The Trojan Women
The Trojan Women | |
---|---|
Written by | Euripides |
Chorus | Trojan women |
Characters | Hecuba Cassandra Andromache Talthybius Menelaus Helen Poseidon Athena |
Place premiered | Athens |
Original language | Ancient Greek |
Genre | Tragedy |
Setting | Near the walls of Troy |
The Trojan Women (
The Trojan Women was the third tragedy of a trilogy dealing with the
Euripides won second prize at the City Dionysia for his effort, losing to the obscure tragedian Xenocles.[2]
The four Trojan women of the play are the same that appear in the final book of the Iliad lamenting over the corpse of Hector. Taking place near the same time is Hecuba, another play by Euripides.
Plot
Hecuba: Alas! Alas! Alas! Ilion is ablaze; the fire consumes the citadel, the roofs of our city, the tops of the walls!
Chorus: Like smoke blown to heaven on the wings of the wind, our country, our conquered country, perishes. Its palaces are overrun by the fierce flames and the murderous spear.
Hecuba: O land that reared my children!
Euripides's play follows the fates of the women of Troy after their city has been sacked, their husbands killed, and their remaining families taken away as slaves. However, it begins first with the gods Athena and Poseidon discussing ways to punish the Greek armies because they condoned that Ajax the Lesser raped Cassandra, the eldest daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, after dragging her from a statue of Athena. What follows shows how much the Trojan women have suffered as their grief is compounded when the Greeks dole out additional deaths and divide their shares of women.
The Greek herald Talthybius arrives to tell the dethroned queen Hecuba what will befall her and her children. Hecuba will be taken away to the Greek general Odysseus, and Cassandra is destined to become the conquering general Agamemnon's concubine.
Cassandra, who can see the future, is morbidly delighted by this news: she sees that when they arrive in
The widowed princess Andromache arrives and Hecuba learns from her that her youngest daughter, Polyxena, has been killed as a sacrifice at the tomb of the Greek warrior Achilles.
Andromache's lot is to be the concubine of Achilles' son Neoptolemus, and more horrible news for the royal family is yet to come: Talthybius reluctantly informs her that her baby son, Astyanax, has been condemned to die. The Greek leaders are afraid that the boy will grow up to avenge his father Hector, and rather than take this chance, they plan to throw him off from the battlements of Troy to his death.
Helen is supposed to suffer greatly as well: Menelaus arrives to take her back to Greece with him where a death sentence awaits her. Helen tries to convince Menelaus that Aphrodite was the cause of her betrayal and that she should not be punished, but Hecuba says that Helen is lying and has only ever been loyal to herself. While he remains resolved that he will slay her when they return to Greece, at the end of the play it is revealed that she is still alive; moreover, the audience knows from Telemachus' visit to Sparta in Homer's Odyssey that Menelaus continued to live with Helen as his wife after the Trojan War.
In the end, Talthybius returns, carrying with him the body of little Astyanax on Hector's shield. Andromache's wish had been to bury her child herself, performing the proper rituals according to Trojan ways, but her ship had already departed. Talthybius gives the corpse to Hecuba, who prepares the body of her grandson for burial before they are finally taken off with Odysseus.
Throughout the play, many of the Trojan women lament the loss of the land that reared them. Hecuba in particular lets it be known that Troy had been her home for her entire life, only to see herself as an old grandmother watching the burning of Troy, the death of her husband, her children, and her grandchildren before she will be taken as a slave to Odysseus.
Modern treatments and adaptations
Film
The Mexican film Las Troyanas (1963) directed by Sergio Véjar, adapted by writer Miguel Angel Garibay and Véjar, is faithful to the Greek text and setting.[citation needed]
Novel
Stage
A 1905 stage version, translated by Gilbert Murray, starred Gertrude Kingston as Helen and Ada Ferrar as Athena at the Royal Court Theatre in London.[3]
The French public intellectual
Israeli playwright Hanoch Levin (1943–1999) wrote his own version of the play, The Lost Women of Troy, adding more disturbing scenes and scatological details.[citation needed]
In 1974, Ellen Stewart, founder of La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City, presented The Trojan Women as the last fragment of a trilogy (which included Medea and Electra). With staging by Romanian-born theatre director Andrei Serban and music by American composer Elizabeth Swados, this production went on to tour more than 30 countries over the course of 40 years. Since 2014, The Trojan Women Project has been sharing this production[when?] with diverse communities that now[when?] include Guatemala, Cambodia and Kosovo.[citation needed]
Charles L. Mee adapted The Trojan Women in 1994 to have a more modern, updated outlook on war. He included original interviews with Holocaust and Hiroshima survivors. His play is called Trojan Women: A Love Story.[citation needed]
The Women of Troy, directed by Katie Mitchell, was performed at the National Theatre in London in 2007/08. The cast included Kate Duchêne as Hecuba, Sinead Matthews as Cassandra and Anastasia Hille as Andromache.[citation needed]
The Trojan Women, directed by
Christine Evans reworked and modernised the Trojan Women story in her 2009 play Trojan Barbie. Trojan Barbie is a
In 2011, Anne Bogart's SITI Company premiered Trojan Women (After Euripides) at Getty Villa before touring the production.[citation needed]
In 2016, Zoe Lafferty's version of the play, Queens of Syria, in Arabic with English subtitles, was put on by the Young Vic before touring Britain.[10]
In 2021,
In March 2023 a production of Women of Troy directed by
In 2024, Sara Farrington’s version, a solo performance called, A Trojan Woman, premiered at Luna Stage in West Orange, NJ. A response to Russia’s war against Ukraine, the play was directed by Meghan Finn and performed by Drita Kabashi.
Translations
Translator | Year | Style | Full text |
---|---|---|---|
Robert Potter | 1781 | Verse | [2] |
Edward Philip Coleridge | 1891 | Prose | Wikisource, [3] |
Gilbert Murray | 1911 | Verse | [4] |
Arthur Way | 1912 | Verse | [5] |
Moses Hadas and John McLean | 1936 | Prose | |
Edith Hamilton | 1937 | Verse | |
Richmond Lattimore | 1947 | Verse | available for digital loan |
Isabelle Raubitschek and Anthony E. Raubitschek | 1954 | Prose | |
Philip Vellacott | 1954 | Prose and verse | |
Gwendolyn MacEwen | 1981 | Prose | |
Shirley A. Barlow | 1986 | Prose | |
Don Taylor | 1990 | Prose and verse | |
David Kovacs | 1999 | Prose | |
James Morwood | 2000 | Prose | |
Howard Rubenstein | 2002 | Verse | |
Ellen McLaughlin | 2005 | Prose | |
George Theodoridis | 2008 | Prose | [6] |
Alan Shapiro | 2009 | Prose | |
Emily Wilson | 2016 | Verse | |
Anne Carson | 2021 | Comic Book, verse | Euripides' Trojan Women: A Comic, with illustrations by Rosanna Bruno |
See also
Notes
- ^ See Croally 2007.
- ^ Claudius Aelianus: Varia Historia 2.8. (page may cause problems with Internet Explorer)
- ^ [1] MacCarthy, Desmond The Court Theatre, 1904-1907; a Commentary and Criticism
- ^ Stuttard, David, An Introduction to Trojan Women (Brighton 2005)
- ^ "David Stuttard reconstructing Euripides' Trojan trilogy". Open University. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
- ISBN 978-069-026-3.
- ^ "Gallery: Trojan Women". Brad Mays. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
- ISBN 9781405131834. Retrieved 13 April 2022 – via Google Books.
- ^ ""Trojan Barbie: A Car-Crash Encounter with Euripides' 'Trojan Women'" by newest faculty member Christine Evans". Department of Performing Arts. Georgetown University. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
- ^ Masters, Tim (6 July 2016). "Queens of Syria gives modern twist to ancient tale". BBC. Retrieved 6 July 2016.
- ^ "From Euripides' "The Trojan Women"". The Paris Review.
- ^ Ross, Selina (5 March 2023). "Former detainee and advocate Behrouz Boochani brings new life to an ancient play". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
References
- Croally, Neil (2007). Euripidean Polemic: The Trojan Women and the Function of Tragedy. ISBN 0-521-04112-0
Additional resources
- Mortal Women of the Trojan War, information on each of the Trojan women
- New International Encyclopedia(1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
External links
- Works related to The Trojan Women at Wikisource
- Media related to The Trojan Women at Wikimedia Commons
- The Trojan Women public domain audiobook at LibriVox