Sad (of course) but very interesting to read in full after Mary Hamil Gilbert’s talk "Hecuba and the Politics of Care in Euripides' Trojan Women" she gave at Bryn Mawr. Gilbert put the play in discussion with a more modern play that engaged with themes of the “chosen family,” emphasizing Hecuba’s mothering of many children and of many people and children after Troy’s fall which were not necessarily related to her through blood.

“È pazzo l'uomo che si rallegra pensando che gli andrà sempre bene: la fortuna con i suoi ghiribizzi è come un individuo capriccioso, salta di qua e di là †: e nessuno ne gode in perpetuo i favori” .
Rileggo questo testo di Euripide per prepararmi alle rappresentazioni del teatro di Siracusa di quest’anno. Insieme ad Elena è una delle tragedie scelte quest’anno. Leggerle, sentirle nel silenzio della stanza è diverso che vederle su una scena immensa, quale è quella di Siracusa, con gli alberi dietro e in fondo il mare blu che luccica. Ed è lo stesso mare che si porterà via le troiane, le donne rimaste vive dopo la caduta di Troia. Qual è il destino di queste donne cadute in mano nemiche e destinate a vedere nuove spiagge? Le donne di Euripide sono fiere, sopportano a testa alta la loro nuova condizione, come Cassandra, pronta a sposare Agamennone, a rinunciare alla sua verginità donata al dio Apollo, per uccidere il suo nemico e vendicare così se stessa e la sua gente; Ecuba che piange i suoi morti, Priamo ucciso sotto i suoi stessi occhi, suo figlio Ettore, eroe della battaglia e il nipotino Astianatte, sacrificato dall’odio acheo e sepolto nello scudo del padre; Andromaca, donna senza alcuna speranza ormai.
Che cosa è rimasto alle donne se non piangere i loro morti? Gridare nella sciagura il loro destino crudele? Piangere una città, orgoglio del loro popolo, adesso distrutta dall’odio?
L’incipit è splendido, con l’entrata di Poseidone in scena “ Io, Poseidone, ho lasciato le profondità dell'Egeo salmastro, dove i cori delle Nereidi intrecciano, in cerchio, bellissime danze” .
Sono le donne a pagare una guerra per una donna, Elena, che tenta con ogni raggiro di salvarsi la vita.
Quello che colpisce è la fede di queste donne nelle divinità, sapere che prima o poi saranno vendicate come è giusto, la loro capacità di sopportazione, il loro sapersi schiave adesso mentre prima erano regine onorate e venerate nel lusso.
E’ il dramma delle donne, derise, vilipese, ma che affrontano il loro dolore con dignità. Sono le donne di eroi e come tali non possono agire diversamente.
Donne costrette a partire. Penso all’attualità di questa tragedia, a quante donne oggi, vivono ancora questa condizione di dolore, di sottomissione, indipendentemente da una guerra e che ancora oggi esiste. La forza di quelle parole dopo 2000 anni mi sconcerta, sempre.
Il coro parla di aurora dalle bianche ali e mi viene in mente quella di Omero “dalle rosee dita”, un’immagine che sempre ho trovato bellissima.
“Stolto il mortale che distrugge città: chi condanna alla desolazione i templi e le tombe, asilo dei morti, è destinato a perire malamente”

خیلی دلخراش بود

Troy has been defeated, the Greeks have won, and of the Trojans only some women survive, all else are dead.

Reading this for the second time, was as hard as the first. Through Hecuba’s agony, Euripides shows the senselessness of war. This is an unsettling read and not a happy play, it’s full of forlorn agonising grief, which is briefly paused with Cassandra and later Helen.

Injustices and the mistreatments of the surviving women are voiced through Hecuba. These women, in the hands of the enemy, have also lost all autonomy to their lives, the Greeks do not see them as human but pieces of property to be divided between themselves; and for Hecuba, there is much more for her to bear before the play ends.

TW & A very young child is murdered by the Greeks, they are worried that Astyanax will grow up get vengeance. Hecuba (bravely) retorts that this is not the action of a civilised society.

Reading this is not easy but I also found it cathartic. What stands out for me is the women’s strength. They have been through so much and yet they are not broken.

It might be seen as a minor work of Euripides because its not much of story progress but i rated it highly. Unlike other Greek classic authors he dares to treat war,the women on the losing side of it in a realistic way. What happens to real humans of those days when the legendary battles,wars end, slavery or worse.

Aischylos,Sofocles,Homer for example makes war mostly to be about honor,heroism and other male values.

"زنان تروا" نمایشیه از ویرانی، غم، و تسلیم‌ناپذیری انسان در برابر قساوت جنگ. اوریپید، با نگاهی نافذ، از چشمان زنان مغلوب، بی‌عدالتی جنگ و بی‌ارزشی پیروزی‌های خونین رو روایت می‌کنه.
این نمایشنامه تصویریه از زنانی که با از دست دادن همه‌چیز—خانه، عشق، و خانواده—هنوز شجاعانه سنگینی اندوه خودشون رو حمل می‌کنن. اوریپید، در سکوت فریادهای زنان، نه فقط جنبه‌ انسانی جنگ، بلکه قدرت خارق‌العاده روح زنانه رو به تصویر می‌کشه.
این نمایشنامه اثریه که عمیق‌ترین زخم‌ها رو واکاوی میکنه و در عین حال، استقامت انسان رو در برابر تاریکی‌های اجتناب‌ناپذیر تقدیر، برجسته می‌کنه؛ شاهکاری که هنوز، قرن‌ها بعد، تلخی پیامش رو به ما گوشزد می‌کنه.

A timely warning to the Athenian elite
26 April 2013

tI liked one of the short descriptions of this play: a bunch of women wailing and moaning about the significant turn in their life. While that statement may sum this play up, I do not actually think at it gets to the core of what Euripides is exploring, particularly since these women have found themselves on the losing side of a war, which is generally always a bad thing. In the days of Ancient Greece, to be a woman on the losing side of a war pretty much meant the loss of freedom and a lifetime of sex slavery, and I suspect that that is only when you still have your looks about you: once they are gone I suspect the life gets even worse.

tThis is not necessarily low born women either, though the same probably applies to them. However, as is the case with most plays and other forms of literature, we are dealing with high born people, such as queens and princesses. To them such a radical change in their social status would have been mentally debilitating, and that is something that the Greek Tragedians explore well, the idea of mental anguish. Some have suggested that there is a struggle between the desire to end one's life and the possibility of hope, though the only hope one sees in this play is the hope that the victors suffer as much as the vanquished. Indeed, the Greek generals do have their own trials to face, however most of them make it back to their homes, and freedom (though whether freedom in the form of relying upon slaves to maintain your lifestyle is in fact freedom is another debate for another time). All these women have to look forward to is a life of sexual slavery only to be discarded when their looks are gone. There is no concept of human rights in this period, and while Athens could have been considered a slave's paradise, slaves were little more than property, and the only reason that you kept them fed and sheltered was because good slaves were expensive.

tThere is a contemporary event to which this play relates and that was the sacking of Miletus by the Athenians. Just as the Greeks sacked Troy, killed all of the men and enslaved the women and children, the Athenians did that to Miletus as well. What Euripides is trying to expose is the pain and agony that the citizens, particularly the women, of Miletus would have experienced at the time. It was also a warning to Athens, though one must remember that only the men were allowed to go to the theatre. Still, the war was a long way from being concluded, but Athens had suffered, and was about to suffer, some serious set backs with the disastrous Sicilian expedition, and the plays that were produced after that time clearly demonstrate the loss of hope that the Athenians were facing. If there was any hope at all in the eyes of the Trojan Woman, it would be small and fleeting.

3.5 (not quite good enough for a 4, but honestly I enjoyed it)

This was full of hilarious one-liners I never knew.....

Having to study it for year 12 adds a level of stress, but honestly, from a historical standpoint the play is fascinating, and I loved the prose.

read #2:
definitely hits more when you analyse it deeply. 3.75. see you again, old friend

read#3:
I think I'll still leave it at 3.75 but it definitely gets better every time you read it. The more you understand the background and the message, the more impactful it becomes and the more you can take away. The exam is in 9 days someone please save me

Excellent play by Euripides. It really highlights the costs of war and tragedy that befalls women and children following a brutal war.

Absolutamente rendida a estas tragédias gregas.

Extremely tragic. But inspite of this terrible tragedy the courage of Trojan Women is unparalleled.
Their valour is not in mercilessly killing and attributing the strength of arms as the only glorifying courage, but in the very fact of standing tall and spirited even after losing everything in the war, a war which was never theirs.

Though aware of the story beforehand, I found the play extremely well written, invoking the necessary emotions which definitely overwhelms and tears through one's heart while reading.

The songs, the reactions, the quotes, everything is well weaved for a play of such intensity, also never overdoing the tragedy.

To quote one of my favorite parts,
as Hecuba, the once Queen of Troy, in her lamentations calls out to Gods, but then she quickly checks herself and says 'Alas, why call on things so weak for aid?'
And if there's one thing that can be inferred correctly from this tragic war of Troy, is how humans, brave courageous humans, are nothing but playthings in the hand of the mighty Gods. Power seduces and defies both the divine and kings alike. Yet, the tragedy befalls to these women who are neither Gods/Goddesses, playing through as their own likings, nor the mighty terrible kings who in their arrogance of power can win over everything but kindness and humaneness.

My first Euripides play, this was definitely a perfect start.

An interesting play about the Trojan war and what happens to women during war. It is also about the consequences of women being considered a possessions, something that can be stolen or given as prices. The victors took the women as prices after winning the war.

I'm not very well-read when it comes to the war and Helen's part, and i didn't understand whether she had left voluntarily or not, but it didn't seem like it. It reminded me of rape victims that are not taken seriously. However, even if she did leave voluntarily, her husband, Menelaus, felt he had to steal her back. Of course, he didn't want her back, he just wanted to start a war, killing many people, to make a statement and kill her.

Ancient Greece was in many ways a prosperous world, but when it came to women's rights, if Euripides did use real norms in his work, it seems to have been really bad.