Troy, Ill-starred Troy

The Trojan Women by Euripides

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT AN ANCIENT GREEK SCHOLAR. FOR THE FULL DISCLAIMER, READ HERE.

That mortal is a fool who, prospering, thinks his life|
has any strong foundation; since our fortune’s course
of action is the reeling way a madman takes,
and no one person is ever happy all the time.
(Hecuba; lines 1203-1206)

Introduction

The Trojan Women by Euripides is another one of his lesser known plays. It wasn’t very popular in the ancient and medieval world and has only enjoyed a small amount of recognition in recent decades.

The story takes place immediately after the sacking of Troy (which ended the Trojan War) and centers on the Trojan women who were taken captive and were awaiting the news as to who would become a slave to which of the Achaeans’ (Greeks). Hecuba, the former queen of Troy, is the central character—only, rather than a story of her getting revenge against a man who murdered one of her sons (see Hecuba), she more just watches hopelessly as tragedy after tragedy unfolds. Her daughter Polyxena is sacrificed on Achilles’ tomb. Another daughter, Cassandra, is forced to become Agamemnon’s concubine. Andromache, her daughter-in-law who was married to the great Trojan hero Hector, is forced to marry Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles (Achilles being the one who killed Hector and desecrated his body by dragging it around on his chariot). Astyanax, the very young son of Andromache and Hector, is thrown off the walls of Troy to his death. Hecuba herself is given over to Odysseus to be his slave—the very man who advocated for Astyanax’ death. And lastly, Hecuba has to witness from afar the Achaeans torching Troy and watching the palace her and her family lived in go up in flames.

The play is basically the aftermath of the Trojan War from the perspective of the losers (much like Hecuba and Andromache). You watch their fate unfold and share in their anguish. Ultimately, however, no matter your feelings, no matter how much you sympathize with these women, it doesn’t change their fate. This is their new, hard reality. No fairy tale endings. Complaints of “fairness” are useless. Their only options are to accept it, make the most of it, or die.

All quotes from The Trojan Women are from the Richmond Lattimore translation. This translation is found in the Complete Greek Tragedies which was originally edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. I will be using the Third Edition which was edited by Mark Griffith and Glenn W. Most.

When the Monster You Created Acts Like a… Monster

In the beginning of the play, Euripides draws on the story laid out in the Iliad that Hera and Athena had a grudge against Troy. Both goddesses were very one-sided in the war. They rejoiced when the Achaeans were winning and complained that Zeus was playing favorites whenever the Trojans were winning. They would accept nothing less than Troy’s destruction and refused to allow the war to end until that happened. In Book 4, the Achaeans and Trojans were extremely close to settling the war and going their separate ways, but intervention by Athena caused it to erupt again instead.

In their blood lust, Athena and Hera pushed and pushed the Achaeans forward. Every day, the Achaeans got more and more hardened. Grudges piled up as more and more men were killed on the battlefield.

And then the moment of reckoning finally occurred. The Achaeans, through the use of the famous Trojan Horse, breached Troy and successfully sacked it. They killed most of the men (the survivors of the war get their own story in the Aeneid by Virgil), enslaved most of the women, looted the city, and burned down what was still left.

It was during the sacking of Troy that Athena became angry with the Achaeans and went from their staunch ally and cheerleader to their opponent. It was because of her that most of the Achaeans had a rough time getting back to Greece. Athena was the one who set in motion the events that would cause her darling Odysseus to be delayed in getting home an additional ten years.

The moment that angered her? When Little Ajax (not to be confused with the towering Telamonian Ajax) went to Athena’s altar where the Trojan princess Cassandra had made herself a suppliant, forced Cassandra away (some stories say he raped her in the process), and delivered her to the Achaeans where she would become Agamemnon’s concubine. Athena might have forgiven the Achaeans if Ajax had been sufficiently punished and some sort of atonement was made, but nothing of the sort was done.

Athena created a monster, but then became shocked and outraged when the monster did monstrous things she didn’t approve of. After it accomplished what it was created to do, the goddess turned her back on the very monster she created.

All Fingers Point to Helen

Kill your wife, Menelaus, and I will bless your name.
But keep your eyes away from her. Desire will win.
She looks enchantment, and where she looks homes are set fire;
she captures cities as she captures the eyes of men.
We have had experience, you and I. We know the truth.

Hecuba; lines 890-94

One of the themes of the play is that Helen is blamed by pretty much everyone for the death and destruction that occurred during the Trojan War. Even her (ex)husband Menelaus, after claiming he didn’t come to Troy to get his woman back but to avenge himself of the man who took her, goes on to say that Helen was “stained with men’s destruction” (line 882).

When Helen gets a chance to speak, however, she refuses to accept blame for the war. Instead, she blames Aphrodite and relates the familiar story about the origins of the war: the beauty context.

During the wedding of the mortal man Peleus and the sea goddess Thetis (future parents of Achilles), the goddess of discord Eris threw a golden apple into the audience with the inscription “for the fairest.” She did this because she was denied an invitation to the wedding out of fear she would cause trouble. Go figure.

Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite all claimed to be the fairest and declared that someone needed to be the judge. No one wanted to do it—not even Zeus (there is so much that can be said about this). To make a long story short, it fell to Paris (also known as Alexander), the son of Priam and Hecuba and one of the princes of Troy. Eventually, the goddesses resorted to bribing him since, for obvious reasons, he was having a tough time making a choice. Athena promised him victory in all his battles, Hera promised him Asia, and Aphrodite promised him the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris, because he was a worldly man rather than a warrior (as shown in the Iliad), picked Aphrodite. This led to Hera and Athena having their eternal grudge against Troy and laid the groundwork for the Trojan War.

As you may have guessed (if this is your first time learning the story), Helen was (or would become) the most beautiful woman in the world. However, when she became of marrying age, she was given to Menelaus and they had a daughter together named Hermione. This didn’t stop Aphrodite from fulfilling her promise though. Paris was able to go to Sparta at a time when Menelaus was not around, seduce Helen, and take her back to Troy with him. This act sparked the Trojan War.

Going back to Helen’s refusal to accept blame, she argues that Aphrodite was behind it all. How could Helen stand up to the goddess?

If you know the Iliad, which Euripides’ audience did, you know there is precedence in what Helen is saying. In Book 3, Paris and Menelaus have a duel to decide who will get Helen once and for all and end the war. Menelaus clearly had the advantage in the duel. However, before he could strike a killing blow, Aphrodite whisked Paris away back to his bedchamber. She then appeared to Helen and told her to meet Paris and sleep with him. Helen basically told Aphrodite to get bent as she was no longer attracted to Paris after seeing how much of a coward he was. Aphrodite then threatened Helen to the point of frightening her and she reluctantly went to Paris.

Here’s where things get interesting: Hecuba flat out rejects Helen’s claims. Not only does she reject that Aphrodite forced her in some way to go with Paris to Troy, but she rejects the whole story of the beauty contest. Hecuba refuses to believe that Hera and Athena would stoop that low. As for Aphrodite, if she really wanted Paris to have Helen, why didn’t she just pluck Helen from her home and deliver her to Paris? No, the real reason Helen went with Paris is because he gave her the “tingles” and she wanted to be with a wealthier, more attractive, and more exotic, man.

Hecuba’s reaction is quite fascinating. On the hand, while the Trojans did worship the Olympian gods (or versions of them), they were non-Greeks. In her non-Greek mind, she couldn’t believe that the goddesses would be so petty. She also brings a more reasoned (read: secular) perspective. The only forces that Helen was contending with were not gods, but her own lust and greed.

On the other hand though, Helen is something that Hecuba is not: a child of the gods. Helen is a daughter of Zeus and a mortal mother. If there is any mortal who understood the gods and knew about the things they did, it would be a child of one of them. On top of that, Helen is a Greek and would probably know something about the Greek gods.

Menelaus ultimately sides with Hecuba and declares that he will take Helen back to Sparta to be executed. However, the audience knows this is never going to happen. Rather than executing Helen for her adultery and role in sparking the Trojan War, Menelaus instead takes her to be his wife again. Hecuba’s warning in the end is left unheeded.

So, is Helen to blame for the Trojan War? She did commit adultery and run away with a foreign prince. Is that enough to warrant a war where thousands of men died and left their wives widows, children fatherless, and parents childless? Men who had nothing to do with Helen’s adultery or Menelaus’ and Paris’ beef with each other?

There’s also the vow that was made. Before Helen’s father decided which man he would give her to wed, he had all the suitors make a vow that if someone tried to take Helen away, they would come to the aid of her husband in getting her back. Did Menelaus really have to invoke that vow and force everyone into a war?

There are so many layers to this story that could make this blog post pages longer trying to figure out this question of whether the war had to happen. Here’s another layer:

Helen wasn’t given a choice in the matter of who she married (which was typical in the ancient world). However, Menelaus did not prove to be a very reliable man either. For example: Menelaus relied way too much on his brother Agamemnon. Menelaus sent Agamemnon as his representative when suitors gathered to claim Helen’s hand because he was too timid to do it himself. Agamemnon became commander of the Greek army during the war rather than Menelaus. Agamemnon also was the one who sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia in order to leave Aulis rather than Menalaus sacrificing his. Throughout the Iliad, Menelaus deferred to Agamemnon all the time. The Trojan Women itself even acknowledges that Menelaus had a reputation for cowardice (lines 1033-35). Helen was wrong for committing adultery, but you can at least understand why she might have been compelled to do it. Why would she want to be with a weak man like Menelaus? And what would a weak man like Menelaus do if she did violate her marriage? Run crying to his brother? Which is exactly what happened—only the consequences for doing this ended up being massive.

There’s also the question of culture. Culturally, it was impossible for Menelaus to let the matter of his wife running away with another man, and a foreigner no less, stand. He had to respond. This may invoke sentiments about how oppressive culture can be. It may even invoke feelings of superiority from people who believe they are so enlightened, so modern, that they would never succumb to a culture’s tyranny like that and always do “the right thing.” I recommend those people read Camp of the Saints by Jean Rapsail. If you are honest with yourself as you read it, you will realize you are probably not so impressive that you could rise above cultural pressures and do “the right thing.”

And hopefully, that realization would cause you to really become a strong person rather than continue to be deluded by a fantasy version of yourself.

Ultimately though, does it really matter if Helen or Paris or Menelaus are to blame for the war? It was the gods who wanted it, so they created the conditions for the war to occur and then made sure it kept going until the desired outcome was achieved. That’s a whole other can of worms.

And that’s for another blog post where one of Euripides’ later plays addresses this. Look forward to it.

The Curse of Reputation Without Power

But I, who aimed the arrows of ambition high
at honor, and made them good, see now how far I fall,
I, who in Hector’s house worked out all custom that brings
discretion’s name to women. Blame them or blame them not,
there is one act that swings the scandalous speech their way
beyond all else: to leave the house and walk abroad.
I longed to do it, but put the longing aside, and stayed
always within the enclosure of my own house and court.
The witty speech some women cultivate I would
not practice, but kept my honest inward thought, and made
my mind my only and sufficient teacher. I gave
my lord’s presence the tribute of hushed lips, and eyes
quietly downcast. I knew when my will must have its way
over his, knew also how to give way to him in turn.
Men learned of this; I was talked of in the Achaean camp,
and reputation has destroyed me now. At the choice
of women, Achilles’ son picked me from the rest, to be
his wife: a murderer’s house, and I shall be his slave.

Andromache; lines 643-60

My natural beauty brought me the sorrow of slavery
instead of victory.

Helen; lines 963-64

Both of these passages really stood out to me. Andromache had the reputation of being a really awesome wife and Helen of being extremely beautiful. Two reputations that are not inherently bad. However, these reputations ended up being their undoing. Andromache was to become the wife of the son of the man who killed her husband and Helen became the focal point of a very deadly war.

Misfortune made their reputations a curse. Or, more precisely: their powerlessness to stop their misfortunes made their reputations a curse.

I’m really not sure what to do with this, to be honest. Such is life? What you do afterward is what matters?

A third woman in the play took this mentality for herself: Cassandra.

Cassandra, one of Hecuba’s daughters, was gifted with prophecy but cursed to never be believed (it’s a long story—basically, she scorned Apollo and suffered for it). Cassandra knew that her being made a concubine of Agamemnon would be Agamemnon’s undoing. Agamemnon would come home only to be murdered by his wife and her lover. A lot of it had to do with Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter Iphigenia in order to sail to Troy. The cherry on top was bringing home another woman to share in his and his wife’s bed.

To Cassandra, this was her way to avenge her family for what the Greeks did to them:

O Mother, star my hair with flowers of victory.
This is a king I marry; then be glad; escort
the bride—and if she falters, thrust her strongly on.
If Loxias lives, the Achaeans’ pride, great Agamemnon
has won a wife more fatal than ever Helen was.
Since I will kill him, and avenge my brothers’ blood
and my father’s in the desolation of his house.

Lines 354-60

Talk about a glass-half-full mentality!

That's all for The Trojan Women by Euripides.

May your days be filled with grace.

-Andronikos

Click here for the reading list I am going through.

Thumbnail: Astyanax torn from the arms of Andromache by Odysseus by François-Guillaume Ménageot, 1783. Public domain