The Trojan Women by Euripides

This play takes place outside the city of Troy which has just fallen due to the Trojan horse.  Poseidon appears at the beginning of the play and has a discussion with Athena.  Athena is requesting that although she has assisted Agamemnon and the Argives in defeating the Trojans, Poseidon will see to it that they suffer hardship while sailing home…yet another example of the fickleness of the Greek gods.  Following this agreement, they disappear for the rest of the play, and the focus is on the women of Troy, who have been taken captive by the Argives.

Hecuba, who was married to the now dead Priam and as such was queen of Troy, is bemoaning her fate.  Although she is old and gray, she along with the other women will be given as spoils of war to the Argive army.  Because she is elderly, she will become nothing more than a slave.  The younger women will become, against their wills, the wives of the conquerors.  Particularly grievous is the fact that Cassandra, who is a virgin prophetess and Hecuba’s daughter, will become the wife of Agamemnon himself.  Hecuba is distraught, but Cassandra is delighted, because she sees it as a way to bring about Agamemnon’s ruin, and so avenge the deaths of her father Priam, brother Hector, and the other Trojans.  (It will turn out that she is right about this.  Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra, kills him when he returns, in part, over the fact that he has taken Cassandra as his wife and intends to replace her.  See “Agamemnon” by Aeschylus)

Hecuba’s son Hector and his wife Andromache have a son named Astyanax who is a small child.  Talthybius arrives with the message that Andromache must surrender her child to be thrown off the wall of Troy.  The Argives are apparently afraid that if he lives to adulthood, he will avenge the deaths of his father, grandfather and other Trojans.  Both Hecuba and Andromache are in great grief over this, but realize they are powerless to stop it.

Menelaus enters and has a discussion with Hecuba about Helen.  Helen, wife of Menelaus, was the cause of the war, because she ran off with Paris, Hecuba’s son.  Whether Helen should live or die is discussed in detail with Helen pleading for her life.  Menelaus intends to take her back to Argos to be killed in front of those who have suffered the deprivation of so many years at war because of her.  Hecuba cautions that Menelaus should not travel on the same ship with Helen, because she fears Helen will again win his heart.

Talthybius returns with the dead body of Astyanax which is being carried on the shield of his father Hector.  He is prepared for burial on the shield.

The women, including Hecuba, are herded off to the ships as they see Troy being burned to the ground behind them.

Observations:

*Once again the Greek gods are fickle.  Poseidon even makes this accusation against Athena.  Why leap’st thou thus from mood to mood?  Thy love and hate both go too far, on whomsoever centred.

*Sometimes death brings more honor to a person than life would have.  As for Hector…he is dead and gone, but still his fame remains as bravest of the brave, and this was a result of the Achaeans’ coming; for had they remained at home, his worth would have gone unnoticed. ….whoso is wise should fly from making war, but if he be brought to this pass, a noble death will crown his city with glory…”

*Hecuba and Andromache discuss whether there is more hope in life or in death.

Hecuba:  Death and life are not the same, my child; the one is annihilation, the other keeps a place for hope.

Andromache:  ‘Tis all one, I say, ne’er to have been born and to be dead, and better far is death than life with misery.  For the dead feel no sorrow any more and know no grief…

*Hecuba makes an interesting prayer, indicating that she doesn’t know who the supreme power is.  O thou that dost support the earth and restest thereupon, whosoe’er thou art, a riddle past our ken! Be thou Zeus, or natural necessity, or man’s intellect, to thee I pray; for, though thou treadest o’er a noiseless path, all thy dealings with mankind are by justice guided.  This is a bit surprising considering the vacillating nature of the Greek gods’ dealings with men.  But, I suppose that she believed that justice was being done, even though she didn’t understand it.  This is, of course, what I believe about my God…that what seems like an injustice is lack of infinite understanding on my part.

*Apparently the cost and ritual involved in funerals was being discussed long ago.  …yet I deem it makes but little difference to the dead, although they get a gorgeous funeral; for this is but a cause of idle pride to the living.