This volume contains Sophocles first four surviving tragedies. Aias dramatizes the consequences of its hero's terrible delusion, when the goddess Athena sends Aias mad and he slaughters sheep and cattle, rather than his enemies. Antigone presents the disastrous conflict between Antigone's determination to bury her brother Polyneikes, and the new ruler Kreon's edict that he is an enemy of the state and, as such, does not deserve burial. In Young Women of Trachis, Herakles' gentle wife Deianeria cannot accept her husband's mistres Iole into their home, but her attempt to rescue their marriage destroys them both. Oedipus the King is a pitiless reminder of the limits of human knowledge. Oedipus' quest to relieve his city from a plague leads him to the horrific discovery that he has murdered his own father and married his mother. This study edition contains both the texts and commentary upon them.