles in 469 BC. e., brought him victory over Aeschylus and opened up a number of victories won on stage in competitions with other tragedians. The critic Aristophanes of Byzantium attributed 123 tragedies to Sophocles.

Sophocles was distinguished by a cheerful, sociable character, and did not shy away from the joys of life, as can be seen from the words of a certain Cephalus in Plato’s “Republic” (I, 3). He was closely acquainted with the historian Herodotus. Sophocles died at the age of 90, in 405 BC. e. in the city of Athens. The townspeople built an altar for him and annually honored him as a hero.

Changes in the setting of the action

In accordance with the successes that the tragedy owed to Sophocles, he made innovations in the stage production of plays. Thus, he increased the number of actors to three, and the number of choreographers from 12 to 15, while at the same time reducing the choral parts of the tragedy, improved the scenery, masks, and generally the prop side of the theater, made a change in the production of tragedies in the form of tetralogies, although it is not known exactly what this change consisted of. Finally, he introduced painted decorations into use. All the changes were intended to give more movement to the course of the drama on stage, to enhance the illusion of the audience and the impression received from the tragedy. While preserving the character of the performance of honoring the deity, the sacred service, which the tragedy was originally, by its very origin from the cult of Dionysus, Sophocles humanized it much more than Aeschylus. The humanization of the legendary and mythical world of gods and heroes followed inevitably as soon as the poet focused his attention on a deeper analysis of the mental states of the heroes, which were hitherto known to the public only from the external vicissitudes of their earthly life. It was possible to depict the spiritual world of demigods only with the features of mere mortals. The beginning of such treatment of legendary material was laid by the father of tragedy, Aeschylus: it is enough to recall the images of Prometheus or Orestes created by him; Sophocles followed in the footsteps of his predecessor.

Characteristic features of dramaturgy

Sophocles loves to pit heroes with different life principles against each other (Creon and Antigone, Odysseus and Neoptolemus, etc.) or contrast people with the same views, but with different characters, to emphasize the strength of character of one when he collides with another, weak-willed (Antigone and Ismene, Electra and Chrysothemis). He loves and knows how to depict changes in the mood of the heroes - the transition from the highest intensity of passions to a state of breakdown, when a person comes to the bitter realization of his weakness and helplessness. This turning point can be observed in Oedipus at the end of the tragedy “Oedipus the King,” and in Creon, who learned about the death of his wife and son, and in Ajax, who regains consciousness (in the tragedy “Ajax”). Sophocles' tragedies are characterized by dialogues of rare skill, dynamic action, and naturalness in untying complex dramatic knots.

Plots of tragedies

In almost all the tragedies that have come down to us, it is not a series of situations or external events that attract the attention of the audience, but a sequence of mental states experienced by the heroes under the influence of relationships that are immediately clearly and definitively posed in the tragedy. The content of “Oedipus” is one moment from the hero’s inner life: the discovery of the crimes he committed before the tragedy began.

In Antigone, the action of the tragedy begins from the moment when the royal prohibition to bury Polyneices was announced to the Thebans through a herald, and Antigone irrevocably decided to violate this prohibition. In both tragedies, the viewer follows the development of the motives outlined at the very beginning of the drama, and the external outcome of one or another drama could be easily predicted by the viewer. The author does not introduce any surprises or complicated complications into the tragedy. But at the same time, Sophocles does not give us abstract embodiments of this or that passion or inclination; its heroes are living people with weaknesses inherent in human nature, with feelings familiar to everyone, hence the inevitable hesitations, mistakes, crimes, etc. Other persons participating in the action are each endowed with individual traits.

In “Eante,” the hero’s state of mind is determined by the event preceding the action of the tragedy, and what constitutes its content is Eante’s determination to commit suicide, when he felt all the shame of the act he committed in a state of madness.

“Electra” serves as a particularly striking example of the poet’s manner. Matricide is predetermined by Apollo, and its executor must appear in the person of the son of the criminal Clytemnestra, Orestes; but Electra was chosen as the heroine of the tragedy; she comes to a decision in agreement with the divine will, regardless of the oracle, deeply offended in her daughterly feelings by the behavior of her mother. We see the same thing in Philoctetes and the Trachinian Women. The choice of such plots and such development of the main themes reduced the role of supernatural factors, deities or fate: there is little room for them; The stamp of superhumanity that distinguished them in the original legends about them is almost removed from the legendary heroes. Just as Socrates brought philosophy from heaven to earth, so the tragedians before him brought down the demigods from their pedestals, and removed the gods from direct interference in human relations, leaving behind them the role of the supreme leaders of human destinies. The catastrophe that befalls the hero is sufficiently prepared by his personal qualities, depending on the surrounding conditions; but when the catastrophe broke out, the viewer is given to understand that it agrees with the will of the gods, with the demands of the highest truth, with the divine determination, and followed as an edification to mortals for the guilt of the hero himself, as in “Eantes,” or his ancestors, as in “Oedipus” or "Antigone". Along with the distance from human vanity, from human passions and clashes, the deities become more spiritualistic, and man becomes freer in his decisions and actions and more responsible for them. On the other hand, a verdict on a person’s guilt depends on his motives, on the degree of his consciousness and intentionality. In himself, in his own consciousness and conscience, the hero bears either condemnation or justification for himself, and the demand of conscience coincides with the verdict of the gods, even if it turns out to be in clear contradiction with both the positive law and the primordial beliefs. Oedipus is the son of a criminal father, and he is forced to endure punishment for the guilt of his parent; both parricide and incest with the mother were predetermined by the deity and predicted to him by the oracle. But he personally, by his own qualities, does not deserve such a difficult fate; the crimes were committed by him in ignorance, and, moreover, atoned for by a series of humiliations and mental trials. And this same Oedipus earns the merciful participation of the gods; he receives not only complete forgiveness, but also the glory of a righteous person, honored to join the host of gods. To the same house, stained with atrocities, Antigone belongs; She violates the royal will and is sentenced to execution for this. But she broke the law out of pure motive, wanting to ease the lot of her dead brother, who was already unfortunate, and convinced that her decision would be pleasing to the gods, that it would be consistent with their regulations, which have existed since time immemorial and are more binding on people than any whatever the laws were invented by people. Antigone dies, but as a victim of the delusion of Creon, who is less sensitive to the demands of human nature. She, who died, leaves behind the memory of a most worthy woman; her generosity and rightness were appreciated after death by all Theban citizens, witnessed firsthand by the gods and by the repentance of Creon himself. In the eyes of many Greeks, the death of Antigone is worth the life to which her sister Ismene is doomed, who, out of fear of death, avoided participating in the fulfillment of her duty, and even more worth the life that Creon, who cannot find support for himself, is condemned to drag out. justification neither in those around him, nor in his own conscience, who, through his own fault, lost everyone close and dear to him, under the burden of the curse of his beloved wife, who died because of him. Thus the poet took advantage of names and positions created long before him in a different mood, for other purposes, by popular imagination and poets. In stories about the great exploits of heroes, which influenced the imagination of many generations, about wonderful adventures with demigods, he breathed new life, understandable to his contemporaries and subsequent generations, with the power of his powers of observation and artistic genius he aroused the deepest emotional emotions to active manifestation and aroused new ones in his contemporaries. thoughts and questions.

Both the novelty and boldness of the questions raised by the author, and the even greater inclination of the Athenians to dialectics, explain the general feature of Sophocles’ tragedies in comparison with the new drama, namely: the main theme of the tragedy develops in a verbal competition between two opponents, with each side bringing the position it defends to its extreme consequences, defending your right; thanks to this, while the competition lasts, the reader receives the impression of the relative justice or fallacy of both positions; Usually the parties disagree, having clarified many details of the controversial issue, but without offering a ready-made conclusion to an outside witness. This last must be extracted by the reader or spectator from the entire course of the drama. That is why in the new philological literature there are numerous and contradictory attempts to answer the question: how does the poet himself look at the subject of the dispute, which of the competing parties should, together with the poet, recognize the preponderance of the truth or the whole truth; Is Creon right in prohibiting the burial of the remains of Polyneices, or is Antigone right in despising the royal prohibition in performing the burial rite over the body of her brother? Is Oedipus guilty or not guilty of the crimes he has committed, and therefore is the disaster that befalls him deserved? etc. However, Sophocles’ heroes not only compete, they experience on stage severe mental anguish from the disasters that befall them and only find relief from suffering in the consciousness of their rightness, or that their crime was committed out of ignorance or predetermined by the gods. Scenes filled with deep pathos, exciting even a new reader, are found in all the surviving tragedies of Sophocles, and in these scenes there is neither pomposity nor rhetoric. Such are the magnificent laments of Deianira, Antigone, Eant before death, Philoctetes, who fell into the hands of his worst enemies by deception, Oedipus, who was convinced that he himself was the wicked one who brought the wrath of the gods on the Theban land. By this combination in one and the same person of high heroism, when it is necessary to defend the trampled truth or perform a glorious feat, and tender sensitivity to the disaster that has befallen, when the duty has already been fulfilled or the fatal mistake is irreparable, with this combination Sophocles achieves the highest effect, revealing features in his majestic images , which makes them related to ordinary people and causes them to be more involved.

Tragedies

Seven tragedies of Sophocles have come down to us, of which, in content, three belong to the Theban cycle of legends: “Oedipus”, “Oedipus at Colonus” and “Antigone”; one to the Hercules cycle - "Dejanira", and three to the Trojan cycle: "Eant", the earliest of the tragedies of Sophocles, "Electra" and "Philoctetes". In addition, about 1000 fragments have been preserved by different writers. In addition to tragedies, antiquity attributed to Sophocles elegies, paeans and prosaic discourse on the choir.

The Trachinian Women is based on the legend of Deianira. The languor of a loving woman in anticipation of her husband, the pangs of jealousy and the hopeless grief of Deianira at the news of the suffering of the poisoned Hercules constitute the main content of “The Trachinian Women”.

In Philoctetes, staged in 409 BC. e., the poet with amazing art develops the tragic situation created by the collision of three different characters: Philoctetes, Odysseus and Neoptolemus. The action of the tragedy dates back to the tenth year of the Trojan War, and the scene of action is the island of Lemnos, where the Greeks, on the way to Troy, abandoned the Thessalian leader Philoctetes after he was bitten by a poisonous snake on Chris, and the wound received from the bite, spreading a stench, made him incapable of participating in military affairs. He was abandoned on the advice of Odysseus. Lonely, forgotten by everyone, unbearably suffering from a wound, Philoctetes earns his miserable livelihood by hunting: he skillfully wields the bow and arrows of Hercules that he received. However, according to the oracle, Troy can only be taken by the Greeks with the help of this wonderful bow. Then only the Greeks remember the unfortunate sufferer, and Odysseus takes upon himself the task of delivering Philoctetes to Troy at all costs, or at least taking possession of his weapon. But he knows that Philoctetes hates him as his worst enemy, that he himself will never be able to persuade Philoctetes to reconcile with the Greeks or take possession of him by force, that he will have to act with cunning and deception, and the instrument of his plan he chooses the young man Neoptolemus, who did not participate offended, moreover, the son of Achilles, the favorite of Philoctetes. The Greek ship had already landed at Lemnos, and the Greeks landed on shore. A cave opens before the viewer, the wretched dwelling of the glorious hero, then the hero himself, exhausted by illness, loneliness and deprivation: his bed is tree leaves on bare ground, there is also a wooden drinking jug, flint and rags stained with blood and pus. The noble young man and the accompanying choir of Achilles’ companions are deeply moved by the sight of the unfortunate man. But Neoptolemus bound himself with the word given to Odysseus to take possession of Philoctetes with the help of lies and deception, and he will fulfill his promise. But if the pitiful appearance of the sufferer evokes sympathy in the young man, then the complete trust, love and affection with which the old man Philoctetes treats him from the first moment and puts himself in his hands, expecting from him alone the end of his torment, plunges Neoptolemus into a difficult struggle with himself yourself. But at the same time, Philoctetes is adamant: he cannot forgive the Greeks for the insult inflicted on him; he will never go to Troy, he will not help the Greeks victoriously end the war; he will return home, and Neoptolemus will take him to his dear native land. Only the thought of his homeland gave him the strength to bear the burden of life. The nature of Neoptolemus rebels against the deceptive, insidious actions, and only the personal intervention of Odysseus makes him the owner of the weapon of Philoctetes: the young man uses the trust of the old man in order to destroy him. Finally, all considerations about the need for the glory of the Greeks to obtain the weapons of Hercules, that he bound himself with a promise to Odysseus, that not Philoctetes, but he, Neoptolemus, will from now on be the enemy of the Greeks, give way in the young man to the voice of his conscience, indignant against deception and violence. He returns the bow, gains confidence again and is ready to accompany Philoctetes to his homeland. Only the appearance of Hercules on the stage (deus ex machina) and his reminder that Zeus and Fate command Philoctetes to go to Troy and help the Greeks complete the struggle that had begun, persuade the hero and with him Neoptolemus to follow the Greeks. The main character of the tragedy is Neoptolemus. If Antigone, at the request of her conscience, considers it obligatory for herself to violate the will of the king, then by the same impulse Neoptolemus goes further: he breaks this promise and refuses, through treachery against Philoctetes, who trusted him, to act in the interests of the entire Greek army. In none of his tragedies did the poet speak so forcefully for the right of man to coordinate his behavior with the concept of the highest truth, even if it contradicted the most cunning reasoning (Greek: ??? ? ?? ?????? ??? ?? ??? ??????? ????). It is important that the sympathy of the poet and the audience for the generous and truthful young man is undeniable, while the treacherous and unscrupulous Odysseus is depicted in the most unattractive form. The rule that the ends justify the means is strongly condemned in this tragedy.

In “Eantes,” the plot of the drama is that the dispute between Eantes (Ajax) and Odysseus over the weapons of Achilles was resolved by the Achaeans in favor of the latter. He swore to take revenge first of all on Odysseus and the Atrides, but Athena, the protector of the Achaeans, deprives him of his reason, and in a frenzy he mistakes domestic animals for his enemies and beats them. Reason has returned to Eant, and the hero feels gravely disgraced. From this moment the tragedy begins, ending with the suicide of the hero, which is preceded by the famous monologue of Eant, his farewell to life and its joys. A dispute breaks out between the Atrids and Eant's half-brother Teucer. Whether to bury the remains of the deceased or leave them to be sacrificed to dogs is a dispute that is resolved in favor of burial.

Ethics

As for the religious and ethical views held in the tragedies of Sophocles, they differ little from those of Aeschylus; their predominant feature is spiritualism, in comparison with those ideas about the gods that were inherited from the creators of Greek theology and theogony, from the most ancient poets. Zeus is an all-seeing, all-powerful deity, the supreme ruler of the world, organizer and manager. Fate does not rise above Zeus; rather, it is identical with his determinations. The future is in the hands of Zeus alone, but man is not given the power to comprehend divine decisions. The accomplished fact serves as an indicator of divine assent. Man is a weak creature, obliged to humbly endure the disasters sent by the gods. Man's powerlessness due to the impenetrability of divine predestination is all the more complete because the sayings of oracles and fortune-tellers are often ambiguous, dark, sometimes erroneous and deceitful, and in addition, man is prone to error. Sophocles' deity is much more vengeful and punitive than protective or saving. The gods endow a person with reason from birth, but they also allow sin or crime, sometimes they send a cloud of reason to the one they decide to punish, but this does not mitigate the punishment of the guilty person and his descendants. Although these are the prevailing attitudes of the gods towards man, there are cases when the gods show their mercy to involuntary sufferers: the entire tragedy “Oedipus at Colonus” is built on this last idea; in the same way, Orestes, the matricide, finds protection from the revenge of the Erinyes in Athena and Zeus. The chorus calls Dejanira's intention when she sent a festive robe to her beloved husband honest and commendable, and Gill justifies his mother before Hercules. In a word, the difference between a voluntary and an involuntary sin is established, and the motives of the perpetrator are taken into account. In this way, often in certain expressions, the incongruity of divine vengeance, extended to the entire family of the guilty person, is noted if the sufferer, due to his personal qualities, is not inclined to crime. That is why Zeus is sometimes called compassionate, the resolver of sorrows, the averter of misfortunes, the savior, like other deities. The spiritualistic deity is much more distant from man than in Aeschylus; his own inclinations, intentions and goals receive much greater scope. Usually Sophocles' heroes are endowed with such personal properties and placed in such conditions that every step of them, every moment of the drama is sufficiently motivated by purely natural reasons. Everything that happens to the heroes is depicted by Sophocles as a series of law-like phenomena that are in a causal relationship with each other or at least in a possible, quite probable sequence. The tragedy of Sophocles is of a more secular nature than that of Aeschylus, as can be judged by the treatment of the same plot by the two poets: Sophocles’ “Electra” corresponds to Aeschylus’s “Girls Carrying Libations” (“Choephori”), and the tragedy “Philoctetes” was with the same name in Aeschylus; this latter has not reached us, but we have a comparative assessment of the two tragedies by Dion Chrysostom, who gives preference to Sophocles over Aeschylus. Not a son, like Aeschylus, but a daughter is the main character in Sophocles' Electra. She is a constant witness to the desecration of the home of the glorious Agamemnon by her vicious mother; She herself is constantly subjected to insults from her mother and her illegal partner and accomplice in the crime; she herself expects a violent death from the hands stained with the blood of her great parent. All these motives, together with love and reverence for the murdered father, are enough for Electra to make a firm decision to take revenge on those responsible; by the intervention of the deity nothing is changed or added for the internal development of the drama. In Aeschylus, Clytemnestra is justly punishing Agamemnon for Iphigenia; in Sophocles, she is a voluptuous, insolent woman, cruel to the point of mercilessness towards her own children, ready to free herself from them by violence. She constantly insults the dear memory of Electra’s father, reduces her to the position of a slave in her parents’ house, and blasphemes her for saving Orestes; she prays to Apollo for the death of her son, openly triumphs at the news of his death, and is only waiting for Aegisthus to put an end to the hated daughter who is disturbing her conscience. The religious element of the drama is significantly weakened; the mythological or legendary plot received the significance only of the starting point or those limits within which the external event took place; data from personal experience and a relatively rich stock of observations of human nature enriched the tragedy with psychic motives and brought it closer to real life. In accordance with all this, the role of the choir, the spokesman for general judgments about the course of a dramatic event in the sense of religion and generally accepted morality, has been reduced; He, more organically than in Aeschylus, enters the circle of tragedy performers, as if turning into a fourth actor.

Literature

The main source for the biography of Sophocles is the untitled biography, usually included in editions of his tragedies. The most important list of Sophocles' tragedies is kept in the Laurentian library in Florence: C. Laurentianus, XXXII, 9, dates back to the 10th or 11th century; all other lists available in various libraries are copies of this list, with the possible exception of another Florentine list of the 14th century. No. 2725, in the same library. Since the time of W. Dindorff, the first list has been designated by the letter L, the second by G. The best scholia have also been extracted from the list L. The best editions of the scholia belong to Dindorff (Oxford, 1852) and Papageorgios (1888). The tragedies were first published by Alda in Venice, 1502. From the middle of the 16th century. and until the end of the 18th century. the dominant edition was the Paris edition of Tourneba. Brunck (1786-1789) restored the advantage of the Aldov editorial staff. The greatest services to criticism of the text and explanation of tragedies were provided by W. Dindorf (Oxford, 1832-1849, 1860), Wunder (L., 1831-78), Schneidewin, Tournier, Nauk, as well as Campbell, Linwood, Jeb.

A crater on Mercury is named after Sophocles (Latitude: -6.5; Longitude: 146.5; Diameter (km): 145).

Literature

Texts and translations

The works were published in the “Loeb classical library”: surviving plays in volumes 1-2 (No. 20, 21), fragments under No. 483.
Vol. I Oedipus the King. Oedipus at Colonus. Antigone.
Vol. II Ajax. Electra. Fucking women. Philoctetes.
In the “Collection Bude” series, 7 tragedies were published in 3 volumes (see).

Russian translations (here are only collections; for individual tragedies, see articles about them)
Tragedies of Sophocles. / Per. I. Martynova. St. Petersburg, 1823-1825.
Part 1. Oedipus the King. Oedipus at Colonus. 1823. 244 pp.
Part 2. Antigone. Fucking women. 1823. 194 pp.
Part 3. Ajax furious. Philoctetes. 1825. 201 pp.
Part 4. Electra. 1825. 200 pp.
Sophocles Dramas. / Per. and entry feature article. F. F. Zelinsky. T. 1-3. M.: Sabashnikovs, 1914-1915.
T. 1. Ayant-Scourgebearer. Philoctetes. Electra. 1914. 423 pp.
T. 2. Oedipus the King. Oedipus at Colonus. Antigone. 1915. 435 pp.
T. 3. Trakhinyanki. Pathfinders. Excerpts. 1914. 439 pp.
Sophocles Tragedies. / Per. V. O. Nylender and S. V. Shervinsky. M.-L.: Academia. (only part 1 published)
Part 1. Oedipus the King. Oedipus at Colonus. Antigone. 1936. 231 pp. 5300 copies.
Sophocles Tragedies. / Per. S. V. Shervinsky, ed. and note. F.A. Petrovsky. M.: Goslitizdat, 1954. 472 pp. 10,000 copies.
reprint: (Series “Ancient Drama”). M.: Art, 1979. 456 pp. 60,000 copies.
reprint: (Series “Library of Ancient Literature”). M.: Artist. lit., 1988. 493 pp. 100,000 copies.
Sophocles Antigone. / Per. A. Parina, afterword. V. Yarkho. M.: Art, 1986. 119 pp. 25,000 copies.
Sophocles Dramas. / Per. F. F. Zelinsky, ed. M. G. Gasparova and V. N. Yarkho. (Attached: Fragments [p. 381-435]. / Translated by F. F. Zelinsky, O. V. Smyki and V. N. Yarkho. Ancient evidence about the life and work of Sophocles [p. 440-464]. / Translated by V. N. Chemberdzhi). / Art. and approx. M. L. Gasparova and V. N. Yarkho. Rep. ed. M. L. Gasparov. (Series “Literary Monuments”). M.: Nauka, 1990. 608 pp.

Research

Mishchenko F. G. The relationship of Sophocles' tragedies to the contemporary poet's real life in Athens. Part 1. Kyiv, 1874. 186 pp.
Shultz G.F. On the question of the main idea of ​​Sophocles’ tragedy “Oedipus the King.” Kharkov, 1887. 100 pp.
Shultz G.F. Critical notes to the text of Sophocles’ tragedy “Oedipus the King.” Kharkov, 1891. 118 pp.
Yarkho V.N. The tragedy of Sophocles “Antigone”: Study. allowance. M.: Higher. school, 1986. 109 pp. 12000 copies.
Surikov I. E. The evolution of the religious consciousness of the Athenians in Tue. floor. V century BC: Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes in their relation to traditional religion. M.: Publishing house IVI RAS, 2002. 304 pp. ISBN 5-94067-072-5
Markantonatos, Andreas Tragic narrative: A narratological study of Sophocles" Oedipus at Colonus. Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 2002 - XIV, 296 pp.; 24 cm. - (Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte Bd. 63). - Decree .. - Bibliography: pp. 227-289 - ISBN 3-11-017401-4

Scholium to Sophocles

Scholium to Sophocles according to Brunk's edition (1801)
Sophocles' tragedies with scholia: volume I (1825) volume II (1852)

Biography

Sophocles was born in the village of Kolone near Athens in the family of a wealthy businessman. He was the keeper of the treasury of the Athenian Maritime League, a strategist (there was such a position under Pericles); after his death, Sophocles was revered as a righteous man.

For the world, Sophocles is valuable, first of all, as one of the three great ancient tragedians - Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides.

Sophocles wrote 123 dramas, only seven of which have reached us in their entirety. Of particular interest to us are Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Electra.

The plot of “Antigone” is simple: Antigone buries the body of her murdered brother Polyneices, whom the ruler of Thebes Creon forbade to be buried on pain of death - as a traitor to his homeland. Antigone is executed for disobedience, after which her fiancé, Creon's son, and the groom's mother, Creon's wife, commit suicide.

Some interpreted Sophocles' tragedy as a conflict between the law of conscience and the law of the state, others saw in it a conflict between the clan and the state. Goethe believed that Creon banned funerals out of personal hatred.

Antigone accuses Creon of violating the law of the gods, and Creon replies that the power of the sovereign must be unshakable, otherwise anarchy will destroy everything.

The ruler must be obeyed
In everything - legal and illegal.

Events show that Creon is wrong. The soothsayer Tiresias warns him: “Respect death, do not touch the dead. Or to finish off the dead valiantly.” The king persists. Then Tiresias predicts the vengeance of the gods on him. And indeed, one misfortune after another befalls the ruler of Thebes, Creon; he suffers both political and moral defeat.

Creon
Alas!
Aida is an abyss, why me?
You are ruining. Irreconcilable
O messenger of former terrible troubles,
What news do you bring us?
You will kill the deceased a second time!
What, my son, will you tell me something new?
Death after death, alas!
After my son, my wife died!
Choir
You can see they carried her out. Creon
Alas!
Now, wretch, I see the second disaster!
What kind of misfortune is still in store for me?
Now I held my son in my arms -
And I see another corpse in front of me!
Alas, oh unfortunate mother, oh son!
Herald
The slain woman lies at the altars;
Her eyes grew dark and closed;
Having mourned the glorious death of Megareus,
Behind him is another son - on you
She brought trouble, a child killer.
Creon
Alas! Alas!
I'm shaking with fear. What about my chest?
No one pierced with a two-edged sword
I'm unhappy, alas!
And I am struck with cruel grief!
Herald
You are exposed as a dead woman
You are to blame for both this and this death.

Greek tragedy is called the "tragedy of fate." Everyone's life is predetermined by fate. Running away from her, a person only goes to meet her. This is exactly what happened to Oedipus (“Oedipus the King”).

According to myth, Oedipus kills his father, not knowing that it is his father, takes the throne, marries a widow, that is, his mother. Sophocles followed the myth, but paid special attention to the psychological side of the heroes’ relationships. It shows the omnipotence of fate - Oedipus himself is not to blame for what happened. In Sophocles, it is not man who is to blame, but the gods. In the case of Oedipus, the culprit is Hera, the wife of Zeus, who sent a curse on the family from which Oedipus comes.

But Oedipus does not relieve himself of guilt - he blinds himself and through suffering wants to atone for his guilt.

Here is the king's last monologue

Oedipus
Oh, be blessed! May he protect
There is a demon on all your roads, the best,
Than mine! O children, where are you? Come...
So... Touch your hands... brother, - he is guilty,
What do you see that once shone
His plaza... like this... his father's face,
Which, without seeing and without knowing,
He begat you... from his mother.
I don't see you... but I cry for you,
Imagining the rest of the bitter days,
Which you will have to live with people.
Which fellow citizen should you sit with in meetings?
Where are the celebrations from which you go home?
Would return with fun, not with tears
When you reach marriageable age,
Oh, who will agree at that time, daughters,
Accept the shame that marked me
Both you and your destined offspring
What other troubles do you lack?
Father killed father; he loved his mother
Who gave birth to him, and from her
He gave birth to you, he himself was conceived by her...
So they will defame you... Who do you want?
Appropriates There is no such thing.
You will fade away unmarried, orphans.
Son of Meneceus! You're alone now
For them, a father. And me and mother, both of us
Died. Don't let them wander -
Husbandless, poor and homeless,
Don't let them become unhappy like me
Have pity on them - they are so young! -
You are their only support. Take an oath
O noble one, touch me with your hand!..
And to you, O children, be mature in mind,
I would give a lot of advice... I wish you
Live as fate allows... but so that fate
You got it luckier than your father.
Choir
O fellow Thebans! Here is an example for you Oedipus,
And the solver of riddles, and the mighty king,
The one at whose lot everyone used to look with envy,
He was cast into the sea of ​​disasters, he fell into a terrible abyss!
This means that mortals need to remember our last day,
And, obviously, only one can be called happy
Who has reached the limit of life without experiencing misfortune.

A.F. Losev notes the unbending resilience of Sophocles' heroes. They hold on to their self, their true nature, against all odds. The real misfortune for them is not that which fate brings them, but the abandonment of their moral path.

Yes, everything is disgusting if you change yourself
And you do it against your heart.
No, even in a miserable life
A pure heart will not want to stain
Your good name.

Thanks to willpower, a person emerges from the historical order of things and lives forever.

It's sweet for me to die having fulfilled my duty...
After all, I will have to
Serve the dead longer than the living,
I'll stay there forever.

This is the difference between Sophocles and Aeschylus. In Aeschylus, the tragic quality of action came from the fact that people were aware that they were blindly obeying the inevitable divine plan leading to the triumph of justice. For Sophocles, the source of tragedy is that they consciously and courageously refuse to adapt to changing life circumstances.

SOPHOCLES - Athenian playwright, considered along with Aeschylus and Euripides one of the three greatest tragic poets of classical antiquity. Sophocles was born in the village of Colon (the setting of his last drama), located about 2.5 km north of the Acropolis. His father, Sofill, was a wealthy man. Sophocles studied music with Lampre, an outstanding representative of the high school, and also won prizes in athletic competitions. In his youth, Sophocles was distinguished by his extraordinary beauty, which is probably why he was assigned to lead a choir of young men who sang hymns of thanks to the gods after the victory over the Persians at Salamis (480 BC). Twelve years later (468 BC) Sophocles took part in theatrical festivals for the first time and won first prize, surpassing his great predecessor Aeschylus. The competition between the two poets aroused keen interest among the public. From this moment until his death, Sophocles remained the most popular of the Athenian playwrights: more than 20 times he was first in the competition, many times second, and never took third place (there were always three participants). He had no equal in terms of the volume of writing: it is reported that Sophocles wrote 123 dramas. Sophocles enjoyed success not only as a playwright, he was generally a popular personality in Athens. Sophocles, like all Athenians in the 5th century, actively participated in public life. He may have been a member of the important college of treasurers of the Athenian League in 443–442 BC, and it is certain that Sophocles was chosen as one of the ten generals who commanded the punitive expedition against Samos in 440 BC. Perhaps Sophocles was elected strategos twice more. Already at a very old age, when Athens was going through an era of defeat and despair, Sophocles was elected one of the ten “probuli” (Greek “advisor”), who were entrusted with the fate of Athens after the disaster that befell the expedition to Sicily (413 BC. ). Thus, Sophocles’s successes in the public sphere are not inferior to his poetic achievements, which is quite typical both for Athens in the 5th century and for Sophocles himself.

Sophocles was famous not only for his devotion to Athens, but also for his piety. It is reported that he founded the sanctuary of Hercules and was the priest of one of the minor healing deities, Chalon or Alcon, associated with the cult of Asclepius, and that he entertained the god Asclepius in his own home until his temple at Athens was completed. (The cult of Asclepius was established in Athens in 420 BC; the deity that Sophocles hosted was almost certainly the sacred serpent.) After his death, Sophocles was deified under the name "hero Dexion" (a name derived from the root "dex- ", in Greek "to receive", perhaps recalls how he "received" Asclepius).

There is a widely known anecdote about how Sophocles was summoned to court by his son Jophon, who wanted to prove that his elderly father was no longer able to manage the family’s property. And then Sophocles convinced the judges of his mental competence by reciting an ode in honor of Athens from Oedipus at Colonus. This story is certainly fictitious, since reports from contemporaries confirm that Sophocles’s last years were as serene as the beginning of his life, and he maintained the best relations with Iophon to the end. The last thing we know about Sophocles is his action upon receiving news of the death of Euripides (in the spring of 406 BC). Then Sophocles dressed the choir members in mourning and led them to the “proagon” (a kind of dress rehearsal before the tragedian competition) without festive wreaths. In January 405 BC, when Aristophanes' comedy The Frog was staged, Sophocles was no longer alive.

Contemporaries saw in his life a continuous series of successes. “Blessed Sophocles,” exclaims the comedian Phrynichus in the Muses (staged in January 405 BC). “He died after living a long life, he was happy, smart, composed many beautiful tragedies and died safely, without experiencing any troubles.”

The seven tragedies that have come down to us, by all accounts, belong to the late period of Sophocles’ work. (In addition, a papyrus was published in 1912, preserving more than 300 complete lines from the amusing satyr drama The Pathfinders.) Based on ancient sources, the dates for the production of the tragedies Philoctetes (409 BC), Oedipus at Colonus (posthumous production 401 BC) were reliably established ..) and Antigone (a year or two before 440 BC). The tragedy of Oedipus Rex is usually dated to 429 BC, since the mention of the sea may be associated with a similar disaster in Athens. The tragedy of Ajax, according to stylistic features, should be attributed to an earlier period than Antigone; regarding the two remaining plays, philologists have not come to a consensus, although the majority suggests a fairly early date for the tragedy of the Trachinian woman (before 431 BC) and a later date for Electra (c. 431 BC). So the seven surviving plays can be arranged roughly in this order: Ajax, Antigone, The Trachinian Women, Oedipus Rex, Electra, Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colonus. It is known that Sophocles received the first prize for Philoctetes and the second for Oedipus the King. Probably Antigone was awarded first place, since it is known that it was thanks to this tragedy that Sophocles was elected strategos in 440 BC. There is no information about other tragedies; it is only known that all of them were awarded either first or second place.

Technique.

Sophocles' most striking innovation in the genre of Attic tragedy was the reduction in the scope of drama by abandoning the trilogy form. As far as we know, the three tragedies that Sophocles presented at the annual competition were always three independent works, without any plot connections between them (therefore, to speak of the tragedies Antigone, Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus as the “Theban Trilogy” means making a grave mistake) . The tragedies of Aeschylus (with the exception of the trilogy that included the Persians) were invariably united into a trilogy in the literal sense of the word - into a dramatic work in three parts, connected by a common plot, common characters and motives. Sophocles' drama takes us from a cosmic perspective of action (the will of the deity is carried out in the actions and sufferings of people from generation to generation) to a condensed presentation of a given moment of crisis and revelation. It is enough to compare Aeschylus's Oresteia, where the central event, matricide, is preceded by a depiction of its causes (Agamemnon), and then its consequences are shown (Eumenides), with Sophocles' mysterious Electra, a tragedy in which the dramatic presentation of the main event turns out to be self-sufficient. The new technology made the divine will, which in Aeschylus interferes with the action, overcoming the human motives of the heroes, not so significant, and especially emphasized the importance of the human will. The consequences of this shift in emphasis were twofold. On the one hand, Sophocles could concentrate entirely on the character of his heroes, bringing to the stage a whole series of surprisingly original characters (for example, in Electra we are dealing with a spectacular move when the character of a character who takes almost no part in the action is subjected to a full-scale and subtle analysis) . On the other hand, in terms of unprecedented savings in plot development, Sophocles in his best examples (for example, Oedipus the King) has no equal in the entire history of Western literature.

It was to be expected that the abandonment of the trilogy would entail a reduction in the role of the chorus, which in Aeschylus’s dramas invariably correlates the actions and sufferings of the individual with the whole picture of divine providence, connecting the present with the past and the future. And in fact, the lyrical part of the chorus in Sophocles is much smaller than in Aeschylus. In Philoctetes (to take an extreme example) the chorus is fully involved in the action as full-fledged characters, and almost everything that is said to them revolves around the specific situation of the drama. However, in most tragedies Sophocles still skillfully and carefully uses the chorus to give greater dimension to the moral and theological dilemma posed by the action.

But most of all, Sophocles was glorified by another technical innovation: the appearance of a third actor. This happened earlier than 458 BC, since in this year Aeschylus already uses a third actor in the Oresteia, albeit in his own, Aeschylus’ way. The goal that Sophocles pursued by introducing a third actor becomes obvious when reading the brilliant scenes with three participants, which are perhaps the pinnacle of Sophoclean drama. Such, for example, is the conversation between Oedipus, the Messenger from Corinth and the shepherd (Oedipus the King), as well as an earlier scene in the same tragedy - while Oedipus questions the Messenger, Jocasta already begins to see the terrible truth. The same applies to the cross-examination of Likh in Trakhinyanki, which is arranged by the Messenger and Deianira. Aristotle’s indication that Sophocles also introduced “scenography”, i.e. literally translated from Greek as “painting the stage,” still gives rise to disputes between specialists, which can hardly be resolved due to the extreme paucity of information about the technical side of theatrical productions in the 5th century.

Worldview.

The fact that the playwright's attention is focused on the actions of people, and the divine will is relegated to the background, i.e. it tends to appear in the play as a prophecy rather than a root cause or direct intervention in the action, suggesting that the author took a "humanistic" point of view (however, an elegant attempt has recently been made to characterize Sophocles' worldview as "heroic heroism"). However, Sophocles makes a different impression on most readers. The few details of his life that we know indicate deep religiosity, and the tragedies confirm this. In many of them, we are presented with a person who, during the crisis he is experiencing, is faced with the riddle of the universe, and this riddle, disgracing all human cunning and insight, inevitably brings upon him defeat, suffering and death. The typical hero of Sophocles completely relies on his knowledge at the beginning of the tragedy, and ends with an admission of complete ignorance or doubt.

Human ignorance is a recurring theme of Sophocles. It finds its classic and most terrifying expression in Oedipus the King, but is also present in other plays; even Antigone’s heroic enthusiasm is poisoned by doubt in her final monologue. Human ignorance and suffering are opposed by the mystery of a deity who has full knowledge (his prophecies invariably come true). This deity represents a certain image of perfect order and, perhaps, even justice, incomprehensible to the human mind. The underlying motive of Sophocles' tragedies is humility before the incomprehensible forces that direct the fate of man in all its secrecy, greatness and mystery.

With such a world order, the human will to action should weaken, if not completely disappear, but Sophocles’ heroes are distinguished by a stubborn focus on action or knowledge, and they are characterized by a fierce assertion of their independence. Oedipus the King persistently and adamantly seeks the truth about himself, despite the fact that he will have to pay for the truth with his reputation, power and, ultimately, his eyesight. Ajax, finally realizing the precariousness of human existence, abandons it and fearlessly throws himself on the sword. Philoctetes, despising the persuasion of his friends, the implicit command of the oracle and the promise of healing from a painful illness, stubbornly rejects his heroic destiny; to convince him, the appearance of the deified Hercules is required. Likewise, Antigone despises public opinion and the threat of the death penalty from the state. No playwright has been able to so heroize the power of the human spirit. The precarious balance between the omniscient providence of the gods and the heroic onslaught of human will becomes a source of dramatic tension, thanks to which Sophocles' plays are still full of life, not only when read, but also on the theater stage.

TRAGEDIES

Ajax.

The action of the tragedy begins from the moment when Ajax, bypassed by a reward (the armor of the deceased Achilles, intended for the bravest hero, was awarded to Odysseus) decided to put an end to both kings Atrides and Odysseus, but in the madness sent by the goddess Athena, he destroyed the cattle captured from the Trojans. In the prologue, Athena demonstrates Ajax's madness to his enemy, Odysseus. Odysseus regrets Ajax, but the goddess knows no compassion. In the next scene, Ajax’s reason returns and, with the help of the captive concubine Tecmessa, the hero becomes aware of what he has done. Realizing the truth, Ajax decides to commit suicide, despite Tecmessa's touching entreaties. There follows a famous scene in which Ajax is presented reflecting on a plan with himself, his speech is full of ambiguities, and at the end of it the choir, believing that Ajax has abandoned the idea of ​​suicide, sings a joyful song. However, in the very next scene (which has no parallels in the Attic tragedy), Ajax is stabbed to death in front of the audience. His brother Teucer appears too late to save Ajax’s life, but he manages to defend the body of the deceased from the Atrides, who wanted to leave their enemy without burial. Two scenes of a furious argument lead the opponents to a dead end, but with the appearance of Odysseus the situation is resolved: he manages to convince Agamemnon to allow an honorable burial.

Antigone.

Antigone decides to bury her brother Polyneices, who died while trying to conquer his hometown. She does this despite the order of Creon, the new ruler of Thebes, according to which Polyneices’ body should be thrown to the birds and dogs. The guards grab the girl and bring her to Creon; Antigone despises the ruler's threats, and he sentences her to death. Creon's son Haemon (Antigone's fiancé) tries in vain to soften his father. Antigone is taken away and imprisoned in an underground dungeon (Creon commuted his original sentence - stoning), and in her remarkable monologue, which, however, some publishers do not recognize as truly Sophoclean, Antigone tries to analyze the motives of her action, ultimately reducing them to purely personal affection to her brother and forgetting about the religious and family duty to which she referred initially. The prophet Tiresias orders Creon to bury Polyneices, Creon tries to object, but in the end gives up and goes to bury the deceased, as well as free Antigone, but the messenger sent reports that when he arrived in prison, Antigone had already hanged herself. Haemon draws his sword to threaten his father, but then turns the weapon against himself. Having learned about this, Creon's wife Eurydice leaves the house in grief and also commits suicide. The tragedy ends with the incoherent lamentations of Creon, who carried the body of his son onto the stage.

Oedipus the King.

The people of Thebes come to Oedipus with a plea to save the city from the plague. Creon announces that first it is necessary to punish the murderer of Laius, who was king before Oedipus. Oedipus begins searching for the criminal. Tiresias, summoned on the advice of Creon, accuses Oedipus himself of the murder. Oedipus sees in all this a conspiracy inspired by Creon and sentences him to death, but reverses his decision, succumbing to the persuasion of Jocasta. The complex plots that follow are difficult to retell. Oedipus brings the search for the murderer and the truth hidden from him to the sad conclusion that the murderer of Laius is himself, that Laius was his father, and his wife Jocasta is his mother. In a terrifying scene, Jocasta, having guessed the truth before Oedipus, tries to stop his persistent search, and when she fails, she retires to the royal palace to hang herself there. In the next scene, Oedipus also realizes the truth; he also runs into the palace, after which the Messenger comes out to report: the king has lost his sight. Soon Oedipus himself appears before the audience with his face covered in blood. What follows is the most heartbreaking scene in the entire tragedy. In his final dialogue with Creon, the new ruler of Thebes, Oedipus copes with himself and partially regains his former self-confidence.

Electra.

Orestes returns to his native Argos along with the Mentor, who accompanied him in exile. The young man intends to enter the palace under the guise of a stranger who brought an urn with the ashes of Orestes, who allegedly died in a chariot race. From this moment on, Electra becomes the dominant person on the stage, who, since the killers dealt with her father, has lived in poverty and humiliation, nurturing hatred in her soul. In dialogues with her sister Chrysothemis and mother Clytemnestra, Electra reveals the full extent of her hatred and determination to take revenge. The Mentor appears with a message about the death of Orestes. Electra is deprived of her last hope, but still tries to persuade Chrysothemis to join her and attack Clytemnestra and Aegisthus together, but when her sister refuses, Electra swears that she will do everything herself. Here Orestes enters the scene with a funeral urn. Electra makes a touching farewell speech over her, and Orestes, who recognized his sister in this embittered, aged woman dressed in rags, loses his restraint, forgets his original plan and reveals the truth to her. The joyful embrace of brother and sister is interrupted by the arrival of the Mentor, who returns Orestes to reality: it is time for him to go kill his mother. Orestes obeys, and after leaving the palace, he answers all Electra’s questions with dark, ambiguous speeches. The tragedy ends in an extremely dramatic scene when Aegisthus, bending over the body of Clytemnestra and believing that it is the corpse of Orestes, reveals the face of the murdered woman and recognizes her. Spurred on by Orestes, he goes into the house to meet his death.

Philoctetes.

On the way to Troy, the Greeks left Philoctetes, suffering from the consequences of a snake bite, on the island of Lemnos. In the last year of the siege, the Greeks learn that Troy will submit only to Philoctetes, who wields the bow of Hercules. Odysseus and Neoptolemus, the young son of Achilles, travel to Lemnos to deliver Philoctetes to Troy. Of the three ways to master a hero - force, persuasion, deception - they choose the latter. The intrigue turns out to be perhaps the most intricate in Greek tragedy, and therefore it is not easy to summarize it briefly. However, we see how, through all the intricacies of the plot, Neoptolemus gradually abandons the lies in which he has become entangled, so that the character of his father speaks in him with increasing force. In the end, Neoptolemus reveals the truth to Philoctetes, but Odysseus intervenes, and Philoctetes is left alone, having his bow taken away. However, Neoptolemus returns and, despite Odysseus' threats, returns the bow to Philoctetes. Neoptolemus then tries to persuade Philoctetes to go to Troy with him. But Philoctetes manages to be convinced only when the deified Hercules appears to him and says that the bow was given to him to accomplish a heroic feat.

Oedipus at Colonus.

Oedipus, expelled from Thebes by his sons and Creon, leaning on the hand of Antigone, comes to Colon. When he is told the name of this place, some unusual confidence is instilled in him: he believes that this is where he will die. Ismene comes to her father to warn him: the gods have declared that his grave will make the land in which he will lie invincible. Oedipus decides to provide this benefit to Athens by placing a curse on Creon and his own sons. Creon, having tried in vain to convince Oedipus, takes Antigone away by force, but King Theseus comes to the aid of Oedipus and returns his daughter to him. Polyneices comes to ask for his father's help against his brother, who has seized power in Thebes, but Oedipus renounces him and curses both sons. There is a clap of thunder and Oedipus runs off to his death. He mysteriously disappears, and only Theseus knows where Oedipus is buried.

This unusual play, which was written towards the end of the war that Athens lost, is filled with a poetic sense of patriotism towards Athens and is evidence of Sophocles' confidence in the immortality of his native city. The death of Oedipus is a religious mystery, hardly comprehensible to the modern mind: the closer Oedipus comes to divinity, the tougher, more embittered and more furious he becomes. So, unlike King Lear, with whom this tragedy has often been compared, Oedipus in Colonus shows the path from the humble acceptance of fate in the prologue to the righteous, but almost superhuman rage and majestic self-confidence that the hero experiences in the last minutes of earthly life.

(495 – 406 BC)

Birthplace of Sophocles - Colon

Tragedy, which, thanks to Aeschylus, received such development, reached the highest degree of perfection in the works of Sophocles, the greatest tragedian of antiquity. It is impossible to accurately determine the year of his birth; but according to the most probable calculation, he was born in Ol. 71, 2, or in 495 BC. Consequently, he was 30 years younger than Aeschylus and 15 years older than Euripides. He came from a rich and noble family. His father, Sofill, was a gunsmith, i.e. had a workshop in which his slaves made weapons, and belonged to the demos or district of Kolon Ippios, located near Athens, which should be distinguished from that located in the inner city of Kolon Agoraios. Half an hour from the Dipyle Gate, northwest of Athens, near the Academy, there was a sloping hill with two peaks, one of which, dedicated to Apollo Hippius and Athena Hippia, constituted the so-called Colon. On the slopes of this hill, in its surroundings, attractive in nature, there were many temples; here were also the dwellings of the colonists. Sophocles loved this place of his birth, where he played as a boy, and in his old age he immortalized it by describing it in his tragedy Oedipus at Colonus. In the first chorus of this tragedy by Sophocles, the coloniates glorify the beauties of their district before Oedipus and call Colon the adornment of the entire Attic land.

On the western hill, near the olive grove, there is now the grave of the famous ancient explorer, Otfried Müller; The eastern hill offers a magnificent view, especially attractive in the evening light. From here you can see the city of the Acropolis, the entire coast from Cape Kolia to Piraeus, and then the dark blue sea with Aegina and the shore of Argolis disappearing on the distant horizon. But the sacred groves of Poseidon and Erinny, the temples that were once located in this area, and Demos itself - all this had already disappeared, leaving behind only a few ruins on the hill and its slopes. Only further to the west, where the olive grove begins, the grapes, laurel and olive grow green just as in the time of Sophocles, and in the shady bushes, watered by the ever-running stream of Cephissus, the nightingale still sings its mellifluous songs.

Sophocles' childhood and youth

In the ancient biography of Sophocles, which is an extract from the writings of Alexandrian critics and literary historians, it is said: “Sophocles grew up in the hall and was brought up well”; Athens at that time provided rich funds for this. He received good knowledge in the arts necessary for a tragic poet, in music, gymnastics and choral singing. In music, his mentor was Lampre, the most famous of the teachers of his time, who, for his lyrical works in an ancient, sublime style, was compared by the ancients to Pindar. For his knowledge of music and choral singing, and at the same time, of course, for his blooming youthful beauty, 15 or 16-year-old Sophocles was chosen, in 480 BC, to lead the choir that sang the victory paean at the festival after the battle of Salamis. Naked, according to the custom of gymnasts, or (according to other news) in a short cloak, the young man Sophocles, with a lyre in his hand, led a circular dance around the victorious trophies taken at Salamis. With his skill in dancing and playing the cithara, he sometimes took part in the performance of his own tragedies, although, due to the weakness of his voice, he could not, contrary to the prevailing custom of his time, act as an actor in his plays. In his drama “Tamir” he played the role of the beautiful young man Tamir or Tamirid, who dared to compete with the muses themselves in playing the cithara; in his other play, Nausicaa, he aroused general approval as an excellent ball player (σφαιριστής): he played the role of Nausicaä, who in one scene amuses herself with her friends by dancing and playing ball.

The biographer says that Sophocles studied the tragic art from Aeschylus; this can also be taken literally; but the biographer, apparently, only wanted to say that Sophocles took his great predecessor as his model and, at the beginning of his poetic career, tried to improve in the tragic art by studying the works of Aeschylus. Although the poetry of Sophocles largely deviates from the path paved by Aeschylus and has its own original character, Sophocles, as everyone recognizes, nevertheless followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, which is quite consistent with the very essence of the matter.

Sophocles's first performance as a playwright

With this great teacher of his, a 60-year old man, Sophocles, a young man of about 27, decided to enter into a poetic competition, putting his works of art on stage for the first time during the great Dionysius of 468 BC. The audience at this day they were extremely excited and divided into two parties. “Here it was not two works of art that were arguing about the primacy, but two literary genres, and if the first works of Sophocles attracted people with their depth of feeling and subtlety of mental analysis, then his opponent was the great teacher, whom until then he had not yet surpassed in the majesty of character and strength of spirit not one of the Hellenes." (Welker). The first archon, Apsephius, who, as chairman of the festival, had to choose the judges to assign the reward, seeing the excited state of the spectators, who were heatedly arguing among themselves and divided into two sides - one for the glorious representative of the old art, the other for the new direction of the young tragedian, was in difficulty and did not know where to find impartial judges. At this time, the chief commander of the Athenian fleet, Kimon, who had just returned from the island of Skyros, which he had conquered, from where he had taken the ashes of the Athenian folk hero Theseus, appeared, along with other commanders, in the theater in order, according to ancient custom, to offer a sacrifice to the hero of the festival, the god Dionysus. This is what the archon took advantage of; he asked these 10 generals to remain in the theater until the end of the performance and take on the responsibility of judges. The generals agreed, took the established oath and, at the end of the presentation, awarded the first award to Sophocles. Such was the great and glorious victory of the young poet, remarkable both for the strength of the enemy and for the personality of the judges.

According to some writers, old Aeschylus, upset by his failure, left his fatherland and went to Sicily. Welker, who has proven the groundlessness of this opinion, at the same time notes that there is no reason to assume hostile relations between both poets. Rather, the opposite can be said; Sophocles always highly respected Aeschylus as the father of tragedy, and often imitated him in his works, not only in relation to myths and characters, but also in individual ideas and expressions.

Lessing, in his biography of Sophocles, with the help of a witty combination, made a very likely assumption that among the works that brought Sophocles this first victory was the tragedy “Triptolemos”, which has not reached us, which should have earned the favor of the audience already due to its patriotic content: The plot for it was the spread of agriculture that arose in Attica and the softening of morals through the works of the Eleusinian-Attic hero Triptolemus. But the real reason that the Athenians gave Sophocles the advantage over Aeschylus was, of course, the innovations introduced by Sophocles into tragic poetry.

Innovations of Sophocles in Ancient Greek Theater

Aeschylus in his trilogies combined a whole series of mythical actions into one large whole, depicting the destinies of generations and states in such a way that the main lever of the tragedy was the action of divine forces, while little space was given to the depiction of the characters and everyday situations of the action. Sophocles abandoned this form of the trilogy and began to compose separate dramas, which, in their content, had no internal connection with each other, but each separately constituted an independent, complete whole. But at the same time, he still staged three tragedies with a satirical theme on stage at once. drama. Since in each individual play he had in mind only one main fact, thanks to this, he was able to process each tragedy more fully and better and give it more vitality, sharply and definitely outlining the characters of the characters who determine the course of the dramatic action. In order to introduce more variety of characters into his dramas and, as it were, to shade some characters with others, he added a third to the previous two actors; this number of actors has since remained constant in ancient Greek tragedy, with the exception of a few isolated cases.

By adding a third actor, Sophocles also shortened the choir's singing and gave him the role of a calm spectator. As a result, the conversations of the characters took precedence over the chorus, the main element of the drama became action, and the tragedy acquired ideal beauty.

Comparison of Sophocles with Aeschylus and Euripides

The characters of Sophocles, created on the basis of multifaceted and profound experience, appear, in comparison with the gigantic images of Aeschylus, purely human, without losing their ideality and without, like Euripides, descending to the level of everyday life. Their passions, despite all their strength, do not violate the laws of grace. The denouement is prepared slowly and diligently, and when it has already arrived, the excited feeling of the viewer is calmed by the thought of the justice of the eternal gods, to which the will of mortals must submit. Wise moderation and dignity, combined with attractive form, prevail everywhere.

The Athenian citizens of the Periclean age wished that tragedy should arouse only sympathy and not horror; their elegant taste did not like rude impressions; therefore, Sophocles eliminated or softened everything terrible or ferocious that was in the myths from which he took the content of his tragedies. He does not have such majestic thoughts, such deep religiosity as Aeschylus. The characters of mythical heroes are depicted in him not according to popular concepts about them, as in Aeschylus; they are given universal human traits, they arouse sympathy for themselves not by national Greek characteristics, but by moral, purely human greatness, perishing in a collision with the power of inevitable fate; they are free, they act according to their own motives, and not according to the will of fate, like Aeschylus; but fate also rules over their lives. She is the eternal divine law that dominates the moral world, and its requirements are higher than all human laws.

Aristophanes says that Sophocles' lips are covered with honey; he was called the “Attic bee” for his pleasantness, as Svida says, or, according to his biographers, for the fact that he primarily meant the beautiful, the graceful. His works fully reflected the highest development of the Hellenic spirit of the times of Cimon and Pericles; That is why he was the favorite of the Attic people.

Tragedies of Sophocles

The greatness of thought in Sophocles is combined with the artistic construction of the details of the plan, and his tragedies give the impression of harmony generated by the full development of education. For Sophocles, tragedy became a faithful mirror of the impressions of the human heart, all the aspirations of the soul, all the struggle of passions. Sophocles' language is noble and majestic; his speech gives picturesqueness to all thoughts, strength and warmth to all feelings; the form of Sophocles' tragedies is quite artistic; their plan is excellently thought out; the action develops clearly, consistently, the characters of the characters are created thoughtfully and clearly outlined; their spiritual life is depicted with complete vividness, and the motives for their actions are masterfully explained. No other ancient writer penetrated so deeply into the secrets of the human soul; tender and strong feelings are distributed in perfect proportion; the outcome of the action (catastrophe) corresponds to the essence of the matter.

From his first appearance on the stage, in 468 BC, until his death in 406, more than half a century, Sophocles worked in the field of poetry, and in his old age still aroused wonder at the freshness of his creations. In ancient times, 130 dramas were known under his name, of which the Byzantine grammarian Aristophanes considers 17 not to have belonged to Sophocles. Consequently, he wrote 113 plays - tragedies and satirical dramas. Of these, according to the same Aristophanes, the tragedy “Antigone”, presented in 441 BC, was the 32nd, so the period of the poet’s greatest fertility coincides with the time of the Peloponnesian War. Throughout his long career, Sophocles enjoyed the constant favor of the Athenian people; he was given preference over all other tragedians. He scored 20 victories, and often received a second award, but never a third.

Among the poets who competed with Sophocles in the tragic art were, in addition to Aeschylus, his sons Vion and Euphorion, of whom the latter once defeated Sophocles. Aeschylus' nephew Philocletus also defeated Sophocles, who staged his Oedipus; orator Aristides considers such a defeat shameful, since Aeschylus himself could not defeat Sophocles. Euripides competed with Sophocles for 47 years; in addition, at the same time, tragedies were written by Ion of Chios, Achaeus of Eretria, Agathon the Athenian, who performed for the first time 10 years before the death of Sophocles and defeated him, and many other tragedians of the lower rank. The universally praised, humane and good-natured character of Sophocles allows us to assume that his relations with these comrades in the case were friendly, and that the stories of anecdotes about the envious enmity between Sophocles and Euripides - stories, in themselves rather meaningless, are devoid of probability. At the news of the death of Euripides, Sophocles expressed sincere sadness; Euripides' letter to Sophocles, although forged, still testifies that in ancient times the mutual relations of both poets were looked at differently. This letter talks about the shipwreck that Sophocles suffered during his trip to the island. Chios, where several of his tragedies died. Euripides says about this: “The misfortune with the dramas, which everyone will call a general misfortune for all of Greece, is difficult; but we can easily be comforted knowing that you remained unharmed.”

The information that has come down to us from antiquity about Sophocles’ relationship with the actors who performed his tragedies allows us to conclude that these relationships were also friendly. From these actors we have information about Tlepolemos, who constantly participated in the tragedies of Sophocles, about Clydemides and Kallipides. The biographer says that Sophocles, when writing his tragedies, had in mind the abilities of his actors; at the same time, it is said that he formed a society “of educated people” (which, of course, should include actors) in honor of the muses. The newest researchers explain this in such a way that Sophocles founded a circle of lovers of art and knowledge who honored the muses, and that this circle should be considered the prototype of a troupe of actors.

Sophocles retained the form of a trilogy, with its epilogue a satirical drama; but the plays that form this group are not united by a common content; they are four different plays (compare countries 563). Of Sophocles' 113 plays, only seven have reached us. The most excellent of them both in form, in content, and in the delineation of characters is “Antigone,” for which the Athenian people chose Sophocles as a strategist in the Samian War.

Sophocles – “Antigone” (summary)

Read also the separate articles Sophocles “Antigone” – analysis and Sophocles “Antigone” – abstract

Sophocles' three best tragedies are borrowed from the Theban cycle of myths. These are: "Antigone", staged by him around 461; “Oedipus the King,” perhaps written in 430 or 429, and “Oedipus at Colonus,” staged in 406 by the grandson of the poet who died that year, Sophocles the Younger.

However, the first in the order of development of the plot of the main Theban myth should not be “Antigone”, but the tragedy “Oedipus the King” written later. The mythological hero Oedipus one day commits an accidental murder on the road, not knowing that the murdered man is his own father, Laius. Then, in the same ignorance, he marries the widow of the murdered man, his mother Jocasta. The gradual disclosure of these crimes constitutes the plot of Sophocles' drama. After the murder of his father, Oedipus becomes king of Thebes in his place. His reign is happy at first, but after a few years the Theban region is subject to a pestilence, and the oracle names the reason for it as the presence in Thebes of the killer of the former king Laius. Not knowing that he himself is the killer, Oedipus begins to look for the criminal and orders to bring the only witness to the murder - a slave shepherd. Meanwhile, the soothsayer Tiresias announces to Oedipus that he himself is the killer of Laius. Oedipus refuses to believe this. Jocasta, wanting to refute the words of Tiresias, says that she had a son from Laius. She and her husband left him in the mountains to die to prevent a prediction that in the future he would kill his father. Jocasta also tells how, years later, Laius fell at the hands of some robber at the crossroads of three roads. Oedipus remembers that he himself once killed a man at such a crossroads. Serious doubts and suspicions settle in his soul. A messenger arriving at this time announces the death of the Corinthian king Polybus, whom Oedipus considered his father. At the same time, it turns out that Polybus had previously hidden that Oedipus was not his own son, but only an adopted son. Following this, from the interrogation of the Theban shepherd, it becomes clear: Oedipus was the very son of Laius, whom his father and mother ordered to kill. Oedipus suddenly discovers that he is the murderer of his father and is married to his mother. In despair, Jocasta takes her own life, and Oedipus blinds himself and condemns himself to exile.

The theme and climax of Sophocles' Oedipus the King is retribution for the crimes committed by Oedipus. He did not know that Laius was his father, and Jocasta was his mother, but he was still a parricide, and his marriage was still incest. These terrible facts lead to the death of Oedipus and his entire family. The drama of “Oedipus the King” lies in Sophocles’ gradual transition of Oedipus and Jocasta from happiness, from peace of conscience to a clear consciousness of their terrible crime. The chorus soon realizes the truth; Oedipus and Jocasta do not know her yet. The contrast of their error with the choir's knowledge of the truth produces a stunning tragic impression. Through the entire drama of Sophocles runs with sublime irony the idea of ​​the limitations of the human mind, the short-sightedness of its considerations, the fragility of happiness; the viewer foresees the catastrophes that will destroy the happiness of Oedipus and Jocasta, who do not know the truth. “O people, how insignificant your life is!” - exclaims the chorus in Oedipus the King. And indeed, Oedipus and Jocasta are plunged into such despair that she takes her own life, and he takes his own sight.

Sophocles – “Oedipus at Colonus” (summary)

Oedipus at Colonus was Sophocles' last work. He is the old man’s swan song, filled with the most tender love for his homeland, inspired by Sophocles with memories of his youth, which he spent in the rural silence of his native town of Colon, near Athens.

“Oedipus at Colonus” tells how the blind Oedipus, wandering with his loving daughter Antigone, comes to Colonus, where he finally finds protection from the Athenian king Theseus and his last peaceful refuge. Meanwhile, the new Theban monarch Creon, having learned the prediction that Oedipus after death will be the patron of the region where he will die, tries to forcefully return Oedipus to Thebes. However, Theseus protects Oedipus and does not allow violence against him. Then his son Polyneices comes to Oedipus, who is just organizing the Campaign of the Seven to Thebes against his own brother, Oedipus’s other son, Eteocles. Polyneices wants his father to bless his enterprise against his homeland, but Oedipus curses both sons. Polyneices leaves, and Oedipus hears the call of the gods and, together with Theseus, goes to the sacred grove of the goddesses of heavenly punishment, the Eumenides, who have reconciled with him. There, in a mysterious grotto, his peaceful death takes place.

This drama of Sophocles is imbued with wonderful tenderness and grace of feeling, in which the sadness of the misery of human life merges with the joy of hope. “Oedipus at Colonus” is the apotheosis of the innocent sufferer, to whom divine providence gives consolation at the end of his sorrowful earthly life; the hope of bliss beyond the grave serves as a consolation for the unfortunate: a person dejected and purified by disasters will find in that life a reward for his undeserved suffering. At the same time, before his death, Oedipus demonstrates in all its greatness his parental and royal dignity, nobly rejecting the selfish ingratiation of Polyneices. Sophocles used the local legends of Colon, near which stood the temple of the Eumenides with a cave that was considered the path to the underworld and had a copper threshold at the entrance, as material for the tragedy “Oedipus at Colonus.”

Oedipus at Colonus. Painting of Harriet, 1798

Sophocles – “Electra” (summary)

In Electra, Sophocles turns to a cycle of myths about how Agamemnon, the main leader of the Greek army in the campaign against Troy, was killed by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus upon his return from it. Clytemnestra also wanted to kill her son from Agamemnon, Orestes, so that in the future he would not take revenge on her for his father. But the boy Orestes was saved by his sister Electra. She gave him to the old man, and he took the boy to Phocis, to the king of the city of Chris. Electra, remaining with her mother, suffered oppression and humiliation from her, for more than once she boldly reproached Clytemnestra and Aegisthus for the atrocity they had committed.

Sophocles' "Electra" begins with the fact that the matured Orestes comes to his homeland, Argos, accompanied by the same faithful Uncle and friend Pylades, the son of King Chris. Orestes wants to take revenge on his mother, but intends to do this with cunning and therefore hides his arrival from everyone. Meanwhile, Electra, who has endured so much, learns that Clytemnestra and Aegisthus decided to throw her into the dungeon. Uncle Orestes, in order to deceive Clytemnestra, appears to her under the guise of a messenger from a neighboring king and, deceiving her, reports that Orestes has died. This news plunges Electra into despair, but Clytemnestra rejoices, believing that now no one will be able to take revenge on her for Agamemnon. However, another daughter of Clytemnestra, Chrysothemis, returning from her father’s grave, tells Electra that she saw funeral sacrifices there that only Orestes could bring. Electra doesn't believe this at first. Orestes, disguised as a messenger from Phokis, brings a funeral urn to the grave and, recognizing his sister in the grieving woman there, identifies himself to her. Orestes at first hesitates to immediately begin to take revenge on his mother, but Electra, who is strong in character, persistently encourages him to punish the violators of the divine law. Pushed by her, Orestes kills his mother and Aegisthus. Unlike the interpretation of Aeschylus's drama "Choephora", in Sophocles Orestes does not experience any torment, and the tragedy ends with the triumph of victory.

Electra at the tomb of Agamemnon. Painting by F. Leighton, 1869

The legend of the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes is reflected in the tragedies of each of the three great Athenian tragic poets - Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, but each of them gave it a special meaning. For Sophocles, the main person in this bloody business is Electra, an implacable, passionate avenger, gifted with high moral strength. Of course, we must judge her case in accordance with the concepts of Greek antiquity, which placed the duty of revenge on the relatives of the murdered person. Only from this point of view does the power of hatred that burns irreconcilably in Electra’s soul become clear; her mother is alien to repentance and calmly enjoys the love of Aegisthus, stained with blood - this supports Electra’s thirst for revenge. Transporting our thoughts to the concepts of Greek antiquity, we will sympathize with the grief with which Electra embraces the urn containing, as she thinks, the ashes of her brother, and we will understand the delight with which she sees Orestes alive, whom she considered dead. We will also understand the ardent cries of approval with which she, hearing the cries of the murdered from the palace, encourages Orestes to complete the work of revenge. In Clytemnestra, at the news of the death of Orestes, a maternal feeling awakened for a moment, but it was immediately drowned out by the joy that she was now freed from the fear of his revenge.

Sophocles – “The Trachinian Women” (summary)

The content of the tragedy “The Trachinian Woman” is the death to which Hercules is subjected to by the jealousy of his wife, Deianira, who passionately loves him. The chorus in this tragedy consists of girls, natives of the city of Trakhina: their name serves as the title of the drama. Hercules, having destroyed the Euboean city of Echalia, took captive the beautiful Iola, the daughter of the Echalian king; Deianira, who remained in Trakhina, fears that he will leave her and fall in love with Iola. Sending her husband a festive robe that he wants to wear at the sacrifice, Deianira smears it with the blood of the centaur Nessus, who was killed by the arrows of Hercules. Ness, dying, told her that his blood was a magical remedy with which she could turn her husband away from any other love and tie him to her. Hercules put on these clothes, and when the warmth from the sacrificial fire warmed the centaur's blood, Hercules felt the painful effect of the blood poison. The shirt stuck to Hercules’ body and began to cause him unbearable pain. In a rage, Hercules smashed the messenger Lichadas, who brought him clothes, against a rock; From then on, these rocks began to be called feverish. Dejanira, having learned that she had killed her husband, takes her own life; Hercules, tormented by unbearable pain, orders a fire to be built on the top of Mount Eta and burns himself on it. The artistic merits of “The Trakhinyanki” are not as high as those four tragedies that were mentioned earlier.

Sophocles – “Philoctetes” (summary)

The plot of Philoctetes, staged in 409 BC, is also associated with the myth of the death of Hercules. Poias, the father of the hero Philoctetes, agreed to light the funeral pyre of Hercules and, as a reward for this service, received his bow and arrows, which always hit the target. They passed to his son, Philoctetes, a participant in the Trojan War, the legends of which are the theme of Sophocles' seventh tragedy, Ajax the Scourger. Philoctetes went with the Hellenes on a campaign near Troy, but on the way on the island of Lemnos he was bitten by a snake. The wound from this bite did not heal, and also emitted a strong stench. To get rid of Philoctetes, who had become a burden to the army, the Hellenes, on the advice of Odysseus, left him alone on Lemnos, where he, continuing to suffer from an incurable wound, could somehow earn food for himself only thanks to the bow and arrows of Hercules. However, it later became clear that without his miraculous Hercules arrows the Trojans could not be defeated. In the tragedy of Sophocles, the son of Achilles, Neoptolemus, and Odysseus come to the island where Philoctetes is left to take him to the Greek camp. But Philoctetes mortally hates the Greeks who abandoned him in trouble, especially the treacherous Odysseus. Therefore, it is possible to take him to the camp near Troy only by cunning and deception. The straightforward, honest Neoptolemus at first succumbs to the cunning advice of the cunning Odysseus; they steal Philoctetes' onion, without which the unfortunate patient will die of hunger. But Neoptolemus feels sorry for the deceived, defenseless Philoctetes, and innate nobility triumphs in his soul over the plan of deception. He reveals the truth to Philoctetes and wants to take him to his homeland. But the deified Hercules appears and conveys to Philoctetes the command of the gods that he must go to Troy, where, after taking the city, he will be rewarded from above with healing from his serious illness.

So, the conflict of motives and passions ends with the appearance of a deity, the so-called Deus ex machina; the knot is not untied, but cut. This already clearly expresses the influence of the corruption of taste, which also affected Sophocles. Euripides uses the deus ex machina method even more widely. But with amazing skill Sophocles performed the difficult task of making physical suffering the subject of drama. He also excellently portrayed the character of a true hero in the person of Neoptolemus, unable to remain a deceiver, rejecting dishonest means, no matter what benefit they may represent.

Sophocles – “Ajax” (“The Madness of Ajax”, “Ajax the Scourge”, “Eant”)

The subject of the tragedy "Ajax" or "The Madness of Ajax" is borrowed from the legend of the Trojan War. Its hero Ajax, after the death of Achilles, hoped, as the most valiant warrior of the Hellenic army after the deceased, to receive Achilles' armor. But they were given to Odysseus. Ajax, considering this injustice to be the work of the main Greek leader, Agamemnon, and his brother, Menelaus, planned to kill them both. However, the goddess Athena, in order to prevent the crime, clouded Ajax’s mind, and instead of his enemies, he killed a herd of sheep and cows. Having come to his senses and realizing the consequences and shame of his madness, Ajax decided to commit suicide. His wife Tecmessa and the faithful warriors (who form the chorus in Sophocles’ tragedy) try to keep Ajax from his intentions, keeping a close eye on him. But Ajax escapes from them to the seashore and stabs himself there. Agamemnon and Menelaus, who had quarreled with Ajax, do not want to bury his body, but at the insistence of Ajax’s brother, Teucer, and Odysseus, who is now showing nobility, the body is still buried. The matter thus ends with the moral victory of Ajax.

In a humiliating state of madness, Ajax appears in Sophocles only at the very beginning of the drama; its main content is the mental suffering of the hero, who is saddened by the fact that he has disgraced himself. The guilt for which Ajax was punished with madness is that he, proud of his strength, did not have proper humility before the gods. Sophocles in Ajax followed Homer, from whom he borrowed not only the characters of the characters, but also expressions. Tecmessa's conversation with Ajax (verses 470 et seq.) is an obvious imitation of Homer's farewell to Hector and Andromache. The Athenians really liked this tragedy of Sophocles, partly because Ajax of Salamis was one of their favorite heroes, as the ancestor of two noble Athenian families, and secondly, because the speech of Menelaus seemed to them a parody of the backwardness of concepts and the arrogance of the Spartans.

Sophocles and Pericles in the Samian War

In 441 BC (Ol. 84.3), during the great Dionysius (in March), Sophocles staged his Antigone, and this drama earned such approval that the Athenians appointed an author, along with Pericles and eight other persons, commander for the war with the island of Samos. However, this distinction went to the poet not so much for the merits of his tragedy, but because he enjoyed general favor for his amiable character, for the wise political rules expressed in this tragedy, and for its moral merits in general, since it contains thoughtfulness and rationality in actions is always placed much higher than impulses of passion.

The Samian War, in which Sophocles participated, began in the spring of 440 under the command of Archon Timocles; the reason for it was that the Milesians, defeated by the Samians in one battle, turned, together with the Samian democrats, with a request for help from the Athenians. The Athenians sent 40 ships against Samos, conquered this island, established a people's government there, took hostages and, leaving their garrison on the island, soon returned home. But in the same year they had to resume hostilities. The oligarchs who fled from Samos entered into an alliance with the Sardinian satrap Pissufnos, gathered an army and at night captured the city of Samos, capturing the Athenian garrison. This garrison was handed over to Pissufnus, the Samian hostages taken by the Athenians to Lemnos were released, and new preparations began for war with the Milesians. Pericles and his comrades again opposed Samos with 44 ships, defeated 70 Samian ships near the island of Tragia and besieged the city of Samos from land and sea. A few days later, while Pericles with part of the ships went to Caria, to meet the approaching Phoenician fleet, the Samians broke through the blockade and, under the command of the philosopher Melissus, who had already defeated Pericles once before, defeated the Athenian fleet, so that in the course of 14 days dominated the sea. Pericles hastened to return, again defeated the Samians and besieged the city. In the ninth month of the siege, in the spring of 439, Samos was forced to surrender. The walls of the city were torn down, the fleet was captured by the Athenians; The Samians gave hostages and agreed to pay the costs of the war.

If Sophocles, as we must assume, was a strategist only in 440, while Pericles retained this position for the next year, then he probably participated in the first war and partly in the second, but did not remain a commander until the end of the war . Pericles, not only a great statesman, but also a great commander, was the soul of this war and did the most in it; What Sophocles’ participation was here, we know very little about this. Svida says that Sophocles fought with the philosopher Melissus at sea; but this news is apparently based not on historical information, but on a simple guess. If Melissus and Pericles fought with each other, and Sophocles was Pericles’s comrade in office, then the idea could easily arise that Sophocles also fought with Melissus; and “the idea that Melissus the philosopher and Sophocles the poet fought with each other is so attractive that it completely excuses the guess of a later writer.” (Böck). Sophocles was, of course, not a particularly good commander, and therefore Pericles hardly sent him on any military enterprises; on the contrary, for negotiations, which throughout the existence of the Attic state formed a very important part of the commander’s activities, Sophocles could be very useful as a person who knew how to deal with people and win them over in his favor. While Pericles was fighting at Tragia, Sophocles went to Fr. Chios and Lesbos to negotiate with the allies about sending auxiliary troops, and ensured that 25 ships were sent from these islands.

Character of Sophocles

Athenaeus has preserved news of this trip of Sophocles to Chios, literally borrowed from the book of the poet Ion of Chios, a contemporary of Sophocles. We present it here because it contains an interesting image of Sophocles, already a 55-year-old man, in a cheerful society.

“I met the poet Sophocles in Chios (says Ion), where he visited as a general on his way to Lesbos. I found him to be a kind and cheerful person to talk to. Hermesilaus, a friend of Sophocles and the Athenian people, gave a dinner in his honor. The handsome boy pouring the wine, flushed from the fire near which he stood, apparently made a pleasant impression on the poet; Sophocles said to him: “Do you want me to drink with pleasure?” The boy answered in the affirmative, and the poet continued: “Well, then bring the cup to me as slowly as possible, and just as slowly take it back.” The boy blushed even more, and Sophocles, turning to his neighbor at the table, remarked: “How beautiful are the words of Phrynichus: on purple cheeks the fire of love burns.” One school teacher from Eretria said about this: “Sophocles, you, of course, know a lot about poetry; but Phrynichus still said something bad, since he called the beautiful boy’s cheeks purple. After all, if the painter had really decided to cover this boy’s cheeks with purple paint, he would no longer seem beautiful. There is no need to compare with something that does not seem like that.” Sophocles smiled and said: “Then, my friend, you, of course, do not like the expression of Simonides, which, however, all the Greeks praise: “The girl from whose purple lips came a sweet word!” You probably don’t like the poet who calls Apollo golden-haired? In fact, if the painter had decided to paint this god with golden hair rather than black, the picture would not have been good. Of course, you don’t like the poet who talks about the rose-fingered Eos? After all, if someone paints his fingers pink, then these will be the fingers of a dyer, and not at all of a beautiful woman.” Everyone laughed, and the Eretrian became embarrassed. Sophocles again turned to the boy who was pouring the wine, and noticing that he wanted to remove the straw that had fallen into the goblet with his little finger, asked him if he saw this straw. The boy replied that he saw it, and the poet told him: “Well, blow it off so as not to get your finger wet.” The boy lowered his face towards the goblet and Sophocles brought the goblet closer to him to come face to face with the boy. When the boy moved even closer, Sophocles, hugging him, pulled him towards him and kissed him. Everyone laughed and began to express their approval to the poet for outwitting the boy; he said: “It is I who am practicing strategy; Pericles told the Tragedy of Sophocles that I understand poetry well, but I am a bad strategist; Well, and this stratagem - wasn’t it a success for me?” So Sophocles spoke and acted, remaining equally amiable both during the feast and during classes. In state affairs, he was neither experienced enough nor energetic enough; but still Sophocles was the best of all Athenian citizens.”

Without a doubt, we can recognize this verdict of an intelligent contemporary about Sophocles’ political talents as completely fair, although the poet’s biographer praises his political activities; we must also believe the words of Pericles that Sophocles was a bad strategist. It is very likely that he held the position of general only once in his life, since it is hardly possible to give credence to Justin's testimony that Sophocles, together with Pericles, devastated the Peloponnese. Plutarch says that at the military council, Nicias asked Sophocles, as the eldest, to express his opinion before others; but if this is historically correct, then we must attribute this indication to the year of the Samian, and not the Peloponnesian war. Sophocles, according to Plutarch, rejected Nicias's desire, telling him: "Although I am older than others, you are the most respected."

In the above story, Jonah Sophocles is a cheerful and amiable man in society, and we fully believe his biographer, who says that Sophocles had such a pleasant character that everyone without exception loved him. Even in war, he did not lose his gaiety and his poetic mood and did not betray his nature, which was too sensitive to bodily beauty, as a result of which his comrade Pericles, with whom he was in close friendship, sometimes made friendly suggestions to him. During the Samian War, Sophocles, seeing a handsome boy accidentally passing by one day, said: “Look, Pericles, what a nice boy!” Pericles remarked to this: “A commander, Sophocles, must have not only clean hands, but also clean views.” “Sophocles was a poet,” says Lessing, “it is not surprising if he was sometimes too sensitive to beauty; but I will not say that his moral qualities are diminished by this.”

Here we must justify Sophocles from the reproach that was sometimes made to him, namely, that he enriched himself during the Samian war. In Aristophanes' comedy "The World" someone asks about Sophocles, what he is doing; to this they answer that he lives well, only it is a little strange that he has now turned from Sophocles to Simonides and in his old age has become stingy; now, they say, he is ready, like Simonides, to deny himself the most necessary things for the sake of stinginess. Aristophanes' comedy "The World" was presented in 421 BC, therefore, 20 years after the Samian war; therefore, the poet’s words cannot refer to this war and the scholiast’s remark relating to this place represents, of course, only a guess to explain the mocking comments of the comedian. However, there is no doubt that Aristophanes reproaches old Sophocles for being a miser; but how fair is this reproach of a comedian, whose jokes should not always be taken literally, we do not know. The newest writers agree among themselves that the words of Aristophanes contain the usual exaggeration for comedians; scientists have tried to explain these words in different ways. O. Müller attributes Aristophanes' reproach to the fact that Sophocles, in his old age, began to pay more attention to the fees for his works; Welker notes: “To become a Simonides may mean: putting a lot of dramas on stage, practicing poetry until a very old age, and constantly receiving payment for your works; in the same sense, Euripides in his “Melanippe” reproaches comedians for self-interest.” Böck believes that this reproach for self-interest only seems to contradict the well-known story about how the sons of Sophocles complained to the court about him for being careless with his property; “I even admit the assumption,” he says, that Sophocles’s stinginess was in close connection with his extravagance: since there is no doubt that the poet, in his old age, as in the days of his youth, was very keen on beauty, then women probably cost him considerable money, which was reflected in the income of his sons, in relation to whom Sophocles was stingy; the sons, offended by this, could bring a complaint against their father in order to take possession of the property, and thanks to this, Sophocles became known as both a spendthrift and a miser.” Beck dates the tragedy “Oedipus at Colonus,” which Sophocles, as we will see below, read at trial with his sons, to the 4th year of the 89th Olympiad (420 BC).

Sophocles and Herodotus

Many assumed that during the Samian expedition, Sophocles first met the historian Herodotus, who lived on the island of Samos around this time. But Herodotus’ stay on this island dates back to an earlier time, and the poet probably met him even before 440. Sophocles was on friendly terms with Herodotus and often saw him when he was in Athens. Both of them agreed with each other in many respects and had the same views on many subjects. Apparently Sophocles incorporated into his dramas several of Herodotus's favorite ideas: cf. Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, v. 337 et seq. and Herodotus, II, 35; Sophocles, Antigone, 905 et seq. and Herodotus, III, 119. Plutarch, speaking of works of art created in extreme old age, reports the beginning of an epigram relating to Herodotus and attributed to Sophocles. The meaning of his words is as follows: 55-year-old Sophocles composed an ode in honor of Herodotus. The epigram itself, according to Böck’s guess, was a dedication to an ode that Sophocles presented to the historian as a sign of friendship during a personal meeting. But since 55 years cannot be called very old, this figure given by Plutarch is, in all likelihood, inaccurate.

After the Samian War, Sophocles lived another 34 years, practicing poetry; During this time, despite the fact that various sovereigns, patrons of the arts, often invited him, like Aeschylus and Euripides, to their homes, he did not leave his beloved hometown, remembering the saying he said in one of the dramas, which has not reached us reached:

Who will cross the tyrant's threshold,
That slave is his, even if he was born free.

The last years of Sophocles' life

Marble relief supposedly depicting Sophocles

We know about his political activities in later times only from the words of Aristotle, that in 411 BC he, as an adviser, προβουλεϋς, contributed to the establishment of the oligarchy of four hundred, for, as he himself said, there was something better to do impossible. In general we can assume that he rarely left the quiet life of a private person and mainly lived for the sake of art, enjoying life, loved and respected by his fellow citizens not only for his poetic works, but also for his just, peaceful and good-natured character, for his constant courtesy in circulation.

Being the favorite of all people, Sophocles, according to the belief of the people, enjoyed the special favor of gods and heroes. Dionysus, as we will see below, took care of the burial of the poet, who often glorified Bacchic festivities. The biographer tells the following anecdote about the favor of Hercules towards Sophocles: Once a golden wreath was stolen from the Acropolis. Then Hercules appeared to Sophocles in a dream and showed him the house and the place in this house where the stolen item was hidden. Sophocles announced this to the people and received a talent of gold, assigned as a reward for finding the wreath. The same anecdote, with some modifications, is also found in Cicero, De divin. I, 25. Further, the ancients said that the god of healing Asclepius (Aesculapius) honored Sophocles with his visit and was received by him very cordially; Therefore, the Athenians, after the death of the poet, established a special cult in his honor, classifying him among the heroes under the name of Dexion (hospitality) and annually made sacrifices to him. In honor of Asclepius, Sophocles is said to have composed a paean, to which was attributed the power to calm storms; this paean was sung for many centuries. In this regard, there is news that Sophocles received from the Athenians the position of priest of Galon (or Alcon), a hero of the art of medicine, who was brought up together with Asclepius by Chiron and was initiated into the secrets of healing. From all these stories, apparently, it can be concluded that Sophocles, according to the belief of the Athenians, enjoyed the special favor of Asclepius; one can guess that the reason for such a belief was the fact that during the Athenian plague, Sophocles composed a paean in honor of Asclepius with a prayer for the end of the disaster and that soon after that the plague actually stopped. Let us also mention that in one painting by Philostratus the Younger, Sophocles is depicted surrounded by bees and standing in the middle between Asclepius and Melpomene; consequently, the artist wanted to depict his beloved poet, who lived in union with the muse of tragedy and with the god of medical art.

The legend of the trial of Sophocles and his sons

In ancient times, they talked a lot about the process initiated against the elderly Sophocles by his son Iophon. Sophocles had a son, Jofon, from his legal wife Nicostrata, and another son, Ariston, from the hetaera Theorida of Sicyon; this latter was the father of Sophocles the younger, who earned praise as a tragic poet. Since old Sophocles loved his gifted grandson more than his son Iophon, who was weaker in the tragic art, Iophon, as they say, out of envy, accused his father of feeble-mindedness and demanded his removal from the management of property, since Sophocles allegedly would be no longer able to conduct his own affairs. Sophocles is said to have told the judges: “If I am Sophocles, then I am not weak-minded; if I am weak-minded, then I am not Sophocles,” and then read his just completed tragedy “Oedipus at Colonus” or the first chorus from this exemplary work, which we reported above. At the same time, Sophocles is said to have remarked to the judges that he was not trembling at all in order to appear old, as his accuser assures him, but he was trembling involuntarily, since he did not live to be 80 years old against his own will. The judges, having heard the poet’s beautiful work, acquitted him, and reprimanded his son; all those present escorted the poet out of court with applause and other signs of approval, as they had seen him off from the theater before. Cicero (Cat. Mai. VII, 22) and others, talking about this incident, name the accuser not only of Jophon, but in general the sons of Sophocles, who demanded that their old father, careless and wasteful, be removed from the management of property as a man , out of his mind.

Whether these stories are based on any historical fact - the latest scientists have expressed different opinions about this. We can join the opinion of those who believe that this whole story is nothing more than a fiction of comic writers. At least regarding Iophon, we know that in the last years of his father’s life he was on the best terms with him; as a sign of love and respect for his father, he erected a monument to him and in the inscription pointed specifically to “Oedipus at Colonus” as an exemplary work of Sophocles.

Some researchers argue that the very background of this anecdote is incorrect. It erroneously says that the grandson, for whose love Iofon was angry with his father, was not Iofon’s son. But some inscriptions on the monuments indicate that this grandson of Sophocles, Sophocles the Younger, was the son of Iophon. Thus, the motivation for Jophon’s displeasure contradicts the fact.

Death of Sophocles

Sophocles died at the end of the Peloponnesian War in 406 BC (Ol. 93, 2–3), about 90 years old. We have various fabulous stories about his death. They say that he choked on a grape, that he died of joy after winning a dramatic competition, or from straining his voice while reading Antigone, or after reading this drama. He was buried in the family crypt, which was located on the road to Dhekelia, 11 stadia from the Athenian wall, and on his tomb was depicted a siren or, according to other news, a swallow sculptured in bronze, as a symbol of eloquence. At the time when Sophocles was buried, Dhekelia was still occupied by the Lacedaemonians, so there was no access to the poet’s family crypt. Then, as the biographer reports, Dionysus appeared in a dream to the Lacedaemonian commander (he is incorrectly called Lysander) and ordered him to skip the funeral procession of Sophocles. Since the commander did not pay attention to this phenomenon, Dionysus appeared to him a second time and repeated his demand. The commander inquired through the fugitives who exactly would be buried and, hearing the name of Sophocles, sent a herald with permission to let the procession pass. The Athenians, in their national assembly, decided to make an annual sacrifice to their great fellow citizen.

Shortly after the death of Sophocles, during the Lenaan festivals (in January) 405 BC, Aristophanes’ comedy “Frogs” was staged, in which full gratitude was given to the high poetic talent of Sophocles, along with Aeschylus, and another comedy – “Muses”, op. Phrynicha, which also glorifies Sophocles. “It is remarkable,” says Welker, “that at the same time as Aristophanes, another great comic writer honored Sophocles, who died no more than two months before, with a work of art of a kind that had never before been used to glorify the dead - comedy.” From this comedy ("Muses") the following words have been preserved, which depict the significance and happiness of the recently deceased poet:

“Happy Sophocles! After a long life, he died, being a wise man and loved by everyone. He created many excellent tragedies and ended his life beautifully, unclouded by grief.”

Subsequently, the Athenians, at the suggestion of the orator Lycurgus, placed a statue of Sophocles in the theater, along with statues of Aeschylus and Euripides, and decided to carefully preserve the lists of the tragedies of these three writers.

Many images of Sophocles have survived to this day, which Welker talks about in detail in Volume I of his Ancient Monuments. Of these, the best is a statue larger than a man, located in the Lateran Museum in Rome and probably representing a copy of the one that once stood in the Athenian theater. Welker describes this statue, representing the poet in his prime, as follows: “This is a noble, powerful figure; the position, shape of the body and especially the clothing are beautiful; in pose and drapery the ease of the Roman commoner of our day is united with the dignity of a noble Athenian; To this we must add the natural freedom of movement, which characterizes an educated person who is aware of his mental superiority. The lively facial expression gives this statue special meaning and character. – The facial expression is clear, but at the same time serious and thoughtful; the poet's insight, expressed in a glance directed somewhat upward, is combined with the full color of physical and mental strength. In this statue one can see talent, intelligence, art, nobility and inner perfection, but there is not even a remote hint of demonic animation and strength, of the highest originality, of everything that sometimes gives a genius the external imprint of something extraordinary.”

Sophocles had sons: Iothon, Leosthenes, Ariston, Stephen and Meneclides. Of these, Iothon and Ariston, the son of Theorida, are called tragic poets. Iofon took part in dramatic competitions and won a brilliant victory during his father’s lifetime; Sophocles himself argued with him about primacy. The Attic Comedy recognizes the merits of his works, but expresses the suspicion that his father helped him process them, or, to use a comic expression, that Iothon stole his father's tragedies. Ariston's son, Sophocles the Younger, was a very talented tragedian and won many victories in competitions. In memory of his grandfather, he staged his tragedy “Oedipus at Colonus” in 401 BC.

Translations of Sophocles into Russian

Sophocles was translated into Russian by I. Martynov, F. Zelinsky, V. Nylender, S. Shervinsky, A. Parin, Vodovozov, Shestakov, D. Merezhkovsky, Zubkov

Literature about Sophocles

The most important list of Sophocles' tragedies is kept in the Laurentian library in Florence: C. Laurentianus, XXXII, 9, dates back to the 10th or 11th century; all other lists available in various libraries are copies of this list, with the possible exception of another Florentine list of the 14th century. No. 2725, in the same library. Since the time of W. Dindorff, the first list has been designated by the letter L, the second by G. The best scholia have also been extracted from the list L.

Mishchenko F. G. The Theban Trilogy of Sophocles. Kyiv, 1872

Mishchenko F. G. The relationship of Sophocles' tragedies to the contemporary poet's real life in Athens. Part 1. Kyiv, 1874

Alandsky P. Philological study of the works of Sophocles. Kyiv, 1877

Alandsky P. Depiction of mental movements in the tragedies of Sophocles. Kyiv, 1877

Shultz G.F. On the question of the main idea of ​​Sophocles’ tragedy “Oedipus the King.” Kharkov, 1887

Shultz G.F. Critical notes to the text of Sophocles’ tragedy “Oedipus the King.” Kharkov, 1891

Yarkho V.N. Sophocles’ tragedy “Antigone”: Textbook. M.: Higher. school, 1986

Surikov I. E. The evolution of the religious consciousness of the Athenians in the second half of the 5th century. BC e.: Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes in their relation to traditional religion

Sophocles (496-406 BC) - ancient tragedian playwright.

Major works: "Ajax" (442 BC), "Antigone" (441 BC), "The Trachinian Women" (date of writing unknown), "Philoctetes". In the short biography of Sophocles, which is presented on this page, we have collected basic facts about the life and work of the playwright Sophocles.

Born on the outskirts of Athens - Kolone in a wealthy family. He received a good musical education, which is associated with his creative innovations (the use of choirs, solo songs, etc.; a treatise on the choir). This largely influenced how Sophocles’ biography developed. He is famous as a reformer of ancient Greek theater. Sophocles was not only interested in theater, but was also an active politician and a patriot of his homeland. He held government and military positions. Was close to the circles of Pericles. How the playwright acted in 468 BC. e. During his life, Sophocles created more than 100 tragedies. At the beginning of the 20th century, an excerpt from the satyr drama “The Pathfinders” was found. Sophocles took the plots for his tragedies from mythology.

In his tragedies, Sophocles raised pressing social and moral issues, the main place among which was occupied by the problem of the relationship between the individual and state power. The playwright truthfully showed the inner world of his characters, who embodied integral, somewhat idealized characters. His tragedies inspire faith in her strength. Continuing the traditions of Aeschylus, Sophocles developed the genre of tragedy. He increased the number of characters to three, abandoned the plot-related tetralogy, introduced monody - solo songs, improved the scenery, masks, etc.

Speaking about the biography of Sophocles, it is important to note that his work had a significant influence on the development of new drama in Europe, starting from the Renaissance. In Greece, the name of Sophocles was extremely popular and authoritative, so after his death he was revered as a hero.

If you have already read the short biography of Sophocles, you can rate this writer at the top of the page. In addition, we invite you to visit the Biographies section to read about other popular and famous writers.

Sophocles (c. 496 - 406 BC)

Ancient Greek playwright. One of the three great masters of ancient tragedy, occupying a place in terms of life and nature of creativity between Aeschylus and Euripides.

Sophocles' worldview and skill are marked by a desire for a balance between the new and the old: glorifying the power of a free person, he warned against violating “divine laws,” that is, traditional religious and civil norms of life; complicating the psychological characteristics, while maintaining the overall monumentality of the images and composition. Sophocles' tragedies "Oedipus the King", "Antigone", "Electra" and others are classic examples of the genre.

Sophocles was elected to important government positions and was close to Pericles' circle. According to ancient evidence, he wrote over 120 dramas. The tragedies “Ajax”, “Antigone”, “Oedipus the King”, “Philoctetes”, “The Trachinian Women”, “Electra”, “Oedipus at Colonus” have reached us in their entirety.

The philosopher's worldview reflects the complexity and inconsistency of Athenian democracy during its peak period. On the one hand, democratic ideology, which grew on the basis of “joint private property of active citizens of the state,” saw its stronghold in the omnipotence of divine providence, in the inviolability of traditional institutions; on the other hand, in the conditions of the freest development of personality for that time, the tendency towards its liberation from polis connections became more and more persistent.

The trials that befall a person could not find a satisfactory explanation in the divine will, and Sophocles, concerned about preserving the unity of the polis, did not try to justify the divine management of the world with any ethical considerations.

At the same time, he was attracted to an active person responsible for his decisions, which was reflected in Ajax.

In Oedipus the King, the hero's relentless investigation into the secrets of his past makes him responsible for unwitting crimes, although it does not provide a basis for interpreting the tragedy in terms of guilt and divine retribution.

Antigone appears as an integral person, unshakable in her decision, with her heroic defense of “unwritten” laws from the arbitrariness of an individual, hiding behind the authority of the state. Sophocles' heroes are free from everything secondary and too personal; they have a strong ideal beginning.

The plots and images of Sophocles were used both in subsequent ancient and modern European literature from the era of classicism until the 20th century. Deep interest in the playwright’s work was manifested in studies on the theory of tragedy (G.E. Lessing, I.V. Goethe, the Schlegel brothers, F. Schiller, V.G. Belinsky). From the middle of the 19th century. Sophocles' tragedies are staged in theaters all over the world.