eBook - ePub
Aias
Sophocles
This is a test
Share book
- 160 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Aias
Sophocles
Book details
Book preview
Table of contents
Citations
About This Book
AIAS, translated by award-winning poet James Scully, is one of Sophocles's seven surviving works, and one of the most celebrated plays of ancient Athens.
Still powerful and remarkably timely thousands of years after its creation, Aias is the moving story of a soldier returning home victorious from the Trojan War, only to discover he has lost his life's purpose. This is Sophocles, vibrant and alive, for a new generation.
Frequently asked questions
How do I cancel my subscription?
Can/how do I download books?
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
What is the difference between the pricing plans?
Both plans give you full access to the library and all of Perlegoâs features. The only differences are the price and subscription period: With the annual plan youâll save around 30% compared to 12 months on the monthly plan.
What is Perlego?
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, weâve got you covered! Learn more here.
Do you support text-to-speech?
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Is Aias an online PDF/ePUB?
Yes, you can access Aias by Sophocles in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Letteratura & Teatro antico e classico. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Topic
LetteraturaSubtopic
Teatro antico e classicoAIAS
INTRODUCTION
ACHILLES IS DEAD
Achilles is dead. Aias, the next greatest warrior, should inherit his armor, but Agamemnon and Menelaos award it to Odysseus. Enraged, Aias sets out to kill them, but Athena deludes him into slaughtering the war spoil of the Greek army: defenseless sheep, goats, oxen, and herdsmen. When Aias realizes what he has done, his shame is irremediable. He does then what no Greek hero ever does. He kills himself.
Heroic Aias epitomizes the aristocratic ethos of the Homeric world. Sophoclesâ play, however, was conceived four hundred to five hundred years after Homerâs time, in the challenged democratic ethos of fifth-century BCE Athens. To Athenians, Aiasâs life was legendary. Roughly 10 percent of the population revered him as an ancestor. Homer shows him saving the Greek forces many times over. Accordinglyâan occupational hazard of Greek warriorsâheâs full of himself. His lack of sĂŽphrosunĂȘ, the wisdom to understand and accept his own limits and those of life itself, looms huge. When realization does come, itâs too late. The âsavage disciplineâ he learned as a warrior is so ingrained it has become his nature. He cannot choose to act outside it. He may regain his honor only by killing himself. Yet when he does do thatâthough he had seemed to be the center of the world, the focus of everyoneâs consciousness, their hopes and fearsâthe world doesnât end. Against all expectations, the play goes on over his lifeless body, which must be dealt with.
Aiasâs family and his sailor warriors are regrouping, preparing the body for burial. First Menelaos and then Agamemnon intervene, both insisting the remains be left as carrion for scavengers. Teukros argues with each in turnâuntil Odysseus arrives and pressures Agamemnon into letting the burial proceed. The obvious question is, why was it necessary to dwell, at such extraordinary length, on the conditions of Aiasâs burial?
Letâs go back a bit. Between Aiasâs death and the discovery of his body, the Chorus, divided into two search parties, stumble about, disoriented, calling out to one another. Within this âhole in timeâ (literally, a historical void), the play undergoes a defin...