هکوب، تیره بخت‌ترینِ زنان~

اووف اوریپید. آتیش میزنی، چه سوز و گدازی.
این نمایشنامه ادامه نمایشنامه زنان ترواست.

و پایان اوریپید خوانی

Για μένα ο Ευρυπίδης είναι ο κορυφαίος τραγωδός κι αυτή μου η πεποίθηση ενισχύεται κάθε φορά που διαβάζω κάποιο έργο του.Έμεινα έκπληκτη διαβάζοντας τους παρακάτω στίχους,τους οποίους βρήκα πολύ πρωτοποριακούς για την εποχή τους:

"Ω!Δία,τι να πω;Τάχα φροντίζεις
για τους θνητούς ή έχουμε του κάκου
τη γνώμη αυτήν την ψεύτικη,θαρρώντας
πως υπάρχουνε θεοί κι η τύχη μόνο
τα πάντα κυβερνά για τους ανθρώπους;" (μετάφραση Τάκης Ρούσσος)

Κι άλλους θα μπορούσα να γράψω πολλούς,όχι απαραίτητα πρωτοποριακούς,αλλά σίγουρα βαθιά αληθινούς-θα προτιμήσω όμως να σας προτρέψω να διαβάσετε αυτή την τραγωδία,η οποία δείχνει το πώς οι συμφορές μπορούν να μεταβάλλουν έναν άνθρωπο και να αλλάξουν την καλοπροαίρετη φύση του σε εκδικητική.

[Όπως πάντα,οι εκδόσεις Κάκτος έχουν κάνει εξαιρετική δουλειά στην εισαγωγή,τη μετάφραση και τα σχόλια.]

It seems like tragedy is the only way the sophists were comfortable with writing strong female characters, but Hecuba and her daughter are certainly that. Also nice to Agamemnon in a somewhat positive light, I feel like that's pretty rare.

<<[HÉCUBA. — ¡Oh gloria de mi casa! ¡Oh palacio antaño feliz! ¡Oh tú que tenías tantísimas cosas muy hermosas, Príamo, el mejor de los padres, y yo, aquí todavía, anciana madre de tus hijos! ¡Cómo hemos llegado a la nada privados de nuestro orgullo de antes! Y luego nos ufanamos, uno, de estar en rico palacio, otro, de ser llamado honorable entre los ciudadanos. Pero esas cosas no son nada, simplemente deseos de la mente y jactancias de la lengua. El más feliz es aquel a quien de día en día no le ocurre ningún mal>>.

A stark play about the nature of suffering. In other words, classic Euripides.

Le sujet tragique semble toujours être tourné vers le héros unique, parfois bicéphale, vers la chute inexorable et inquiétante. C’est ce qu’on lit un peu partout.

Hécube, c’est le malheur pluriel. Plus que cela, il s’agit d’une manifestation de la douleur des vaincus, de leur malheur, de leur souffrance. Rien de plus tragique que cela. Et c’est bien pour ça qu’Hécube en tant qu’héroïne a peu de poids dans l’histoire contrairement à certains de ses homologues, dans le cycle troyen parfois lui-même. Euripide a bien fait de traiter d’un tel cycle, où on trouve des fois Achille et ses nombreux mythes. Non. Ici, il s’agit de réaliser plusieurs cycles dans une seule pièce : d’abord la réclamation et la violence d’un Ulysse (que j’ai eu la chance de traiter en concours blanc), le chagrin d’une mère et sa fille. Puis la cruauté même, Thalthybios, et enfin la colère et la perte qu’Hécube exprime par ses mille invectives.

« Ne serait-ce pas une honte qu’après l’avoir, vivant, traité comme un ami, maintenant qu’il est mort, nous cessions de le faire ? Hé bien, que dira-t-on si derechef il faut rassembler une armée, combattre l’ennemi ? Nous battrons-nous au lieu de songer à notre vie, en voyant que le mort est laissé sans honneur ? »

Même chez les cruels, les vainqueurs et les abominables, ces paroles d’Ulysse restent extrêmement poignantes. Elles touchent au cœur, cette parole est un sujet qui fait l’action de nous marquer, directement là où il faut : au cœur. C’est cela la force de la nuance quand on considère le malheur des vaincus : ceux qui nous vainquent sont des humains, eux aussi. Ils agissent en tant que tel, et parfois ils s’arrêtent pour la trêve comme dans un hiver trop froid pour verser le sang sans qu’il gèle.

Les relations humaines et le juste, la dikè, sont au cœur d’une pièce sur un sacrifice : « Quand on a bien agi, il faudrait bien parler ; et quand on a fait le mal, la parole devrait sonner creux, sans qu’on pût jamais prêter un beau langage à l’injustice. » (Hécube, à Agamemnon). Pourtant, quoi de plus injuste que de voler un fils à sa mère ? Que fera-t-on de Polymestor ? Et les frontières continueront-elles de se tenir debout ? Ce sont des questions qui restent ouvertes. Puisse votre lecture de cette pièce tenter de trouver des listes de réponse.

18/20. *****

A wonderful but very painful tragedy by the great Ancient Greek playwright Euripides! The play is centered on the miserable and wretched life of Hecuba, King Priam of Troy’s wife, after the sacking of Troy, and having her taken to be a slave to the Greeks (Odysseus in Euripides’ tragedy The Trojan Women. The play shows the devastating and tragic consequences of war, along with humiliation and bitterness and losses. The themes of the play are many, such as the misery wars can bring on people and cities, the bitterness of losses of children, vengeance, self-centeredness (e.g. Agamemnon), ingratitude (e.g. Odysseus), greed, opportunism, and the power of the situation, which can make a victim a villain or a murderer. Unlike other Ancient Greek tragedies, we do not see fate or gods’ intervention in the sorrows of the people, but we see people hurting each other and causing tremendous harm to each other. I loved Agamemnon’s attitude towards Hecuba, which showed a kind of sympathy and understanding to Hecuba’s degrading situation in life and the associated tragic life events she was facing. The language is poetic and beautiful, and the tragedy is so moving and enchanting.

Tüm Yunan mitolojisinin en bahtsız karakteri Hekabe.

"I have punished you; therefore my joy is justified."

fuckin' yes.

مسرحية هيكابي للمسرحي اليوناني يوربيديس ، من ترجمة منيرة كروان من اليونانية مباشرة


هيكابي زوجة بريام ملك طروادة تعاني المصير المؤلم بعد سقوط طروادة على يد أسبرطة ، حيث يقتل زوجها وأبناؤها جميعا ولم يبق لها إلا ابن وابنتين وفي وهذه المسرحية يسلط يوربيديس مسرحيته على هيكابي وتفاعلها مع التضحية بابنتها ومقتل ابنها فلا يبقى لها في هذه الحياة إلا ابنتها كاسندرا التي تنتهي بأن تكون أسيرة لدى أجاممنون

Plagued with a narrow dimension and over-dependency on lamentation dialogues, even for a greek tragedy, made this piece slightly unpalatable. Hekabe's misery is highlighted sufficiently but Euripides takes it to heart to iterate it over and over again. Climax murder is a thinly veiled morality evangelism, though the play ends on an Ironical situation, it is not apparent from the play itself but from supplementary notes. This play cannot be read or seen in isolation, it is imperative to have knowledge of the political circumstances during the creation of this play.

It is possible that the Ancient Greeks wrote some of the first anti-war literature that the world has known. This seems surprising in two respects – the society of ancient Greece was hardly renowned for its humanity and pacifism, and the plays were written by the victors rather than the defeated.

Actually a good deal of anti-war literature is written by the winning side. They too sustain heavy losses and much damage from war, and they have the extra burden of guilt to expiate. In the case of ancient Athens, it was their victory over Melos during the Peloponnesian War. The Athenians dealt with the loser by executing the men and enslaving the women, actions that would be considered war crimes now.

Of course that was a much harsher age than our own, but for the sensitive dramatists of Athens, the war was a stain on the city’s conscience, and they used tales about the behaviour of the Greek army in the aftermath of the Trojan War as a metaphor for the atrocities committed by their own state against Melos.

Euripides wrote about this in more detail in his play, The Trojan Women. Hecuba is a more focused play concentrating on just two events that happened to the former Queen of Troy after the Greeks obtained victory. By this stage, Troy had been destroyed and most of the male members of the royal family were dead. For the females a life of slavery was all that remained.

What better symbol of the horrors of warfare then than a bereaved mother? Her sons have been slaughtered, her daughters sacrificed or given over into sex slavery. Wars are initiated and run by men following male standards of honour and combat, and women must suffer from the consequences of that, powerless to change the outcome.

The play sees the removal of Hecuba’s final two crutches that give her comfort. To honour and appease the dead Achilles, the Greeks must carry out a human sacrifice, and their choice is Polyxena, one of Hecuba’s surviving daughters.

Hecuba has another son Polydorus hidden from the Greeks, but what she does not know is that his guardian Polymester has taken advantage of the defeat of Troy to murder the boy, and take the royal family’s gold that went with him. It is only when Polydorus’ body is washed up on the shore that Hecuba realises her loss and appeals to Agamemnon, leader of the victorious Greek army to give her justice.

One of the curious aspects of Hecuba is that the Greek army performs many appalling deeds, but the men that we meet are not on a personal level monsters. We may call them hypocrites, but I don’t think that is quite right.

Odysseus is the man who insists on Polyxena’s sacrifice, but the shame-faced warrior refuses Hecuba’s plea to be killed with Polyxena, even though this might have been a mercy to the old Queen, because he thinks he has enough blood on his hands. The Greek herald Talthybius is moved to tears during the sacrifice, and tells Hecuba that most of the Greeks were too, and needed to be steadied by Polyxena herself, who wanted only to die.

Later Agamemnon comes to see Hecuba to arrange for the burial of Polyxena, but he also is gentle and concerned for the Queen. When she informs him of the murder of her son, he agrees to turn a blind eye while she murders one of his allies.

What we see here are men who are not without humanity and a sense of ethics, but who are trapped by the rules of war. For motives of honour, pragmatism and duty, they have no choice but to follow their code of conduct, whether it means enslaving women, murdering children or sharing out the rewards of their spoils from Troy.

It would be too much to say that the Greeks are as much victims as the Trojans. They are certainly not. However they are as much imprisoned by the conventions of war as the people that they triumph over. As Hecuba observes:

“A free man? There is no such thing! All men are slaves;
Some, slaves of money; some, of chance; others are forced,
Either by mass opinion, or the threatening law,
To act against their nature.”

The Greeks act against their nature because they need to appease their armies, and maintain their loyalty. To fail to pay tribute to Achilles would send out a signal that the Greeks do not value their allies. To fail to share out money and slaves would be to deprive their allies of any incentive to fight with them again. Even for Agamemnon to dole out legal justice to Polymester would look bad, as it would mean taking the side of an enemy against an ally.

As a result, Agamemnon can only let Hecuba take a less direct route to justice by delivering Polymester into her hands. This leads to the plays’ most problematic moment. Hecuba and the Trojan women exact their revenge by blinding Polymester and murdering his two children, who are both young enough to be held in the arms of the women.

As often in Euripides, an act of revenge is so appalling that it exceeds the original offence. Revenge does not bring justice, but only more suffering. War has dehumanised the victims as well as the victors, and it brings only the ease of bitter satisfaction.

This satisfaction is made all the more bitter when the blinded Polymester repeats prophecies that Hecuba will be turned into a dog before she dies, and that her surviving daughter Cassandra will also be murdered soon. It is a reflection of the demeaning effect of conflict that the worst act performed in the play is done by a Trojan and not a Greek.

Hecuba is another powerful and bleak work by Euripides. Few plays better capture the conflict between public duty and private ethics.