ABSTRACT
This chapter elucidates that there seems no doubt that Holderlin planned to translate all of Sophocles' seven extant tragedies. The one advantage which one have when studying the unpublished as opposed to the published Sophocles translations is that, since the manuscripts, which are not fair copies, have survived, one can examine the alterations which Holderlin made. At the beginning of the examination of the Ajax translations it was shown how Holderlin found in Sophocles a picture of nature which he was able to expand into an image familiar in his earlier work. It almost seems as if the Ajax, in which madness forms an important element in the plot, influenced Holderlin's interpretation of Oedipus Tyrannus and Antigone. The last part of the play deals with the question whether Ajax is to receive burial, on which Teucer insists, claiming for his brother the grateful memory due to the dead.
