The Best Translation of Women of Trachis
Women of Trachis was written in Ancient Greek. 3 recommended editions, ranked — with Gröblé’s verdict on which to read first.
Hugh Lloyd-Jones
Harvard University Press · 1994
Lloyd-Jones's Loeb Sophocles, facing-page Greek. Deianira's terrible innocence and Heracles' poisoned-shirt death both land with the precision the play needs.
Every recommended edition, compared
The Grene and Lattimore complete Greek tragedies volume. Grene's English is plain and direct, and the agony scenes don't flinch. The version most classrooms still use.
Pound's 1957 adaptation is its own modernist project, somewhere between translation and rewrite. Read it after you know the play, for what Pound is doing to Sophocles rather than the other way around.
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Reading Women of Trachis in translation
Women of Trachis was written in Ancient Greek, so unless you read Ancient Greek, the translator decides the book you actually experience — its register, its pace, how it sounds read aloud. Two editions of the same work can feel like different books.
The ranking above is Gröblé’s: one reader’s verdict on which English gets you closest, not a publisher’s blurb. Start with the top pick; reach for the others when you want a different angle on the original.