In the dramatic monologues that make up The Fourth Dimension--especially those based on the grim history of Mycenae and its royal protagonists--the celebrated modern Greek poet Yannis Ritsos presents a timeless poetic paradigm of the condition of Greece, past and present. The volume also contains a group of modern narratives, including the famous, and much-anthologized, "Moonlight Sonata." Ritsos, rightly, regarded the The Fourth Dimension as his finest achievement. It is now presented to English- speaking readers for the first time in its entirety.</p>

From "Philoctetes"</p>

All the speeches of great men, about the dead and about heroes.<br/> Astonishing, awesome words, pursued us even in our sleep, <br/>slipping beneath closed doors, from the banqueting hall<br/>where glasses and voices sparkled, and the veil<br/>of an unseen dancer rippled silently<br/>like a diaphanous, whirling wall<br/>between life and death. This throbbing<br/>our childhood nights, lightening the shadows of shields<br/>etched on white walls by slow moonlight.</p>