Trojan Women

“POSEIDON: That man’s an idiot who ravages cities, and consigns their holy temples and tombs—the sacred places of the dead—to stark desertion. He will die himself.”

This is the conclusion of Poseidon’s Prologue, once he and Athena have decided to destroy the Greek ships.This statement could be taken as a reflection on the Athenian invasion of Melos the year before this play was produced; the Athenians killed the men and enslaved the women and children. Just as the Greeks’ impious actions anger the gods in this play, perhaps Euripides’ audience would have seen a warning that they have incurred the gods’ wrath, as well.

“HECUBA: Sail with the changes, sail with the current, sail with your fate, not against it.”

These lines, from Hecuba’s opening monologue, show us the importance of the nautical metaphor for Hecuba. The queen compares herself to a ship that is caught in a bad storm, and coaches herself to bear with it and endure what comes. The alternative, resistance, would spell destruction for her, just as it would for a ship in a storm.

“CASSANDRA: Come shout aloud the wedding-hymn, sing out your blessings for the bride!”

The Trojan princess Cassandra begins her conversation with Hecuba and the Chorus by subverting the performance of ritual duties. Whereas the other Trojan women are singing songs of mourning, Cassandra demands songs of celebration, framing her imminent sex slavery as a marriage. This behavior, so far removed from any of the other characters’ thinking, establishes Cassandra as one who stands apart.

“CASSANDRA: If Loxias [Apollo] is real, then glorious Agamemnon, lord of the Achaeans, when he takes me as his bride will enter a marriage more troublesome than Helen’s, for I will kill him.” 

The other characters consider Cassandra to be mad. In fact, she has the gift of prophecy and the curse of never being believed. In her conversation with Hecuba, Cassandra behaves as though she is celebrating her imminent ‘wedding.’ However, it soon emerges that Cassandra knows that she and her captor, Agamemnon, will soon die violently; she takes this fate to be a sort of vengeance, snatching a small victory from the jaws of defeat. Though Hecuba remains confused, the audience understands Cassandra’s meaning.

“CASSANDRA: The Trojans, on the other hand, have won the greatest glory; man by man, they perished fighting for their country.”

Cassandra makes this prediction in a moment of lucidness. Thanks to her power of prophecy, Cassandra is able to make points that Euripides’ audience know to be accurate, even if the other characters interpret her words as madness. Here, Cassandra consoles the others with the promise that Troy’s glory is secure. The city will not be lost forever.

“CASSANDRA: Yes, anyone with sense steers clear of war.” 

This line, taken in isolation, could be seen (and is often interpreted) as a pacifist statement from Cassandra, and given her prophetic power, it would carry the force of truth. However, she qualifies her point by explaining that the greatest glory is a good death (such as in war), and the greatest shame is a disgraceful death. Rather than conveying a pacifist message, then, Cassandra is negotiating values that exist in a world where war is often inevitable.

“HECUBA: No one who hasn’t gone down to death yet can ever be considered blessed with fortune.” 

Hecuba says this at the end of her monologue lamenting her fate and those of the surviving Trojans. Though she was once royalty and lived a comfortable life, Hecuba now faces a future of slavery and hardship; while she would once have considered her life blessed, she now knows that it is not. This idea that fortune is always changing and can’t be judged until life has ended is a strong theme in this play and figures prominently in the episode with Andromache that follows these lines.

“HECUBA: Life and death, child, are two different things. One is nothing. There’s some hope in the other.” 

“ANDROMACHE: I made an effort, when I lived with Hector, to practice wise restraint in every way a woman can.”

Euripides follows the poet Homer, author of the Iliad, in framing Andromache as an ideal wife. Not only does this augment the sympathy we feel for her as a woman who did not deserve such suffering, but it also helps to emphasize the evil of the adulterous Helen, who is Andromache’s opposite in almost every way. Euripides updates the portrayal of Andromache so that her behavior reflects 5th-century-BC Athenian social norms; Andromache embodies sôphrosune, or ‘wise restraint,’ the most important trait in Athenian women. She is judicious in her dealings with her husband, and she isolates herself from the outside world, as the ideal Athenian woman must. 

“ANDROMACHE: My precious little armful, dearest boy, oh, the fragrance of your skin.”

This is one of the most emotionally-charged moments in the play. Andromache has just learned that her young son, Astyanax, will be executed by being thrown from the walls of Troy. As Andromache bids farewell to her child, she describes the horrific injuries that he will suffer, and in this line, she contrasts that fate with his current pristine state. Having said this, Andromache hands Astyanax over to the Greeks.

“TALTHYBIUS: Announcements like this should be made by a man who is pitiless, one who won’t shrink from shamelessness. I’m not the type for this business.”

Talthybius is one of only two Greek men who appear in this play, and though he is almost always the bearer of bad news, he frequently shows sympathy for the Trojan women. Here, he regrets that he must be the one to announce Astyanax’s impending execution, and to take the boy away. Such sentiments perhaps help Euripides’ audience of Athenian men to sympathize with the play’s characters.

“CHORUS: All of the love charm that Troy once used to enchant the gods is gone.”

These lines conclude the choral ode that immediately precedes Helen’s episode. The Chorus has been reflecting on the divine favor that Troy once enjoyed, since a number of prominent Trojans have been romantically involved with the gods. Now, however, the gods seem to have abandoned the city and allowed its destruction. The issues of love and divine intervention will be picked up in Helen’s debate with Menelaus and Hecuba.

“HECUBA: The entire story, when it’s told, will leave her nowhere to run—the simple facts will kill her.”

Hecuba says this when Helen requests to be allowed to speak in her own defense; Hecuba wants to respond with an argument against Helen. We know that Helen is deceptive, but Hecuba is confident that the truth will overcome Helen’s persuasive speech. This passage sets up the play’s agôn, or contest, which is a common confrontation scene in the plays of Euripides.

“HELEN: I know that, whether I speak well or badly, you may not answer; you consider me your foe.”

Helen opens her defense speech with these lines. Euripides’ 5th-century-BC Athenian audience would have recognized this as a common opening to legal speeches in Athenian courts. The fact that Helen, a woman in the mythical past, is using such language is unrealistic, but it communicates to the audience how skilled she is in persuasive—and deceptive—speech.

“HELEN: Go punish Aphrodite—then you’ll be more powerful than Zeus! He rules over all the other gods, but he is a slave to her.” 

These lines offer the crux of Helen’s defense speech. She contends that she is not responsible for her own actions, since she was acting under the influence of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, whose powers can overcome even the strongest gods. This argument carries some weight, since we know from myth that Aphrodite promised Helen’s love to the Trojan Paris. 

“CHORUS: It’s up to you to rip her argument to shreds. She’s so persuasive; she speaks well, but she’s evil. She’s a terror.”

The Chorus addresses these lines to Hecuba after Helen’s speech. Helen is so skilled in persuasive language, they find themselves convinced even though they know her character. This cautious reaction to persuasive speech reflects a prominent issue in democratic Athens, where deceptive speakers could convince the people to vote unwisely.

“HECUBA: You shouldn’t try to burnish your own faults by claiming that the goddesses are fools.” 

Hecuba says this in her response to Helen’s defense speech. Hecuba has already promised to rely on the truth, rather than rhetoric, to convince Menelaus of Helen’s guilt. A key element of Hecuba’s argument is that the story of the goddesses’ involvement is insulting, since it involves three goddesses participating in a petty and immature beauty contest. Removing divine will from the cause of the Trojan War puts far more blame on Helen’s shoulders.

“HECUBA: Yes, ‘Aphrodite’ is another word for all of human idiocy.” 

Though Hecuba’s refutation of Helen’s argument purportedly relies on truth rather than skill, there are still persuasive tricks that the queen employs. Here, she uses mockery, exposing the transparent folly of Helen’s excuse that she was overcome by the goddess Aphrodite. Hecuba argues in favor of free will, contending that the gods merely offer a convenient excuse to those who won’t take responsibility for their own actions. Though Hecuba wins the argument, Menelaus remains susceptible to Helen’s persuasion.

“HECUBA: Achaeans, your self-importance far outweighs your sense.”

“HECUBA: That man’s an idiot who thinks that joy can be unchanging. By its very nature fortune jumps around dementedly. No one ever really has good fortune.”

“HECUBA: But if some god had turned Troy upside down and hidden us beneath the earth, we would have disappeared: no song would tell our story, and the Muses of future generations would not know us.”

These lines conclude Hecuba’s lamentation over the body of Astyanax. She reflects that the gods have turned against Troy but finds an optimistic note: The gods have allowed the city’s destruction, but they haven’t buried all memory of it. This means that people will continue to tell the Trojans’ stories after they’re gone. The idea of one’s glory living on in the stories people tell is enormously important in the myth of the Trojan War, and the audience can take comfort in the knowledge that these stories really will be told forever.

“HECUBA: O gods! Why should I call on them? I’ve called on the gods before; they didn’t listen.”

Hecuba cries this out as she watches Troy burn, and it shows her complicated relationship with the gods. Though Troy once enjoyed special favor with the gods, as we saw above, Hecuba is certain that they’re no longer on her side. Furthermore, she has already shown in her speech against Helen that she sees their involvement in human affairs as limited. With no one, not even the gods, to turn to, Hecuba reaches her lowest point.

“I’ll run into the pyre. That would be the finest way to die: in flames, with my homeland.”

Though she had previously advocated for life, advising Andromache not to kill herself, Hecuba finally shows the depth of her despair with these lines. Knowing now that the gods won’t show her any mercy, Hecuba resolves to throw herself into the flames. The Greeks thwart this quickly, but this shows a marked change in Hecuba’s outlook.