I just can't love it more!

Troijan naiset

Euripideen Troijan naiset kertoo sodan hävinneiden troijalaisten tai paremminkin turmioon joutuneen kaupungin ylhäisönäisten näkökulmasta sodan mielettömyydestä.

Voittajien julmuus onkin keskeinen elementti koko näytelmän ajan, ja sen on tulkittu kuvaavan kreikkalaisten harjoittamaa terroria hävitettyä Spartaa kohtaan.

Näytelmä saa alkunsa, kun Poseidon valittelee tuhotun kaupunkinsa rantatörmällä näkemäänsä hävitystä. Muinaiset ennustukset Ilionin pojasta Pariista ovat käyneet toteen. Keskusteluun tulee mukaan Pallas Athene, joka yrittää hyvittää kokemaansa vihaa Troijaa ja Parista kohtaan.

Kuningas Priamos on tapettu ja hänen puolisonsa Hekabe raastaa hiuksiaan. Ennen pitkää näyttämölle saapuu kuorona toimiva voittajien airut, jonka tehtävänä on julistaa orjanaisten kohtalot: Kassandra kuului Agamemmonille, Hektorin vaimo Andromakhe Akhilleuksen pojalle orjaksi ja Hekabe itse Odysseukselle. Järkensä menettänyttä Kassandraa ei kukaan ota enää todesta.

Tästä jatkuukin teurastus, ja yksi Hekaben tyttäristä mestataan, ja myös Spartan kuninkaan Menelaoksen puoliso Helena vangitaan odottamaan kuolematuomiota kotimaassaan. Troijan sotahan sai tarun mukaan alkunsa, kun Paris valitsi Pallas Athenen asemasta Afroditeen kauneimmaksi jumalaksi. Helenaa ei kukaan kuuntele, kun hänen rakastumisensa troijalaiseen ylimykseen pantiin jumalten riitelyn tiliin.

Edes lapsia ei tässä murhenäytelmässä säästetä, kunnes loppuhuipennuksessa pannaan koko rauniokaupunki tuleen, ja siitä alkaa entisten kuninkaallisten ankea orjaelämä.

There are moments in the play where lines and the dramatic moment reached me and I recognized through the ageless dust something said of man's estate true, true still, and seemingly ever-Now. (But there are those today who will argue our evolution has made Euripides and all that ancient crowd irrelevant. It is not them that clear and cool the mind which such keen, millennia-cleaving arrows of insight).
I'm also personally struck by parallels with Scripture often when I read this ancient literature. In this case, at one point when the wroth Theseus reflects that the gods ought to make a place to send reprobates such as he deems his son to be, I'm struck with the resemblance to the New Testament references to hell. Well, what a nice note to end on.

Hippolytus is the story of the title character, who is caught up in a weird, slightly incestuous situation, as his step-mother falls violently in love with him due to interference with Aphrodite. By this point, any reader knows that mentions of incest are not too uncommon in Greek drama of any kind (if this case even technically counts as incest), but I feel that the main reason these kinds of situations show up is to present a warning against this. Perhaps in a historical sense, this was an issue, but who knows?

The plot of this story is fairly simple: Phaedra, Hippolytus' step-mother, falls in love with Hippolytus because Hippolytus would not back down from his allegiance with Artemis for Aphrodite. Out of her guilt and shame, Phaedra kills herself, but not before leaving a note saying that Hippolytus raped her (perhaps she felt the need for revenge?). Theseus, Phaedra's husband, becomes enraged and sends Hippolytus to exile. However, Hippolytus is killed in a chariot accident, as his horses becomes scared and crash him into rocks. Was this predestined by the gods?

All in all, this play is a good one that develops characters fairly well as a whole; the story is woven in a unique way that only the Greeks could have done. Surprisingly, it doesn't really seem that Hippolytus is the main catalyst of the story, but rather someone who has been caught up in a very awkward situation. I feel that he is the real tragic character mainly because he really didn't do much wrong at all, but the fate of the gods led him to the situation.