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.

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.

7/10/2020 * 3 stars
Read for The Literary Life Podcast & Facebook group #20for2020reads

I'm glad I listened to the podcast soon after reading this because that helped me appreciate it so much more than just reading it on my own.

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.

Pese a ser una obra muy breve, hay varias cosas destacables. El comienzo, con Poseidón y Atenea, me parece llamativo: se ve de una forma bastante directa cómo los dioses juegan con los humanos como quien si fuese un juego de mesa. No es la primera vez que lo veo, pero no deja de llamarme la atención esa forma que tenían los griegos de concebir a los dioses, se tomaban con bastante tranquilidad la idea de ser sus peones y de que pudiesen hacer con ellos lo que quisiesen.

Me parece también curiosa la figura de Helena, a la que todos parecen odiar y culpar de todos sus males, incluída Hécuba. Claro, porque Paris no hizo nada, ¿no? Pobre muchacha. Respecto a Hécuba, es la viva representación del dolor de las troyanas, pero hay algo en el personaje que no me acaba de gustar. Quizá sea por la crítica a Helena, no sé. La que me ha llamado la atención pese a lo poco que sale es Cassandra con sus predicciones.

Es una obra que se lee bien, no tiene ningún párrafo de estos que tienes que leer veinte veces porque no te enteras de qué va la cosa. Pese a su brevedad, consigue reflejar muy bien la situación de las troyanas, abocadas a la esclavitud o a matrimonios con aquellos que han asesinado a todos sus parientes y amigos. Me ha gustado, pero deja con ganas de más.

من نمی‌دونم تو یونان باستان خود نویسنده‌ها موضوع نمایشنامه رو انتخاب می‌کردند و یا هر دوره در مسابقه‌ای که برگزار می‌شده یک موضوع خاص پیشنهاد می‌شده که بقیه درباره‌اش بنویسند؛ اما به هر حال جالبه که هر نمایشنامه‌ای که از اوریپید من می‌شناسم، نمایشنامه‌ای درباره‌ی زن‌ها و خلق و خوی اونهاست... و جالب‌ترش اینه که ما با یک مردی طرفیم که تو جامعه‌ی 2000 سال پیش یونان این نمایشنامه‌ها رو نوشته... تو دوره‌ای که فیلسوف‌ها و مردم یونانی معتقد بودند برای رسیدن به کمال، مرد (به عنوان یک کامل) باید با یک مرد (به عنوان یک کامل دیگر) ازدواج کنه و زن‌ها به عنوان یک ناقص در کنار بردگان از بسیاری از حقوق برخوردار نبودند.

"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.

خیلی دلخراش بود

Tanrıların ve erkeklerin hikayesi İlyada'nın karşısına kadınların hikayesi olan Troyalı Kadınlar'ı koyup daha çok sevdiğimi, içselleştirdiğimi, anlamlı bulduğumu söylemem biraz iddialı. Biliyorum duygusal yaklaşıyorum. İlyada sonrası kesinlikle okunması gereken bir tragedya.

درباره‌ی این سری نمایشنامه‌هایی که نشر بیدگل چاپ کرده فقط باید بگم که حتما توضیحات آخر هر نمایشنامه درباره شخصیت‌ها و نقد و تحلیلشون رو بخونید.

Newer Review here with Older Review below.

When a GR friend said she wanted to read, I took the opportunity to reread. She and I plan to read literary works that inform our understandings of The Illiad. This time I read  a prose version posted online by MIT. This time I watched this transitional traditional ritual drama enacted outdoors outdoors by UNC-Asheville which was posted on YouTube.

Development of Character. Hecuba is an imperfect yet effective crone. She does not always perceive correctly yet she encourages appropriately, helping her daughter and daughter-in-law to leave Troy with as much dignity as possible. Although Euripides wrote a play that still has strong roots in traditional ritual drama, he wrote lines that tells his audience something of interior landscapes of women, all. The watching of an enactment presented outside makes clear the obstacles Euripides faced in getting his audience to hear anything more than the basic plot to be understood, yet he was successful.
_________

Older Review here.

Many years ago when I was young, I watched the movie version of The Trojan Women (1971). All I understood at the time was that Hecuba stayed strong enough to help the other Trojan women and that Helen was alluring enough to send men to war and to send women into despair and to their destruction. I was horrified. I felt as though I had watched the most horrifying movie ever.

Decades later, I have started to re-read and to read ancient works. This time I both read the play and re-watched the 1971 movie on Vimeo. As to be expected, I have a completely different understanding of the play. Instead of horror, I see literary greatness. All the elements I would hope to see in such a situation-- destruction of a city, the re-allocation of women, the wisdom of a crone, the insanity that can follow crisis, the despair that follows, new awareness and decisions, and the presence of the prime mover of the previous, current, and future action--all take place in a compact and coherent form. Everything I would want to know is known/shown in a short time.

When I first looked over the text prior to reading it, it seemed as though there were long speeches, orations, choruses. Once I both started reading and watching the play, I came to a different, better understanding. Sure some of the speeches were long, yet in the movie moves well enough. Crazed Cassandra moves around, almost as through she is trying to get away from the future assigned her. Andromache stands with her child, cuddles her child, has something of an argument with Hecuba. Helen of Troy moves in a dramatic fashion, as she does a dance of sorts around Menelaus as she works him. The chorus seemed as though it might be the challenging part to read, the chorus talking for for a page or two at a time. While the text reads as straight text and could be delivered that way, the 1971 movie version depicts the chorus as Trojan widows who are a asking questions, remembering, fearing, commenting as a group of despairing women might.

Dithyrambic Chorus. I am reading Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. In the introductory note to Erra and Ishum, I read that this type of chorus was a traditional ritual drama that evolved into the operas and plays we are more familiar with and that Euripides was an innovator in this change. Appreciating the Connections.

Casting Comments. The main actors of US American, French, and English backgrounds made the movie mainstream and accessible to Western audiences. The women of the chorus appeared authentic enough, varying from fair to dark and with voices that that either used or assumed a non-Western, perhaps Mediterrean, cadence. Adding a strong and important bit of authenticity, Irene Papas who is herself Greek herself plays the Greek Helen of Troy, previously the queen of Sparta and a Hellene. By casting as Helen an actor who looks like a stereotypical dark beauty Greek, the movie acquires 1. a more Mediterrean feel and 2. an otherness in comparison to the rest of the cast, particularly the actors of the main characters. This casting provides an authencity that I have yet to find in later movie depictions.

I will be reading more Euripides plays.

I read with GR group: NonFiction Side reads.

I read from Euripides III: Hecuba / Andromache / The Trojan Women / Ion

Medea okumaktan çok çok keyif aldığım bir oyundur; ama Medea haricinde hiç Euripides okumamıştım. 2016 yılının son ayına girmişken bu yıl başka Euripidesler de okuyayım istedim.

Medea kadar olmasa da Troyalı Kadınları da severek okudum.

Oyun, isminden de tahmin edilebileceği üzere "Truva/Troya Savaşı"ndan sonrasını anlatıyor. Savaştan sonra neredeyse tüm Troyalı erkekler ölmüş, geriye kalan kadınlar ve çocuklar ise birer tutsak olarak alınıyorlar. Bizler kitap boyunca o kadınların arasında bulunan Troya Kraliçesi, Kral Priamos'un karısı, Hector'un annesi Hekabe'yi, Hekabe'nin kızı Kassandra'yı, Hector'un karısı Andromakhe'yi ve en sonunda da savaşın müsebbibi Helena'yı okuyoruz.

Sinemada da edebiyatta da genelde hep Agamemnon'u, Paris'i, Hector'u, onların kahramanlıklarını, acımasızlıklarını okuyoruz ya da izliyoruz. Kadınlar -belki de Helen dışındaki kadınlar demek daha doğru- ise birer muamma. Euripides sayesinde o dönemin kadınlarını az da olsa tanıma fırsatı elde ediyoruz. Savaşın bu kadınlarüzeirndeki acımasız etkilerini, kadının insan değil de nasıl "ganimet" olarak addedilip "mal" haline getirildiğini okuyoruz. Ayrıca savaşların esasen bir galibin olmadığını da bir kere daha anlıyoruz. Poseidon'un da dediği gibi,
"Aptaldır kentleri ve tapınakları yerle bir eden,
Mezarları, kutsal yerleri yıkan, aptaldır.
Çünkü yakıp yıkan, kendi yıkımını hazırlamaktadır" (s. 8).

Çeviri Yılmaz Onay'a ait. Bence başarılı bir çeviri.

Kitabın sonunda dipnotlar ve yazarın notları var. Sürekli arkaya dönüp bunları okumak oyundan kopmaya sebep olabiliyor ne yazık ki.

Ayrıca oyun ile ilgili Joachim Latacz'ın incelemesine de yer verilmiş.

Bir de Yılmaz Onay, oyunun sonunda oyunun daha kolay, daha anlaşılır bir şekilde sahnelenebilmesi adına bazı sahnelerin yerlerini değiştirip bazı eklemeler ve çıkarmalar yaparak oyuna dair bir "dramaturji denemesi"ne yer vermiş.