Medea is an unabridged republication of the translation by Rex Warner originally published by John Lane, The Bodley Head Limited, London, in 1944. Explanatory footnotes have been added.

Bacchae is an unabridged, unaltered republication of the work translated by Henry Hart Milman as The Bacchanals, in The Plays of Euripedes, volume two, originally published in 1908 by J. M. Dent, London, as part of Everyman’s Library. (Milman’s translation was first published in 1865.)

Contents

AESCHYLUS

Prometheus Bound

SOPHOCLES

Oedipus Rex

Electa

EURIPEDES

Medea

Bacchae

Prometheus Bound

AESCHYLUS

Characters

Prometheus, a Titan.

Io

Hermes, messenger of Zeus.

Hephaestus, god of fire.

Oceanus, god of the ocean.

Might

Violence

Chorus of Oceanids (daughters of Oceanus).

Prometheus Bound

(Enter PROMETHEUS, escorted by MIGHT and VIOLENCE, and accompanied by HEPHAESTUS, who carries the implements of his craft)

MIGHT

To Earth’s far-distant confines we are come,

The tract of Scythia, waste untrod by man.

And now, Hephaestus, thou must mind the task

Ordained thee by the Father — to enchain

This malefactor on yon mountain crags

In indissoluble bands of adamant.

Thy flower, fount of the arts, the light of fire,

He stole and gave to mortals. Such the sin

For which he must make recompense to heaven,

And so be taught to accept the tyranny

Of Zeus, and check his charity to man.

HEPHAESTUS

O Might, and Violence, for you the word

Of Zeus hath been fulfilled — your part is done.

But I have not the heart by force to bind

A god, my kinsman, in this wintry glen.

And yet I must brazen myself to do it;

For grave it is to scant the Father’s word.

True-counselling Themis’ lofty-ambitioned Son,

Not by my will, nor thine, shall rigorous bonds

Imprison thee in this unpeopled waste,

Where neither mortal form shall greet thine eye

Nor voice thine ear, but, parched in the sun’s pure flame,

Thy beauty’s bloom shall perish. Welcome to thee

Shall starry-kirtled Night enshroud the day,

Welcome the sun dispel the frosts of dawn;

And the anguish of thy state shall gnaw thy heart

For ever —unborn is thy deliverer.

Such thy reward for charity to man:

A god, thou didst defy the wrath of gods,

On men their powers bestowing unrighteously.

So on this cheerless rock must thou stand guard,

Upright, unsleeping, unbending the knee,

And with many a groan of unavailing grief

Cry out. Implacable is the heart of Zeus,

And harsh is every king whose power is new.

MIGHT

Enough: why this delay? why waste your pity?

Do you not hate the god all gods abhor,

Betrayer of your privilege to man?

HEPHAESTUS

The tie of kin and comradeship is strange.

MIGHT

True, but is’t possible to disregard

The Father’s word? do you not revere that more?

HEPHAESTUS

Ah, you were ever pitiless and proud!

MIGHT

To grieve for him cures nothing; so do you

Labour no more where labour is in vain.

HEPHAESTUS

O most abhorrent handicraft of mine!