I have tried to bring out the richness and complexity of the ethical fabric of Sophocles' plays. Moral issues are not merely motifs, but inform the dramatic structure, and are developed with care and subtlety on the linguistic level. A multiplicity of ethical standpoints is presented in such a way that their implications and practical results are dramatised through choice and argument. Although our sympathies are used to guide us towards approval of some characters and condemnation of others, there is no simple correlation between sympathy and approval. While it may be true that an obviously unpleasant character tends to express sentiments contrary to conventional Athenian values, these plays are not melodramas in which only the virtuous command our sympathy and the villains our distaste. The tragic force of a character such as Polyneices in Oedipus at Colonus is generated precisely by our complex response of pity and disapproval.