Four Tragedies and Octavia [Paperback]

Based on the legends used in Greek drama, Seneca's plays are notable for the exuberant ruthlessness with which disastrous events are foretold and then pursued to their tragic and often bloodthirsty ends.Thyestesdepicts the menace of an ancestral curse hanging over two feuding brothers, whilePhaedraportrays a woman tormented by fatal passion for her stepson. InThe Trojan Women, the widowed Hecuba and Andromache await their fates at the hands of the conquering Greeks, andOedipusfollows the downfall of the royal House of Thebes.Octaviais a grim commentary on Nero's tyrannical rule and the execution of his wife, with Seneca himself appearing as an ineffective counsellor attempting to curb the atrocities of the emperor.

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Acknowledgement

Thyestes
Phaedra(or Hippolytus)
The Trojan Women
Oedipus
Octavia

Appendix I.

Elizabethan translations and imitations
Appendix II.Passages from Seneca's prose

Lucius Annaeus Seneca(c.4BC-AD65) was born in Cordoba, Spain, where he was brought up studying the traditional virtues of republican Roman life. He became a teacher of rhetoric but attracted attention for his incisive style of writing. Closely linked to Nero, his death was ordered by the emperor in AD65. Seneca committed suicide.

E.F. Watlinghad translated many ancient classics for Penguin, including plays of Sophocles and Plautul³2