Aias: "A human being is only breath and shadow"

By Sophocles .

The village of Colonus, near Athens, was, in the year 495 BC, the birthplace of Sophocles. Sophocles place in Greek Tragedy is assured. His birth places him between the two other giants of Greek tragedy; Æschylus and Euripides. He was 30 years younger than Æschylus, the reigning master of drama and was fifteen years older than Euripides, who would, in turn, usurp Sophocles. Sophocles was a handsome and agile youth and selected, at the age of sixteen, to lead with dance and lyre the chorus which celebrated the triumph of Athens and its Allies over Persia at the battle at Salamis. Sophocles career as a dramatist was marked by a victory in competition with Æschylus, under exceptional circumstances. At the time the remains of the hero Theseus were being removed by Cimon from the isle of Scyros to Athens and, at the same time, a contest involving the two dramatists was being held. Æschylus was lauded at the time as the supreme dramatist but Sophocles was popular if inexperienced. The first prize was awarded to Sophocles, greatly to the disgust of the veteran Æschylus, who taking umbrage, soon afterward departed for Sicily. By all accounts Sophocles would now write and exhibit tragedies and satyric dramas for the next sixty years. The canon of his work varies to between 120 and 180 plays, naturally a number were fillers and not of his highest standard but the prodigious output is extraordinary. In the annual Dionysia, the number of first prizes he won is put at between eighteen and twenty-four, with many more second prizes. On this basis alone Æschylus and Euripides were left a long way behind. So far from being dulled with age and toil, his powers seem only to have assumed a mellower tone, a more touching pathos, a sweeter and gentler mode of thought and expression. Sophocles was spared the misery of witnessing the final overthrow of his country, dying, at the age or around 90 after a long life full of triumphs and honours, a few months before the defeat of Aegospotami brought the downfall of his beloved Athens. This naval Battle of Aegospotami took place in 405 BC and decisively determined the outcome of the Peloponnesian War. In the battle, a Spartan fleet under Lysander destroyed the Athenian navy. This effectively ended the war, since Athens could not import grain or communicate with its empire without control of the sea. There are only seven dramas of Sophocles that have survived. It can be argued that Sophocles and his works were the high-water mark of Athenian excellence. He is rightly lauded and we can only wonder at the splendours he wrote that are now lost to us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scribe Publishing
• Release date: Mar 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781787371675

Book preview

Aias by Sophocles

The village of Colonus, near Athens, was, in the year 495 BC, the birthplace of Sophocles.

Sophocles place in Greek Tragedy is assured. His birth places him between the two other giants of Greek tragedy; Æschylus and Euripides. He was 30 years younger than Æschylus, the reigning master of drama and was fifteen years older than Euripides, who would, in turn, usurp Sophocles. 

Sophocles was a handsome and agile youth and selected, at the age of sixteen, to lead with dance and lyre the chorus which celebrated the triumph of Athens and its Allies over Persia at the battle at Salamis.

Sophocles career as a dramatist was marked by a victory in competition with Æschylus, under exceptional circumstances. At the time the remains of the hero Theseus were being removed by Cimon from the isle of Scyros to Athens and, at the same time, a contest involving the two dramatists was being held.  Æschylus was lauded at the time as the supreme dramatist but Sophocles was popular if inexperienced. 

The first prize was awarded to Sophocles, greatly to the disgust of the veteran Æschylus, who taking umbrage, soon afterward departed for Sicily.

By all accounts Sophocles would now write and exhibit tragedies and satyric dramas for the next sixty years.

The canon of his work varies to between 120 and 180 plays, naturally a number were fillers and not of his highest standard but the prodigious output is extraordinary.  In the annual Dionysia, the number of first prizes he won is put at between eighteen and twenty-four, with many more second prizes. On this basis alone Æschylus and Euripides were left a long way behind. So far from being dulled with age and toil, his powers seem only to have assumed a mellower tone, a more touching pathos, a sweeter and gentler mode of thought and expression.

Sophocles was spared the misery of witnessing the final overthrow of his country, dying, at the age or around 90 after a long life full of triumphs and honours, a few months before the defeat of Aegospotami brought the downfall of his beloved Athens. This naval Battle of Aegospotami took place in 405 BC and decisively determined the outcome of the Peloponnesian War. In the battle, a Spartan fleet under Lysander destroyed the Athenian navy. This effectively ended the war, since Athens could not import grain or communicate with its empire without control of the sea.

There are only seven dramas of Sophocles that have survived. 

It can be argued that Sophocles and his works were the high-water mark of Athenian excellence.  He is rightly lauded and we can only wonder at the splendours he wrote that are now lost to us.

Index of Contents

The Persons

Scene

Time

Introduction

AIAS

Sophocles – A Short Biography

Sophocles – A Concise Bibliography

THE PERSONS

ATHENA.

ODYSSEUS.

AIAS, the son of Telamon.

CHORUS of Salaminian Mariners.

TECMESSA.

A MESSENGER.

TEUCER, half brother of Aias.

MENELAUS.

AGAMEMNON.

EURYSAKÈS, the child of Aias and Tecmessa, appears, but does not speak.

SCENE

Before the encampment of Aias on the shore of the Troad. Afterwards a lonely place beyond Rhoeteum.

TIME

Towards the end of the Trojan War.

INTRODUCTION

'A wounded spirit who can bear?'

After the death of Achilles, the armour made for him by Hephaestus was to be given to the worthiest of the surviving Greeks. Although AIAS was the most valiant, the judges made the award to ODYSSEUS, because he was the wisest.

AIAS in his rage attempts to kill the generals; but ATHENA sends madness upon him, and he makes a raid upon the flocks and herds of the army, imagining the bulls and rams to be the Argive chiefs. On awakening from his delusion, he finds that he has fallen irrecoverably from honour and from the favour of the Greeks. He also imagines that the anger of ATHENA is unappeasable. Under this impression he eludes the loving eyes of his captive-bride TECMESSA, and of his Salaminian comrades, and falls on his sword.

AIAS

The soul and body rive not more in parting

Than greatness going off.

But it is revealed through the prophet CALCHAS, that the wrath of Athena will last only for a day; and on the return of TEUCER, AIAS receives an honoured funeral, the tyrannical