Greek Literature in Translation

Featuring Cecelia Eaton Luschnig's annotated verse translations of Euripides' Electra, Iphigenia among the Tauri, and Orestes, this volume offers an ideal avenue for exploring the playwright's innovative treatment of both traditional and non-traditional stories concerning a central, fascinating member of the famous House of Atreus.

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An anonymous Greek reworking (doubtfully attributed to Lucian) of the lost, anonymous Greek Metamorphoseis (falsely attributed to Lucius of Patras). An American translation.

English translation, with introduction, notes and appendices. The Trojan Women is a play on the consequences of war and the fate of those defeated in war and their victors. 

This anthology includes English translations of three plays of Sophocles' Oidipous Cycle: Antigone, King Oidipous, and Oidipous at Colonus. The trilogy includes an introductory essay on Sophocles life, ancient theatre, and the mythic and religious background of the plays. Each of these plays is available from Focus in a single play edition. Focus Classical Library provides close translations with notes and essays to provide access to understanding Greek culture.

This volume offers the fruits of Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff's dynamic collaboration on the plays of Sophocles' Theban cycle, presenting the translators' Oedipus Tyrannus (2000) along with Woodruff's Antigone (2001) and a muscular new Oedipus at Colonus by Meineck. Grippingly readable, all three translations combine fidelity to the Greek with concision, clarity, and powerful, hard-edged speech. Each play features foot-of-the-page notes, stage directions, and line numbers to the Greek. Woodruff's Introduction discusses the playwright, Athenian theatre and performance, the composition of the plays, and the plots and characters of each; it also offers thoughtful reflections on major critical interpretations of these plays.

This edition includes an annotated translation, by Richard Caldwell, of Hesiod’s Theogony together with annotated translation, by Stephanie Nelson, of Hesiod’s Works & Days. Introductions by the translators are also included, as is an essay by Caldwell entitled “The Psychology of the Succession Myth."

This translation contains an introduction, commentary and interpretive essay and well as numerous notes and annotations to provide the history and background of the epic, and the mythological context in which it is placed. Hesiod's straightforward account of family conflict among the gods is the best and earliest evidence of what the ancient Greeks believed about the beginning of the world. Includes Hesiod's Works and Days, lines 1-201 and the Library of Apollodorus.

Though now associated mainly with Sophocles’ Theban Plays and Euripides’ Bacchae, the theme of Thebes and its royalty was a favorite of ancient Greek poets, one explored in a now lost epic cycle, as well as several other surviving tragedies. With a rich Introduction that sets three of these plays within the larger contexts of Theban legend and of Greek tragedy in performance, Cecelia Eaton Luschnig’s annotated translation of Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes, Euripides’ Suppliants, and Euripides’ Phoenician Women offers a brilliant constellation of less familiar Theban plays—those dealing with the war between Oedipus’ sons, its casualties, and survivors.

“This is by far the best rendering of Hesiod’s poems in print. The translation is fully accurate but so readable one doesn’t want to stop; it exactly captures Hesiod’s rustic wisdom, his humour and his cautious pessimism. . . . Clear brief notes and a glossary make this a must for introductory courses: students will love it.”
     —Richard Janko, University College, London