Recommendations for translations of Sophocles? I started with the University of Chicago Press version since it was highly recommended and is by a bunch of respected translators like Fitzgerald, Lattimore, and Grene, but it's incredibly dry and was sucking out the fun of reading them.I've moved to the public domain Loeb translations, which amazingly are much more lively and easier to understand, even though they're more archaic. Just look at this part of Oedipus Rex where Jocasta is complaining about Oedipus being distraught over the oracles:Chicago translation>not conjecturing,>like a man of sense, what will be from what was,>but he is always at the speaker’s mercy,>when he speaks terrors.It's so abysmally formal, like reading a legal document. And translated so that its meaning doesn't fluently come across, "the speaker" who "speaks terrors" means the prophet or oracle, but it's written in such a stitled way that it's unpleasant to read.Compare to the F. Storr translation from 1912>He will not use>His past experience, like a man of sense,>To judge the present need, but lends an ear>To any croaker if he augurs ill.It's so much more fun to read, and you get a great sense of Jocasta's exasperation at Oedipus, she comes across as sarcastic and angrily in denial about his belief in the oracles. Instead of wading through the Chicago's "conjecturing" and "at the speaker's mercy", you instead instantly understand that it's meant to be darkly funny, that she thinks she's speaking sense and her husband is deluded, but actually the oracle and Oedipus' fears are totally true, and she's the deluded one.Is there a more recent translation that's a good read and has good notes? Or should I stick with the public domain ones?
