Translator’s Note:

Perhaps it is disingenuous of me to call this a “translation,” at least in the classical sense, since that implies a mastery of the language. I am as fluent in Greek as I am in Chinese, which is to say, not at all. Still, why let that be a handicap to interpreting one of the most amazing dramas ever written in the Western world? I will leave why I am trying to do this to another post. Time is running out so I will simply say that here is the prologue and first act of a play that was written in 415 BC but feels as new and relevant as if it were written today. The rest of the play will be posted sooner rather than later.

If I am indebted to any translators, it is the work of Stephen Mitchell, who, in his introduction to his Epic of Gilgamesh, stated clearly that his aim had never been to actually translate anything; rather, he re-interpreted already existing texts to come up with a synthesis of the best of all worlds; which, in turn, created a brand new text. As for full disclosure, I worked off four translations of the Trojan Women; Gilbert Murray (1915); David Green and Richmond Lattimore (1956); Jean-Paul Sartre (1967); and finally Brendan Kennelly (2006). I am certainly not trying to claim my work is in anyway superior to those that inspired me to begin this undertaking (ah, hubris); rather, this version pleases me when I read it and I hope it pleases you too. Either way, cheers!

* * *

PROLOGUE:

JUST BEFORE SUNRISE BEFORE THE VANQUISHED WALLS OF THE CITY OF TROY. STARS GLEAM OVERHEAD. HALF A DOZEN HASTILY IMPROVISED HUTS CAN BE SEEN. BEHIND THE WALLS SMOKE RISES; THE OCCASIONAL GLEAM OF FIRE. AROUND THE STAGE ARE SCATTERED THE RUINS OF TROY. SPORADIC SOUNDS OF DESTRUCTION (BUILDINGS CRASHING, HUMAN SCREAMS, ETC) CAN BE HEARD OFF IN THE DISTANCE. A SMALL, BLOOD SPATTERED ALTAR LIES OFF TO THE RIGHT. FOR A FEW MOMENTS SHADOWS RUN IN FRONT OF THE WALLS THEN VANISH.

IN FRONT OF THE HUTS LIES A WOMAN SLEEPING ON THE GROUND. THIS IS HECUBA ^[1]

IN THE DAWN LIGHT STANDS POSEIDON — MASSIVE, BROODING, DARK — AT CENTER STAGE.

POSEIDON: ^[2]
Hear me. I am the terrible Poseidon. I have left my beautiful daughters, my Neiredies, ^[3] who dance and swirl under the waves to come here. I have left my beloved deep salty Aegean to come here. (PAUSES) To this city. (PAUSES) To my Troy. I have come here because I built this city with the help of Phoebus Apollo ^[4] (PAUSES) Because my love for the Trojan people has never died so Apollo and I built all these towers and walls. We made them stalwart and strong. (PAUSES) But not strong enough. Look at her now! The Greeks have destroyed her. They set fire to her. They scorched her! Looted her! Raped her! Look at the smoke that gags the air! All because Palas Athena ^[5] advised Epeius, ^[6] an architect from Parnassos, to build a massive wooden horse. They hid armed men inside. Now all the sacred groves of the city are burning. Every altar is now drenched in the faithful’s blood. Priam ^[7] was murdered at the very steps of Zeus’ altar; his throat slashed inside his own palace. The Greeks took mountains of plundered; all the spoils of war have been loaded onto their ships. They’re waiting now down in the harbor for a favorable wind to sail them back home. They are rapists whose hearts beat strong that they’ll soon see their wives and children once more. Their war has lasted ten years now. (PAUSES) I hate them for that. As for me, Argos’ Hera ^[8] and Athens’ Athena have turned against me. They have beaten me. Now I must leave my glorious city. I must leave all of my temples. These two goddesses have conspired to destroy Troy; destroy her people. When a city suffers so do her gods. The river Scamandros ^[9] echoes with the sounds of captive women wailing. Fate will tell them whose slave they are going to end up being. Among them is Helen, ^[10] child of Tyndareus. ^[11] That one, (INDICATING HECUBA) is the queen of this city. Hecuba! Curled up by her city’s gates, dreaming tears of blood. Her grief is great. Her daughter, Polyxene. ^[12] was gruesomely slaughtered, sacrificed upon Achilles’ grave. ^[13] Bled like a sacrificial animal. Hecuba’s husband, the king of Troy, Priam, as well as all her sons are slaughtered, too. Her other daughter, Cassandra, ^[14] whom Apollo had made a virgin prophet, she was taken by the arrogant king of the Greeks, Agamemnon, ^[15] to indulge in all his more villainous of vices. Ah, my Troy! I bid you farewell. Once upon a time you were glorious. You would still be … if Zeus’ daughter, Athena, had not destroyed you.

HE TURNS TO EXIT AS ATHENA ENTERS.

ATHENA:
Poseidon! You are a great god, honored among all the others; you are the closest relative I have. Can we forget our old grudge? I wish to talk to you.

POSEIDON:
Of course we can, Athena.

ATHENA:
I praise your calm temperament, my Lord Poseidon; I bring to you words that are of equal concern to us both.

POSEIDON:
You have news from Zeus, perhaps?

ATHENA:
No. I need to talk about Troy. I have come to ask for your assistance.

POSEIDON:
Ha! Are you feeling remorse now, Athena? Behold the result of all your hatred: smoke and ruins. Are you feeling sorry for all you’ve done?

ATHENA: (PAUSES BEFORE ANSWERING)
Lord Poseidon, will you help me?

POSEIDON:
Who is it that you want to help? The Greeks? The Trojans?

ATHENA:
I want to bring joy to the Trojans.

POSEIDON:
What?

ATHENA:
Yes, yes, I hated them for such a long time. (PAUSES) I want to make the return of the conquering Greeks a dishonorable homecoming.

POSEIDON:
How can you do that, Athena?

ATHENA:
What do you mean?

POSEIDON:
How can you just jump from love to hate just like that?

ATHENA:
Simple. Look how the Greeks have treated my temples! Utter disrespect!

POSEIDON:
Yes. Ajax ^[16] raped the virgin priestess Cassandra.

ATHENA:
He raped her and not a word of reproach was heard from the rest of the Greeks!

POSEIDON:
But it was you who have helped the Greeks destroy the Trojans. If they raped the city’s women they did it because they were protected by you, Athena!

ATHENA:
Regardless, it is the Greeks I want you to help me punish!

POSEIDON: (DEADPAN)
Really?

ATHENA:
I want them to suffer on their journey home. Once they leave Troy I want them to freeze with ice and hail. I want all the tempests of the sea to fall upon them. I want lightning to set their ship all on fire. I want you to stir the Aegean waters into typhoons. I want you to fill the Euboean gulf ^[17] with their floating dead. I want all who cannot honor sacred temples to die!

POSEIDON:
That is simple enough to do. I shall make the Aegean Sea their tomb. Now I shall ask of you, Athena, to go up to Mount Olympus ^[18] and get the lightning from Zeus that will aid us in the Greek’s destruction.

EXIT ATHENA. POSEIDON TAKES ONE LAST LOOK AT THE CITY.

POSEIDON: (SIGHS)
Even the Greeks know that anyone who sacks a city and destroys its temples and the sacred homes of the gods is a dead man because he has seen to it that his own destruction will quickly follow. Still, they did it. They did it.

EXIT POSEIDON.

* * *

ACT I

A SHORT PAUSE DURING WHICH DAYBREAK ARRIVES. THE SLEEPING FIGURE OF HECUBA MOVES.

HECUBA:
Can I lift my head from the ground? Can I stretch out my neck? (SHE SEES THE SMOKE RISING BEHIND THE WALLS) Ah! Ah! Troy burns! I am no longer her Queen, Hecuba! Ah! The grief! How can I not groan with pain when I have lost everything? My country, my children, my husband! Now they are nothing. How heavy is my Fate! (TRIES TO GET UP) Ah, my back! Lying on this hard earth my limbs are aching. Ah, my ribs! (FINALLY MANAGES TO GET UP) Infinite tears, infinite groans, infinite grief! A lullaby for the damned! (WALKS ABOUT, LOOKING INTO THE DISTANCE) This greatest of all Greek gifts, a gift for the sacred city of Troy. Ah, I still hear it! The drums and flutes of the victors. What for? What was it for? To take back that abominable wife of Menelaos! ^[19] That woman who slaughtered Priam, the father of fifty sons! That woman who cast wretchedness upon my family! Me, Hecuba! Here I am, sitting by Agamemnon’s huts! A slave! My hair cut short in grief, I am now an old woman, part of the conquerors’ plunder. (TURNS TOWARDS THE TWO SMALLER HUTS, CALLING OUT) Come out, women of Troy! Come out! Weep with me! Come, wives of Trojan soldiers! Come out you poor women of Troy!

THE CHORUS ^[20] SLOWLY BEGINS TO ENTER FROM VARIOUS OF THE HUTS.

HECUBA:
Come! Let us all wail at the sad Fate of our Troy. Look at her! She’s choking in smoke; ashes. Let me begin the dirge. This is no song ever sung when Priam reigned. When our proud women sang praises of our city’s gods.

THE CHORUS:
Hecuba, what is it? What are you saying?

THE CHORUS:
Why are you crying?

HECUBA:
The Greeks are at their ships right now, daughter!

THE CHORUS:
What? Why? What do they want?

THE CHORUS:
Will they take us away from our home?

HECUBA:
I don’t know, daughters, but I sense the worst! (PAUSES) Wait, please, don’t! Don’t bring out my daughter, Cassandra! Don’t bring my daughter out here! She will be seized by one of her wild seizures; she will embarrass us in front of all the Greeks. Don’t bring Cassandra out! Add no more shame to my calamity. Poor, unfortunate daughters! You are lost!

THE CHORUS:
I’m trembling with fear!

THE CHORUS:
We heard your crying from inside Agamemnon’s huts, Hecuba. Tell us, have the Greeks decided to kill us?

HECUBA:
Daughter, I was out here at the crack of dawn, mad with fear.

THE CHORUS:
Have the Greeks sent a herald for us? Whose slave will I be?

HECUBA:
Your lot will be drawn any minute now.

THE CHORUS:
Will it be a soldier from Argos, or from Phthia ^[21] or from some other island country?

THE CHORUS:
Who’ll me my master, I wonder?

THE CHORUS:
I am sick with fear.

HECUBA:
Miserable soul! Useless at death’s door! A ghost in the underworld! Who will be my master? What will I be doing? Will I be a nurse for some master’s children? I, Hecuba, the honored queen of Troy!

THE CHORUS:
What lament would do justice to your pain, Hecuba?

THE CHORUS:
Or to mine?

THE CHORUS:
Look! There! This is the last time I can look upon the corpses of my sons!

THE CHORUS:
Worse! Worse still will come!

THE CHORUS:
Dragged to the bed of a Greek!

THE CHORUS:
A curse upon such a night!

THE CHORUS:
Or else to carry water like a miserable slave, from the sacred springs of Peirene! ^[22]

THE CHORUS:
Ah, Gods, at least take me to that blessed; welcoming land of Theseus! ^[23]

THE CHORUS:
But never, Gods, never make me a slave to that murderous Helen; to Menelaos, the destroyer of Troy!

THE CHORUS:
Never take me to their hateful home by the waters of the river Eurotas. ^[24]

THE CHORUS:
I’ve been told about a land nearby that one, at the foot of Mount Olympus.

THE CHORUS:
Hephaistus’ fiery land, Aetna. ^[24]

THE CHORUS:
Heralds have spread news around the world of how they crown their victorious athletes with glory.

THE CHORUS:
And raise splendid men!

THE CHORUS: (NOTICES TALTHYBIUS ^[25] APPROACHING)
Ah, look! I can see a herald, hurrying here from the Greek camp.

THE CHORUS:
I wonder what message he’ll be delivering to us.

THE CHORUS:
He’ll tell us that we are now the slaves of the Greeks!

ENTER TALTHYBIUS WITH TWO GUARDS.

TALTHYBIUS:
Hecuba, I’ve made many trips to Troy to deliver messages to you from the Greeks, so you know me. That’s why I came in person to deliver to you this new message.

HECUBA:
Ah! It is here, daughters, it is here! The fearful news we’ve been expecting all this time is here!

TALTHYBIUS:
The news is that the lots have now been completed. You have all been assigned Greek masters. Was that what you were afraid of?

HECUBA:
Oh! What city then are we off to?

TALTHYBIUS:
You’re all each given to a different man.

HECUBA:
Then who is allotted to whom? Which among us are the lucky ones? Tell me, then, Talthybius, who has drawn my unfortunate daughter, Cassandra?

TALTHYBIUS:
She was Agamemnon’s special prize.

HECUBA:
So she will be the Spartan’s wife? Oh, what misery!

TALTHYBIUS:
No, not a wife, more of a concubine.

HECUBA:
Is this true? Cassandra? The high priestess of golden haired Apollo? Throw away the sacred keys to the shrine, daughter; take down the holy garlands that adorn your head!

TALTHYBIUS:
What are you saying, woman? She is blessed to have won the king’s bed?

HECUBA:
The other one? The last daughter you took from me? What has become of her?

TALTHYBIUS:
Who do you mean, Polyxene or some other one?

HECUBA:
Yes, Polyxene, that one.

TALTHYBIUS:
She is to serve Achilles’ tomb.

HECUBA:
My daughter? To serve a tomb? Is this a Greek custom or some sort of law?

TALTHYBIUS: (AVOIDING DIRECTLY ANSWERING HER)
Just be happy for your daughter. Her fate is good. That’s all you need to know.

HECUBA:
“Her fate is good?” What do you mean by that? Is she still alive?

TALTHYBIUS: (QUICKLY)
She’s in the hands of Fate, so she is released from pain. Anyway–

HECUBA:
But what of the wife of Hector? ^[27] What will happen to Andromache? What is her fate?

TALTHYBIUS:
Achilles’ son took her as his prize.

HECUBA:
What will become of me? I am an old woman who needs a stick to help me walk. Whose slave will I be?

TALTHYBIUS:
You’ll be serving Odysseus. ^[28]

HECUBA:
Ah, poor Hecuba! Beat you’re your shaved head, Hecuba! Tear at your flesh with your nails, Hecuba! You must now be the slave of that loathsome toad of a man! The enemy of the just! An unlawful, toxic snake! He is the man turns love into hate. He turns everything upside down! Come, my Trojan Women! Mourn my loss for now I am destroyed. Now I am lost! Ah, poor Hecuba! You have drawn the most unfortunate lot!

THE CHORUS:
You know your fate, Hecuba, but what about mine?

THE CHORUS:
Yes! Who’s got my hand? An Achaian? ^[29]

THE CHORUS:
A Greek?

TALTHYBIUS:
Come, come, women! It’s time for you to bring out Cassandra! Hurry! I must take her to her lord and master before I take the rest of you.

(A TORCH IS LIT INSIDE ONE OF THE HUTS WHICH ATTRACTS TALTHYBIUS’ ATTENTION)

TALTHYBIUS:
Eh? What? What’s this? Firelight? A torch? Are the slaves setting fire to their homes because they’ll be taken to Greece or are they setting fire to themselves? Hi! Open the door! I’d hate to be blamed for anything that befell the Greek’s property!

CASSANDRA EMERGES FROM HER HUT CARRYING A LIT TORCH IN EITHER HAND. SHE WEARS SACRED RIBBONS ON HER HEAD AND IS IN A STATE OF DELIRIUM, RUNNING THIS WAY.

HECUBA: (SIGHING)
No, no Talthybius! no one is setting fire to anything. It’s only my daughter, my Cassandra, rushing about. She is possessed by madness.

CASSANDRA:
Ai, Hymenaeus! ^[30](HANDS A TORCH TO THE CHORUS) Here, lift the flame up high! Come with me, sisters. (SHE WALKS TOWARDS THE SMALL, BLOOD STAINED ALTAR) Here, bring the light here.

THE CHORUS PLACES THE TORCH INTO THE ALTAR’S TORCH HOLDER.

CASSANDRA: (STANDING IN FRONT OF THE ALTAR, PRAYS)
God of the wedding bed, Lord Hymenaeus, I bring you light with the fire of the torch! I bring light to this holy temple! Blessed is the bridegroom. Blessed am I. You have given me a king’s bed. Blessed is the bride! (TURNS TO HECUBA) Stop, mother, why are you crying? Why lament the loss of my dead father? Why wait over our destroyed city? See? See? I have lit torches to give you light. I bring you bright light! Come, mother! (TO THE CHORUS) You, too, women of Troy! Carry the wedding torch to my bed. It was once a bed of a virgin. Come, dear friends, dance the sacred dances! Dance as you once did back in our city’s brightest days! Ah, what a heavenly dance that was! Come Lord Apollo! Your priestess is getting married! Your laurel covered virgin will be a virgin no more. Hymenaeus, Lord of Marriage! Hear me! Come, mother! Come join our dance! Bring the torches! Whirl them round like this! Come, dance with me. Join my wedding dance! Come, daughters of Troy! Women with the splendid robes! Daughters of bronze and the sun! Sing the happy songs of Hymenaeus! Come, sing about the man whom the gods delivered to my bed! Sing about my husband!

THE CHORUS: (NERVOUSLY TO HECUBA)
My queen, control your frenzied daughter! Yes, before she gets us all raped by the Greek soldiers.

HECUBA: (IMPLORING)
Gods! Gods who holds the torches at the weddings do not come here. Here, this wedding torch is a joke! A jest! Words of a mad girl! My poor child, Cassandra! It was never my wish to see you married, at the point of a Greek sword! Give me the torch, child. See? You’re not holding it straight. This madness won’t let you rest. (SHE PULLS THE TORCH FROM CASSANDRA’S UNWILLING HAND) Child, your mind is disturbed. (TO THE CHORUS) Come, daughters, take the torches inside.

CASSANDRA:
Mother, stop! Wrap my head with wreaths of victory. Dress me up as a bride. Mother, be happy for me, be happy for my royal wedding night! Come, send me off to the bridegroom. (AND WITH A SUDDEN MENACING CHANGE) Yes, mother, drag me to my husband by force if need be! If need be and need I certainly have; for I swear, by my high Lord Apollo, that my marriage to dear Agamemnon, to that glorious of all conquerors, will end in blood! I will kill him, mother! I will destroy his city, mother. I will avenge the murders of my father and all my brothers! I will be the destruction of the house of Atreus. These Greeks have killed thousands of our people! Why? Because of one woman; because of her unbridled lust! Because they wanted Helen back! Agamemnon, in his efforts to destroy what he hated, he destroyed what he loved! He killed his own daughter, mother! He sacrificed his Iphigeneia, ^[31] all for this war! All for the sake of one woman, a woman who had left her husband, not because she was forced to but because she wanted to. So they came here, camped by the banks of our river, our Scamander, and began dying. Yes! Ares ^[32] saw to that. The god of war made them dress for the underworld each morning with the sun. This is the honor the Greeks have won! To die as aliens, on alien land, for a cause none of them wanted. You speak of Hector? You might all think his fate was bitter but no! He died with the reputation of being brave, a reputation that he owes to the Greeks because had they not turned up, no one would have known about his bravery. Paris! ^[33] Paris took Zeus’ very own daughter for his wife! Had he not done that who would have heard about him? But of course! Mother, don’t feel sorry for our city; for my marriage. Through my marriage I shall destroy all those who have done us wrong.

THE CHORUS:
Ai! How you laugh in the face of misfortune, Cassandra!

THE CHORUS:
In the face of a misfortune that will destroy us all!

THE CHORUS:
You prophesy things that cannot happen!

TALTHYBIUS:
Damn, woman! Had not Apollo driven you mad I’d have you punished for sending my lords off on their journey home with such ominous prophesies! Still, our great Agamemnon has chosen you above all the other Trojan women! Why? I don’t know. Let the winds carry your curses where they may! But now, pretty bride, follow me to the ships. My Lord’s bed awaits. You, too, Hecuba. When Odysseus calls for you, you best follow.

CASSANDRA:
Ha! What a great servant you are! “Heralds” are men that hover in the background. Criers of death, I say. The whole world hates them! Poor Odysseus! He has no idea what’s in store for him. The suffering he’ll go through will make mine look like fool’s gold! After the ten years he has spent here, he will spent another ten years before he sees his shores. I tell you, he will arrive there alone. Call it a welcome full of tears. (TO TALTHYBIUS) Come! Hurry up, then! Take me to Agamemnon as quickly as possible! I shall marry my husband in Hell! Lord of the Greeks? How glorious your pain! But your burial will be the burial of evil men, dear husband! Evil, since you are evil. A grave dug at night by cowards and dogs. (PAUSES) What of me? What of Lord Apollo’s oracle? I shall be a corpse, tossed about by the waves as they thrash violently over my husband’s grave. I shall be a naked corpse for the wild beasts to feed on. (SHE TAKES OFF HER SACRED RIBBONS) And you, my ribbons? Ribbons that I wore for the gods loved them the most, what of you? (SHE TOSSES THEM IN THE AIR) Goodbye! I’m finished with the gods, with all the rites and ceremonies I once loved so much! Fly, my darling ribbons! Leave me! I tremble at the thought of giving you up. (TURNING TO TALTHYBIUS) So, where’s your mighty general’s ship? Come, come, crier of death! Tell the captains not to waste any time searching for a favorable wind to set their sails! There will be nothing favorable for the Greeks save Cassandra, now one of the three Spirits of Vengeance! ^[34] (TO HECUBA) Goodbye, mother! Goodbye, dear Troy! Land of my dead brothers. Land of my dead father. All of you now are shadows beneath the ground. Soon you will receive your daughters, too. Prepare the dances to honor a victorious Trojan woman for I will have destroyed all those who have destroyed us. I am the ruin of the house of Atridae!

EXIT CASSANDRA, TALTHYBIUS AND HIS MEN. WITH A CRT HECUBA COLLAPSES TO THE GROUND.

NOTES

This is the first time I’ve attempted to use endnotes and their complex codes in a post. I see that while clicking on a link gets you to the bottom of the page you don’t always end up where I was hoping you’d go. I beg your patience while I work on fixing this, I am a novice with computers and HTML code still baffles me.

[1] Hecuba (Hekabe) main protagonist of the play; married to Priam, the dead king of Troy. She is said to have had between 20 to 50 children (sources vary). When she gave birth to Paris, though, she dreamed that “she gave birth to a firebrand that set the whole city on fire” (Bell, 220). Apollo’s oracle determined that it would be her son that would bring ruin to Troy.return

[2] The King of the Sea, the god of horses, rivers and earthquakes, Poseidon was one of the great Olympian gods who received the sea when the cosmos was divided amongst the sons of Cronus. In the play he is the patron of Troy, stating that he and Apollo helped to build the city.return

[3] Nereids (Neiredies, meaning “The Wet Ones”) were fifty ocean goddesses, generally thought to personify different types of waves at sea. Patrons of sailors and fishermen, they were called upon in times of tempests and troubles, as Sappho does in Fragment 5: “Cypris [Aphrodite] and Nereides, grant that my brother arrive here [from over the sea] unharmed.” (Campbell, 34) return

[4] If Dionysus represented the lunar, dark forces of the psyche, then Apollo (Apollon) was his solar opposite, being the god of light and prophecy, healing, music, song and poetry. Depicted as a handsome, beardless youth with long golden hair, his symbols were the laurel, the raven and the lyre. return

[5] Said to have sprung fully formed from the forehead of her father, Zeus, Athena (Athene) was the patron of the city of Athens; a great Olympian goddess of sage counsel, war and pottery. She was depicted in popular myth as crowned with a crested helm of horse’s hair, armed with spear and shield bearing the Gorgon’s head. With Hera and Aphrodite, she was one of the three goddesses who competed for the prize of the golden apple. During the Trojan War she sided with the Greeks, but destroyed their ships with tempests when they failed to punish Ajax for violating Cassandra and her shrines. (Evelyn-White, Homeric Hymn 11)return

[6] According to Virgil’s Aeneid (vol. II, 264) Epeius was the man responsible for building the Wooden Horse that led to Troy’s downfall.return

[7] The dead king of Troy, he unsuccessfully defended his city, at the end of which Troy was sacked a second time (the first being done by Hercules) and finally destroyed. Not mentioned in the play, in The Iliad, Priam “courageously entered the Greek camp by night and pleaded with Achilles to return Hector’s body for burial” (Bell, 222). Priam was killed by Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus, “upon an altar of Zeus in the center of Troy” (ibid.) return

[8] Queen of the gods, goddess of heaven, ruler of women and marriage, Hera was one of the the twelve great Olympians who ruled the cosmos. Married to Zeus she grudgingly put up with his innumerable adulteries.return

[9] The river Scamandros (Skamandros) runs through Mysia, Anatolia (what is now modern Turkey). Its headwaters were in the foothills of Mount Ida, with its mouth near the entrance to the Hellespont. Several of its tributaries were “personified as river gods, such as the Simoeis, Heptaporos and Kebren” (Kirk, 10, 19, 21). return

[10] It was Christopher Marlowe who described Helen as having a “face that launched a thousand ships;” imploring “Sweet Helen” to make him “immortal with a kiss.” There has been a lot of ink and bad feelings spilled over the centuries regarding the kidnapped daughter of Leda. Semi-divine (though apparently not in any way that actually helped her get out of any of the predicaments she kept finding herself in) Theseus kidnapped and raped her when she was still a child because he wanted, the myth goes, “to make love to a daughter of Zeus” (Bell, 224). Later, after Theseus became bored with her, her brothers Polydeuces and Castor rescued her. In a similar story, Paris, the judge for the beauty contest between three goddesses, was given Helen, “the most beautiful woman in the world,” as a prize for picking Aphrodite. (Tripp, 264) return

[11] A Spartan king. return

[12] Polyxene, Hecuba’s youngest daughter, was sacrificed by the Greeks to signify the end of their war. Achilles, much like in the story of Iphigeneia, was apparently so enamored with the young princess (for reasons that are never made clear), that he told his enemy, Priam, that he would try to form a peace between Troy and Greece in return for Polyxena. As the story of Troy attests, this didn’t come to pass, though several authors have attempted to turn the story of Polyxene and Achilles into a steamy love tale, though as Robert Bell points out, however, that every female ever mentioned in context with Achilles (Helen, Iphigenia, Medea, and Deidamia), have, at one time or another, been declared as the Greek hero’s “greatest love” (Bell, 378). Regardless, Polyxene is killed by the Greeks before the play starts. In a different version of the story, Seneca, the master of Stoic philosophy, describes Polyxena’s tragic end thusly: “her blood having been shed, she was allowed no time to stand nor nor her blood to flow on the surface of the earth; the savage mound [Achilles’ grave] immediately swallowed and drank all of her to her bones” (Bunson, 112).return

[13] Having absolutely nothing to do with the play, I’ve always liked Hubert Robert’s (1733-1808) painting, “Alexander the Great at Achilles’ grave.” return

[14] Perhaps she is best remembered today as the prophetess who wasn’t believed. When she was a young girl, Cassandra spent the night at the temple of Thymbraean Apollo with her twin brother, Helenus (Bell, 109). According to Bell, “when their parents looked in on them the next morning, the children were entwined with serpents, which flicked their tongues into the children’s ears. This enabled Cassandra and Helenus to divine the future.” Ironically (or perhaps confusingly) though her loyalties as Apollo’s oracle are clear in the play, it was the god himself who cursed her when, refusing his attempt to “force himself upon her virginity,” (ibid.) vowed that that no one would believe her prophecies, although they would be true. As Ovid mentions in Amores I.9, after the fall of Troy, Cassandra sought shelter at the temple of Athena and she clung to Athena’s statue until Ajax discovered and raped her.return

[15] As with all the Greeks in Trojan Women, Agamemnon retains no praiseworthy qualities as Homer depicted him in his poetry. In a different Eurpides play, Iphigenia at Aulis, Agamemnon is shown as a coward, subject to the will of the Greek army and fearful of his own men. He is guided not by his own wisdom, but by the treacherous oracle, Calchas, and his fear of the gods.return

[16] Of all the crimes Athena allows to happen in her name, it seems to be Ajax’s rape of Cassandra that causes the goddess to turn on the Greeks at last. return

[17] Euboean is the second largest Greek islands. return

[18] Home of the gods. return

[19] Menelaos (Menelaus), the cuckold husband of Helen. After Paris kidnapped her, it was Menelaus and his brother, Odysseus, who set out to Troy to reclaim her. Though seen as a mighty hero in The Iliad, for Euripides he is the worst sort of bumpkin: vain, a coward and a slave to his libido. return

[20] Euripides used fifteen chorus members in his tragedies, though the lines of play are simply described as being spoken “ως μία”/ “as one.” I envisioned around four members who are actually interacting with the rest of the cast. return

[21] The southern region of ancient Thessaly. return

[22] Possibly The Chorus is referring to the city of Athens, which Theseus is credited for founding. return

[23] King of Laconia. return

[24] Aetna (Aitna) the most I can find about this name is a goddess of volcanic Mount Etna in Sicily, though it is unclear if this is who Euripides means. return

[25] Having only a small role in The Iliad, Talthybius is described as a royal herald and “friend and adviser to Agamemnon” (Morford, 66). In the play he is seen as neither sympathetic nor of good council, since he always bears bad news to the captive women.return

[26] Hector (Hektor) was the greatest fighter for Troy in the Trojan War. Married to Andromache, he had but one son, Astyanax. At the end of The Iliad, Achilles slays Hector and drags his lifeless body in front of the gates of Troy. return

[27] As the legendary Greek king of Ithaca and a hero of Homer’s poem The Odyssey, Odysseus spent ten years after the fall of Troy attempting to return home. Like all the Greeks in Trojan Women is a cad of the first class, his Homeric, heroic virtues being shown as despicable and vile. return

[28] Achaian (Achaean) was a a name used by Homer in the Iliad for the Mycenaean-era Greeks (Tripp, 264), though in context of the play it is uncertain what Euripides was referring to. return

[29] Hymenaeus (Hymenaios) was the spirit of the wedding ceremony and bridal hymn. A god counted among the Erotes (Greek love deities). It is from his name that we get the word hymen, appearing in ancient art as a “winged child carrying a bridal torch in his hand” (Powell, 211)return

[30] The eldest daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, Iphigeneia’s sad story goes as follows: For reasons not fully explained, on the eve of the departure of the Greek invasion force, Agememnon killed a stag in a grove sacred to Diana. Angered, the goddess stopped the winds so that the Greek fleet could not sail to Troy. Oracles declared that the only way the fleet could sail would be if Iphigenia was sacrificed (Larson, 22). Agememnon, being a total bastard, sent word to his wife that Iphigeneia was to marry the great warrior Achilles. Clytemnestra was overjoyed at the news and readily sent Iphigenia to the Greeks. When Iphigenia arrived she learned, to her horror, that there would be no marriage. Achilles, outraged at having his name used to deceive her, declared that he would protect Iphigenia,(Gantz, 587) but apparently a demi-god is powerless in the face of mob rule, for Agememnon has his daughter killed regardless. Interestingly enough, in Euripides’ play, “Iphigeneia in Aulis,” Iphigenia voluntarily agrees to sacrifice herself, for she “imagines that she will win the fame for heroism denied to all women in the real life of classical Athens,” and she calls herself the “liberator of Greek women.” (Fantham, 122). return

[31] The Greek god of war and bloodshed, one of the twelve Olympian, Ares is depicted as either a “mature, bearded warrior dressed in battle arms,” (Morford, 21) or a “nude beardless youth with helm and spear” (ibid.). return

[32] Son of Hecuba, Paris was prophesied to be “the child born … that would be the downfall of Troy” (Wood, 74). Abandoned by his parents, he was raised by the shepherd Agelaus on Mount Ida. When Paris left Troy to find Helen, Hecuba and Cassandra both tried to convince him not to go; however, once “Helen was inside Trojan walls, Hecuba, along with Priam, [were] said to have defended Helen” (Hornblower, 98-99) return

[33] I’ve yet to find any references to the Three Spirits of Vengeance. Possibly it was a poetic device Euripides used because it sounded awe-inspiring. return

* * *

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bell, Robert. Women of Classical Mythology. New York: Oxford University Press. (1991)

Bunson, Matthew. The Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire. New York: Facts on File, Inc. (1994)

Campbell, David A. Greek Lyrics. volume I. Boston: Loeb Classical Library No. 142. (1939)

Evelyn-White, Hugh G. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press. (1914)

Fantham, Elaine. Women in the Classical World. New York: Oxford University Press. (1995)

Gantz, Timothy. Early Greek Myth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. (1993)

Hornblower, Simon and Antony Spawforth. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. (1996)

Kirk, G.S. The Nature of Greek Myths. New York: Penguin Books. (1990)

Larson, Jennifer. Greek Heroine Cults. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. (1995)

Morford, Mark and Robert Lenardon. Classical Mythology. 5th ed. New York: Longman. (1995)

Powell, Barry. Classical Myth. 2nd ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. (1998)

Tripp, Edward. Crowell’s Handbook of Classical Mythology. New York: Thomas Crowell and Company. (1970)

Wood, Michael. In Search of the Trojan War. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1998)