Ajax (play)

Sophocles's Ajax (Ancient Greek: Αἴας Aias, pronounced [aǐ̯.jaːs]) is a Greek tragedy written in the 5th century BC. The date of Ajax's first performance is unknown and may never be found, but most scholars regard it as an early work, c. 450 - 430 BC (J. Moore, 2). It chronicles the fate of the warrior Ajax after the events of the Iliad, but before the end of the Trojan War.

Plot

At the onset of the play, Ajax is enraged because his cousin Achilles' armor was awarded to Odysseus, rather than to him. He vows to kill the Greek leaders who disgraced him. Before he can enact his extraordinary revenge, though, he is tricked by the goddess Athena into believing that the sheep and cattle that were taken by the Achaeans as spoil are the Greek leaders. He slaughters some of them, and takes the others back to his home to torture, including a ram which he believes to be his main rival, Odysseus.

Ajax realizes what he has done and is in agony over his actions. Ajax’s pain is not because of his wish to kill Agamemnon and Odysseus. He is extremely upset that Athena fooled him and is sure that the other Greek warriors are laughing at him. Ajax contemplates ending his life due to his shame. His concubine, Tecmessa, pleads for him not to leave her and her child unprotected. Ajax then gives his son, Eurysakes, his shield. Ajax leaves the house saying that he is going out to purify himself and bury the sword given to him by Hector. Teucer, Ajax’s brother, arrives in the Greek camp to taunting from his fellow soldiers. Kalchas warns that Ajax should not be allowed to leave his tent until the end of the day or he will die. Teucer sends a messenger to Ajax’s campsite with word of Kalchas’ prophecy. Tecmessa and soldiers try to track him down, but are too late. Ajax had indeed buried the sword, but has left the blade sticking out of the ground and has impaled himself upon it.

Sophocles

Sophocles (/ˈsɒfəkliːz/;Greek: Σοφοκλῆς, Sophoklēs, Ancient Greek: [so.pʰo.klɛ̂ːs]; c. 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC) is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides. Sophocles wrote 120 plays during the course of his life, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus. For almost 50 years, Sophocles was the most-fêted playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens that took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia. He competed in 30 competitions, won 18, and was never judged lower than second place. Aeschylus won 14 competitions, and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles, while Euripides won 5 competitions.

The most famous tragedies of Sophocles feature Oedipus and also Antigone: they are generally known as the Theban plays, although each play was actually a part of a different tetralogy, the other members of which are now lost. Sophocles influenced the development of the drama, most importantly by adding a third actor, thereby reducing the importance of the chorus in the presentation of the plot. He also developed his characters to a greater extent than earlier playwrights such as Aeschylus.

Sophocles (software)

Sophocles was a Windows-based screenwriting software application used for writing feature film and television screenplays. The program first became available on the Internet in 1999. Its distinguishing features included a two window screen setup, showing the script and screenplay outline simultaneously.

Sophocles supported industry-standard screenplay formats including scene numbers, A/B revision pages, revision marks, MOREs and CONT'Ds, and so on. All formats were applied automatically, with no intervention required on the part of the user.

After the buyout of the company in Spring 2008, first party technical support disappeared, creating concern among its users.

Features

Story Creation

The Sophocles 2007 beta provides an interface for developing and maintaining a step outline in conjunction with the screenplay. Steps – the fundamental events of a plot – can be assigned to color-coded story threads, and scripts can contain multiple threads.

Steps are maintained in two distinct orderings: presentation order and chronological order. Presentation order (or script order) is the order in which the steps will unfold on-screen; chronological order is the order in which the steps take place in the world of the story (the two would differ in the case of a flashback, for example).

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