If The Iliad invented in medias res, the Trojan Women possibly brought it to the stage. Yet, there is hardly a plot. It feels like watching the end of a tragedy, like cutting to Hector’s death and burial and calling it a day. What we have is emotional brutality, as the characters try to deal with death and destruction, with lives made pointless after years of striving, epitomized in the anguish of Hecuba, once queen of Troy, now a slave of her conquerors. Only Helen, the author of the tragedy, is able to make the best of it, and she remains the on stage villain in that sense. To be fair, Odysseus is the malevolent force in the background, the ultimate symbol of Greek victory and brutality.

The story relies on a lot of prior knowledge of The Iliad, so it best to read this after the works of Homer, Virgil, and just about everyone else who dealt with the subject.

That shows us a concatenation of several tragedies that happen simultaneously to several women due to war. And not to a specific cause of direct divine origin, this work of Euripides acquires a heartrending force and a tremendous realistic vigor that makes it closer to the current reader than other works of Greek tragedies.
Before the fall of Troy, the god Poseidon, a sympathizer of the Trojans, speaks with the Greek goddess Athena. She is offended because Ajax has raped the priestess, Cassandra, dragging her from her temples without any Greek criticizing him. Between both, they decide each one of them collides and will receive punishment on his return home.
Meanwhile, several notable Trojans wait for the Greek victors to decide their destinies in the captivity that awaits them, and a Greek messenger will inform them of what they will be. First, Hecuba, the widow of King Priam, regrets that at his age, he will have to perform tasks and be at the service of Ulysses. Later, when Menelao considers the punishment he must give to the traitor Helena and talks about killing her when he arrives in Greece, she defends herself, saying that she is not to blame for what happened and that order goddess Aphrodite kidnapped her. But Hecuba reveals that what happened was that he took a fancy to his son Paris and never resisted leaving Greece. Furthermore, he asks that Menelao punish her as he deserves and, above all, does not allow her to travel to Greece in the same boat, fearing that he will seduce her again and be free from punishment.
Kassandra knows that Agamemnon will own it and shows us his diviner capacity to presage the catastrophes that will happen to the Greeks. Polyxena, another of Hecuba's daughters, is destined to be sacrificed before the tomb of Achilles. Andromache, the widow of Hector, is intended as the son of Achilles. However, before his son is ripped out and thrown from a tower, as decided by Ulysses, he thinks it is too dangerous to leave the son of such a prominent Trojan hero.

El teatro griego clásico no está entre mis lecturas habituales; llegué a este libro por un comentario sobre el mismo en El infinito en un junco, de Irene Vallejo en el que se menciona lo "revolucionario" que fue en su momento, pues retrataba la guerra desde la perspectiva de las mujeres, así que no me quedaba otra que leerlo jejeje

Se lee en un momento. Y ciertamente sorprende el alegato contra el impacto de la guerra en las mujeres, que sólo pueden ser esclavizadas o asesinadas después de la derrota, sin compasión. Y no les queda otra que aceptar su destino (algo muy griego, por otra parte).

¿Alguna diferencia con lo que ocurre en las guerras actuales, en las que las mujeres son las víctimas olvidadas/silenciadas: prostituidas, violadas, convertidas en "esposas de guerra"?

Una obra para leer y comentar con profundidad. También en los institutos, no como parte de la clase de Literatura, sino en Historia o en Ética (si sigue existiendo tal asignatura) o en Valores de la ciudadanía (que creo que me la acabo de inventar, pero que es esencial)

O wehe, weh! Die Misogynie in diesem Drama ist nicht auszuhalten! Weh mir!

Un capolavoro con la splendida traduzione di Laura Papa. Interessantissimo leggere le vicende che seguono la caduta di Troia.

An irresistible jeremiad against the victors in war, and uncompromising condemnation of imperialism, this text must've pissed off all the right people when originally performed just before the Sicilian Expedition, but after Athens had crushed out the revolt on Mytilene and forcibly annexed Melos, killing off half the populations, with a snap of their fingers, as it were.

As with other plays, potentially atheistic Euripides opens with a theophany, wherein Athena and Poseidon, enemies of Troy, "throw [their] hate away / and change to pity now its walls are black with fire" (59-60). At this point immediately prior to the departure of the thousand black ships from Anatolia, they resolve to destroy the Greeks during their voyages home.

Hecuba is on stage the entire text, lamenting repeatedly the "disaster" that has occurred (144, 164, 173, 473, 694, 798), echoed by the chorus of captive Trojans (303, 406). The premise is that the victorious Greeks are allocating the survivors by lot. Andromache attempts to convince herself that "they say one night of love suffices to dissolve / a woman's aversion to share the bed of any man" (665-66), whereas Hecuba contents herself that "there may still be another Troy" (705)--hoping that Hektor's son will be the foundation of the new polis. This hope is dashed when the Greeks declare that infant Astyanax is to be cast from the top of a tower: "Greek cleverness is simple barbarity" (764).

At this point, the survivors turn on each other. After Cassandra laments being reduced to Agamemnon's slave, she establishes that Helen "went of her free will, not caught in constraint of violence" (372-73). Hecuba takes up with Menelaus when he charges that Alexander "like a robber carried the woman from my house" (866), demanding "Kill your wife" (890), and "the price of adultery is death" (1032). Helen's defense at her trial by Menelaus is nasty:

Alexander was the judge of the goddess trinity.
Pallas Athene would have given him power, to lead
the Phrygian arms on Hellas and make it desolate.
All Asia was Hera's promise, and the uttermost zones
of Europe for his lordship, if her way prevailed.
But Aphrodite, picturing my loveliness,
promised it to him. (923-30)

Though Apollodorus, in recounting Eris' apple and the judgment of Paris (Bibliotheka E.3.2), is not as precise as Euripides' Helen here, Hesiod by contrast gives some context to the significance of the judgment:

Now [i.e., contemporary to the oath of Tyndareus] all the gods were divided through strife [i.e., Eris]; for at that very time Zeus who thunders on high was meditating marvelous deeds, even to mingle storm and tempest over the boundless earth, and already he was hastening to make an utter end of the race of mortal men, declaring that he would destroy the lives of the demi-gods, that the children of the gods should not mate with wretched mortals, seeing their fate with their own eyes; but that the blessed gods henceforth even as aforetime should have their living and their habitations apart from men. But on those who were born of immortals and of mankind verily Zeus laid toil and sorrow upon sorrow. (Catalog of Women, 68 II 2-13)

A divine genocide, not through flood this time, but through war. The depopulation plan that followed upon the Judgment for Aphrodite certainly would have been effected through Judgment for Athene or for Hera, as all disjuncts returned the ground to war. Helen is accordingly a strong proponent of the atheist, or perhaps misotheist, position that gods themselves forced imperialism and war on Troy.

When this text gets to Seneca, he makes it even more awful, even though it does not seem possible. As normal, Seneca dispenses with the theophany; though characters refer to deities and religious ideas, the agency is always presented as in human hands. No god, after all, made the Greeks sacrifice Polyxena on Achilles' tomb (to "unlock the sky [resaras polum]" (l. 354))--which Euripides presents as an incidental (having taken it up in his Hecuba specifically--which Seneca handles herein also), but upon which Seneca concentrates all available adjudicatory fire, along with the assassination of juvenile Astyanax. He takes time to note that "This great overthrow of nations [clades gentium], this widespread terror, all these cities wrecked as by a tornado's blast, to another could have been glory and the height of fame; to Achilles they were but deeds upon the way [...] great wars he waged while but preparing for war [tanta gessit bella, dum bellum parat]" (ll. 229-33). Agamemnon recognizes that conquest is one thing, "overthrown and razed to the ground" (ll.278-79) quite another--for which he acknowledges command responsibility: "The blame of all comes back on me; he who, when he may, forbids not sin, commands it" (l. 291).

The principal agon is between Neoptolemus (who is the sensible one in the Philoktetes, recall) and Agamemnon (who is sufficiently crazy otherwise to sacrifice his own fucking daughter for the war effort). Whereas Agamemnon urges some restraint ("What the law forbids not, shame forbids be done" (l. 333)), Achilles' son is crazier than a shithouse rat here: "No law spares the captive or stays the penalty" (l. 332). The murder of Astyanax falls to Ulysses, who fears "the crushing weight of his noble birth" (l. 490). Ulysses acts in representative capacity to bring "the voice of all the Grecian chiefs" who "mistrust of uncertain peace" (526 et seq.). For his part, Astyanax goes to his death with stoic composure, whereas Andromache's maternal grief is heartbreaking. Pragmatic Ulysses tires of it all: "There is no limit to her weeping--away with this hindrance to the Argive fleet" (l. 812). (Andromache: "what Colchian, what Scythian of shifting home e'er committed crime like this, or what tribe to law unknown by the Caspian sea has dared it? No blood of children stained the altars of Busiris" (ll. 1104 ff.).)

Despite the genocide and the horror of mass child murder and the sexual enslavement of the survivors, we take solace as proper Trojan sympathizers in two things. First, the unhindered Argive fleet will mostly go down in ruin, and those who return to their homes will usually not find them as they left them. Second, Aeneas escapes, as we know, to found Rome with the remnant of Troy, and through the City's historical development will redress this mythical crime, for, according to Seneca's predecessor Virgil, Rome's arts are "to pacify, to impose the rule of law, to spare the conquered, battle down the proud." Though Aeneas is not mentioned in the Troades, Seneca's recitations run parallel to Virgil. We can rest assured that the indictment drafted by Euripides is brought to conclusion in Seneca.

Esto es una tragedia con todas las letras.
Desde que vi la película Troya tomé partido por los troyanos, aún sabiendo desde el principio lo que pasaba, y después de leer esto me reafirmo y le he cogido más manía aún a los griegos de esta historia.

Como siempre, en las guerras quienes más sufren son los más débiles. Aquí vemos como las mujeres, después de perderlo todo, tienen que seguir sufriendo convirtiéndose en esclavas de los enemigos de los troyanos.

Y Helena...en la película no la pude odiar porque adoro a Diane Kruger, pero aquí, en los dos párrafos que aparece, le he cogido mucha manía.

Hécuba es maravillosa, ojala algun día pueda ver estar obra representada en el teatro porque tiene que ser todo un espectáculo.

Y ahora me han entrado muchísimas ganas de leer más cosas sobre esta guerra, espero poder hacerlo.

Melhor peça de teatro que já li!

Personajes femeninos muy fuertes e intervenciones dramaticas profundas. Me ha gustado bastante.

sobbed

”Get up there
You Trojan widows, Trojan virgins, all mated
to the dead.
Have the guts to look down upon these
smoldering ruins
For the last time
And articulate your grief.
~Hecuba

”Lift up your heads: be proud,
Leave your revenge to me;
He who embraces me will be destroyed by me.”
~Cassandra

”Nothing is more deceptive than happiness.
Joy is a cheat which covers up for the misery
stalking behind the grin.”
~Leader of the Chorus

”Idiots!
Can’t you see
War
Will kill you:
All of you?
~Poseidon

The nihilism of this play is so stark that it’s little wonder that Sartre was attracted to adapt it. Euripides wrote it as an anti war play, and Sartre’s adaptation remains just that for another age and another audience.

The just ended war in the The Trojan Women brings doom to all. The Trojan men all lie dead, the Trojan Women bewail their fate as they wait to be carried away. The victorious Greeks will soon face destruction on the seas and murderous intrigue at home. Even the fickle gods are unhappy - Poseidon to see the ruins of his city, and Pallas piqued for the defilement and destruction of her temple by her Greek champions. The great conflict that was the Trojan War was the doom of all who participated.

Cassandra is the greatest horror of this play. Hecuba and the Trojan women believe her mad, yet she still sees clearly with the god’s prophetic gift. She is to be carried off to be Agamemnon’s concubine, and goes rejoicing to his bed, even asks Hecuba her mother to celebrate and be glad for her. Cassandra, with her prophetic site, sees that she will be the cause, not only of Agamemnon’s brutal murder, but of the destruction of his entire house. The smile on her lips as she goes to her fate that will end in vengeance is stone cold chilling.

This adaptation of the play by Sartre has been adjusted to speak to a modern audience. It contains an introduction where Sartre explains his purpose and methods. Also, in a note from Ronald Duncan who translated Sartre’s French to English, he explains that it is a free adaptation rather than a direct translation, and why. So Euripides had quite a bit of help in this rendition of his ancient play.

Let’s give the final words to song writer Edwin Starr:
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!

I found this play to possibly be the Greek tragedy that has evoked the most emotion from me to date. I enjoy Euripides critical, ironic style and how he plays with different versions of Greek myths and this play is no different. It was very hard hitting and dealt with some dark themes (the post-war victims in ancient times). I could really picture the anguish and I would love to see this play performed on stage. It also has some interesting ancient commentary on war in general and the myth of the Trojan war.