Trojan Women of Euripides (1 of 20)

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THE TROJAN WOMEN OF EURIPIDES

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY
GILBERT MURRAY, LL.D., D.LITT. REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

1915


CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

THE GOD POSEIDON.

THE GODDESS PALLAS ATHENA.

HECUBA, _Queen of Troy, wife of Priam, mother of Hector and Paris_.

CASSANDRA, _daughter of Hecuba, a prophetess_.

ANDROMACHE, _wife of Hector, Prince of Troy_.

HELEN, _wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta; carried off by Paris, Prince
of Troy_.

TALTHYBIUS, _Herald of the Greeks_.

MENELAUS, _King of Sparta, and, together with his brother Agamemnon,
General of the Greeks_.

SOLDIERS ATTENDANT ON TALTHYBIUS AND MENELAUS.

CHORUS OF CAPTIVE TROJAN WOMEN, YOUNG AND OLD, MAIDEN AND MARRIED.

_The Troaedes was first acted in the year_ 415 B.C. "_The first prize was
won by Xenocles, whoever he may have been, with the four plays Oedipus,
Lycaon, Bacchae and Athamas, a Satyr-play. The second by Euripides with
the Alexander, Palamedes, Troaedes and Sisyphus, a Satyr-play_."--AELIAN,
_Varia Historia_, ii. 8.


THE TROJAN WOMEN


_The scene represents a battlefield, a few days after the battle. At the
back are the walls of Troy, partially ruined. In front of them, to right
and left, are some huts, containing those of the Captive Women who have
been specially set apart for the chief Greek leaders. At one side some
dead bodies of armed men are visible. In front a tall woman with white
hair is lying on the ground asleep._

_It is the dusk of early dawn, before sunrise. The figure of the god _
POSEIDON _ is dimly seen before the walls._

POSEIDON.[1]

Up from Aegean caverns, pool by pool
Of blue salt sea, where feet most beautiful
Of Nereid maidens weave beneath the foam
Their long sea-dances, I, their lord, am come,
Poseidon of the Sea. 'Twas I whose power,
With great Apollo, builded tower by tower
These walls of Troy; and still my care doth stand
True to the ancient People of my hand;
Which now as smoke is perished, in the shock
Of Argive spears. Down from Parnassus' rock
The Greek Epeios came, of Phocian seed,
And wrought by Pallas' mysteries a Steed
Marvellous[2], big with arms; and through my wall
It passed, a death-fraught image magical.
The groves are empty and the sanctuaries
Run red with blood. Unburied Priam lies
By his own hearth, on God's high altar-stair,
And Phrygian gold goes forth and raiment rare
To the Argive ships; and weary soldiers roam
Waiting the wind that blows at last for home,
For wives and children, left long years away,
Beyond the seed's tenth fullness and decay,
To work this land's undoing.

And for me,
Since Argive Hera conquereth, and she
Who wrought with Hera to the Phrygians' woe,
Pallas, behold, I bow mine head and go
Forth from great Ilion[3] and mine altars old.
When a still city lieth in the hold
Of Desolation, all God's spirit there
Is sick and turns from worship.--Hearken where
The ancient River waileth with a voice
Of many women, portioned by the choice
Of war amid new lords, as the lots leap
For Thessaly, or Argos, or the steep
Of Theseus' Rock. And others yet there are,
High women, chosen from the waste of war
For the great kings, behind these portals hid;
And with them that Laconian Tyndarid[4],
Helen, like them a prisoner and a prize.
And this unhappy one--would any eyes
Gaze now on Hecuba? Here at the Gates
She lies 'mid many tears for many fates
Of wrong. One child beside Achilles' grave
In secret slain[5], Polyxena the brave,
Lies bleeding. Priam and his sons are gone;
And, lo, Cassandra[6], she the Chosen One,
Whom Lord Apollo spared to walk her way
A swift and virgin spirit, on this day
Lust hath her, and she goeth garlanded
A bride of wrath to Agamemnon's bed.

[_He turns to go; and another divine Presence
becomes visible in the dusk. It is the
goddess_ PALLAS ATHENA.

O happy long ago, farewell, farewell,
Ye shining towers and mine old citadel;
Broken by Pallas[7], Child of God, or still
Thy roots had held thee true.

[1] Poseidon.]--In the _Iliad_ Poseidon is the enemy of Troy, here the
friend. This sort of confusion comes from the fact that the Trojans and
their Greek enemies were largely of the same blood, with the same tribal
gods. To the Trojans, Athena the War-Goddess was, of course, _their_
War-Goddess, the protectress of their citadel. Poseidon, god of the sea
and its merchandise, and Apollo (possibly a local shepherd god?), were
their natural friends and had actually built their city wall for love of
the good old king, Laomedon. Zeus, the great father, had Mount Ida for
his holy hill and Troy for his peculiar city. (Cf. on p. 63.)

To suit the Greek point of view all this had to be changed or explained
away. In the _Iliad_ generally Athena is the proper War-Goddess of the
Greeks. Poseidon had indeed built the wall for Laomedon, but Laomedon
had cheated him of his reward--as afterwards he cheated Heracles, and
the Argonauts and everybody else! So Poseidon hated Troy. Troy is
chiefly defended by the barbarian Ares, the oriental Aphrodite, by its
own rivers Scamander and Simois and suchlike inferior or unprincipled
gods.

Yet traces of the other tradition remain. Homer knows that Athena is
specially worshipped in Troy. He knows that Apollo, who had built the
wall with Poseidon, and had the same experience of Laomedon, still loves
the Trojans. Zeus himself, though eventually in obedience to destiny he
permits the fall of the city, nevertheless has a great tenderness
towards it.

[2] A steed marvellous.]--See below, on p. 36.

[3] go forth from great Ilion, &c.]--The correct ancient doctrine. When
your gods forsook you, there was no more hope. Conversely, when your
state became desperate, evidently your gods were forsaking you. From
another point of view, also, when the city was desolate and unable to
worship its gods, the gods of that city were no more.

[4] Laotian Tyndarid.]--Helen was the child of Zeus and Leda, and sister
of Castor and Polydeuces; but her human father was Tyndareus, an old
Spartan king. She is treated as "a prisoner and a prize," _i.e_., as a
captured enemy, not as a Greek princess delivered from the Trojans.

[5] In secret slain.]--Because the Greeks were ashamed of the bloody
deed. See below, p. 42, and the scene on this subject in the _Hecuba_.

[6] Cassandra.]--In the _Agamemnon_ the story is more clearly told, that
Cassandra was loved by Apollo and endowed by him with the power of
prophecy; then in some way she rejected or betrayed him, and he set upon
her the curse that though seeing the truth she should never be believed.
The figure of Cassandra in this play is not inconsistent with that
version, but it makes a different impression. She is here a dedicated
virgin, and her mystic love for Apollo does not seem to have suffered
any breach.

[7] Pallas.]--(See above.) The historical explanation of the Trojan
Pallas and the Greek Pallas is simple enough; but as soon as the two are
mythologically personified and made one, there emerges just such a
bitter and ruthless goddess as Euripides, in his revolt against the
current mythology, loved to depict. But it is not only the mythology
that he is attacking. He seems really to feel that if there are
conscious gods ruling the world, they are cruel or "inhuman" beings.

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