Thea tragedy of which I have attempted to convey the beauties into the English language in a free translation, stands amidst the foremost of the classical productions of antiquity. Of tragical writing it has ever been esteemed the model and the master-piece. The grandeur of the subject is not less eminent than the dignity of the personages who are employed in it; and the design of the whole can only be rivalled by that art with which the particular parts are conducted. The subject is a nation labouring under calamities of the most dreadful and portentous kind; and the leading character is a wise and mighty prince, expiating by his punishment the involuntary crimes of which those calamities were the effect. The design is of the most interesting and important nature, to inculcate a due moderation in our passions, and an implicit obedience to that providence of which the decrees are equally unknown and irresistible.

So sublime a composition could not fail to secure the applause, and fix the admiration of ages. The philosopher is exercised in the contemplation of its deep and awful morality; the critic is captivated by its dramatic beauties, and the man of feeling is interested by those strokes of genuine passion which prevail in almost every page—which every character excites, and every new event tends to diversify in kind or in degree.

The three grand unities of time, place, and action, are observed with scrupulous exactness.1 However complicate its various parts may on the first view appear, on a nearer and more accurate examination we find every thing useful, every thing necessary; some secret spring of action laid open, some momentous truth inculcated, or some important end promoted: not one scene is superfluous, nor is there one episode that could be retrenched. The successive circumstances of the play arise gradually and naturally one out of the other, and are connected with such inimitable judgment, that if the smallest part were taken away the whole would fall to the ground. The principal objection to this tragedy is, that the punishment of Oedipus is much more than adequate to his crimes: that his crimes are only the effect of his ignorance, and that consequently the guilt of them is to be imputed not to Oedipus, but Apollo, who ordained and predicted them, and that he is only Phœbi reus, as Seneca expresses himself.2 In vindication of Sophocles, it must be considered that the conduct of Oedipus is by no means so irreproachable as some have contended: for though his public character is delineated as that of a good king, anxious for the welfare of his subjects, and ardent in his endeavours to appease the gods by incense and supplication, yet we find him in private life choleric, haughty, inquisitive; impatient of controul, and impetuous in resentment. His character, even as a king, is not free from the imputation of imprudence, and our opinion of his piety is greatly invalidated by his contemptuous treatment of the wise, the benevolent, the sacred Tiresias. The rules of tragic art scarcely permit that a perfectly virtuous man should be loaded with misfortunes. Had Sophocles presented to our view a character less debased by vice, or more exalted by virtue, the end of his performance would have been frustrated; instead of agonizing compassion, he would have raised in us indignation unmixed, and horror unabated. The intention of the poet would have been yet more frustrated on the return of our reason, and our indignation would have been transferred from Oedipus to the gods themselves—from Oedipus, who committed parricide, to the gods who first ordained, and then punished it. By making him criminal in a small degree, and miserable in a very great one, by investing him with some excellent qualities, and some imperfections, he at once inclines us to pity and to condemn. His obstinacy darkens the lustre of his other virtues; it aggravates his impiety, and almost justifies his sufferings. This is the doctrine of Aristotle and of nature,3 and shews Sophocles to have had an intimate knowledge of the human heart, and the springs by which it is actuated. That his crimes and punishment still seem disproportionate, is not to be imputed as a fault to Sophocles, who proceeded only on the antient and popular notion of destiny; which we know to have been the basis of pagan theology.

It is not the intention of the translator to proceed farther in a critical discussion of the beauties and defects of a tragedy which hath already employed the pens of the most distinguished commentators; which hath wearied conjecture, and exhausted all the arts of unnecessary and unprofitable defence. The translator is no stranger to the merits of Dr. Franklin;4 whose character he reveres, and by whose excellent performance he has been animated and instructed. He thinks it necessary to disclaim every idea of rivalship with an author of such established and exalted reputation. The present translation, though it be executed with far less ability than that of Doctor Franklin, may deserve some notice, because professedly written on very different principles. The Doctor was induced by his plan, and enabled by his erudition, to encounter all the difficulties of literal translation. This work will be found by the reader, what it is called by the writer, a free translation. The author was not fettered by his text, but guided by it; he has however not forgotten the boundaries by which liberal translation is distinguished from that which is wild and licentious.5 He has always endeavoured to represent the sense of his original, he hopes sometimes to have caught its spirit, and he throws himself without reluctance, but not without diffidence, on the candour of those readers who understand and feel the difference that subsists between the Greek and English languages, between antient and modern manners, between nature and refinement, between a Sophocles who appeals to posterity, and a writer who catches at the capricious taste of the day.