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Trojan Women by Euripides was first produced in 415 BCE. Athens had just captured Melos. All the men of Melos the Athenians deemed capable of bearing arms were killed and all the women and children became slaves. It is probably no accident that Euripides wrote and produced Trojan Women when he did, a play in which all the women are enslaved and a young boy is murdered. The play was also the third in a trilogy. The first play was Alexandros, another name for Paris, the man who absconded with Helen to Troy and started the whole war. The second play was Palamedes. Agamemnon sent Palamedes to Ithaca to get Odysseus who had promised to defend the marriage of Helen and Menelaus. Odysseus apparently never forgave Palamedes for making him join the Trojan War and after the war he played a trick so Palamedes was accused of being a traitor and killed. A bit of misplaced anger there. But that is Odysseus for you who doesn’t come off very well in any Euripides play.
Every Greek tragedy begins with a monologue and in Trojan Women it belongs to Poseidon. Poseidon is sad about Troy’s destruction since it was he and Apollo who had built the city when Zeus made them serve King Laomedon for a year. He tells us that he is abandoning Troy because there is no one left to honor the gods. At the end of the play Hecuba resigns herself to sailing away from Troy when she calls upon the gods and then wonders why she even bothers since they don’t hear her. Poseidon also sets the scene for the play, Hecuba face down on the ground outside the tent where she and other important women of Troy are being held. She has no idea her youngest daughter Polyxena has beens sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles (but in the play Hecuba, it is all about Hecuba negotiating for Polyxena’s life, among other things).
But before we get to Hecuba and the Trojan women, in comes Athena wanting to broker a deal with Poseidon. Athena was on the side of Greece during the war and Poseidon has just been blaming her and Hera for the destruction of Troy. Athena is pissed because the Greeks have been performing atrocities, defiling temples and tombs, and they need to be punished for going too far. And so Poseidon agrees to make their various voyages home anything but smooth. In the play that follows we get a sense of the atrocities — Priam was murdered in a temple, Cassandra, a daughter of Hecuba and priestess of Apollo, was hauled out of the temple and raped, and Astyanax, the young son of Hector and Andromache, is thrown from the walls of Troy because Odysseus convinces the Greeks that the toddler might grow up to take up arms against them one day.
The women can do nothing but cry and wait their fate. They know they will be slaves but they do not yet know whose. The men are just then drawing lots for them. It turns out Hecuba now belongs to the hated Odysseus, Andromache will be made to go with Achilles’ son, and Cassandra belongs to Agamemnon.
Upon hearing the news of her fate, Cassandra has a marvelous long moment of frenzied prophecy, which, of course, no one believes. But while the other women think they have no hope, that they can do nothing, Cassandra in her prophetic madness, knows what will be in store for her and Agamemnon when they arrive home. One of the reasons Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon is because he brought home Cassandra. And so the prophetess likens herself to a Fury and can’t wait to set sail and exact revenge even though it means her death too. As she says goodbye to Hecuba she tells her,
Do not shed a tear. O my dear fatherland and my brothers beneath the ground and our father who begat us, it will not be long before you greet me. I shall come among the dead as a victor. I shall have laid waste the house of the sons of Atreus, the men who destroyed us.
Later in the play Menelaus shows up to claim Helen who has been in the tent with the Trojan Women. Menelaus wants to put her to death immediately but Helen argues persuasively in her favor in spite of Hecuba’s fierce and convincing arguments against her. Helen says the whole thing was not her fault, that the fault belongs to Paris. Hecuba insists otherwise. But Helen wins mostly I think because Menelaus still loves her and really, how dumb would it be to fight a war for ten years on the pretext of getting your wife back and then killing her.
There is a neat little detail in the middle of the play. Cassandra has just been taken away and Hecuba gives a long grief-filled speech before collapsing on the ground again. Chorus then comes in and begins to sing…
Sing, O Muse,
a new song about Ilium,
a funeral dirge accompanied by tears.
What a clever echo to the opening of Homer’s Iliad:
Sing, O Muse,
of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus,
that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.
Yes, it is traditional to open epic poems by calling on the Muse, but I can’t imagine Euripides wrote that song for the chorus not knowing that the words would resonate with Homer’s poem.
Trojan Women is actually a reread for me. I first read it back in 2007 before I embarked on reading through Greek tragedy. I liked it then, but I liked it even better this time around.
The next Euripides play I plan to read is Andromache which takes place several years later after she and Achilles’ son have had a child together.
You would set my eldest son, John, off on a soliloquy by mentioning Greek or Roman gods. He absolutely loved reading mythology when he was growing up and then the plays followed…and of course Homer. Every time we’d get a pet, it had to have the name of a god or goddess. Persephone was the last of the childhood cats that he named. (Persey for short). We also had a Poseidon who was a lovely Tetra and who became the object of affection for Persey…that’s a story unto itself. But, Stef, when I try to read the Greeks or ancient Romans I begin to suffer from extreme MEGO (my eyes glaze over). I wish it wasn’t so.
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Grad, does you son still read mythology and the plays and all that? They are very good and very exciting the plays are once you get into them and learn about cultural context, religious beliefs and all that. I do understand the MEGO thing though, the language is so heightened and it seems so foreign that it is sometimes difficult to overcome the distance but it is worth the effort!
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I’ve read that according to Greek law, it didn’t matter if Helen was willing to go with Paris or whether he dragged her off completely against her will. Menelaus was legally responsible for her, so it doesn’t make any difference whether we’d call it adultery or kidnapping.
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Jeanne, I do believe you are right on that, Helen would have been the property of Menelaus. But her life depended on whether she went willingly or not, whether she was stolen or ran away, and so the argument between Hecuba and Helen.
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Hecuba was the first part I played as a drama student. Quite a role for a nineteen year old to try and encompass. But, it made a massive impression on me and over forty years later I can still remember great chunks of it and have loved Greek Drama ever since. Thank you for bringing it back to me.
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Alex, what a part to begin your dramatic career with! Hecuba is such an interesting character and it is fascinating to see her as the lead in two different plays. Euripides keeps her character fairly consistent across the two plays but I like Hecuba in her namesake play better than in Trojan Women; her grief and desperation are so much more powerful there than in this play, so much more affecting.
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Over the course of a year and a half I have read the Greek myths. You point me in that direction again with this so very good review of Trojan Women, but where to start. Do you have a suggestion?
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Cath, Hmm, I bet you’d like Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound if you want a single play. His Orestia trilogy is fantastic starting with Agamemnon. The Orestia is a very important play cycle and a good foundation for Sophocles and Euripides because they both have plays about the same thing (makes for good compare and contrast) and they have plays, like Trojan Women, that refer to the events in that story. Let me know what you decide to read! 🙂
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This sounds good–it reminds me of when I was reading the Greek Myths-I remember that Athena tends to get pissed off a lot! (And cause all sorts of problems for others). Do you ever get to see any of the plays performed-I wonder if my library has any on DVD–we have lots of theatre performances–it would be fun to read and then watch! By the way there is an exhibit of Greek artefacts at a local museum (expect a card or two in the mail…) though I have not yet seen it–I was at the museum last week but didn’t pay to see the exhibit–will go back another day. Anyway it is called Poseidon and the Sea. I’ll tell you all about it when I do go!
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Danielle, heh, Athena does have a temper, doesn’t she? I’ve only ever seen Medea performed in person and I haven’t even gotten around to reading that play yet! I keep thinking I should watch some of them since I have seen several available on Netflix, but I’ve not managed to do it. Bookman isn’t interested in watching them and when I am alone and have a choice between watching something or reading something, I always choose reading! I bet the Poseidon exhibit will be really interesting! Enjoy!
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