English - Women of Troy Flashcards
Description - Trojan Women
“wretched women of Troy”
Description - Cassandra
“god-crazed daughter”
“poor mad girl”
“your daughter’s possessed”
“god-drunken ecstasy”
Description - Astyanax
“saviour of Troy”
Description - Helen
“the murderess”
“Fluent, but wicked. She’s a dangerous woman”
“self-regarding schoolgirl”
Description - Achaean soldiers
“cowards”
Hope and future - Hecuba
“Old limbs, strengthen yourselves”
Hope and future - Hecuba
“Funerals are for the living”
Hope and future
“Time will bring no relief”
Hope and future - Andromache
“delude myself with false expectations”
Hope and future - Hecuba
“The living at least have hope. To be dead is to be nothing.”
Hope and future - Hecuba
“no end to pain”
Hope and future - Chorus
“make light of all of these horrors”
Hope and future - Chorus about Greece
“famous for their wealth”
“I’d be happy enough to live there”
Hope and future - Hecuba
“I know nothing but sense that the worst will come”
Hope and future
“facing a life of slavery”
Hope and future - Hecuba
“all hope plundered from my god-cursed ravaged grey head”
Hope and future - Hecuba
“must endure it”
Rationality - Agamemnon
“shot through with lust”
“slave of his lust”
Rationality - Cassandra about Greeks
“sake of one women”
Rationality - Cassandra about Greeks
“moment of incontrollable lust… cost them tens of thousands dead”
Rationality - Cassandra
“any sensible man must hate war”
Rationality - Hecuba about Helen
“sensuality and senselessness have more in common than a first syllable”
Rationality - Hecuba
“blind panic, unreasoning terror in rational men”
Justice and revenge - Polyxena’s death (for Achilles)
“in payment for his death”
Justice and revenge - Athene
“learn their lesson”
“respect my temples, and fear the power of the gods”
Justice and revenge - Cassandra
“find me more destructive a wife than every Helen was”
“I’ll kill him, and destroy his own family”
“the total annihilation of the House of Atreus”
Justice and revenge - Cassandra
“won the greatest of all glories”
“sacred soil of the land of their fathers”
Justice and revenge - Menelaus
“kill her here on the spot”
Justice and revenge - Helen
“executed in payment for their blood”
“death is what she deserved”
Justice and revenge - Menelaus and Helen
“cost to humiliate me”
Power and control - Agamemnon & Cassandra
“dangerous business, best kept in the dark”
Power and control - Hecuba
“like loot they are stealing us”
Power and control - Hecuba
“belongs to Odysseus now”
Power and control - Chorus
“Who’ll be master of my grief?”
Power and control - Hecuba
“my future in his power”
Power and control - Cassandra
“grotesque parody”
Power and control - Andromache
“provoke the hatred of a man whose power is total over men and mine”
Power and control - Talthybius to Andromache
“quite without any power to prevent it”
“capable of dealing with a single women”
Power and control - Talthybius
“If that’s what your Generals have decided”
Power and control - Andromache
“I can’t even save my own child from death”
Power and control - Helen
“makes men’s eyes her prisoner”
Power and control - Helen
“was raped, not married”
Power and control - Helen
“stupidity by invoking the goddess’ name”
Social class - Hecuba
“throned in dust”
“a Queen, half divine, with Kings to pay me homage”
“born lucky, to heighten the tragedy of what has happened to me now”
“born royal and made slaves”
Social inheritance- Astyanax
“everything you should have inherited from your father you have lost”
Morality and integrity - Odysseus
“slave of a man without morality”
“to whom laws of god and man mean nothing”
Integrity - Trojan women
“proud people.. They don’t take kindly to humiliation”
Morality - Cassandra
“if I don’t seem overwhelmed… force me, by violence”
Morality and integrity - Talthybius
“slaves yourself, doing great men’s dirty work”
“The truth his diplomatic evasion concealed”
Morality - Andromache
“a slave in the house of the man who murdered my husband”
“betray the love of a dead man”
Morality - Talthybius
“someone tough and unthinking they need for this job”
“I’m not half hard enough”
Morality and integrity - Helen
“a mere smokescreen of pretentious self-importance”
Morality - Talthybius
“make it my business to dig a grave”
Morality and integrity - Hecuba
“proud of yourself as fighting men and thinkers”
Gender roles
“forced into the bed of some loathsome Greek”
Gender roles - Cassandra and Agamemnon
“want her because she is sacred”
Gender roles - Talthybius
“to be a King’s mistress is no bad thing”
Gender roles - Hecuba
“thrust at spear-point into some Greek’s bed”
Gender roles - Andromache
“on top a baggage wagon loaded with spoils”
Gender roles - Andromache
“Greek masters are only taking what’s theirs.”
Gender roles - Andromache
“I need you now. Save me”
Gender roles - Hecuba
“calling for a dead man”
Gender roles - Andromache
“We are loot”
Gender roles - Andromache
“made it my business to be the perfect wife”
“reputation as the ideal wife… ruined me”
Gender roles - Helen
“exceptional beauty was a saleable asset”
Gender roles - Hecuba
“wives who betray their husbands must expect to die for it”
Gender roles - Chorus to Hecuba
“rescue the reputation of Greek womanhood”
Gender roles - Menelaus
“warning to all women in the future to be chaste and moral in their behaviour”
Futility of war - Hecuba
“some agonies are beyond telling and some must be told”
Futility of war - Hecuba
“heroes dead”
Futility of war - Hecuba
“All our sacrifices, all our offerings… a waste of time”
Futility of war - Cassandra
“These Greeks, then they began to die… And for what reason?”
Futility of war - Cassandra
“bodies lie forgotten in a foreign country”
“women died in loneliness”
“fathers become childless old men”
“simplest pleasures, denied to the Greeks”
Futility of war - Cassandra about Hector
“all that brightness would have remained hidden”
Futility of war - Hecuba
“their good breeding wasted on brutal soldiery and foreigners”
Futility of war - Andromache
“father’s courage… is a death sentence for you”
Futility of war - Andromache
“all for nothing”
Futility of war - Menelaus
“for ten years have endured this terrible war”
Futility of war - Chorus
“screaming and tears to no avail”
Futility of war - Chorus
“dehumanised, reduced to a thing”
Futility of war - Talthybius
“we can all go home”
Futility of war - Hecuba
“become terrified of a little child”
Futility of war - Hecuba about Astyanax
“wretched, meaningless death”
Futility of war - Hecuba about Astyanax
“mockery of life”
Futility of war - Hecuba about Astyanax
“much younger than I am, such a tender corpse”
Futility of war - Hecuba about Astyanax
“love wasted when it comes to this”
Futility of war - Hecuba about Astyanax
“the dead child who was born to be king”
Brutality of war - Poseidon
“smoking ruin, devastated by the power of the Greek war machine”
Brutality of war - Poseidon
“murderous payload”
Brutality of war - Poseidon
“puddles blood smear the sanctuaries of all the gods”
Brutality of war - Athene
“floating corpses so thick you can walk on them”
Brutality of war - Hecuba about Priam
“hacked down on the alter steps”
Brutality of war - Chorus
“run slippery with Trojan blood”
Brutality of war - Chorus
“unmistakable sound of murder”
Brutality of war - Chorus
“cut down in their own homes… beheaded where they lay sleeping”
“whole generation of women raped in their own bedrooms”
“breeding bastards for the Greeks”
Brutality of war - Hecuba about Polyxena
“ritually murdered, filthy sacrilege”
Brutality of war - Andromache about Astyanax
“callously murdered, butchered by the Greeks”
“cruelties even barbarians would flinch”
Brutality of war - Hecuba about Astyanax
“unheard of savagery”
Nature of the gods - Poseidon
“I built this city”
Nature of the gods - Poseidon
“With skills he learnt from Athene”
Nature of the gods - Poseidon
“I have been defeated”
“I too shall desert famous Troy”
“all worship ceases”
“no longer anything worth a god’s consideration”
Nature of the gods - Athene
“My former enemies, the Trojans, will be comforted.”
“so casual whom you love and hate”
Nature of the gods - Athene
“I’ve been insulted, my temple desecrated”
Nature of the gods - Cassandra about the Greeks
“war gods victims”
Nature of the gods - Hecuba
“Betrayers”
Nature of the gods - Andromache
“The gods always hated us”
Nature of the gods - Chorus
“The gods hate Troy”
Nature of the gods - Hecuba
“making monuments of worthless men, and demolishing the good”
Nature of the gods - Chorus
“serene in your youthful beauty”
Nature of the gods - Hecuba calling to Zeus
“hear the prayer I offer”
Nature of the gods - Helen
“Only a fool would dare to [oppose the gods]”
Nature of the gods - Hecuba
“gods are not fools”
Nature of the gods - Helen
“Don’t kill because the gods are diseased”
Nature of the gods - Chorus
“Do you care, on your radiant thrones”
Nature of the gods - Hecuba
“persecuted with a particular hatred”
“my life has meant nothing to the vindictive gods”
Fate and fortune - Poseidon
“When a man sacks a town and destroys everything… He’s asking for trouble”
Fate and fortune - Hecuba
“you whom the gods have cursed”
Fate and fortune - Hecuba
“punishment of everlasting sorrow”
Fate and fortune - Talthybius about Polyxena
“her fate is settled”
Fate and fortune - Cassandra
“husband bedded by the hand of destiny”
Fate and fortune - Hecuba
“There is no happiness. The lucky ones are dead.”
Fate and fortune - Chorus about Achaean sacking of Troy
“doomed them all to die”
Fate and Fortune - Talthybius about Astyanax
“son of such a father must not be allowed to grow up”
Fate and fortune - Andromache about Astyanax
“too dangerous to live”
Fate and fortune - Hecuba
“Anyone, born mortal and living in this world, who thinks himself prosperous and secure, is a fool”
Fate and fortune - Hecuba
“luck always runs out”
“no happy man ever stays happy or lucky for long”
Fault and blame
“Helen, born to dismay”
Fault and blame - Hecuba
“lottery of fate”
Fault and blame - Hecuba
“yet people still call upon gods”
Fault and blame - Hecuba
“gods have drowned me in an ocean of misery”
Fault and blame - Andromache about Astyanax
“guilty of nothing”
Fault and blame - Andromache about Helen
“inviting looks have brought… complete destruction”
Fault and blame - Andromache
“The gods are destroying us all”
Fault and blame - Chorus
“Thousands of men dead for one women, and her hated marriage bed”
Fault and blame - Helen
“punish the destructive power of love”
Fault and blame - Helen
“The gods have acted.”
Fault and blame - Hecuba about Helen
“wet with lust”
Fault and blame - Hecuba
“murdered by this women”
Fault and blame - Chorus
“You have betrayed us to the Greeks”
Fault and blame - Hecuba about Helen
“whom all the gods hate”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Poseidon
“true face of misery… Hecuba, whose unnumbered tears match the numberless dead”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Hecuba
“old life is gone”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Hecuba
“weep, for my burning home, howl for my children dead, my husband dead”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Hecuba
“temples are throbbing, my head will burst, my heart shatters”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Hecuba
“temples are throbbing, my head will burst, my heart shatters”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Hecuba
“the dirge I must sing now, the song of the dead, my threnody of tears”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Hecuba
“headlong fall to suffering Hecuba, and a broken heart”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Hecuba
“an old woman, dragged as a slave”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Hecuba
“like a mother bird at her plundered nest, my song becomes a scream”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Chorus
“howl of agony”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Hecuba
“whose misery is greater, the dead, whose day is passed, or the living, who must live in slavery?”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Chorus
“What howling, can give tongue to a pain no animal could endure?”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Chorus
“reduced us to slavery”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Hecuba
“tear the hair in handfuls from my head, plough my face with my nails”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Hecuba
“I belong in the deepest pits of misery”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Chorus
“harsh lament dissonant with tears and howls”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Hecuba
“I’ve lost my home. I’ve lost my children”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Hecuba
“No grief can encompass what I feel”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Chorus
“Suffering people find so comfort in tears. To give voice to grief is a kind of pleasure”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Andromache about Polyxena
“happier dead than I am living”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Andromache
“to die is better than a life of agony”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Andromache
“knows nothing of her suffering”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Chorus
“Your anguished words give voice to my deepest agonies and fears”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Chorus
“Beat your temples, tear out your hair, let your nails rake your face”
Grief, suffering, and loss - Hecuba
“My crown of pain, all my sufferings, each new loss worse than the last”
