Translator’s Notes:

First produced in 415 BC, in the city of Dionysia, Euripides’ drama attests to the fact that the horror of war — which is to say, the horror visited upon the civilian population of the losing side, primarily women and children — has not changed for thousands of years. Written and produced in the same year as the Peloponnese War, critics have often considered it the playwright’s harsh comment on the capture of the Aegean island of Melos and the massacre and oppression of its citizen by Euripides’ own people, the Athenians. The boldness and “tener cojones” of Euripides shocked and shamed his fellow citizens who, as the winning side, felt they could do whatever they liked to the Aegeans. As a result of the play’s blatant political message of “might does not make right” the play, with very little change, enjoyed a resurgence in the late 1960s and 1970s as protest theater against the United States involvement with the Vietnam War.

In all the scenes of the play, it is this one, that I present as Act II, that the translator, Gilbert Murray, working in 1915, called the most “harrowing … scene [that] passes beyond the due limits of tragic art.” (6) Murray, I believe, was not being squeamish. Indeed, the nightmare that is and was the First World War was firmly in his mind when he wrote, “To be [with] the action of this play the imagination needs not to travel back over three thousand years of history. It can simply leap a thousand leagues of ocean.” (2) However, Murray, British (born 1866), was educated and came to see the role of what he calls tragic art in a vastly different way than I do. I am vaguely aware of the Victorian and pre-Modernist theories of Tragōidia, what the Greeks called “the he-goat song.” Sort of like the mountains of ink spilled defining the Victorian sonnet, they’re quaint ideas and if you’re getting a MFA in the Classics I’m sure the source of much inspiration. They’re also outdated to the point of uselessness.

If we’re talking about real horror and the art that has the task of commenting about it, then you must talk about this: I was born in 1970 (to use that as a point in time) and the rough number of genocides that have taken place during my brief lifetime comes in around 14. I list the perpetrators, location and estimated number dead as follows:

– Pol Pot (Cambodia, 1975-79) 1,700,000
– Kim Il Sung (North Korea, 1948-94) 1,600,000 (purges and concentration camps)
– Menghistu (Ethiopia, 1975-78) 1,500,000
– Yakubu Gowon (Biafra, 1967-1970) 1,000,000
– Leonid Brezhnev (Afghanistan, 1979-1982) 900,000
– Jean Kambanda (Rwanda, 1994) 800,000
– Saddam Hussein (Iran 1980-1990 and Kurdistan 1987-88) 600,000
– Tito (Yugoslavia, 1945-1987) 570,000
– Jonas Savimbi (Angola, 1975-2002) 400,000
– Mullah Omar – Taliban (Afghanistan, 1986-2001) 400,000
– Idi Amin (Uganda, 1969-1979) 300,000
– Yahya Khan (Pakistan, 1970-71) 300,000 (Bangladesh)
– Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire, 1965-97) ?
– Charles Taylor (Liberia, 1989-1996) 220,000

What this means to me is that if your song — beseeching the gods on behalf of a sacrificial goat (Aristotle’s theory of where the origins of tragic art come from, thus “the he-goat song”) — cannot take in the very realness of ethnic cleansing, mass rape and murder, indeed, what we talk about when we talk about war, then you need to get a new song, my friend, craft a new art, find a new understanding of what truly is “harrowing;” for in 415 BC Euripides didn’t shy away from the simple fact that Tragōidia must talk about this and so must we all.

* * *

ACT II

THE CHORUS:
O!

THE CHORUS:
O! See to the poor woman! She has fallen!

THE CHORUS:
Who is looking after our queen?

THE CHORUS:
Who is this old woman’s guardian?

THE CHORUS:
Speak to us!

THE CHORUS:
Quickly, pick her up!

THE CHORUS:
Help me!

THE CHORUS TRIES TO PICK HECUBA UP, BUT SHE REFUSES THEIR HELP.

THE CHORUS:
Eh? Will we leave her here on the ground? Get up, you terrible women!

THE CHORUS:
Come on, pick the poor old woman up!

HECUBA: (STILL ON THE GROUND)
No, let me lay here. Unsolicited kindness is not kindness at all, my daughters. Leave me be. This body knows its proper place. It is here on the ground. Because of what I am suffering this is its rightful place. Ye Gods! I am calling upon you! What terrible superiors you are to us! My life was blissful back when I was a princess. I was married to a king. We had children; these were unique in all the Trojan world. No other woman, no Trojan nor Greek nor barbarian would boast to having children like mine. Yet, I, alone, saw every one of them die by a Greek spear. I, alone, have cut my hair at their tombs. It wasn’t by a divine messenger that I had received the news of the death of their father, my Priam. No! I saw that myself, with my own eyes. I was a with him when they slay him. They murdered him at the altar of our own house! I witnessed the destruction of our whole city! My daughters, my women whom I raised to be their husbands’ pride and joy. You beautiful virgins! You were all taken from me, forced into marriage to foreigners. Will I ever see you again? Will you ever see me again? No. No. No. I must now be a slave. I am an old, gray woman. I must go to Greece … as a slave. What will I be doing? What will Hector’s mother be doing? Will I be washing their doorways? holding their gates? working in their kitchens? baking their bread? My mangled body dressed in rags will have the hard ground as its bed. My body! A body that was used to a royal bed! Use to the clothes of a queen! Gods, how much must I suffer because of my marriage? How much have I suffered; how much more must I suffer still? You, my child, Cassandra! Cassandra, oracle of the gods in her frenzy! What dreadful fate will accompany you? My poor darling Polyxene! Where are you now? O, so many sons lost, so many daughters lost! All my children! All taken from me! No one can help us now. (THE CHORUS TRY AGAIN TO LIFT HER UP) Fools, why bother lifting me up from this ground? What do you think I can do? Drag me to a pile of stones that I may crash myself upon; with tears battering my heart, I die there. What hope is there left for Hecuba? Leave me be! My days are gone. I am a slave.

THE CHORUS:
Come Muses! Come help us sing a requiem!

THE CHORUS:
Help us tell this story of damned Troy! This song that is full of tears!

THE CHORUS:
The Greeks built a huge horse, wheeled into the city;. It was that horse which brought about our destruction. Our miserable enslavement.

THE CHORUS:
An enormous horse, whose cheeks were plated with gold.

THE CHORUS:
Whose belly was clogged with spears.

THE CHORUS:
They left that horse by the gates of our city. The men saw it from above the walls shouted with mirth.

THE CHORUS:
The fools called: “Trojans! Our troubles are over! Come, roll this holy statue to the temple of Athena, the daughter of Zeus!”

THE CHORUS:
So all the men came down from the walls.

THE CHORUS:
All the Trojans rushed out to the gates to drag this evil offering to the virgin goddess who rides the immortal stallion.

THE CHORUS:
That gift was fatal to Troy.

THE CHORUS:
So the celebrating went on all day until the night fell; the black night began but the sounds of Lybian flutes continued. Such a happy tune.

THE CHORUS:
The music flickered wide across the city; inside every home, it made the doomed eyes heavy enough to sleep.

THE CHORUS:
It was then, at the very moment when the virgins were dancing in the temple of Zeus’ daughter, Artemis, the goddess of the hills, it was then that the sound of murderous terror spun wildly through the night.

THE CHORUS:
Ares, the god of war emerged from his ambush.

THE CHORUS:
From Athena’s dire handiwork. At every altar, in every Trojan home: our blood was splashed.

THE CHORUS:
Young girls in their deserted beds shaved their heads in grief!

THE CHORUS:
The Greeks ran mad with slaughter.

THE CHORUS:
We were their offering; misery for Troy.

THE CHORUS SUDDENLY SEES ANDROMACHE IN THE DISTANCE.

THE CHORUS:
Hecuba, look! Look! Andromache is coming!

THE CHORUS:
She’s riding in a foreign wagon.

THE CHORUS:
At her breast hangs her beloved Astyanax.

THE CHORUS:
Hector’s baby boy.

ENTER ANDROMACHE WITH ASTYANAX ON A WAGON. HECTOR’S BRONZE SHIELD AS WELL AS OTHER TROJAN SPOILS OF WAR, ARE HANGING FROM THE SIDES OF THE WAGON. THEY ARE FOLLOWED BY GREEK GUARDS.

THE CHORUS:
Andromache, you poor woman!

THE CHORUS:
Where are they taking you?

THE CHORUS:
Look! Hector’s bronze shield!

THE CHORUS:
All the Trojan spoils of war, taken by the Greeks.

THE CHORUS:
Achilles’ son will adorn their Phthian Temples with them.

ANDROMACHE:
My Greek masters are taking me away!

HECUBA:
O, my darling girl!

ANDROMACHE:
Eh? Why groan for me, Hecuba?

HECUBA:
O, my girl!

ANDROMACHE:
Such suffering I must endure, Hecuba!

HECUBA:
O, Lord, Zeus!

ANDROMACHE:
Disaster!

HECUBA:
O, my child!

ANDROMACHE:
All gone now!

HECUBA:
Troy is gone! All our joy is gone!

ANDROMACHE:
Miserable fortune of our city!

HECUBA:
The smoke is choking Troy!

ANDROMACHE:
Come back, come back, my husband, my Hector!

HECUBA:
He is dead, my poor child, he is dead!

ANDROMACHE:
Come back my Hector! Come back, my love, my shield!

HECUBA:
Hector! Once you destroyed so many Greeks! Come now; take me down with you to the halls of Hades!

ANDROMACHE:
We both desire the very same thing, Hecuba. Both of us equally unfortunate, both of us equally beaten by one disaster after another. Our city was destroyed, Hecuba, because the gods were angry with your son. O, Paris, a man who should have been killed at birth. O, a man who, to satisfy his lust for a shameful woman, destroyed our Troy. Now the bloodied corpses of our heroes are strewn about all round Athena’s temple.

HECUBA:
O, my poor land!

ANDROMACHE:
The tears gush forth bitterly from you.

HECUBA: (INDICATING THE SMOKE BEHIND TROY’S WALLS)
Now, look now upon the abominable end! Look at the palace where I gave birth to all my children! O, my darlings. Your mother abandons you in the earth. Your mother leaves you behind in a ghost city of the dead. How painful is my grief! Only the dead can forget such grief!

THE CHORUS:
The damned find some solace in tears, in some wailing; in the singing of some requiems. But it does not heal. Nothing heals this grief.

ANDROMACHE: (INDICATING HER PLIGHT)
Hecuba! O, Hector’s mother! The mother of a man who killed many Greeks! Do you see all this?

HECUBA:
I see, my daughter! I see that this is the work of the gods who want to show us that they can tear down things that the mortals love in a second.

ANDROMACHE:
Look, here, Hecuba! Look at me! Look at my son! My son; I am carrying him away like nothing more than spoils of war.

HECUBA:
Fate is a terrible force, Andromache! Only a few minutes ago the Greeks took my Cassandra away!

ANDROMACHE:
O, poor soul! It seems that damned Ajax suddenly appeared to rob you of your daughter one more time. But you have more troubles to deal with.

HECUBA:
Troubles, indeed! Infinite troubles. No way to measure them, no way to count them! Troubles competing with other.

ANDROMACHE:
Hecuba, your daughter; your daughter, Polyxene is dead!

HECUBA:
What? What is that you said?

ANDROMACHE:
The Greeks have slaughtered her on Achilles’ tomb. Offered her life as a gift to his lifeless corpse.

HECUBA:
O, my darling girl! O, my poor daughter! My Polyxene! Talthybius told me this earlier. His words were cryptic but true!

ANDROMACHE:
I saw her there, on Achilles’ tomb, with my own eyes. I got down off this cart. I put my cloak over her face. Then I stayed there, Hecuba. I stay there and lamented her loss with my tears.

HECUBA:
Diabolical, ungodly death! O, my daughter!

ANDROMACHE:
Diabolical or not, Polyxene died and she is still luckier than me.

HECUBA:
Don’t say that, my daughter. Being dead is not the same as being alive. Being dead is to have nothing. Being alive is to have hope.

ANDROMACHE:
Hope? Come, come, mother! Hope? Mother of many children! Hope? To be dead, Hecuba, to be unborn it is the same thing. But if the choice is between a miserable life; if it is between a miserable life, then death, ai, death is always preferable. Because the dead feel no misery. They know nothing of grief. But we, we living mortals, we know. Hope? if a happy woman falls into misery she must deal with the memory of the joy she previously had. Her soul seeks the joys of the past. So, it is the same with Polyxene. It is as if she never was. I, on the other hand, Hecuba, yes, I have known joy! I have dreamed of achieving a good name. Yes, yes, hear me. I had known joy! In Hector’s house I had been a virtuous woman, behaving in every way like a modest, chaste woman should. What did it get me? Whatever it was that people expected from a married woman I did. I stayed inside the house because I knew that the gossiping tongues poison women who venture outside their homes. I had put aside all desire. I simply listened to my own council. It was good advice but what did it get me? It was the fame of my virtue that spread throughout all the Greek camp. Virtue that will destroy me because the moment he captured me Achilles’ son will make me his slave! So I’ll be a mistress in a murderer’s bed. They say that one night in a man’s bed erases all revulsion towards him. Ha! I think no woman is worse than the one who, having lost her husband, her family, her city, puts all memory of the past aside; turns to love the bed of another. O, Hector! My beloved Hector! You were enough for me! You had rich mind, a strong heart, a wealthy house! I was an innocent girl when you took me from my father’s; you were the first to know me in my maiden bed. But now, my Hector, now you are dead; now I am a slave; taken aboard a ship to Greece, to be raped until my body and soul give out. So, Hecuba, is Polyxene’s death — a death for which you’ve spilled so many tears — is that a more miserable fate than mine? Because, for me, mother of many children, for me, what you call hope is a thing which other human beings have but not me. I will not allow hope to deceive me. I know full well that I have no hope of ever seeing better days again. Do not talk to me of that word.

THE CHORUS:
Your misfortune, Andromache is similar to ours; you speak of your own fate, you speak of ours at the same time.

HECUBA:
Yet, yet I still cling to that word like a sailor clings to Fate when a storm threatens to destroy his ship. That’s what I feel now. The infinite misery that the gods have crashed upon me, overpowered my tongue; I cannot speak. The gods have sent too great a storm upon me. So, stop, my darling girl, stop talking of our Hector. Our tears cannot save him. (SHE NOTICES TALTHYBIUS APPROACHING IN THE DISTANCE) O, but one concern leads to another. Who is this Greek coming towards us? I wonder what new decisions he brings us?

ENTER TALTHYBIUS AND SOLDIERS

TALTHYBIUS:
Ah, Andromache, wife of the bravest of all the Greeks, wife of the dead Hector. I have bad news for you, news that I will give you against my wishes, so don’t hate me. These announcements are made by both the Greeks and the sons of Pelops.

ANDROMACHE:
How ominous your words, Talthybius! speak!

TALTHYBIUS:
It concerns your child, Andromache. (UNCOMFORTABLY) What words must I use?

ANDROMACHE:
What? This child will be separated from me? Will he be given to another master?

TALTHYBIUS:
No. No Greek will ever be his master.

ANDROMACHE:
What? Have you decided to leave him behind?

TALTHYBIUS:
Andromache, I don’t know how to break these awful news to you. I don’t know how to do this gently. But I must tell it, Andromache. The Greeks will kill your son!

ANDROMACHE:
O! I have never heard news more painful than these!

TALTHYBIUS:
It was Odysseus’ decisions. Voted in favor by the rest of the assembly.

ANDROMACHE:
Will my pains never end? Will the disasters never stop? One dreadful misfortune upon another!

TALTHYBIUS:
Odysseus had told the assembly that they should not let the son of a Trojan noble grow to be a man.

ANDROMACHE:
Would any of them be just as convincing if it concerned their own son?

TALTHYBIUS:
He’s convinced them to have the child thrown from the Trojan towers. So … let that happen, Andromache. You would be doing the wise thing. Bear this misfortune with the noble courage you have. Don’t insist on holding on to the boy. Understand, Andromache, that you are weak and powerless. There’s no one here to defend you. Think carefully about this, woman. Both your city and you husband are gone. Today your life is in the hands of another. Think of that, Andromache. Don’t fight against it. Do nothing shameful or outrageous. Throw no curses at the Greeks. I wouldn’t tolerate that at all. The moment you say anything against us, neither you nor your child will find any understanding from anyone. Stay silent; receive your fate like a good woman; and you, too, will be received by the Greeks more favorably.

ANDROMACHE: (TO ASTYANAX)
O, my sweet child! My darling son! They will murder you. You will leave your mother all alone. You will be killed because you are noble; the son of a noble, a noble man who has saved many but who cannot save you. Such disastrous marriage that brought me here, to Hector’s palace, not so that I’d bear a child … but a sacrificial victim for the Greeks. You’re crying, my darling? You understand the awful fate that awaits you? Hug me, my heart! For, my darling, you will be thrown mercilessly from a high cliff. Your neck will break. O, young, sweet child! It was all for nothing then! It was in vain that my breast suckled you while you were still in your birthing clothes. All my work, all my pain, all my concern for you, it was all for nothing! Come, darling! Come now, hug your mother tightly, for the very last time! Come, put your little arms around me! Come, kiss your mother on the lips, darling! (TO TALTHYBIUS AND HIS MEN) You! You monsters! You Greeks! The evil things you do! What has this child ever done to you? Why kill an innocent little boy? O, Helen! Look what these barbarians do! Your first love was Bloodshed; your next was Hate! Then came Murder; you breed every monstrous grief and pain that walks upon this earth! Look what you do! May the gods destroy you! Well then, come! Come and take him! Take my child. Throw him over the wall, if that is what you want! Come on, take him. Kill him. Gorge yourselves upon his young flesh! How can I save him when I can’t even save myself? Come, break my miserable body. What a splendid wedding I am heading to, now that I’m husbandless, childless, homeless!

A MEMBER OF THE CHORUS HANDS ANDROMACHE A BLACK SCARF WITH WHICH SHE USES TO COVER HER FACE WITH.

THE CHORUS:
Unfortunate Troy! The deaths are endless; all for the sake of one woman and her hideous lust!

TALTHYBIUS: (TO ASTYANAX, KINDLY)
Come, my son, leave your poor mother’s arms now. Come with me. We have to go to the tip of your father’s towers together. It is an order. (TO HIS MEN) Take him.

THE MEN TAKE ASTYANAX’S HAND AND LEAD HIM AWAY FROM HIS MOTHER. OTHER GUARDS SURROUND ANDROMACHE AND LEAD HER OUT.

TALTHYBIUS:
Such cruel messages ought to be delivered by harsher couriers. I have not the heart for them.

AS TALTHYBIUS AND THE SOLDIERS ARE LEADING ANDROMACHE AND ASTYANAX OUT, HECUBA CRIES OUT, RUSHES OVER TO ASTYANAX, CLUTCHING HIM, ADDRESSING HIM FOR THE LAST TIME.

HECUBA:
No! No! O, my son! Son of my ill fated son! These evil men have torn away your life from your mother. Ai, my little boy! How can I endure this? How can I help you, my poor boy, unfortunate boy?

AN ANGRY SCUFFLE ENSUES; THE SOLDIERS SEPARATE ASTYANAX FROM HECUBA.

HECUBA:
Our only help to you is to beat our heads until we bleed. That’s the only power left to us.

TALTHYBIUS, HIS MEN, ALONG WITH ASTYANAX AND ANDROMACHE ALL EXIT.

HECUBA:
O, my poor city! My poor, Troy! Miserable luck to you; to us both! What’s left for us? What misery is still to fall upon us to make our destruction complete?

THE CHORUS:
O, Telamon!

THE CHORUS:
King of Salamis, the island home of bees!

THE CHORUS:
An island, washed endlessly by the crashing waves.

THE CHORUS:
An island near the sacred rocks of Athena’s temple.

THE CHORUS:
Where she first revealed to the world the sacred sapling of the green olive.

THE CHORUS:
A heavenly garland for her; a gem for her dazzling city, Athens.

THE CHORUS:
It was you who came here, Telamon! Here in Troy!

THE CHORUS:
A long time ago! You had come here with Hercules, Alcmene’s son.

THE CHORUS:
Hercules, the master of the bow and arrow!

THE CHORUS:
He came all the way from Greece to sack our city, to raze our Troy to the ground.

THE CHORUS:
Cheated of his lovely steeds, Heracles set off with the finest flower of Greek men.

THE CHORUS:
When he reached the banks of Simois with its sparkling streams, he put down his seagoing oars, tied ropes to his sterns; stepped upon the land with his precise arrows, all ready to murder Laomedon.

THE CHORUS:
So, Hercules blasted all of Apollo’s work. All the stone walls, built by Apollo’s master builders, all of it, Hercules blasted with the roaring breath of fire. He devastated the Trojan land.

THE CHORUS:
So, it happened twice. Twice the slaughtering Greeks have destroyed our Dardanian walls.

THE CHORUS:
It was all for nothing, then. Laomedon! All for nothing that you ran gracefully about in Zeus’ halls topping his golden wine cups, a most virtuous occupation, for the sake of your city. Look about you now, Laomedon. What do you see? The land of your birthplace is burning.

THE CHORUS:
Listen! Hear that, Laomedon? Hear that groan? It is the groan of the sea. Her beaches groan with agony.

THE CHORUS:
Like birds calling for their missing young.

THE CHORUS:
Gone are your splendid bath houses.

THE CHORUS:
The race course you used to race your horses on.

THE CHORUS:
Here the whole of Priam’s land has been wiped out by the Greek fire.

THE CHORUS:
O, Eros! Eros, son of Zeus! You came once to the halls of our King Dardanus, to accomplish the will of the Heavens!

THE CHORUS:
What of Dawn? Dawn with her white wings, the goddess whose splendid light is loved by all mortals.

THE CHORUS:
She saw! She saw! The devastation of our land.

THE CHORUS:
She watched the ruin of our city, Pergamon’s city.

THE CHORUS:
She sat there. She watched it being destroyed even though it was this city that has given her a husband for her bridal chamber, a husband she once snatched from these parts; carried him away in a cart of sparkling golden stars.

THE CHORUS:
Alas! Our city is no more! Gone! The gods no longer love our Troy!

[cont.]

* * *

Work Cited

Murray, Gilbert. The Trojan Women of Euripides. New York: Oxford University Press (1915)

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)

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