Quotes Flashcards
Ath(Prologos): plans ruin the Greek’s journey home
‘so that the Greeks will learn their lesson, and in future, respect my temples, and fear the power of the gods’
P: ‘A somewhat cavalier change of mind, surely?’
-Troy destroyed w. Ath’shelp-Ath= goddess of wisdom
- Ath= powerful / capricious –> ruins the Greeks b/c feels insulted
-Even fellow god recognizes Ath= capricious, fickle nature
Poseidon (prologos):
‘when a man sacks [and] destroys everything […] sacred temples [and] tombs […] he’s asking for trouble. The same destruction sooner or later will fall on his own head.’
- cyclical pattern of history
–>problems in contemporary Athens. - Sinful + barbaric acts
–>equally sinful + barbaric retaliation.
Prologos - H monody:
‘Look at me now, thronedin the dust […] an old woman, dragged as a slave from my home, all hope plundered from my god-cursed ravaged grey head, with no reprieve from my punishment of everlasting sorrow.’
- proud + noble queen = ‘old woman’ w/o hope. - Position on ground represents change of fortune + new low status
-Hecuba has no role > embarrassed + outraged that former queen now useless b/c outlived any reproductive function > trophy of war taken to degrade her (Odysseus’s slave) - Euripides invites sympathy for H –>Athenian audience to question treatment of prisoners of war
Prologos– H’s monody:
Hecuba calls on Chorus to join her in kommos:
‘Weep, wives of the bronze armoured Trojans, grieve for your heroes dead, daughters […] husbands lost!’
-H calls on WoT(Chorus), to lament w/ her in kommos
- H want WoTto pay homage to men before their fate becomes clear
- Loss of war –>reduced to the most basic functions of their gender = sex objects + fertile wombs
Prologue – H’s monody:
Hecuba to Chorus:
‘Troy is burning.’
-Troy burning = key metaphor = destruction of Troy + destruction of women –> Hecuba draws parallels b/t WoT bodies + city.
- ->strengthen audience’s sense of destruction and indignity both have been forced to endure; Troy endures a literal siege + metaphorical rape / WoT metaphorical siege + literal fear of rape
Prologue - Chorus join H in kommos:
‘a whole generation of women’ were ‘raped in their bedrooms’.
- fall of Troy –>WoT subject to mass abuseas w/o fathers’ / husbands’ / brothers’ / sons’ protection they’re hugely vulnerable
- 10 yrs war –>Greek men behave w/o humanity + this was considered acceptable in Grk society- innocent suffer the most
- WoT= spoils of war
Cassandra - Ep. 1
Agamemnon will find her ‘more destructive as a wife than ever Helen was’
- Cassandra compares marriage to Aga w/ Helen marriages to Men + Paris –> Trojan War –> death + destruction
- Cass = driven by a desire for vengeance / views own fate to be slave to Aga’s desire
–>chance for revenge for Troy / retribution for Aga’s sins. - Gift of prophecy –> Cass know Aga’s choice
–>his demise + suffering for Greeks (link to Poseidon card)
Cassandra- Episode 1
‘father and brothers destroyed’.
-Cass has lost everything – fam / city / virginity = sacred identity
-Cass martyrs herself for revenge
-fatal marriage to Aga –> his downfall Cass
–>able enact revenge on behalf of family / city.
-All character think Cass = mad woman BUT…- Cass = only one who can give WoT modicum of solace
Cassandra - Ep 1
‘Who could wait for the wind that fills her sails more eagerly than I do?’
‘one of avenging furies’
Cass duty = revenge for the war atrocities
-Cass = metaphorical Trojan horse = pretend go happily / willingly into new life w/ Aga
–> revenge b/c Aga jealous wife kills him
Across play RQs = confusion + helplessness but Cass answers own RQs (rhetorical questions)
= Cas not helpless victim b/c planning revenge
Ep 4
Ast body carried in Hector’s shield
Stage Direction:
‘Enter Talthybius and Guards with Astyanax’s body, carried in Hector’s battle shield.
-Hector’s shield = symbol patriarchal protection father should provide BUT Hector cannot
-E suggests patriarchal support will eventually fail b/c cycle of war continues
-Can link to Poseidon ‘the same destruction will sooner or later fall on his own head’ .
-E suggests Athenians fighting abroad have abandoned children to fight war.
-Doing duty but sacrificed their integrity
Hecuba
‘This child was murdered by the Greeks because they were afraid of him!’ they should be ‘ashamed […] of such an epitaph!’
-Andromache taken to ships as spoil of war
–>H prepare Ast ’sbody.
-Confronting scene –> pathos but audience won’t get relief of catharsis b/c play doesn’t follow standard structure of a tragedy = symbol the conflict is unresolved in Greece + still taking place in contemporary Athens
-E challenges Ath audience loyalty to traditional patriarchal structures b/c strict gender roles = reductive. E.G Grk soldiers killed Astb/c view him Trojan soldier not child.
-E criticises fixed view of masculinity b/c harmful to them + means peace unlikely
Ep2 - Andromache:
‘The gods always hated us.
’Chorus in stasimon:
prayers to the gods are ‘vain dreaming, false hopes’
-Astyanax murder – >Andromache + Hecuba losing hope
- –>realisation gods abandoned Troy
-Hecuba + Andromache = loyal servants to gods
-praying = futile / folly
-Reinforced by chorus in the Ep2 stasimon b/c realise gods do not care abt WoT
Episode 2 –
Andromache claims ‘you Greeks’ have ‘dreamed up such cruelties even the barbarians would flinch at’
-Challenges Athenian assumptions / arrogance
-Forces Athenian audience to reconsider their ideology about war / duty
-Makes them reflect on contemporary issues, i.e. the atrocities and constant fighting of the Peloponnesian war
Ep 2 -Andromache:
Cradling Astyanax while lamenting “Why are you killing this child? What has he done in his innocence? He’s guilty of nothing!”
-Ast= innocent child –> no harm / threat to Grks.
-killed b/c Grks lost mercy + honour
-End of Trojan lineage
-Repetition of RQs show her inability to comprehend the events and the exclamative her fury.
-most explicit violence in play –> appeal to universal human instinct to protect the innocent / children to emphasize that such acts are dishonorable.
-confronting scene –>Ath aud experience pathos
Menelaus- Ep 3:
‘this most glorious of days when I shall finally get my hands on that wife of mine […] yes, I am the man, Menelaus’
-Pronoun ‘mine’ =M sees Helen as property /
possession
-Helen = 2nd concern / revenge on P = #1
-M = King of Sparta invested in strict gender binary: men are warriors/women are objects to serve and give pleasure to men
-M = fatuous + self-serving
