The Trojan Women and Other Plays

Summary

This volume gathers three Euripides plays about what the Trojan War left behind: The Trojan Women and Iphigenia in Tauris in Gilbert Murray's rhyming verse, and Hecuba in Michael Wodhull's blank verse of 1782. The Trojan Women opens on the smoking ruins of Troy. Poseidon mourns the city he built, and Athena, angered that the Greek Ajax dragged Cassandra from her altar, wins his help to wreck the victors on their voyage home. Hecuba, the fallen queen, lies on the ground before the Greek tents. The herald Talthybius announces the allotment of the captive women: Cassandra to Agamemnon, Andromache to Achilles' son Neoptolemus, Hecuba herself to Odysseus, and Polyxena, he says evasively, to tend Achilles' tomb. Cassandra enters waving wedding torches and foretells the deaths and wanderings that await her new masters. Andromache arrives on a cart with her small son Astyanax and reveals that Polyxena has been killed at the tomb; then Talthybius returns with the Greek decision, urged by Odysseus, that the boy of Hector must be thrown from the walls. Menelaus comes to reclaim Helen, and a formal debate follows in which Helen blames Aphrodite and Paris while Hecuba answers that Helen chose her own desire. The play ends with Hecuba washing and burying her grandson on Hector's shield as Troy burns and the women go down to the ships. Euripides produced it at the City Dionysia of 415 BC, where his group of plays took second prize. Iphigenia in Tauris turns to a later chapter of the house of Atreus. Iphigenia, snatched by Artemis from the altar at Aulis, now serves as priestess among the Taurians on the Black Sea, where every Greek stranger is sacrificed. Her brother Orestes, still pursued by the Furies for killing their mother, arrives with his friend Pylades to steal the goddess's image. Brother and sister nearly meet as priestess and victim before a letter brings about their recognition; together they trick King Thoas and escape, and Athena appears to found the Attic rites of Artemis. Hecuba, set on the Thracian shore soon after the fall of Troy, follows the queen through two blows: the sacrifice of Polyxena at Achilles' tomb, which the girl accepts with courage, and the discovery that the Thracian king Polymestor murdered her youngest son Polydorus for his gold. Hecuba wins Agamemnon's leave for revenge, lures Polymestor into her tent, kills his sons and blinds him, and hears him prophesy her own strange end.

Plot or Argument

• The Trojan Women: gods over a ruined city

  Poseidon mourns Troy; Athena, offended by Ajax's sacrilege against Cassandra, asks him to scatter the Greek fleet on its return.

• The Trojan Women: the lots and Cassandra's wedding song

  Talthybius assigns the captives to their masters; Cassandra sings a mock bridal hymn and prophesies the fates of Agamemnon and Odysseus.

• The Trojan Women: Andromache and Astyanax

  Andromache learns of Polyxena's death and then loses her son, whom the Greeks condemn to be thrown from the walls.

• The Trojan Women: the trial of Helen

  Menelaus hears Helen's defense and Hecuba's reply, vows to punish his wife in Greece, and takes her aboard.

• The Trojan Women: burial and burning

  Hecuba buries Astyanax on Hector's shield; the towers fall in flame and the women are led to the ships.

• Iphigenia in Tauris: priestess and strangers

  Iphigenia dreams that Orestes is dead; Orestes and Pylades land, and a herdsman reports their capture after Orestes's fit of madness on the shore.

• Iphigenia in Tauris: the letter and the recognition

  Iphigenia offers to spare one stranger to carry a letter to Argos; the friends contend over who will die, and the letter reveals brother to sister.

• Iphigenia in Tauris: escape and Athena

  Iphigenia deceives Thoas with a rite of purification at the sea; when the ship is driven back, Athena orders the Greeks released and founds the cults at Halae and Brauron.

• Hecuba: Polyxena at the tomb

  The ghost of Polydorus speaks the prologue; Odysseus refuses Hecuba's plea, and Polyxena goes freely to her death at Achilles' tomb.

• Hecuba: Polydorus and the revenge

  Hecuba finds her murdered son's body, persuades Agamemnon to stand aside, blinds Polymestor and kills his sons, and wins Agamemnon's judgment against the Thracian.

Characters

• Hecuba, Queen of Troy

  Widow of Priam and mother of Hector, Paris, Cassandra, Polyxena and Polydorus; the center of both The Trojan Women and Hecuba.

• Cassandra, prophetess

  Hecuba's daughter, allotted to Agamemnon, who greets her captivity with a wild wedding song and true prophecy.

• Andromache, widow of Hector

  Allotted to Neoptolemus; loses her son Astyanax to the Greek decision.

• Helen, wife of Menelaus

  Defends herself before Menelaus by blaming the gods and the Trojans.

• Talthybius, Greek herald

  Carries the army's orders with visible reluctance and some pity for the women.

• Iphigenia, priestess of Artemis

  Agamemnon's daughter, saved from sacrifice at Aulis, now bound to consecrate strangers among the Taurians.

• Orestes, son of Agamemnon

  Driven by the Furies after killing his mother, sent by Apollo to bring Artemis's image to Attica.

• Pylades, friend of Orestes

  Prince of Phocis who refuses to survive his friend and tends him through his madness.

• Thoas, King of the Taurians

  Barbarian ruler deceived by Iphigenia's rite of purification.

• Polyxena, daughter of Hecuba

  Sacrificed at Achilles' tomb in Hecuba, where she asks to die free and unbound.

• Polymestor, King of Thrace

  Priam's guest-friend who murdered Polydorus for his gold and is blinded by Hecuba.

• Poseidon and Athena, gods of the prologue

  Plan the storm that will punish the victorious Greeks in The Trojan Women.

Lessons

• The defeated see what victors miss

  The Trojan Women tells the war's end entirely from the side of the captive women, and the gods' prologue warns that the conquerors are about to be wrecked in turn. Poseidon's closing words call the sackers of temples and tombs blind, since they too must die. Euripides makes the cost of victory visible in one small body laid on a shield.

  • Why does Euripides open with the gods planning the Greeks' destruction before we meet a single Greek?
  • What does the burial of Astyanax on Hector's shield show that a battle scene could not?
  • Is Talthybius a villain, a servant, or a witness?

• Hope and the will to live after loss

  When Andromache says the dead Polyxena is better off than the living, Hecuba answers that death is an empty cup while life still holds hope. The plays return again and again to whether grief should end in surrender or endurance. Hecuba's own refusals and collapses give the question a human face.

  • Which speaker, Andromache or Hecuba, seems more persuasive in their exchange about death?
  • How does Hecuba keep living after each new blow in The Trojan Women?
  • Does revenge in Hecuba give the queen something to live for, or take something from her?

• Friendship stronger than fear

  In Iphigenia in Tauris Orestes and Pylades each insist on dying so that the other may live. Pylades has shared Orestes's exile and tended him in his madness. The play honors a loyalty that is chosen, not owed by blood.

  • What reasons does each friend give for wanting to be the one who dies?
  • How does the herdsman's account of Pylades on the shore prepare us for the later contest?

• Persuasion, power and justice

  Hecuba must persuade Odysseus, then Agamemnon, then a court, and she fails and succeeds by turns. Helen and Hecuba debate guilt in The Trojan Women like advocates in an Athenian lawcourt. Euripides shows speech as the only weapon left to the powerless and asks whether it can bring justice.

  • Why does Odysseus refuse Hecuba, though she once saved his life?
  • Who wins the debate between Helen and Hecuba, and does Menelaus act on the result?
  • Is Agamemnon's verdict against Polymestor just?

Context

Euripides wrote during the long war between Athens and Sparta. The Trojan Women was staged in the spring of 415 BC, a few months after Athens captured the island of Melos, killed its men and enslaved its women and children, and shortly before the great Athenian expedition sailed for Sicily. Many readers have connected the play with those events; others note that the plays were probably composed before the fall of Melos and caution against reading them as direct comment.

Composition

According to Aelian, whom Murray prints with his translation, Euripides took second prize in 415 BC with Alexandros, Palamedes, The Trojan Women and the satyr play Sisyphus, losing to the little-known Xenocles. Hecuba is usually dated c. 424 BC and Iphigenia in Tauris c. 414-412 BC on grounds of style and metre; neither date is certain. Gilbert Murray, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, published his rhyming versions of The Trojan Women (1905) and Iphigenia in Tauris (1910) for the stage. Michael Wodhull's Hecuba comes from his complete English Euripides of 1782, reprinted in Henry Morley's 1888 edition.

Reception

The Trojan Women has been revived often in times of war, and Murray's version was itself widely staged in the early twentieth century. Iphigenia in Tauris, admired by Aristotle in the Poetics for its recognition scene, inspired Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris and Gluck's opera Iphigénie en Tauride. Hecuba was among the most read Greek tragedies in Byzantine and Renaissance schools.

Comparisons

• the-iliad

  Homer ends with Hector's funeral and Andromache's fear for Astyanax; The Trojan Women shows those fears fulfilled after the city falls.

• euripides-iphigenia-in-aulis-and-other-plays

  Iphigenia in Aulis stages the sacrifice that Iphigenia in Tauris looks back on, and its Orestes and Helen continue the same family and war.

• the-oresteia

  Aeschylus ends Orestes's pursuit by the Furies at a court in Athens; Euripides sends him instead to the Taurians on a further errand from Apollo.

• medea-and-other-plays

  Medea and Hecuba are both wronged women who take revenge through children, one on her own and one on her enemy's.

• the-bacchae-and-other-plays

  Both Euripides collections show gods whose purposes are only partly visible to the human beings who suffer them.

• the-aeneid

  Virgil's Book II tells the fall of Troy from a Trojan survivor's side, with Priam's death and the flight from the burning city.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The gods' prologue in The Trojan Women, and how Poseidon and Athena's plan to wreck the Greek fleet colors every later Greek triumph in the play.
• Cassandra's torch-lit wedding song and her argument that the Trojans, who died defending their homes, are happier than the Greeks who conquered them.
• The burial of Astyanax on his father's shield, and how Hecuba turns the shield itself into a memorial of Hector.
• The herdsman's speech in Iphigenia in Tauris, the contest between Orestes and Pylades, and the letter that brings about the recognition.
• In Hecuba, the turn from the queen as suppliant to the queen as avenger after the body of Polydorus is carried in.

Key terms and names

Astyanax

The small son of Hector and Andromache. The Greeks, on Odysseus's counsel, throw him from the walls of Troy so that Hector's heir cannot grow up to avenge his city.

Talthybius

The Greek herald who brings each new order to the captive women. He carries out the army's will while showing pity, and he himself washes Astyanax's body in the Scamander.

Taurians

A people on the northern shore of the Black Sea, in the region of modern Crimea, who in the play sacrifice every Greek stranger to their image of Artemis.

Furies

The avenging spirits of a murdered mother's blood. They still pursue Orestes in Iphigenia in Tauris, which is why Apollo sends him to bring Artemis's image to Attica.

Recognition

The moment when characters discover who one another really are. Aristotle singled out the recognition through Iphigenia's letter as a model of the device.

Guest-friendship

The sacred bond between host and guest, guarded by Zeus. Polymestor breaks it by murdering Polydorus, the boy Priam entrusted to him, and Hecuba's revenge answers that crime.

Deus ex machina

A god appearing above the stage to resolve the action. Athena ends Iphigenia in Tauris by halting Thoas's pursuit and founding the rites of Artemis at Halae and Brauron.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension To whom is each of the royal Trojan women allotted in The Trojan Women, and what has happened to Polyxena?
2. Comprehension Why have Orestes and Pylades come to the land of the Taurians, and how does Iphigenia learn who Orestes is?
3. Comprehension How does Hecuba lure Polymestor into her tent, and what does he prophesy after he is blinded?
4. Interpretation Helen blames Aphrodite and Paris; Hecuba answers that Helen chose her own desire. Whose argument does Euripides make stronger, and why does Menelaus still take Helen home?
5. Interpretation Polyxena asks to die unbound, as one born free. What kind of freedom does she claim, and how does Hecuba's later line that no man is free answer it?
6. Interpretation Iphigenia in Tauris ends in rescue and the founding of a cult, while The Trojan Women ends in fire. What does Euripides gain by writing both kinds of play about the same war?
7. Big Question Hecuba's revenge on Polymestor is approved by Agamemnon's verdict. Can justice be done by a person who has lost everything, and what does it cost her?
8. Big Question Hecuba prays to a God she calls unknown and hard to understand, yet believes justice comes in the end. Is that a hopeful or a despairing faith?

Faith Connections

• Lamentations 1 (Scripture)

  Jerusalem, fallen and emptied, is pictured as a widow who weeps in the night with none to comfort her. Hecuba and the chorus of captive women lament Troy in the same posture, and the two laments make a striking pair.

• Acts 17:22-28 (Scripture)

  Paul tells the Athenians that the God they worship as unknown is the one in whom we live and move and have our being. Hecuba's prayer to an unknown Throne above the world, a Chain of Things or Reason of our Reason, is a Greek reaching toward that same question.

• John 15:13 (Scripture)

  Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Orestes and Pylades each try to die so that the other may live.

• Augustine, City of God I (Church Fathers)

  Writing after the sack of Rome in 410, Augustine reflects on the sufferings of captives and on the fall of Troy, whose gods could not protect it. He offers a Christian answer to the grief of a conquered city that the Trojan women voice without consolation.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: The Greeks have won the war and divided its spoils, yet the gods have already decreed their ruin, and the play shows victory turning into cruelty: a child killed for fear of the future, a girl sacrificed at a tomb, women enslaved. If the conquerors who destroy temples and tombs are themselves soon to die, then their triumph is blindness, and the only lasting thing left from Troy is the memory of its suffering. Therefore The Trojan Women argues that the defeated, who see the cost of war, understand it better than the victors.

Rhetorical device: apostrophe. Hecuba addresses the unknown God directly as the deep Base and high Throne of the world in the Menelaus scene, and Poseidon ends the prologue by addressing the blind treaders down of cities; in both, a speaker turns from the people on stage to address powers or persons who cannot answer.

Debate: Resolved: that Hecuba's revenge on Polymestor is just.

Memory Work

Death cannot be what Life is, Child; the cup Of Death is empty, and Life hath always hope.

No, not in blood. In love we are brothers sworn.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Talthybius, Menelaus, Odysseus and Agamemnon each act on behalf of the Greek army in these plays. Analyze how Euripides portrays the victors through their dealings with Hecuba, and argue whether any of them is shown as just.

Comparison with The Iliad: In Iliad Book VI Hector prays that Astyanax will grow up greater than his father, and in Book XXIV Andromache fears he will be thrown from the walls. Compare Homer's scenes with The Trojan Women and argue what Euripides adds by showing the fulfillment.

Medical Lens

These plays are a sustained study of grief in the aftermath of war, and they belong to the history of how madness was imagined before medicine named it. The herdsman in Iphigenia in Tauris describes Orestes's attack on the shore in strikingly physical terms: head tossing, trembling, visions of Furies, a frenzied assault on cattle, collapse and foam at the lips, with Pylades tending him. The Greeks understood such attacks as divine pursuit after blood-guilt; modern readers have compared the description with seizures or psychotic episodes, but that is a reading, not a diagnosis the play supports. Hecuba's repeated collapses, Andromache's argument that the dead are better off, and Hecuba's attempt to throw herself into the burning city bear on the history of suicidal grief. The blinding of Polymestor and his prophecy of Hecuba's transformation close the cycle with bodily violence.

• Iphigenia in Tauris, herdsman's speech

  A herdsman reports how one stranger trembled, cried out at Furies no one else could see, attacked the cattle, and fell foaming while his friend tended him.

  Madness Psychosis Nursing Caregiving
• The Trojan Women, Andromache scene

  Andromache argues that death is mere not-being and better than a life of grief; Hecuba replies that life always holds hope.

  Grief Suicide
• The Trojan Women, final scene

  Hecuba tries to rush into the burning city and is restrained by the soldiers before she is led to the ships.

  Suicide Trauma Shell Shock
• The Trojan Women, burial of Astyanax

  Hecuba washes and dresses her grandson's broken body on Hector's shield, in one of the longest laments in Greek tragedy.

  Grief Death Dying
• Hecuba, blinding of Polymestor

  Polymestor stumbles from the tent blinded by the captive women and cries for vengeance on all-fours like a beast.

  Disability Deformity Trauma Shell Shock

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Stage the Helen and Hecuba debate as a mock trial, with students as Menelaus's advisers who must recommend a verdict in writing.

• Essay

  Compare the deaths of Polyxena in Hecuba and Astyanax in The Trojan Women. What does each victim's age and voice change about the scene?

• Fiction

  Write the letter Iphigenia sends to Argos, in your own words, as she might have written it years before the strangers arrived.

Further Reading

• The Iliad, Homer

• Euripides and His Age, Gilbert Murray

  Murray's own introduction to the playwright.

• Poetics, Aristotle

  Praises the recognition scene of Iphigenia in Tauris.

• History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides

  Book V contains the Melian Dialogue.