Anyone who ventures a further contribution to the current profusion of Sophoclean criticism must do so with due humility, trusting that the inexhaustible richness of the original plays justifies such imprudence. It is not my intention to add to the many general books on Sophocles that have appeared in recent years. But I believe there remains a place for a work of more limited scope on the ethical content of his plays. As Schadewaldt well expressed it in a related context, ‘However polyphonous the symphony may be, it aids understanding and need not detract from the whole if one pays attention to the basic themes and makes some of them audible.’ I have pursued some of these basic themes in five tragedies, omitting the two to which they are less central. Since I have no chronological axes to grind, the plays are treated in the most generally accepted order.

In the hope that the book will find some readers other than classicists, I have kept Greek out of the text, with the exception of certain words whose full significance might otherwise be lost, which I have transliterated. These are translated or explained at their first occurrence and are listed in a glossary at the beginning of the book. Greek has been used sparingly in the footnotes for textual or linguistic points. All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated, and are designed to be functional rather than elegant. I have used Pearson's Oxford Classical Text except where otherwise specified.