The Women of Troy Flashcards
Prologos
A: plans ruin the Grks Journey home ‘so that Greeks will learn their lesson, and in future, respect my temples, and fear the power of the gods’
P: ‘ A somewhat cavalier change of mind, surely?’
- Troy is destroyed with A’s help
- A = goddess of wisdom and war
- A = powerful / not wise
- ruins the greeks she once supported b/c feels insulted = capricious
- Even fellow god recognizes A, comments on capricious and fickle nature
Prologos
P: ‘when a man sacks [and] destroys everything […] sacred temples [and] tombs […] he’s asking for trouble. The same destruction sooner or later will fall on his own head.’
- cyclical pattern of history > problems = same i contemporary Athens - Peloponnesian war
- Sinful + barbaric acts > equally sinful +barbaric retaliation.
Prologos
H monody: ‘Look at me now, throned in the dust […] an old woman, dragged as a slave from my home, all hope plundered from my god-cursed ravage grey head, with no reprieve from my punishment of everlasting sorrow.’
- proud + noble queen = ‘ old woman’ w/o hope
-Position on ground represents reversal of fortunes = new low status - Hecuba has no role > embarrassed + outraged that former queen now useless b/c outlived any reproductive function = now a war trophy taken to degrade her (Odysseus’s slave)
-Euripides invited Athenian audience to question treatment of prisoners of war = eg women of Melos
Prologos _ H monody
Hecuba to Chorus: ‘Weep, wives of bronze armored Trojans, grieve for your heroes dead, daughters […] husbands lost!’
- H calls on Wot, to lament w/ her in Kommos
- H want Wot to pay homage to men before their fate becomes clear
-Loss of war > reduced to the most basic functions of their gender = sex objects + fertile wombs to support the Greek war machine
Prologos _ H monody
Hecuba to Chorus
‘Troy is burning’
- Troy is burning = key metaphor desc / destruction of troy and women / H draws parallels b/t Wot bodies + city.
- strengthen audiences’ sense of destruction and indignity both = forced to endure
- Troy’s endures a literal siege by Greeks = metaphorical rape, riches, people culture, wealth and joy taken away
-Wot metaphorical siege on their minds and livelihoods = literal fear of rape
Prologos
Chorus join H in Kommos
” Whole generation of women were raped in their bedrooms “
- Fall of T -> Wot subject to mass abuse
- w/o the protection of fathers, brothers, sons = vulnerable
- 10 yrs of war > Grk Men behave w/o humanity or sanity = considered normal at the time - justified
- Innocent suffer most
- Wot = spoils of war
Cassandra
Ep 1.
Agamemnon will find her “more destructive as a wife than ever Helen was”
- Cassandra compares marriage to Ag. with ( Helen + Men/Paris) = only brought death and destruction to trojans
this brings destruction to Greeks, House of Atreus - Cass = driven by desire for vengeance, duty to avenge fathers and brothers = view her own fate to be slave to Ag’s desire = chance to get revenge for troy/ retribution for sins
- Gift of prophecy > Cass know Ag’s choice = his demise + suffering Grk ( link to Poseidon card)
Cassandra
Ep 1.
” Fathers and brother destroyed “.
- Cass has lost everything - fam / city / virginity = sacred identity = consecrated virgin that even go apollo left alone
- Cass martyrs herself for revenge
- fatal marriage to Aga > his downfall Cass > able enact revenge on behalf on family/ city
- All character think Cass = mad woman, only one left with actual sanity not greeks or distraught trojan women
- Cass = only one left the who can give Wot a modicum of solace
Cassandra
Ep 1.
” Who could wait for the wind that fills her sails more eagerly than i do ?”
“one of the avenging furies”
- Cass duty = revenge for the war atrocities
- Cass = metaphorical Trojan horse = pretend go happily/ wilingly into new life w/Ag
- Revenge b/c Aga jealous wife destroys family
- Across play character ask rhetorical questions (RQ) = confusion, despair helplessness but Cass answers own RQs
- Cas not helpless victim b/c planning revenge
Casasndra
Ep 1.
” Any sensible man must hate war, he does his best to avoid it”
” it is no shame for a city, indeed, it is a crown of honor to die nobly, with indignity”
- Ath. society = long celebrated + mythologized war
- a means of showing heroism and valor
- But through Cass, Euripides subverts the trad view on war > suggest ppl who blindly + hasty to go to war = ignorant + foolish
- E worried about Athenian soldiers who dies attacking foreign attacking Sparta/Melos = loose life for nothing
- Whereas dying defending ones country = noble admirable
- Cycle of violence
Cassandra
Ep 1.
” had forgotten what their children looked like “
” lie forgotten in a foreign country “
Kleos not achieved
- Through C, E challenges audience > ? honor of war in foreign lands
- Grks were so long away from loved ones @ home > forgotten faces whereas Trojans went home to fam each night
- bodies of Grk soldiers failed to get the burial rights their culture demands (link to Ast)
- Emph. contemporary Ath audience needless deaths replicated in Peloponnesian war ( mass loss of life in Sparta/ Melos + upcoming EtoS)
- Forgotten = repeated by = emphasis > worst case b/c
Cassandra Ep 1. “ Officers of your kind are always hated by everyone, lackeys. Slaves yourself, doing great men’s dirty work”.
To Talthybius
- C attacks Talthybius as a middle manager
- T expresses compassion and sympathy for Tw but does nothing to help
- T = part of Grk war machine > facilitates brutal barbaric decisions of generals
- Grk citizens = like Talthybius = silence and idleness = approve of Boule’s decisions = powerless to change their society
Talthybius Ep 1.
About C. concubinage to Agamemnon
” King’s mistress’ / ‘no bad thing’
- dehumanizing effect of military service > T. ignorant of the impact of concubinage on Tw ( most would rather die )
- noun ‘mistress’ = euphemism > masquerade reality that Cass = aga’s sex slave
- forcing audience to consider foreign policy during wars esp. following SoFM.
Andromache Ep. 2 “ The gods always hated us “
Chorus in stasimon : prayer to gods are “ vain dreaming, false hopes “
- Astyanax murder > Andromache + Hecuba losing hope
- > realization gods abandoned Troy = fickle
- praying = futile / folly
- Reinforced by chorus in the Ep2 stasimon b/c realize gods do not care abt Wot = fatuous and self serving
Andromache Ep 2. claims “ you Greeks “ have “ dreamed up such cruelties even the barbarians would flinch at “
- Challenges Athenian assumptions / arrogance > the myth that they are the origin of civilization and symbol democracy = destroyed
- Forces Athenian audience to reconsider their ideology about war / duty
- Makes them reflect on contemporary issues, e.g. atrocities and constant fighting of the PP war ( Sofm & Etos )
