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The Trojan Women
"This is a new translation of the classic play. It combines a poet's translation with a scholar's introduction and notes." "Among surviving Greek tragedies only Euripides' Trojan Women shows us the extinction of a whole city, an entire people. Despite its grim theme, or more likely because of the centrality of that theme to the deepest fears of our own age, this is one of the relatively few Greek tragedies that regularly finds its way to the stage. Here the power of Euripides' theatrical and moral imagination speaks clearly across the twenty-five centuries that separate our world from his."
The theme is really a double one: the suffering of the victims of war, exemplified by the woman who survive the fall of Troy, and the degradation of the victors, shown by the Greeks' reckless and ultimately self-destructive behavior. It offers an enduring picture of human fortitude in the midst of despair. Trojan Women gains special relevance, of course, in times of war.
It presents a particularly intense account of human suffering and uncertainty, but one that is also rooted in considerations of power and policy, morality and expedience. Furthermore, the seductions of power and the dangers both of its exercise and of resistance to it as portrayed in Trojan Women are not simply philosophical or rhetorical gambits but part of the lived experience of Euripides' day.
The theme is really a double one: the suffering of the victims of war, exemplified by the woman who survive the fall of Troy, and the degradation of the victors, shown by the Greeks' reckless and ultimately self-destructive behavior. It offers an enduring picture of human fortitude in the midst of despair. Trojan Women gains special relevance, of course, in times of war.
It presents a particularly intense account of human suffering and uncertainty, but one that is also rooted in considerations of power and policy, morality and expedience. Furthermore, the seductions of power and the dangers both of its exercise and of resistance to it as portrayed in Trojan Women are not simply philosophical or rhetorical gambits but part of the lived experience of Euripides' day.
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 416
About the author
Euripides
2,613 books1,697 followersEuripides (Greek: Ευριπίδης) (ca. 480 BC–406 BC) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete (Rhesus is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined—he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.
Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. He also became "the most tragic of poets", focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was "the creator of ... that cage which is the theatre of William Shakespeare's Othello, Jean Racine's Phèdre, of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg," in which "imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.
His contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism. Both were frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as a corrupting influence. Ancient biographies hold that Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age, dying in Macedonia, but recent scholarship casts doubt on these sources.
Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. He also became "the most tragic of poets", focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was "the creator of ... that cage which is the theatre of William Shakespeare's Othello, Jean Racine's Phèdre, of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg," in which "imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.
His contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism. Both were frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as a corrupting influence. Ancient biographies hold that Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age, dying in Macedonia, but recent scholarship casts doubt on these sources.
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February 10, 2024
According to Greek mythology, Helen was married to Menelaus. However, Helen runs off with Prince Paris of Troy. This sparks the 10-year epic battle of Troy. This story is set at the very end of the 10-year war. Achilles has killed the mighty warrior Hector, and Paris has killed Achilles. Hector leaves behind a wife, Andromache. There is also the Queen of Troy, Hecuba, who is the mother of Hector. Now, what will happen to Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen?
If you read The Song of Achilles, this essentially picks up where that book ended. For the first time, we finally get to meet Helen (who is supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world). We find out what the women of Troy really think about Helen. Are they awed by her beauty? What will Menelaus think of Helen? Is he still in love with her? Will he restore her as his wife and queen? Did Paris capture Helen by force or did she run off of her own free will? All of these questions will be answered.
No matter what, no one will take any personal responsibility. It is always, always someone else’s fault in Greek mythology. Also, when you do someone a favor, they are never happy and grateful but are hoping for the favor-granters downfall.
This play was written by Euripides in 415 BC. The language is a bit archaic and even though the play itself is only about an hour read aloud, I spent far longer reviewing the reference materials. For this, I used James Mustich 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die (this book is forever at my side) and litcharts.com. Is this a little tedious? Yes. However, Thomas Paine said, “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.”
This is a book from James Mustich’s 1,000 Books to Read.
2024 Reading Schedule
Jan Middlemarch
Feb The Grapes of Wrath
Mar Oliver Twist
Apr Madame Bovary
May A Clockwork Orange
Jun Possession
Jul The Folk of the Faraway Tree Collection
Aug Crime and Punishment
Sep Heart of Darkness
Oct Moby-Dick
Nov Far From the Madding Crowd
Dec A Tale of Two Cities
Connect With Me!
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If you read The Song of Achilles, this essentially picks up where that book ended. For the first time, we finally get to meet Helen (who is supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world). We find out what the women of Troy really think about Helen. Are they awed by her beauty? What will Menelaus think of Helen? Is he still in love with her? Will he restore her as his wife and queen? Did Paris capture Helen by force or did she run off of her own free will? All of these questions will be answered.
No matter what, no one will take any personal responsibility. It is always, always someone else’s fault in Greek mythology. Also, when you do someone a favor, they are never happy and grateful but are hoping for the favor-granters downfall.
This play was written by Euripides in 415 BC. The language is a bit archaic and even though the play itself is only about an hour read aloud, I spent far longer reviewing the reference materials. For this, I used James Mustich 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die (this book is forever at my side) and litcharts.com. Is this a little tedious? Yes. However, Thomas Paine said, “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.”
This is a book from James Mustich’s 1,000 Books to Read.
2024 Reading Schedule
Jan Middlemarch
Feb The Grapes of Wrath
Mar Oliver Twist
Apr Madame Bovary
May A Clockwork Orange
Jun Possession
Jul The Folk of the Faraway Tree Collection
Aug Crime and Punishment
Sep Heart of Darkness
Oct Moby-Dick
Nov Far From the Madding Crowd
Dec A Tale of Two Cities
Connect With Me!
Blog Twitter BookTube Facebook Insta
March 9, 2016
I found this play to possibly be the Greek tragedy that has evoked the most emotion from me to date. I enjoy Euripides critical, ironic style and how he plays with different versions of Greek myths and this play is no different. It was very hard hitting and dealt with some dark themes (the post-war victims in ancient times). I could really picture the anguish and I would love to see this play performed on stage. It also has some interesting ancient commentary on war in general and the myth of the Trojan war.
April 13, 2024
That shows us a concatenation of several tragedies that happen simultaneously to several women due to war. And not to a specific cause of direct divine origin, this work of Euripides acquires a heartrending force and a tremendous realistic vigor that makes it closer to the current reader than other works of Greek tragedies.
Before the fall of Troy, the god Poseidon, a sympathizer of the Trojans, speaks with the Greek goddess Athena. She is offended because Ajax has raped the priestess, Cassandra, dragging her from her temples without any Greek criticizing him. Between both, they decide each one of them collides and will receive punishment on his return home.
Meanwhile, several notable Trojans wait for the Greek victors to decide their destinies in the captivity that awaits them, and a Greek messenger will inform them of what they will be. First, Hecuba, the widow of King Priam, regrets that at his age, he will have to perform tasks and be at the service of Ulysses. Later, when Menelao considers the punishment he must give to the traitor Helena and talks about killing her when he arrives in Greece, she defends herself, saying that she is not to blame for what happened and that order goddess Aphrodite kidnapped her. But Hecuba reveals that what happened was that he took a fancy to his son Paris and never resisted leaving Greece. Furthermore, he asks that Menelao punish her as he deserves and, above all, does not allow her to travel to Greece in the same boat, fearing that he will seduce her again and be free from punishment.
Kassandra knows that Agamemnon will own it and shows us his diviner capacity to presage the catastrophes that will happen to the Greeks. Polyxena, another of Hecuba's daughters, is destined to be sacrificed before the tomb of Achilles. Andromache, the widow of Hector, is intended as the son of Achilles. However, before his son is ripped out and thrown from a tower, as decided by Ulysses, he thinks it is too dangerous to leave the son of such a prominent Trojan hero.
Before the fall of Troy, the god Poseidon, a sympathizer of the Trojans, speaks with the Greek goddess Athena. She is offended because Ajax has raped the priestess, Cassandra, dragging her from her temples without any Greek criticizing him. Between both, they decide each one of them collides and will receive punishment on his return home.
Meanwhile, several notable Trojans wait for the Greek victors to decide their destinies in the captivity that awaits them, and a Greek messenger will inform them of what they will be. First, Hecuba, the widow of King Priam, regrets that at his age, he will have to perform tasks and be at the service of Ulysses. Later, when Menelao considers the punishment he must give to the traitor Helena and talks about killing her when he arrives in Greece, she defends herself, saying that she is not to blame for what happened and that order goddess Aphrodite kidnapped her. But Hecuba reveals that what happened was that he took a fancy to his son Paris and never resisted leaving Greece. Furthermore, he asks that Menelao punish her as he deserves and, above all, does not allow her to travel to Greece in the same boat, fearing that he will seduce her again and be free from punishment.
Kassandra knows that Agamemnon will own it and shows us his diviner capacity to presage the catastrophes that will happen to the Greeks. Polyxena, another of Hecuba's daughters, is destined to be sacrificed before the tomb of Achilles. Andromache, the widow of Hector, is intended as the son of Achilles. However, before his son is ripped out and thrown from a tower, as decided by Ulysses, he thinks it is too dangerous to leave the son of such a prominent Trojan hero.
January 8, 2016
The Trojan Women: Euripides' Warning on the Futility of War
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.-Edmund Burke
What does a play presented in 415 BC possibly have to say to us today? Why read it?
Why would Euripides, a Greek dramatist, choose The Trojan Women as the subjects of one of his greatest plays? Did he have a reason in presenting this controversial play to an Athenian audience?
Be patient with me, oh, Reader. Each question has an answer. No question presented here is Rhetorical. I do not engage in the ancient art of classical Oratory. Nor do I engage in the art of Sophistry for I believe Deception to be among the most lowest practices among Men or Gods.
Once, in my youth, I was known as a Scholar of the Classical World. For this I was awarded Prizes. I have Trophies and Books proclaiming my knowledge of the ways of an ancient world. In the naivete of my youth I did not realize how closely the age in which I lived mirrored a world I thought had vanished so long ago. I studied the Greek and Roman Epics. The Arts and Theatrical Productions of both great Classical Societies. I knew the histories of each of these Worlds, and what led to their Downfalls.
Now, in my older years, I look at the events of this World in which we now live. I am dismayed. For I see we have learned little.
You think we live in an Age of Wonders. Oh, yes. In many ways we do. Information is available at our fingertips. We communicate with one another at a pace that satisfies our urges for instant gratification. We have little patience, do we not?
I have lived through wars. I have lived through tensions between great nations. I have lived through a time where we stood on the brink of the destruction of this Planet. Some called it a Cold War. But it became dangerously hot. Wisdom seemed to prevail. For generations. And even the Cold war disappeared. The danger of nuclear war faded into obscurity.
But, Oh, Reader, contemplate the current State of the times in which we live now. The Hubris of the Men who Live in this World of Today. Determine whether you find yourself Comfortable.
I will give you a few moments to consider these things. Then we will consider continuing this discourse.
Have you thought about it?
Of course, I am sure you know of the Trojan War. How the Greeks, the Achaeans, banded together to lay siege to the City of Troy to preserve the honor of Menelaus, a King, who lost his wife Helen to Paris, a son of Troy. How they fought for ten years before breaching the walls of Troy through deception. How Troy fell. How the House of Troy was destroyed, the Trojan Women were enslaved and distributed to the leaders of Greece as slaves, as Concubines. And, how the Greeks offended the very Gods who had supported them in their efforts to bring about the downfall of Troy. How those very Gods then turned upon their favored revenants and sought to destroy them because of their faithlessness.
Why then, would Euripides tell this story to an Athenian audience?
Because Athens was at war with Sparta. Had been at war with Sparta in the Peleponessian War for many years. At this time, the Arrogance of the Athenians had led them to sack the City of Melos. They killed every one of the men of Melos. They sold everyone of the women and children of Melos into slavery.
Euripides chose the Trojan Women as his protagonists in this play to show the Athenians the error of their Hubris when a dominant nation conquers a lesser one for its own prideful purposes. And Euripides knew that as he was presenting this play, the same Athenians were planning a war against the Empire of Syracuse. In his wisdom, Euripides, predicted it would be a disaster that would lead to the downfall of Athens and their subjection forever to their long time enemy Sparta.
Euripides in this tragedy attempted to show his fellow Athenians that war only led to tragedy. That the only result of engaging in War was Futility. That those who suffered the most were the Widows, the Orphans of those who died in War.
Euripides was correct. Athens began its war against Syracuse the very year The Trojan Women was presented. The War was a disaster. The entire Athenian Expedition of two hundred ships and thousands of men were wiped out in a single stroke. In 404 BC, Athens fell to Sparta forever. The wailing of Widows and Orphans was great.
Euripides Message to us Today
On January 2, 2016, President Vladimir Putin signed a Security Document stating that the United States and Nato were a threat to Russia.
On January 6, 2016, North Korea exploded another Nuclear device. North Korea claims it was a Hydrogen device.
This week Middle Eastern nations have severed diplomatic nations with Iran.
In the United States, at no time has the country been more divided between liberal and conservative right wings of the government.
The anonymous faces of ISIS continue to commit terrorist acts about the world.
Gun lobbyists in the United States continue to control resistance to reasonable effots to achieve gun control.
The Innocent continue to cry.
Hubris remains alive and well.
Euripides' message is as relevant today as it was in 415 BC.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.-Edmund Burke
What does a play presented in 415 BC possibly have to say to us today? Why read it?
Why would Euripides, a Greek dramatist, choose The Trojan Women as the subjects of one of his greatest plays? Did he have a reason in presenting this controversial play to an Athenian audience?
Be patient with me, oh, Reader. Each question has an answer. No question presented here is Rhetorical. I do not engage in the ancient art of classical Oratory. Nor do I engage in the art of Sophistry for I believe Deception to be among the most lowest practices among Men or Gods.
Once, in my youth, I was known as a Scholar of the Classical World. For this I was awarded Prizes. I have Trophies and Books proclaiming my knowledge of the ways of an ancient world. In the naivete of my youth I did not realize how closely the age in which I lived mirrored a world I thought had vanished so long ago. I studied the Greek and Roman Epics. The Arts and Theatrical Productions of both great Classical Societies. I knew the histories of each of these Worlds, and what led to their Downfalls.
Now, in my older years, I look at the events of this World in which we now live. I am dismayed. For I see we have learned little.
You think we live in an Age of Wonders. Oh, yes. In many ways we do. Information is available at our fingertips. We communicate with one another at a pace that satisfies our urges for instant gratification. We have little patience, do we not?
I have lived through wars. I have lived through tensions between great nations. I have lived through a time where we stood on the brink of the destruction of this Planet. Some called it a Cold War. But it became dangerously hot. Wisdom seemed to prevail. For generations. And even the Cold war disappeared. The danger of nuclear war faded into obscurity.
But, Oh, Reader, contemplate the current State of the times in which we live now. The Hubris of the Men who Live in this World of Today. Determine whether you find yourself Comfortable.
I will give you a few moments to consider these things. Then we will consider continuing this discourse.
Have you thought about it?
Of course, I am sure you know of the Trojan War. How the Greeks, the Achaeans, banded together to lay siege to the City of Troy to preserve the honor of Menelaus, a King, who lost his wife Helen to Paris, a son of Troy. How they fought for ten years before breaching the walls of Troy through deception. How Troy fell. How the House of Troy was destroyed, the Trojan Women were enslaved and distributed to the leaders of Greece as slaves, as Concubines. And, how the Greeks offended the very Gods who had supported them in their efforts to bring about the downfall of Troy. How those very Gods then turned upon their favored revenants and sought to destroy them because of their faithlessness.
Why then, would Euripides tell this story to an Athenian audience?
Because Athens was at war with Sparta. Had been at war with Sparta in the Peleponessian War for many years. At this time, the Arrogance of the Athenians had led them to sack the City of Melos. They killed every one of the men of Melos. They sold everyone of the women and children of Melos into slavery.
Euripides chose the Trojan Women as his protagonists in this play to show the Athenians the error of their Hubris when a dominant nation conquers a lesser one for its own prideful purposes. And Euripides knew that as he was presenting this play, the same Athenians were planning a war against the Empire of Syracuse. In his wisdom, Euripides, predicted it would be a disaster that would lead to the downfall of Athens and their subjection forever to their long time enemy Sparta.
Euripides in this tragedy attempted to show his fellow Athenians that war only led to tragedy. That the only result of engaging in War was Futility. That those who suffered the most were the Widows, the Orphans of those who died in War.
Euripides was correct. Athens began its war against Syracuse the very year The Trojan Women was presented. The War was a disaster. The entire Athenian Expedition of two hundred ships and thousands of men were wiped out in a single stroke. In 404 BC, Athens fell to Sparta forever. The wailing of Widows and Orphans was great.
Euripides Message to us Today
On January 2, 2016, President Vladimir Putin signed a Security Document stating that the United States and Nato were a threat to Russia.
On January 6, 2016, North Korea exploded another Nuclear device. North Korea claims it was a Hydrogen device.
This week Middle Eastern nations have severed diplomatic nations with Iran.
In the United States, at no time has the country been more divided between liberal and conservative right wings of the government.
The anonymous faces of ISIS continue to commit terrorist acts about the world.
Gun lobbyists in the United States continue to control resistance to reasonable effots to achieve gun control.
The Innocent continue to cry.
Hubris remains alive and well.
Euripides' message is as relevant today as it was in 415 BC.
February 2, 2018
After successfully resisting a ten year siege, Troy has fallen, thanks to the Greeks' final dirty trick. The Trojan men have all been killed. The women and children are being carried off to become prostitutes and slaves. Hecuba, who yesterday was the queen of this beautiful city, looks at the smoking ruins around her and tries to comfort Andromache, her daughter-in-law. One day, she says, Andromache's young son Astyanax will be a grown man, and he will take revenge on the cruel invaders. But Ulysses, the cynical and illusionless Greek general, has already thought of this. He's just sent his flunky, Talthyrios, to tell Andromache that they've changed their minds: Astyanax will not be spared with the other children, but rather will be put to death as a potentially dangerous element. Andromache's anguished reply is still echoing around us three thousand years later, having been passed from Homer, to Euripides, to Sartre:
Hommes de l'Europe,
vous méprisez l'Afrique et l'Asie
et vous nous appelez barbares, je crois,
Mais quand la gloriole et la cupidité
vous jettent chez nous,
vous pillez, vous torturez, vous massacrez.
Où sont les barbares, alors ?
Et vous, les Grecs, si fièrs de votre humanité,
Où êtes-vous ?
Je vous le dis : pas un de nous
n'aurait osé faire à une mère
ce que vous me faites à moi,
avec la calme de la bonne conscience
(Men of Europe
You despise Africa and Asia
And I think you call us barbarians
But when your greed and love of glory
Bring you to our shores
You pillage, you torture, you kill.
Who are the barbarians then?
You Greeks, so proud of your civilization,
Who are you?
I tell you this: not one of us
Would have dared to do to a mother
What you are doing to me
Without it even disturbing your conscience)
Read
March 13, 2016
Greek hydria, ca 520–510 BCE; Achilles dragging the body of Hector behind his chariot while Hecuba mourns her son's death and the winged figure of Iris pleads for a ransom of Hector’s body.
Joint review of Euripides' The Trojan Women and Jean-Paul Sartre's adaptation Les Troyennes
................... What shall the poet say,
what words will he inscribe upon your monument?
Here lies a little child the Argives killed, because
they were afraid of him. That? The epitaph of Greek shame.
In 415 BCE Euripides staged a trilogy of dramas accompanied by the usual satyr play of which only the final play of the trilogy has survived to our time - The Trojan Women. At the time of this first performance the initial stage of the Peloponnesian War was over and Athens' absurd expedition to Sicily was soon to begin, spurred on by Alcibiades' personal ambition. How the Athenians were to rue that mad decision.
Both sides of the Peloponnesian War had committed the most horrendous of massacres, particularly on the citizens of defeated cities, and I think Euripides had gotten well and truly sick of it. The Trojan Women is the story of the immediate aftermath of the Greeks' victory in the Trojan War, and in Euripides' hands it is a story of brutal, limitless murder by the victors and their dividing up and hauling away of the surviving women as spoils of war. Did the audience squirm in its seats as they watched their famous ancestors murder and rape the now hapless Trojans? In any case, they awarded the festival's theater prize to another playwright.
Not unusually for Euripides, the primary characters of the piece are women, particularly Hecuba, Queen of Troy, Cassandra, the mad seer, Andromache, Hector's widow, and Helen, the Face that Launched a Thousand Ships. They must endure the will of the Greek men, but the latter do not cut a dashing figure in this play, on the contrary.
In a poetic language whose stateliness and power recalls that of Aeschylus and which far outstrips any of the other Euripidean plays I've read, we witness the suffering of the women already staggering under the blows of recent losses who must endure yet further ravages during the play and, as is made oh so clear, for the rest of their lives.(*) It is more than a little harrowing.
In 1965 Jean-Paul Sartre staged an adaptation of The Trojan Women, not a translation, despite how Les Troyennes is catalogued here at GR. Sartre removed much less than he added, for, as he explains in the Introduction, he felt it necessary to fill in for a modern audience that which went without saying for the 5th century Greek audience. But he also saw an opportunity to make some points for a then contemporary audience. He chose to view the Trojan War as a "colonial war", and so the Greeks/Trojans shade into the Europeans/Colonized with interesting effect. Not satisfied with that, Sartre took the implicit nihilism of Euripides' piece in which the gods' whims and fancies saw to it that both the Trojans and the Greeks payed dearly despite all the pleas and sacrifices made to the gods by both sides and made it quite explicit.
Though Sartre writes in the Introduction that he "chose a poetic language which retains the ceremonial character of the text, its rhetorical value, - but which modifies its accent", little remains in Les Troyennes of that ceremonial character, of that rhetorical value, of that poetry. And with those went a fair amount of the emotional power of Euripides' play, at least for me. Nonetheless, it was very interesting to read this refracted image of Euripides' text and to wonder what the audience at the National Popular Theater made of it.
(*) In another play (Andromache) Euripides follows Andromache into her sexual servitude for Achilles' son, Neoptolemus; she bears him a son who replaces Astyanax - the son she bore Hector and who is murdered in The Trojan Women upon Odysseus' insistence - but who is, in turn, threatened with murder by Neoptolemus' Spartan wife. Euripides wrote Andromache quite a bit earlier (428-425), spills a great deal of patriotic bile over the Spartans and even gives the play a relatively happy ending.
March 29, 2020
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
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.
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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
November 23, 2015
Wow. This play was stunning. I have so many things I would like to say and yet none of my words or even my thoughts feel sufficient.
The Trojan War is over. The women of the city are waiting to hear which of the Greek warriors will be each one's new master, for they are all going into slavery as prizes of war. Even King Priam's wife Hecuba, the mother of Paris, the man who started it all by bringing Helen to Troy. The play revolves around the women's confusion, their pain, their attempts to understand why their lives have been shattered and how they will face their tragic future.
I remember reading The Odyssey in early school years, but I never managed The Iliad, so I was only vaguely familiar with the story of the war itself. Now I want to go back to Homer, because Odysseus is shown as much more of an utter creep than I ever realized. He was the one who suggested that the young son of Hector, the Trojan prince, be taken from his mother Andromache and thrown to his death from a tower of the city. The saddest part of the play was when the child's body is brought to his grandmother Hecuba so that she can prepare his little body for burial on his father's war shield.
I was close to tears many times: this is an intense work, full of raw emotion that any woman with a heart can feel and understand. On one hand I think seeing a performance of The Trojan Women would be amazing, but I think I would be overwhelmed and not be able to see the stage for my tears. So I will simply re-read it someday. I'm also going to read more Euripides. I have a small volume of three other works of his, but I need to wait a bit before starting with them. I want to let this piece settle first.
Ancient Greek myths and legends are something nearly everyone is familiar with, even without in-depth study. I know some names and stories, get mixed up with many others, and remember reading them much more often in my younger days than I have as an adult. I plan to change that. I want to revisit the marvelous confusion of the Greek myths, because this play has reminded me of the fascination they used to have for me. I want to see what I will discover in them at this point in my life.
The Trojan War is over. The women of the city are waiting to hear which of the Greek warriors will be each one's new master, for they are all going into slavery as prizes of war. Even King Priam's wife Hecuba, the mother of Paris, the man who started it all by bringing Helen to Troy. The play revolves around the women's confusion, their pain, their attempts to understand why their lives have been shattered and how they will face their tragic future.
I remember reading The Odyssey in early school years, but I never managed The Iliad, so I was only vaguely familiar with the story of the war itself. Now I want to go back to Homer, because Odysseus is shown as much more of an utter creep than I ever realized. He was the one who suggested that the young son of Hector, the Trojan prince, be taken from his mother Andromache and thrown to his death from a tower of the city. The saddest part of the play was when the child's body is brought to his grandmother Hecuba so that she can prepare his little body for burial on his father's war shield.
I was close to tears many times: this is an intense work, full of raw emotion that any woman with a heart can feel and understand. On one hand I think seeing a performance of The Trojan Women would be amazing, but I think I would be overwhelmed and not be able to see the stage for my tears. So I will simply re-read it someday. I'm also going to read more Euripides. I have a small volume of three other works of his, but I need to wait a bit before starting with them. I want to let this piece settle first.
Ancient Greek myths and legends are something nearly everyone is familiar with, even without in-depth study. I know some names and stories, get mixed up with many others, and remember reading them much more often in my younger days than I have as an adult. I plan to change that. I want to revisit the marvelous confusion of the Greek myths, because this play has reminded me of the fascination they used to have for me. I want to see what I will discover in them at this point in my life.
April 21, 2019
“È pazzo l'uomo che si rallegra pensando che gli andrà sempre bene: la fortuna con i suoi ghiribizzi è come un individuo capriccioso, salta di qua e di là †: e nessuno ne gode in perpetuo i favori” .
Rileggo questo testo di Euripide per prepararmi alle rappresentazioni del teatro di Siracusa di quest’anno. Insieme ad Elena è una delle tragedie scelte quest’anno. Leggerle, sentirle nel silenzio della stanza è diverso che vederle su una scena immensa, quale è quella di Siracusa, con gli alberi dietro e in fondo il mare blu che luccica. Ed è lo stesso mare che si porterà via le troiane, le donne rimaste vive dopo la caduta di Troia. Qual è il destino di queste donne cadute in mano nemiche e destinate a vedere nuove spiagge? Le donne di Euripide sono fiere, sopportano a testa alta la loro nuova condizione, come Cassandra, pronta a sposare Agamennone, a rinunciare alla sua verginità donata al dio Apollo, per uccidere il suo nemico e vendicare così se stessa e la sua gente; Ecuba che piange i suoi morti, Priamo ucciso sotto i suoi stessi occhi, suo figlio Ettore, eroe della battaglia e il nipotino Astianatte, sacrificato dall’odio acheo e sepolto nello scudo del padre; Andromaca, donna senza alcuna speranza ormai.
Che cosa è rimasto alle donne se non piangere i loro morti? Gridare nella sciagura il loro destino crudele? Piangere una città, orgoglio del loro popolo, adesso distrutta dall’odio?
L’incipit è splendido, con l’entrata di Poseidone in scena “ Io, Poseidone, ho lasciato le profondità dell'Egeo salmastro, dove i cori delle Nereidi intrecciano, in cerchio, bellissime danze” .
Sono le donne a pagare una guerra per una donna, Elena, che tenta con ogni raggiro di salvarsi la vita.
Quello che colpisce è la fede di queste donne nelle divinità, sapere che prima o poi saranno vendicate come è giusto, la loro capacità di sopportazione, il loro sapersi schiave adesso mentre prima erano regine onorate e venerate nel lusso.
E’ il dramma delle donne, derise, vilipese, ma che affrontano il loro dolore con dignità. Sono le donne di eroi e come tali non possono agire diversamente.
Donne costrette a partire. Penso all’attualità di questa tragedia, a quante donne oggi, vivono ancora questa condizione di dolore, di sottomissione, indipendentemente da una guerra e che ancora oggi esiste. La forza di quelle parole dopo 2000 anni mi sconcerta, sempre.
Il coro parla di aurora dalle bianche ali e mi viene in mente quella di Omero “dalle rosee dita”, un’immagine che sempre ho trovato bellissima.
“Stolto il mortale che distrugge città: chi condanna alla desolazione i templi e le tombe, asilo dei morti, è destinato a perire malamente”
Rileggo questo testo di Euripide per prepararmi alle rappresentazioni del teatro di Siracusa di quest’anno. Insieme ad Elena è una delle tragedie scelte quest’anno. Leggerle, sentirle nel silenzio della stanza è diverso che vederle su una scena immensa, quale è quella di Siracusa, con gli alberi dietro e in fondo il mare blu che luccica. Ed è lo stesso mare che si porterà via le troiane, le donne rimaste vive dopo la caduta di Troia. Qual è il destino di queste donne cadute in mano nemiche e destinate a vedere nuove spiagge? Le donne di Euripide sono fiere, sopportano a testa alta la loro nuova condizione, come Cassandra, pronta a sposare Agamennone, a rinunciare alla sua verginità donata al dio Apollo, per uccidere il suo nemico e vendicare così se stessa e la sua gente; Ecuba che piange i suoi morti, Priamo ucciso sotto i suoi stessi occhi, suo figlio Ettore, eroe della battaglia e il nipotino Astianatte, sacrificato dall’odio acheo e sepolto nello scudo del padre; Andromaca, donna senza alcuna speranza ormai.
Che cosa è rimasto alle donne se non piangere i loro morti? Gridare nella sciagura il loro destino crudele? Piangere una città, orgoglio del loro popolo, adesso distrutta dall’odio?
L’incipit è splendido, con l’entrata di Poseidone in scena “ Io, Poseidone, ho lasciato le profondità dell'Egeo salmastro, dove i cori delle Nereidi intrecciano, in cerchio, bellissime danze” .
Sono le donne a pagare una guerra per una donna, Elena, che tenta con ogni raggiro di salvarsi la vita.
Quello che colpisce è la fede di queste donne nelle divinità, sapere che prima o poi saranno vendicate come è giusto, la loro capacità di sopportazione, il loro sapersi schiave adesso mentre prima erano regine onorate e venerate nel lusso.
E’ il dramma delle donne, derise, vilipese, ma che affrontano il loro dolore con dignità. Sono le donne di eroi e come tali non possono agire diversamente.
Donne costrette a partire. Penso all’attualità di questa tragedia, a quante donne oggi, vivono ancora questa condizione di dolore, di sottomissione, indipendentemente da una guerra e che ancora oggi esiste. La forza di quelle parole dopo 2000 anni mi sconcerta, sempre.
Il coro parla di aurora dalle bianche ali e mi viene in mente quella di Omero “dalle rosee dita”, un’immagine che sempre ho trovato bellissima.
“Stolto il mortale che distrugge città: chi condanna alla desolazione i templi e le tombe, asilo dei morti, è destinato a perire malamente”
June 8, 2017
Έχουμε ακούσει την λέξη "τραγωδία" και "δράμα" τόσες πολλές φορές στην ζωή μας, κυρίως στον προφορικό λόγο προκειμένου να υπερβάλουμε για μια κατάσταση, που έχουμε σχεδόν παρερμηνεύσει και ξεχάσει την βαρύτητα της λέξης.
ΤΡΑΓΩΔΙΑ και ΔΡΑΜΑ λοιπόν το παρόν βιβλίο με την κανονική σημασία των λέξεων. Σε μια πασίγνωστη ιστορία όπου συνδέεται με θάρρος, ανδρεία και ηρωικές φιγούρες, ο Ευριπίδης έρχεται και προσθέτει θρήνο, δάκρυ και μοιρολόι. Γυρνάει αριστουργηματικά το νόμισμα και σου δείχνει και την άλλη μεριά. Την μεριά με τα δεινά, τον θάνατο και τον πόνο. Γιατί το συγκεκριμένο νόμισμα είναι ο Πόλεμος και η μία του μεριά θα έχει πάντα ηττημένους.
ΤΡΑΓΩΔΙΑ και ΔΡΑΜΑ λοιπόν το παρόν βιβλίο με την κανονική σημασία των λέξεων. Σε μια πασίγνωστη ιστορία όπου συνδέεται με θάρρος, ανδρεία και ηρωικές φιγούρες, ο Ευριπίδης έρχεται και προσθέτει θρήνο, δάκρυ και μοιρολόι. Γυρνάει αριστουργηματικά το νόμισμα και σου δείχνει και την άλλη μεριά. Την μεριά με τα δεινά, τον θάνατο και τον πόνο. Γιατί το συγκεκριμένο νόμισμα είναι ο Πόλεμος και η μία του μεριά θα έχει πάντα ηττημένους.
May 11, 2022
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.
Read
January 10, 2021The Women of Troy is a play written 2 and a half thousand years ago, but it still has relevance today. This was required reading for me but I'm definitely not mad about it, and ended up pleasantly surprised.
Set between The Iliad and The Odyssey, Euripides grants a voice to the women caught in the crossfires of the trojan war and the subsequent greek victory. It casts war and violence in a negative light, unusual for the time at which it was written.
Considering how long ago this was written, I was expecting it to be inaccessible and honestly a bit dry. So I was really pleasantly surprised by how beautiful the writing was and how many lines I underlined, not just for academic purposes- but just to go back to and read later.
I don't know if I would necessarily recommend this for pure enjoyment purposes, but if you enjoy ancient greek history and mythology this could be worth the read! It is super short and quick to fly through.
Set between The Iliad and The Odyssey, Euripides grants a voice to the women caught in the crossfires of the trojan war and the subsequent greek victory. It casts war and violence in a negative light, unusual for the time at which it was written.
Considering how long ago this was written, I was expecting it to be inaccessible and honestly a bit dry. So I was really pleasantly surprised by how beautiful the writing was and how many lines I underlined, not just for academic purposes- but just to go back to and read later.
I don't know if I would necessarily recommend this for pure enjoyment purposes, but if you enjoy ancient greek history and mythology this could be worth the read! It is super short and quick to fly through.
October 16, 2019
Absolutamente rendida a estas tragédias gregas.
March 31, 2020
"O vain is man,
Who glorieth in his joy and has no fears:
While to and fro the chances of the years
Dance like an idiot in the wind! And none
By any strength has his own fortune won."
Who glorieth in his joy and has no fears:
While to and fro the chances of the years
Dance like an idiot in the wind! And none
By any strength has his own fortune won."
March 14, 2015
As a theater major, I've spent an enormous chunk of my life reading and analyzing classical drama. There was a time when I could have broken down for you in great detail the stylistic differences between the three great Greek dramatists (Aeschylus, Sophocles & Euripides) and the great Greek comic playwright Aristophanes. But since I no longer have to, I won't.
I will say that I never took to the other two like I did to Euripides. He was the latest of the three, a product of an evolving social concept of the role of theater - instead of making proclamations at the audience, characters had conversations with each other. The language is simpler and less formal, a forerunner to modern drama, and the characters far more human.
I fell in love with this play because of how beautifully it depicts loss and grief. The characters are so vibrant and real, and their suffering so clearly depicted, that you forget you're reading something that's like 2500 years old. Even in the crappiest of translations, you feel like these characters are real people that you know, and your heart aches for the horrific things that have happened to them and the bleak gray future ahead of them.
The best moment of the whole play to me is a very brief exchange between Hecuba (former queen of Troy, whose husband and sons have all been murdered) and Menelaus (husband of Helen and one of the two Greek kings who led the war against Troy). They are bitter, violent enemies who hate each other and each other's people with a passion that will have consequences for generations. But in this one fleeting moment when Menelaus passes Hecuba on his way back to his ship, dragging Helen with her, they have a moment of connection in their anger towards Helen, who started the whole thing and is responsible for setting in motion the events that led to a ten-year siege and thousands of deaths on both sides. In that moment, as they realize that they both hate Helen more than each other, there's just a sliver of a hint at compassion on both sides, a realization that even though they're enemies, they understand the other's pain in a way that no one else does. Then the moment passes and they're enemies again, but that one moment changes the entire play for me. Gorgeous, heartbreaking stuff.
I also recommend "Medea", "The Bacchae" and "Iphegenia at Aulis."
I will say that I never took to the other two like I did to Euripides. He was the latest of the three, a product of an evolving social concept of the role of theater - instead of making proclamations at the audience, characters had conversations with each other. The language is simpler and less formal, a forerunner to modern drama, and the characters far more human.
I fell in love with this play because of how beautifully it depicts loss and grief. The characters are so vibrant and real, and their suffering so clearly depicted, that you forget you're reading something that's like 2500 years old. Even in the crappiest of translations, you feel like these characters are real people that you know, and your heart aches for the horrific things that have happened to them and the bleak gray future ahead of them.
The best moment of the whole play to me is a very brief exchange between Hecuba (former queen of Troy, whose husband and sons have all been murdered) and Menelaus (husband of Helen and one of the two Greek kings who led the war against Troy). They are bitter, violent enemies who hate each other and each other's people with a passion that will have consequences for generations. But in this one fleeting moment when Menelaus passes Hecuba on his way back to his ship, dragging Helen with her, they have a moment of connection in their anger towards Helen, who started the whole thing and is responsible for setting in motion the events that led to a ten-year siege and thousands of deaths on both sides. In that moment, as they realize that they both hate Helen more than each other, there's just a sliver of a hint at compassion on both sides, a realization that even though they're enemies, they understand the other's pain in a way that no one else does. Then the moment passes and they're enemies again, but that one moment changes the entire play for me. Gorgeous, heartbreaking stuff.
I also recommend "Medea", "The Bacchae" and "Iphegenia at Aulis."
April 9, 2024
"چگونه زار نگریم در این غمان که مراست
که اینک نه میهنی بر جای و نه سَروَری، نه فرزندی
دریغا، شوکت و مکنت آبایی که سالیان گرد آمده بود
پیش چشم ما به دم زدنی ناچیز شد.
هیهات هیهات
گفتنیها کدام و ناگفتنی کدام است؟"
داستان زنان تروا بعد از پایان جنگ تروا شروع میشه. تروا ویران، مردان، پیران و کودکان کشته و تنها زنان تروا برجای مانند. زنانی که در خیمه خود به انتظار بردگی و زبونی خود شکوه میکنند و در غم عزیزان خود میگریند.
زنان تروا رو میشه یه مکمل عالی برای کتاب ایلیاد در نظر گرفت. اگه توی اون کتاب شرح دلاوریها و جنگآوریها رو میخونیم، اینجا به بخش دیگه جنگ میریم. این تراژی ناگفتههای جنگ تروا رو میگه. قراره از کشتهها، بیرحمیها و خوارشدنها بخونیم. از نابودی و به آتش کشیدن شهر، از کشتن یه کودک برای اینکه پدرش تروایی بوده بخونیم.
در کل که صحنههای فوقالعاده زیاد داره و بهشدت باارزشه. توصیه میکنم حتما با ترجمه جناب کوثری بخونید. درخشانه.
که اینک نه میهنی بر جای و نه سَروَری، نه فرزندی
دریغا، شوکت و مکنت آبایی که سالیان گرد آمده بود
پیش چشم ما به دم زدنی ناچیز شد.
هیهات هیهات
گفتنیها کدام و ناگفتنی کدام است؟"
داستان زنان تروا بعد از پایان جنگ تروا شروع میشه. تروا ویران، مردان، پیران و کودکان کشته و تنها زنان تروا برجای مانند. زنانی که در خیمه خود به انتظار بردگی و زبونی خود شکوه میکنند و در غم عزیزان خود میگریند.
زنان تروا رو میشه یه مکمل عالی برای کتاب ایلیاد در نظر گرفت. اگه توی اون کتاب شرح دلاوریها و جنگآوریها رو میخونیم، اینجا به بخش دیگه جنگ میریم. این تراژی ناگفتههای جنگ تروا رو میگه. قراره از کشتهها، بیرحمیها و خوارشدنها بخونیم. از نابودی و به آتش کشیدن شهر، از کشتن یه کودک برای اینکه پدرش تروایی بوده بخونیم.
در کل که صحنههای فوقالعاده زیاد داره و بهشدت باارزشه. توصیه میکنم حتما با ترجمه جناب کوثری بخونید. درخشانه.
June 29, 2016
Ο Ευριπίδης παρουσιάζει τη φρικαλεότητα του πολέμου σ'ένα έργο που,δυστυχώς,διαβάζεται ακόμη και σήμερα με τον ίδιο πόνο.Δεν μπορεί να μη σκεφτεί κανείς τους συνανθρώπους μας που βρίσκονται στη θέση των ηρωίδων-χωρίς σπίτι,χωρίς οικογένεια,χωρίς πατρίδα.
Ο πόνος των γυναικών γίνεται δικός μας,τραγικές φιγούρες σε έναν πόλεμο που ούτε προκάλεσαν,ούτε επέλεξαν.Ο μονόλογος της Ανδρομάχης λίγο πριν πάρουν από την αγκαλιά της το γιο της για να τον σκοτώσουν σου σπαράζει την καρδιά,το ίδιο κι ο μονόλογος της Εκάβης όταν τον θάβει.
Διαχρονικό,όσο και η φύση του ανθρώπου.Ο Ευριπίδης αποδεικνύεται για άλλη μια φορά τρανός παρατηρητής και μεγάλος δάσκαλος-αλλά και εξαιρετικά θαρραλέος,για να γράψει και να ανεβάσει τις "Τρωάδες" τη χρονική στιγμή που το έκανε.Υποκλίνομαι ξανά και ξανά στο μεγαλείο του.
Ο πόνος των γυναικών γίνεται δικός μας,τραγικές φιγούρες σε έναν πόλεμο που ούτε προκάλεσαν,ούτε επέλεξαν.Ο μονόλογος της Ανδρομάχης λίγο πριν πάρουν από την αγκαλιά της το γιο της για να τον σκοτώσουν σου σπαράζει την καρδιά,το ίδιο κι ο μονόλογος της Εκάβης όταν τον θάβει.
Διαχρονικό,όσο και η φύση του ανθρώπου.Ο Ευριπίδης αποδεικνύεται για άλλη μια φορά τρανός παρατηρητής και μεγάλος δάσκαλος-αλλά και εξαιρετικά θαρραλέος,για να γράψει και να ανεβάσει τις "Τρωάδες" τη χρονική στιγμή που το έκανε.Υποκλίνομαι ξανά και ξανά στο μεγαλείο του.
July 30, 2019
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.
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.
April 23, 2021
زنان در جنگ هایی که مردان به راه می اندازند چه نقشی ایفا می کنند؟
“بنگر کجایی، بر سرت چه آمده شهرت ویران شده،
شوی ات مرده. تو شکست خورده ای. تو تنها یک زنی، ما هرکار که بخواهیم می توانیم با تو بکنیم. دیگر دست از جنگ
بردار، ما را برنینگیز، م�� را نفرین مکن که کار بدتر می شود،
زیرا اگر ما را به خشم آوری، شاید سپاهیان بر آن شوند که با
پسرت سنگ دلی کنند و کالبدش را به خاک نسپارند.
اکنون خاموش باش، مصائبت را آن گونه که باید تاب بیاور
تا آیین خاکسپاری را از فرزند مردهات دریغ نکنی، و
یونانیان کمتر سخت دل باشند.“
“بنگر کجایی، بر سرت چه آمده شهرت ویران شده،
شوی ات مرده. تو شکست خورده ای. تو تنها یک زنی، ما هرکار که بخواهیم می توانیم با تو بکنیم. دیگر دست از جنگ
بردار، ما را برنینگیز، م�� را نفرین مکن که کار بدتر می شود،
زیرا اگر ما را به خشم آوری، شاید سپاهیان بر آن شوند که با
پسرت سنگ دلی کنند و کالبدش را به خاک نسپارند.
اکنون خاموش باش، مصائبت را آن گونه که باید تاب بیاور
تا آیین خاکسپاری را از فرزند مردهات دریغ نکنی، و
یونانیان کمتر سخت دل باشند.“
December 14, 2023
”Get up there
You Trojan widows, Trojan virgins, all mated
to the dead.
Have the guts to look down upon these
smoldering ruins
For the last time
And articulate your grief.
~Hecuba
”Lift up your heads: be proud,
Leave your revenge to me;
He who embraces me will be destroyed by me.”
~Cassandra
”Nothing is more deceptive than happiness.
Joy is a cheat which covers up for the misery
stalking behind the grin.”
~Leader of the Chorus
”Idiots!
Can’t you see
War
Will kill you:
All of you?
~Poseidon
The nihilism of this play is so stark that it’s little wonder that Sartre was attracted to adapt it. Euripides wrote it as an anti war play, and Sartre’s adaptation remains just that for another age and another audience.
The just ended war in the The Trojan Women brings doom to all. The Trojan men all lie dead, the Trojan Women bewail their fate as they wait to be carried away. The victorious Greeks will soon face destruction on the seas and murderous intrigue at home. Even the fickle gods are unhappy - Poseidon to see the ruins of his city, and Pallas piqued for the defilement and destruction of her temple by her Greek champions. The great conflict that was the Trojan War was the doom of all who participated.
Cassandra is the greatest horror of this play. Hecuba and the Trojan women believe her mad, yet she still sees clearly with the god’s prophetic gift. She is to be carried off to be Agamemnon’s concubine, and goes rejoicing to his bed, even asks Hecuba her mother to celebrate and be glad for her. Cassandra, with her prophetic site, sees that she will be the cause, not only of Agamemnon’s brutal murder, but of the destruction of his entire house. The smile on her lips as she goes to her fate that will end in vengeance is stone cold chilling.
This adaptation of the play by Sartre has been adjusted to speak to a modern audience. It contains an introduction where Sartre explains his purpose and methods. Also, in a note from Ronald Duncan who translated Sartre’s French to English, he explains that it is a free adaptation rather than a direct translation, and why. So Euripides had quite a bit of help in this rendition of his ancient play.
Let’s give the final words to song writer Edwin Starr:
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
You Trojan widows, Trojan virgins, all mated
to the dead.
Have the guts to look down upon these
smoldering ruins
For the last time
And articulate your grief.
~Hecuba
”Lift up your heads: be proud,
Leave your revenge to me;
He who embraces me will be destroyed by me.”
~Cassandra
”Nothing is more deceptive than happiness.
Joy is a cheat which covers up for the misery
stalking behind the grin.”
~Leader of the Chorus
”Idiots!
Can’t you see
War
Will kill you:
All of you?
~Poseidon
The nihilism of this play is so stark that it’s little wonder that Sartre was attracted to adapt it. Euripides wrote it as an anti war play, and Sartre’s adaptation remains just that for another age and another audience.
The just ended war in the The Trojan Women brings doom to all. The Trojan men all lie dead, the Trojan Women bewail their fate as they wait to be carried away. The victorious Greeks will soon face destruction on the seas and murderous intrigue at home. Even the fickle gods are unhappy - Poseidon to see the ruins of his city, and Pallas piqued for the defilement and destruction of her temple by her Greek champions. The great conflict that was the Trojan War was the doom of all who participated.
Cassandra is the greatest horror of this play. Hecuba and the Trojan women believe her mad, yet she still sees clearly with the god’s prophetic gift. She is to be carried off to be Agamemnon’s concubine, and goes rejoicing to his bed, even asks Hecuba her mother to celebrate and be glad for her. Cassandra, with her prophetic site, sees that she will be the cause, not only of Agamemnon’s brutal murder, but of the destruction of his entire house. The smile on her lips as she goes to her fate that will end in vengeance is stone cold chilling.
This adaptation of the play by Sartre has been adjusted to speak to a modern audience. It contains an introduction where Sartre explains his purpose and methods. Also, in a note from Ronald Duncan who translated Sartre’s French to English, he explains that it is a free adaptation rather than a direct translation, and why. So Euripides had quite a bit of help in this rendition of his ancient play.
Let’s give the final words to song writer Edwin Starr:
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
January 22, 2018
"Aguenta a mudança de fortuna!
Ruma por onde puderes passar, ruma de acordo com a sorte,
não voltes a proa do barco da vida
contra as vagas, quando navegas ao sopro do destino."
Depois de Tróia tomada pelos Aqueus, os homens são mortos; as crianças atiradas das muralhas; as mulheres levadas cativas nos barcos gregos.
Cassandra - a enlouquecida princesa de Tróia, vidente e sacerdotisa de Apolo - é destinada a Agamémnon;
Policena, a filha mais nova dos reis de Tróia, é sacrificada junto ao túmulo de Aquiles;
Andrómaca, a mulher de Heitor, vai ser entregue ao filho de Aquiles, depois de se despedir do seu filho, Astianacte, que será atirado do alto das muralhas, por decisão de Ulisses;
Hécuba - rainha de Tróia. Todos os seus dezanove filhos morreram e tem de fazer os ritos fúnebres ao neto. As suas esperanças de um dia Tróia ser vingada, morrem com o menino. É levada como escrava de Ulisses;
Helena vai com Menelau. Talvez seja a única que não sofrerá. O seu poder de sedução e de argumentação é desarmante. Defende-se culpando os outros de todos os males: primeiro Hécuba por ter dado à luz Páris; depois Príamo por não ter morto o filho à nascença; finalmente, culpa os deuses.
Tróia... as suas muralhas desabam submergindo toda a cidade.
Quase gritei de angústia ao ler esta peça. Não será muito racional pois trata-se de ficção (será?), mas é uma realidade que nas guerras - nas de há três mil anos ou nas de agora - as mulheres são as que mais sofrem: com a perda dos que amam e com a violência a que os vencedores as sujeitam. E não recebem "medalhas" de heroísmo... Como diz, a certa altura, Andrómaca: por vezes, o destino de quem morre é melhor do que o de quem fica vivo. E ainda não sabia que lhe iam matar o filho...
(Georges Rochegrosse - Andromaque)
Ruma por onde puderes passar, ruma de acordo com a sorte,
não voltes a proa do barco da vida
contra as vagas, quando navegas ao sopro do destino."
Depois de Tróia tomada pelos Aqueus, os homens são mortos; as crianças atiradas das muralhas; as mulheres levadas cativas nos barcos gregos.
Cassandra - a enlouquecida princesa de Tróia, vidente e sacerdotisa de Apolo - é destinada a Agamémnon;
Policena, a filha mais nova dos reis de Tróia, é sacrificada junto ao túmulo de Aquiles;
Andrómaca, a mulher de Heitor, vai ser entregue ao filho de Aquiles, depois de se despedir do seu filho, Astianacte, que será atirado do alto das muralhas, por decisão de Ulisses;
Hécuba - rainha de Tróia. Todos os seus dezanove filhos morreram e tem de fazer os ritos fúnebres ao neto. As suas esperanças de um dia Tróia ser vingada, morrem com o menino. É levada como escrava de Ulisses;
Helena vai com Menelau. Talvez seja a única que não sofrerá. O seu poder de sedução e de argumentação é desarmante. Defende-se culpando os outros de todos os males: primeiro Hécuba por ter dado à luz Páris; depois Príamo por não ter morto o filho à nascença; finalmente, culpa os deuses.
Tróia... as suas muralhas desabam submergindo toda a cidade.
Quase gritei de angústia ao ler esta peça. Não será muito racional pois trata-se de ficção (será?), mas é uma realidade que nas guerras - nas de há três mil anos ou nas de agora - as mulheres são as que mais sofrem: com a perda dos que amam e com a violência a que os vencedores as sujeitam. E não recebem "medalhas" de heroísmo... Como diz, a certa altura, Andrómaca: por vezes, o destino de quem morre é melhor do que o de quem fica vivo. E ainda não sabia que lhe iam matar o filho...
(Georges Rochegrosse - Andromaque)
May 1, 2023
موقع مرگم اینو حتما میگم بعد میمیرم:
این پیکر پیرم بر زمین فرو میافتد و من با این دستم بر این خاک میکوبم.
این پیکر پیرم بر زمین فرو میافتد و من با این دستم بر این خاک میکوبم.
September 5, 2024
خیلی دلخراش بود 🥲
اما تو هکتور من هکتور محبوبم تو همه آن چیزهایی را که من از یک شوهر میخواستم داشتی. خردمند بودی و در دارایی بزرگی و دلاوری بی همتا. تو نخستین مرد و تنها کسی بودی که به او دل باختم. هنوز دستی به من نخورده بود که مرا از خانه پدرم بردی و اکنون تو جان سپرده ای و مرا به یونان می برند. یک زندانی در انبار کشتی. تنها یکی برده.
اما تو هکتور من هکتور محبوبم تو همه آن چیزهایی را که من از یک شوهر میخواستم داشتی. خردمند بودی و در دارایی بزرگی و دلاوری بی همتا. تو نخستین مرد و تنها کسی بودی که به او دل باختم. هنوز دستی به من نخورده بود که مرا از خانه پدرم بردی و اکنون تو جان سپرده ای و مرا به یونان می برند. یک زندانی در انبار کشتی. تنها یکی برده.
March 23, 2020
I had to pause after reading this play. The tragic loss of husband and children from war and cruel circumstances of fate is richly shown through the fallen queen of Troy, Hecuba. The war has ended, Troy has lost, and the surviving women of Troy will be distributed amongst the Greeks as slaves. Even the change in tempo with Cassandra’s matter of fact acceptance of what awaits her does not break the doom.
The loss expressed in this play is universal, but there are nuances to do with the story of Troy that I would have missed without all my recent readings related to this work. This would not matter if I was reading this play for its beauty of poetry or its emotional tug. When Euripides wrote this play, Athens was at war with Sparta. Some of Cassandra’s lines reminded me of the line from Wilfred Owen’s poem, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” or “How sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country”. Not a good comparison as Owen, unlike Cassandra, was mocking the patriotic war cry. Not that it matters, in reality, like the Trojans, Athens will also eventually lose their war.
The play also has a scene where a debate is played out over Helen’s fate. Menelaus, Helen’s aggrieved and abandoned husband, listens to both sides. One side is represented by Hecuba, the other by Helen herself. Hecuba argues Helen deserves death for the misery suffered by all. Helen, with all her wit and charm, defends the charge, pleads innocence and points the guilt back to Hecuba and her son Paris. Both their arguments are strong. When they finish Menelaus assures Hecuba Helen will not live, but as they walk away there is something inconclusive about it.
I read this with a GR friend, and though we were reading different editions we still managed to discuss this with ease. The translation I read is in poetical form and published by Oxford University Press, Peter Burian translated it. I have now read several Euripides plays from this collection, each one comes with a lengthy essay and notes. I found these essays easier to comprehend as I became familiar with these stories. But what makes this play, and others by Euripides, an enjoyable read for me is how the women are drawn. Here, it’s impossible for me not to empathise with the pain and the courage expressed by these Trojan women though the play was written roughly 24 centuries ago.
The loss expressed in this play is universal, but there are nuances to do with the story of Troy that I would have missed without all my recent readings related to this work. This would not matter if I was reading this play for its beauty of poetry or its emotional tug. When Euripides wrote this play, Athens was at war with Sparta. Some of Cassandra’s lines reminded me of the line from Wilfred Owen’s poem, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” or “How sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country”. Not a good comparison as Owen, unlike Cassandra, was mocking the patriotic war cry. Not that it matters, in reality, like the Trojans, Athens will also eventually lose their war.
The play also has a scene where a debate is played out over Helen’s fate. Menelaus, Helen’s aggrieved and abandoned husband, listens to both sides. One side is represented by Hecuba, the other by Helen herself. Hecuba argues Helen deserves death for the misery suffered by all. Helen, with all her wit and charm, defends the charge, pleads innocence and points the guilt back to Hecuba and her son Paris. Both their arguments are strong. When they finish Menelaus assures Hecuba Helen will not live, but as they walk away there is something inconclusive about it.
I read this with a GR friend, and though we were reading different editions we still managed to discuss this with ease. The translation I read is in poetical form and published by Oxford University Press, Peter Burian translated it. I have now read several Euripides plays from this collection, each one comes with a lengthy essay and notes. I found these essays easier to comprehend as I became familiar with these stories. But what makes this play, and others by Euripides, an enjoyable read for me is how the women are drawn. Here, it’s impossible for me not to empathise with the pain and the courage expressed by these Trojan women though the play was written roughly 24 centuries ago.
May 17, 2019
A volte ritornano
Niente di nuovo: l’opera d’arte lo è in quanto non puoi buttare là due opinioni epidermiche sulle emozioni del momento. Toccarla, guardala, ascoltarla o leggerla e poi parlarne non è come descrivere l’arricciamento del pelo al venticello primaverile, fresco ma piacevole.
Con “Le Troiane” il detto e ridetto ti sorge in mente spontaneo: con i mezzi della vita moderna si può verificare in tempo reale le intuizioni rafforzandole e tanticchia esaltandoti nella condivisione.
Sulla scena quattro donne e un bambino mentre alle loro spalle Troia brucia:
Ecuba la vecchia che con i figli ha perso qualsiasi fede;
Cassandra la folle, che inneggia alle sue nozze con Agamennone anziché dolersene perché l’imeneo sarà la rovina del comandante in capo e della sua famiglia;
Andromaca la vedova che annega nel nichilismo: la vita, privata dell’esistenza, non vale la pena di essere vissuta;
Elena la colpevole che gioca con la seduzione e i sofismi per salvare la pelle;
Astianatte la vittima imberbe, sacrificato per impedire a qualsiasi erede di vendicare i morti e rivendicare il potere.
La prima domanda è: Euripide è anche moderno, contemporaneo o addirittura attuale?
Il senso comune (quasi mai sinonimo di buon senso), sciorinato come bucato mal lavato un giorno sì e l’altro pure, ci ammonisce che quel che fu non ritorna, per carità.
[ Il “senso comune” deve essere una conquista del progresso e della civiltà se era sconosciuto al grande tragico che, nel V° secolo a.C. , scriveva di una guerra combattuta sei secoli prima mentre, e appena due stagioni avanti della scrittura della tragedia, avrebbe avuto materiale fresco di prima mano, visto il servizietto fatto alla comunità di Melo dal celodurismo ateniese. Mica bruscolini: un bell’eccidio pulito pulito, con le solite vittime collaterali, donne e bambini più un immaginabile esodo di profughi sbandati].
Solo la paura di incorrere nell'inevitabile censura lo fa ricorrere al mito? o la censura, dice il senso comune, è un concetto di progresso e civiltà (?) e non poteva esistere al tempo del drammaturgo? Probabilmente la modernità ha trasformato in “assolvibile censura” l’ostracismo, negando l’esistenza dell’una e dell’altro quando vi procede esibendo a sua discolpa commi raffazzonati e emendamenti di leggi nate per altri scopi.
Diamo per scontato che il ripiego dell’ombroso Euripide fu per scampare all'ostracismo, se non al peggio ancora; ma perché scegliere proprio la distruzione di Troia, rivolgersi al mito? Forse perché il mito era allora il grimaldello per aprire la porta alla conoscenza del senso del presente? Forse perché era il linguaggio da tutti conosciuto e quindi comprensibile senza la riserva mentale che il passato non ritorna? Forse perché non era solo una favola?
Diamo anche questo per reale: Euripide (e i tragici, conosciuti o meno) usava quel linguaggio universale per coinvolgere gli spettatori e sottoporre al loro giudizio critico la versione aggiornata del vecchio mito (le rappresentazioni, come tutti sanno, avvenivano in veri e propri festival in cui al posto di “Fin che la barca va” gareggiava “Le Troiane”. O tempora o mores).
Euripide (e i tragici, conosciuti o meno) non era pertanto un masturbatore mentale, un viaggiatore periombelicale, ma uomo che riconosce la valenza dell’ esistere nell'essere agente nel reale con la sua opera ( suppongo che non sarebbe andato al salone di Torino alle condizioni date dagli organizzatori). Non gli interessa lo zoismo, il vivere per vivere. Dice Andromaca: Morire e non esistere la stessa cosa, dico io, sono .
E soprattutto: perché ancora oggi se ne fanno rappresentazioni? Solo per sfogliare l’album di ciò che fu? Solo per vedere come erano “I Flintstones” del V secolo e compiacerci dei cotanti progressi della nostra contemporaneità?
Se ci guardiamo attorno, siamo ancora circondati da celoduristi achei o ateniesi. Città e intere nazioni in fiamme; donne e bambini, scampati alla morte nelle guerre, che vanno incontro a una esistenza da schiavi e deportati, sempre che sopravvivano alla traversata del deserto, ai campi, al mare e ai capetti di turno.
A scriverlo sembra retorica buonista, tante volte si deve reiterare il concetto a coloro che parlano di invasione, pericolo, minaccia di sostituzione etnica. Sembra un mantra banale e banalizzante, un aggrapparsi all’emozione “letteraria” per cercare un senso reale al mero passatempo della lettura. Ma come ho dimostrato, Le Troiane” è arte e non ammette pretesti di non avere nulla a che vedere con la realtà.
Niente di nuovo: l’opera d’arte lo è in quanto non puoi buttare là due opinioni epidermiche sulle emozioni del momento. Toccarla, guardala, ascoltarla o leggerla e poi parlarne non è come descrivere l’arricciamento del pelo al venticello primaverile, fresco ma piacevole.
Con “Le Troiane” il detto e ridetto ti sorge in mente spontaneo: con i mezzi della vita moderna si può verificare in tempo reale le intuizioni rafforzandole e tanticchia esaltandoti nella condivisione.
Sulla scena quattro donne e un bambino mentre alle loro spalle Troia brucia:
Ecuba la vecchia che con i figli ha perso qualsiasi fede;
Cassandra la folle, che inneggia alle sue nozze con Agamennone anziché dolersene perché l’imeneo sarà la rovina del comandante in capo e della sua famiglia;
Andromaca la vedova che annega nel nichilismo: la vita, privata dell’esistenza, non vale la pena di essere vissuta;
Elena la colpevole che gioca con la seduzione e i sofismi per salvare la pelle;
Astianatte la vittima imberbe, sacrificato per impedire a qualsiasi erede di vendicare i morti e rivendicare il potere.
La prima domanda è: Euripide è anche moderno, contemporaneo o addirittura attuale?
Il senso comune (quasi mai sinonimo di buon senso), sciorinato come bucato mal lavato un giorno sì e l’altro pure, ci ammonisce che quel che fu non ritorna, per carità.
[ Il “senso comune” deve essere una conquista del progresso e della civiltà se era sconosciuto al grande tragico che, nel V° secolo a.C. , scriveva di una guerra combattuta sei secoli prima mentre, e appena due stagioni avanti della scrittura della tragedia, avrebbe avuto materiale fresco di prima mano, visto il servizietto fatto alla comunità di Melo dal celodurismo ateniese. Mica bruscolini: un bell’eccidio pulito pulito, con le solite vittime collaterali, donne e bambini più un immaginabile esodo di profughi sbandati].
Solo la paura di incorrere nell'inevitabile censura lo fa ricorrere al mito? o la censura, dice il senso comune, è un concetto di progresso e civiltà (?) e non poteva esistere al tempo del drammaturgo? Probabilmente la modernità ha trasformato in “assolvibile censura” l’ostracismo, negando l’esistenza dell’una e dell’altro quando vi procede esibendo a sua discolpa commi raffazzonati e emendamenti di leggi nate per altri scopi.
Diamo per scontato che il ripiego dell’ombroso Euripide fu per scampare all'ostracismo, se non al peggio ancora; ma perché scegliere proprio la distruzione di Troia, rivolgersi al mito? Forse perché il mito era allora il grimaldello per aprire la porta alla conoscenza del senso del presente? Forse perché era il linguaggio da tutti conosciuto e quindi comprensibile senza la riserva mentale che il passato non ritorna? Forse perché non era solo una favola?
Diamo anche questo per reale: Euripide (e i tragici, conosciuti o meno) usava quel linguaggio universale per coinvolgere gli spettatori e sottoporre al loro giudizio critico la versione aggiornata del vecchio mito (le rappresentazioni, come tutti sanno, avvenivano in veri e propri festival in cui al posto di “Fin che la barca va” gareggiava “Le Troiane”. O tempora o mores).
Euripide (e i tragici, conosciuti o meno) non era pertanto un masturbatore mentale, un viaggiatore periombelicale, ma uomo che riconosce la valenza dell’ esistere nell'essere agente nel reale con la sua opera ( suppongo che non sarebbe andato al salone di Torino alle condizioni date dagli organizzatori). Non gli interessa lo zoismo, il vivere per vivere. Dice Andromaca: Morire e non esistere la stessa cosa, dico io, sono .
E soprattutto: perché ancora oggi se ne fanno rappresentazioni? Solo per sfogliare l’album di ciò che fu? Solo per vedere come erano “I Flintstones” del V secolo e compiacerci dei cotanti progressi della nostra contemporaneità?
Se ci guardiamo attorno, siamo ancora circondati da celoduristi achei o ateniesi. Città e intere nazioni in fiamme; donne e bambini, scampati alla morte nelle guerre, che vanno incontro a una esistenza da schiavi e deportati, sempre che sopravvivano alla traversata del deserto, ai campi, al mare e ai capetti di turno.
A scriverlo sembra retorica buonista, tante volte si deve reiterare il concetto a coloro che parlano di invasione, pericolo, minaccia di sostituzione etnica. Sembra un mantra banale e banalizzante, un aggrapparsi all’emozione “letteraria” per cercare un senso reale al mero passatempo della lettura. Ma come ho dimostrato, Le Troiane” è arte e non ammette pretesti di non avere nulla a che vedere con la realtà.
September 19, 2021
Extremely tragic. But inspite of this terrible tragedy the courage of Trojan Women is unparalleled.
Their valour is not in mercilessly killing and attributing the strength of arms as the only glorifying courage, but in the very fact of standing tall and spirited even after losing everything in the war, a war which was never theirs.
Though aware of the story beforehand, I found the play extremely well written, invoking the necessary emotions which definitely overwhelms and tears through one's heart while reading.
The songs, the reactions, the quotes, everything is well weaved for a play of such intensity, also never overdoing the tragedy.
To quote one of my favorite parts,
as Hecuba, the once Queen of Troy, in her lamentations calls out to Gods, but then she quickly checks herself and says 'Alas, why call on things so weak for aid?'
And if there's one thing that can be inferred correctly from this tragic war of Troy, is how humans, brave courageous humans, are nothing but playthings in the hand of the mighty Gods. Power seduces and defies both the divine and kings alike. Yet, the tragedy befalls to these women who are neither Gods/Goddesses, playing through as their own likings, nor the mighty terrible kings who in their arrogance of power can win over everything but kindness and humaneness.
My first Euripides play, this was definitely a perfect start.
Their valour is not in mercilessly killing and attributing the strength of arms as the only glorifying courage, but in the very fact of standing tall and spirited even after losing everything in the war, a war which was never theirs.
Though aware of the story beforehand, I found the play extremely well written, invoking the necessary emotions which definitely overwhelms and tears through one's heart while reading.
The songs, the reactions, the quotes, everything is well weaved for a play of such intensity, also never overdoing the tragedy.
To quote one of my favorite parts,
as Hecuba, the once Queen of Troy, in her lamentations calls out to Gods, but then she quickly checks herself and says 'Alas, why call on things so weak for aid?'
And if there's one thing that can be inferred correctly from this tragic war of Troy, is how humans, brave courageous humans, are nothing but playthings in the hand of the mighty Gods. Power seduces and defies both the divine and kings alike. Yet, the tragedy befalls to these women who are neither Gods/Goddesses, playing through as their own likings, nor the mighty terrible kings who in their arrogance of power can win over everything but kindness and humaneness.
My first Euripides play, this was definitely a perfect start.
March 9, 2015
A timely warning to the Athenian elite
26 April 2013
I liked one of the short descriptions of this play: a bunch of women wailing and moaning about the significant turn in their life. While that statement may sum this play up, I do not actually think at it gets to the core of what Euripides is exploring, particularly since these women have found themselves on the losing side of a war, which is generally always a bad thing. In the days of Ancient Greece, to be a woman on the losing side of a war pretty much meant the loss of freedom and a lifetime of sex slavery, and I suspect that that is only when you still have your looks about you: once they are gone I suspect the life gets even worse.
This is not necessarily low born women either, though the same probably applies to them. However, as is the case with most plays and other forms of literature, we are dealing with high born people, such as queens and princesses. To them such a radical change in their social status would have been mentally debilitating, and that is something that the Greek Tragedians explore well, the idea of mental anguish. Some have suggested that there is a struggle between the desire to end one's life and the possibility of hope, though the only hope one sees in this play is the hope that the victors suffer as much as the vanquished. Indeed, the Greek generals do have their own trials to face, however most of them make it back to their homes, and freedom (though whether freedom in the form of relying upon slaves to maintain your lifestyle is in fact freedom is another debate for another time). All these women have to look forward to is a life of sexual slavery only to be discarded when their looks are gone. There is no concept of human rights in this period, and while Athens could have been considered a slave's paradise, slaves were little more than property, and the only reason that you kept them fed and sheltered was because good slaves were expensive.
There is a contemporary event to which this play relates and that was the sacking of Miletus by the Athenians. Just as the Greeks sacked Troy, killed all of the men and enslaved the women and children, the Athenians did that to Miletus as well. What Euripides is trying to expose is the pain and agony that the citizens, particularly the women, of Miletus would have experienced at the time. It was also a warning to Athens, though one must remember that only the men were allowed to go to the theatre. Still, the war was a long way from being concluded, but Athens had suffered, and was about to suffer, some serious set backs with the disastrous Sicilian expedition, and the plays that were produced after that time clearly demonstrate the loss of hope that the Athenians were facing. If there was any hope at all in the eyes of the Trojan Woman, it would be small and fleeting.
26 April 2013
I liked one of the short descriptions of this play: a bunch of women wailing and moaning about the significant turn in their life. While that statement may sum this play up, I do not actually think at it gets to the core of what Euripides is exploring, particularly since these women have found themselves on the losing side of a war, which is generally always a bad thing. In the days of Ancient Greece, to be a woman on the losing side of a war pretty much meant the loss of freedom and a lifetime of sex slavery, and I suspect that that is only when you still have your looks about you: once they are gone I suspect the life gets even worse.
This is not necessarily low born women either, though the same probably applies to them. However, as is the case with most plays and other forms of literature, we are dealing with high born people, such as queens and princesses. To them such a radical change in their social status would have been mentally debilitating, and that is something that the Greek Tragedians explore well, the idea of mental anguish. Some have suggested that there is a struggle between the desire to end one's life and the possibility of hope, though the only hope one sees in this play is the hope that the victors suffer as much as the vanquished. Indeed, the Greek generals do have their own trials to face, however most of them make it back to their homes, and freedom (though whether freedom in the form of relying upon slaves to maintain your lifestyle is in fact freedom is another debate for another time). All these women have to look forward to is a life of sexual slavery only to be discarded when their looks are gone. There is no concept of human rights in this period, and while Athens could have been considered a slave's paradise, slaves were little more than property, and the only reason that you kept them fed and sheltered was because good slaves were expensive.
There is a contemporary event to which this play relates and that was the sacking of Miletus by the Athenians. Just as the Greeks sacked Troy, killed all of the men and enslaved the women and children, the Athenians did that to Miletus as well. What Euripides is trying to expose is the pain and agony that the citizens, particularly the women, of Miletus would have experienced at the time. It was also a warning to Athens, though one must remember that only the men were allowed to go to the theatre. Still, the war was a long way from being concluded, but Athens had suffered, and was about to suffer, some serious set backs with the disastrous Sicilian expedition, and the plays that were produced after that time clearly demonstrate the loss of hope that the Athenians were facing. If there was any hope at all in the eyes of the Trojan Woman, it would be small and fleeting.
June 11, 2023
I read this years ago, in college, and I have always remembered the horrible scene in which Hecuba sees the body of her very young grandson, Astyanax, the son of Hector, who has been thrown from the city walls by the Greeks. This is not the same translation as the one I read before, because I vividly remember Hecuba's comment about seeing the "white bone" in the little boy's broken body, and the wording here is slightly different, not as stark. Later I read Caesar's account of taking towns in Gaul, and how the defeated kings would throw themselves from the walls to avoid slavery. Astyanax was seen as a threat because he was the last living link to the throne of Priam; so sad, because of course the little boy would have had no understanding of the politics of which he was the pawn.
December 8, 2023
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.
August 8, 2009
It is difficult to describe a play so rich in ideas and so deep in feeling. What came through to me this time was lament, lamenting the lives of the beloved dead, lamenting the fall of your state, lamenting the life you once had, and lamenting the life now forced upon you. I doubt that Euripides had feminist issues in mind when writing this work, but it is also interesting to read this with feminist ideas of power and powerlessness in my head. Each new reading brings new ways of understanding this superb play, and new ways of understanding my world.
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