se acquaintance
with them would otherwise be still more defective. Part of this
version of Sophocles was printed several years ago in an imperfect
form. The present volume contains the seven extant plays entire. As
the object has been to give the effect of each drama as a whole,
rather than to dwell on particular 'beauties' (which only a poet can
render), the fragments have not been included. But the reader should
bear in mind that the seven plays are less than a tithe of the work
produced by the poet in his lifetime.

It may very possibly be asked why verse has been employed at all. Why
not have listened to Carlyle's rough demand, 'Tell us what they
thought; none of your silly poetry'? The present translator can only
reply that he began with prose, but soon found that, for tragic
dialogue in English, blank verse appeared a more natural and effective
vehicle than any prose style which he could hope to frame. And with
the dialogue in verse, it was impossible to have the lyric parts in
any sort of prose, simply because the reader would then have felt an
intolerable incongruity. These parts have therefore been turned into
such familiar lyric measures as seemed at once possible and not
unsuitable. And where this method was found impracticable, as
sometimes in the _Commoi_, blank metres have again been used,--with
such liberties as seemed appropriate to the special purpose. The
writer's hope throughout has been, not indeed fully to transfuse the
poetry of Sophocles into another tongue, but to make the poet's
dramatic intention to be understood and felt by English readers. One
more such endeavour may possibly find acceptance at a time when many
causes have combined to awaken a fresh interest at once in dramatic
literature and in Hellenic studies.

The reader who is hitherto unacquainted with the Greek drama, should
be warned that the parts assigned to the 'Chorus' were often
distributed among its several members, who spoke or chanted, singly or
in groups, alternately or in succession. In some cases, but not in
all, _Ch. 1_, _Ch. 2_, &c., have been prefixed, to indicate such an
arrangement.

Footnotes:
1 [Sir John Seeley's] _Natural Religion_, p. 79.

2 Milton, _Samson Agonistes_, 164-169.

3 'Thou drawest awry
Just minds to wrong and ruin ...
... With resistless charm
Great Aphrodite mocks the might of men.'
_Antigone._

4 Cf. _Sop