With this publication, the Cambridge ‘Green and Yellows’ come full circle: the first title to appear in the series was T.B.L. Webster's Philoctetes in 1970, and this is the first text to receive a second treatment. In its almost exclusive focus on textual and metrical matters, Webster's volume is no longer – indeed, perhaps never was – appropriate for students or other readers wishing to gain a fuller understanding of the play's literary qualities, while the other widely available English-language commentary, R.G. Ussher's Aris & Phillips edition (1990), provides only sparse notes and meagre help with the Greek. By contrast, S.'s book does what we have come to expect from the best of this series by combining expert elucidation of Sophocles' language, a sensitive engagement with the play as drama and literature, and an understanding of the needs of the students, teachers and scholars who will form its readership.

S. begins his introductory material with a general overview of the representation of Philoctetes in ancient mythology, literature (including the lost Philoctetes tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides) and art, followed by extremely clear and concise discussion of the play's historical context, setting, staging, intertextual relationships (with the Iliad, Odyssey and Euripides' Cyclops) and characters. The next section, on Sophoclean language, signposts a number of stylistic features that will play a prominent role in S.'s commentary, in particular enjambment, the use of particles and word positioning; this is followed by a short section on the metres found in Philoctetes. The latter assumes knowledge of scansion, and a student coming to read Greek tragedy for the first time may prefer to start with D.J. Mastronarde's introduction to language and metre in his 2002 ‘Green and Yellow’ Medea. Next comes a substantial – 16 out of 59 pages – section on reception: after briefly discussing the myth of Philoctetes in the Hellenistic period and at Rome, S. jumps ahead to trace the reworkings of Sophocles' play from the early modern period through to the present day, offering a tantalising glimpse of its rich afterlife and continuing resonance. The introduction concludes with a very brief account of the play's textual transmission.

As is the practice of this series, the Greek text is presented with a pared-down and much-simplified apparatus criticus, mainly relying on sigla denoting readings provided by ‘all or most MSS’ or ‘a minority of MSS’ (the latter indicating anything from several MSS to a single marginal variant). The book's main bulk is formed by the 235 pages of extremely detailed but accessible commentary, in which S. guides his reader through the intricate and extraordinary language of Philoctetes. These notes range from basic information, such as the parsing of tricky forms and expansion of all examples of crasis, to more complex material, including full metrical analyses of the lyric passages and evaluation of variant readings. Syntax is exhaustively but patiently explained, and pertinent parallels are adduced from other passages of Sophocles, tragedy, Homer, or classical literature more widely (with a scattering of Shakespeare thrown in as well – after all, S. was, until his recent retirement, a Professor of Comparative Literature). A large proportion of lines are also translated. Often S. will explain how certain words must be ‘felt’ with each other, and his nuanced ‘feeling’ for Sophocles' Greek is evident on every page. This is particularly the case when he turns to the play's unusual linguistic and metrical features. We encounter, for example, a three-word trimeter, four occurrences of middle caesura, thirty uses of antilabê, employment of colloquialism, hapax legomena and numerous instances of striking, rare or even unique syntax. Yet S. does not allow his observation of such phenomena to stand in isolation, but shows how they create the play's meaning: for example, the middle caesura at Ph. 101 (Odysseus' injunction to capture Philoctetes through trickery) throws added emphasis onto the thematically crucial word δόλωι. On ordinary language too, S. offers insightful analysis, noting for example that when Philoctetes frequently refers to himself as μόνος or ἔρημος, in all but two instances he does so in the accusative case, since ‘[a]s he sees it, he has been transformed from a subject into an object by his abandonment’ (p. 203). It is evident that S. is guided throughout by the principle, articulated in his introduction, that Sophoclean tragic language ‘is constantly and insistently dramatic, in that every word and phrase contributes to the development not only of an individual line or speech, but of the action, characterization, themes, and ideas of a particular play’ (p. 35). The result is a generous, immersive reading of the text.

When it comes to matters over which there is critical debate, S. is balanced and sensible, refraining from any scholarly polemic. Just occasionally, one might wish for a bolder or more argumentative stance: for example, rather than merely concluding that the stasimon (Ph. 676–729) is ‘problematic’ (p. 228), his discussion could have engaged more fully with the implications of the chorus – apparently out of earshot of Philoctetes – maintaining their pretence that the wounded hero will be conveyed home. However, S. is certainly right to stress repeatedly that the whole tragedy is characterised by ‘pervasive uncertainty and ambiguity concerning its mythological background and its characters’ motivations and intentions' (p. 280). Hence, he often leaves the reader to form their own opinions on the presence (or lack) of secure knowledge within the world of the play, such as the exact content of Helenus' prophecy concerning the destruction of Troy, and to what extent it might be accurately represented by the succession of characters who claim knowledge of its details in order to serve their own ends.

Inevitably this edition will be read alongside that of H. Lloyd-Jones and N.G. Wilson (Oxford 1990, 1992²), the standard text of Sophocles, yet S. seems to go out of his way to avoid any explicit reference to this, or indeed any other, edition. For example, he keeps six lines or short passages which are athetised in the Oxford text (Ph. 385–8, 504–6, 794, 1034, 1218–21, 1407–8 σῆς … αὐδᾶις). The commentary provides arguments in justification of the retention of half of these, but the other three are passed over in silence, including in the apparatus (on Ph. 504–6 we find only the statement that the lines are ‘apt and in character’ [p. 207], without any indication that they have been suspected). It would have been useful to include at least a brief note indicating why other editors have found these lines objectionable, and why S. does not. Similarly, there is a frustrating vagueness when S. frequently refers to theories proposed by ‘some’ scholars, mentions readings or deletions accepted by ‘some’, ‘many’ or ‘most’ recent editors, or cites conjectures without naming their authors. Precise details of who has printed or suggested what would have been more helpful, and still appropriate in a work intended for use by students. While it is not the job of any commentary – especially in this particular series – to treat every issue of interpretation and staging that has ever been raised, S. is none the less somewhat restrained in his incorporation of secondary bibliography, often preferring to list bare references at the end of notes rather than engage with individual scholars' approaches directly.

S.'s Philoctetes is an outstanding resource for anyone studying or teaching this text at undergraduate or graduate level, but it will find an audience beyond this and should become a standard point of reference for professional scholars interested in this tragedy. Readers of all levels will discover not just clear and thorough guidance on almost every word of the play, but also, and more importantly, a rich sense of exactly why such close, nuanced and thoughtful engagement with Sophocles' Greek is part and parcel of the work of his literary interpretation.