Four seminal tragedies by the master Greek dramatist, in sparkling new translations Of the more than one hundred plays Sophocles wrote over the course of his long life, only seven survive. This volume collects four of them, all newly translated. Electra portrays the grief of a young woman for her father, Agamemnon, who has been killed by her mother’s lover. Ajaxdepicts the enigma of power and weakness vis-àvis the fall of the great hero. Women of Trachisdramatizes the tragic love and error of Heracles’s deserted wife, Deianeira; Philoctetesexamines the conflict between physical force and moral strength.