The back cover of S.'s translations of Sophocles' Ajax, Women of Trachis, Electra and Philoctetes describes them as ‘[p]unchy and entertaining’ and suggests that ‘[b]y simplifying the Greek and making obscure designations more accessible … his translations are highly performable’. The translations are said, furthermore, to be presented in ‘his distinctly contemporary voice’. Thus a primary objective of the translations seems to be to present the works of Sophocles more forcefully and immediately to a modern audience. The preface to this work is not explicit in describing the translator's objectives, but the translator's preface of the companion work, The Theban Plays of Sophocles (2007), pp. ix–xi, is more revealing and is in line with this understanding.

S.'s translations are indeed accessible and readable. A contemporary student will find that the language flows easily in a direct manner that still retains an element of elevation in its diction and expression. Here is the crucial moment in Women of Trachis when Deianeira confronts Iole, without knowing who she is (307–13):

The translation reads well, and conveys the drama of the moment with its cascade of questions. As in this case, S.'s translations at times explicate and interpret the Greek (perhaps rather than ‘simplify’). ‘Her eyes are pools of sorrow and anger’ is an affecting line that ably gives the sense of Deianeira having a natural empathy towards Iole. The translation, however, is loose; the Greek φρονεῖν οἶδεν μόνη does not specify Iole's emotional state in the way that S.'s translation does, but rather may well mean, as Kamerbeek suggests, that Iole shows a restrained behaviour befitting a noblewoman, in contrast to the rest of the Chorus. Similarly, there is no word for ‘chagrin’ in the Greek, but this perhaps picks up a general sense of embarrassment on the part of Deianeira for her (supposed) good fortune in contrast to the captive women.

Lyric passages are also often rendered in a manner that is quite direct and moving, such as Ajax' words at 412–27:

The translations also, however, have their fair share of difficulties. Sometimes there are outright errors in the translation, such as when the centaur Chiron is misunderstood as the ferryman Charon at Women of Trachis 715. In the same play, the inescapable arrows at 265–6 are attributed to Eurytus rather than to Heracles.

More often, the quite frequent tendency of the translation to shade over into paraphrase often introduces inaccuracies in mood or meaning. For example, in the place of Women of Trachis 200–1, S. invents the lines ‘I wasn't asking about the herald, you fool,/ but Heracles’ for Deianeira in her first interaction with the Messenger. The introduction of this line seems to be meant to pick up the point that the Messenger has just previously misunderstood her question, but the abusive ‘you fool’ is not at all in keeping with her characterisation. In the lines left untranslated, Deianeira thanks Zeus for the fortunate news of Heracles' return. Given Heracles' relationship to Zeus, and the final words of the play, these lines are thematically relevant to say the least, especially since they reference Oeta, which may be an allusion to the apotheosis. On an even more basic level for the modern reader, Sophocles' original characterisation has Deianeira fully focused on her joy at her husband's success, whereas S.'s has her unnecessarily carping on small errors made by a minor character.

Less obvious, but just as potentially misleading for a reader's understanding of the play, is an example such as when S. has Philoctetes respond to Heracles at the end of his play with ‘[y]ou have come to express what was in my soul’ for ὦ ϕλέγμα ποθεινὸν ἐμοὶ πέμψας. S.'s translation suggests that Philoctetes now has a sudden personal acceptance of the idea of his going back to Troy, despite all his previous protests, whereas the Greek simply shows the emotional impact of the fact that it is Heracles in particular who now makes the request (or order) that Philoctetes return to Troy. S.'s translation unnecessarily whitewashes the interpretative issue concerning why Philoctetes does in fact agree to go to Troy at Heracles' command when just previously Neoptolemus failed, in effect here rewriting Sophocles' play for him.

At other points nuances are missed. There is nothing in S.'s translation of Philoctetes 839–42 that picks up Sophocles' use of the metrical change to hexameters to suggest the authority and weight of the pronouncement that in fact it is the man, not just the bow, that the gods demand at Troy. At Ajax 367 S. gives the translation ‘What have I done? I suffer more than they do! (Laughs)’ for οἴμοι γέλωτος· οἵον ὑβρίσθην ἄρα, which misses key terminology and values: as the quintessential hero, Ajax of course cannot abide the insult of the verbal mockery of his enemies. Since laughter today can still be used to mock or belittle another, it is not clear why this laughter should be transferred to Ajax as a stage direction.

The translations are also at times inconsistent in their practices. The back cover's claim to be removing obscurities is contradicted by the odd decision to give the (inaccurate) transliteration ‘Xaire!’ at Ajax 91 (perhaps Ajax' use of a word that is meaningless to the modern reader is meant to reflect his agitated state of mind?). Similarly, S. usually keeps stage directions to a minimum, a generally sound decision given that we have none in the original, but at times he indulges in speculations on how the play should be presented, such as with the first appearance of Ajax:

This of course ignores the use of masks. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, individual directors will make such decisions as needed in individual productions, whereas this sort of insertion unnecessarily goes beyond translating the work. (I should admit that I dislike the characterisation involved in describing Ajax as bearing a ‘distracted smile’.)

Far from being a proponent for faithfulness to the original at all costs, I would happily accept, as some might not, that any liberties taken with the original can be justified so long as such decisions pay off, as it were, in the final results of the translation. Of course, at a certain point in such a continuum from the literal to the poetic, it will be more accurate to describe some interactions with the original as translations and others as versions. In the current case, the accessibility, readability and occasional flashes of poetry of S.'s translations are simply obtained at too high a cost: the final results of S.'s translations are not such to warrant the fact that they miss much of Sophocles himself.