That the works of the ancient tragedians still have an immediate and profound appeal surely needs no demonstration, yet the modern reader continually stumbles across concepts which are difficult to interpret or relate to ¿ moral pollution, the authority of oracles, classical ideas of geography ¿ as well as the names of unfamiliar legendary and mythological figures. A New Companion to Greek Tragedy provides a useful reference tool for the `Greekless¿ reader, arranged on a strictly encyclopaedic pattern, whilst the essay by P. E. Easterling traces some connections between the ideas found in the tragedians and earlier Greek thought.