The Male Characters Of Euripides
By E M Blaiklock
'Eye oe Onow eleúdepov! (Translation needed here.)
She, the slave, will set him free, the King of Men! Such is the irony of Agamemnon's position.
True freedom is the rarest of goods-
mas yap o Toเอิง รทุบ
ăpaprav Soûlós coT Tûs Quapías. (Translation please)
The women, in fine,
will do the deed. 'I mistrust the tribe, says Agamemnon sen-tentiously, quite unconscious of the ring of such a word on the lips of one so worsted by a woman's strength. 'What of Acgyptus' sons,
asks Hecuba, 'what of Lemnos?' Forgetting
the fairly obvious weakness of both illustrations, Agamemnon shows surrender on his face. Hecuba reads it. 'Go', she directs a servant, to our Thracian guest-friend and say, "Hecuba, late Queen of Troy, calls thee no less for thine advantage than for hers" ‘
The situation is clearly in Hecuba's hands. The king, covering his weakness with hypocrisy, closes the scene:
Now fair befall: for all men's weal is this Each several man's, and for the state,that ill Betide the bad, prosperity the good.
(Hecuba 903-90S. Way)
The stasimon which follows is one of the most justly famed in Greek poetry. It is Troy's last night, that night of deadly and treacherous peace, when the wooden horse, pregnant with death, was within the walls. The Chorus, speaking in the singular, describe a scene of domestic quiet and rest. The spear is hung on the bedroom wall, the tired warrior is already asleep. His wife lingers braiding her hair before a golden mirror—when the cry: "S maîdes 'EMlávwv....(Translation please)
The ode, as Grube says, has relevance not to the immediate context but to the play as a whole. Thus interpreted it is admirably in place.
These Trojan dames were about to dare an atrocious crime.
War and captivity, says the tragedy in effect, can make beasts of men and women too. Witness the Queen of Troy. And contrast, too, the gentlewoman of the lovely lyric, standing like a figure on a vase and gazing down the vista of the polished mirror, contrast her with the screaming, stabbing furies, aóvo kúves, (Translation please) clutching in the final act at Polymestor and his little sons. Belsen had such tales to tell of human degradation.
The barbarian chief is painted with little sympathy. Finer spirits in Athens had little love for the Thracian §évol, (translation please) who came to sell their swords in Attica. Aristophanes and Thucydides are evidence enough for that.
It may be supposed that Euripides regarded them with no kindlier eyes. The disgust with war which was to grow with the years and reach its climax in the Troades, has already made its appearance in the Hecuba. The Thracian probably suffers from it. The barbarian generally is treated in Euripides with a sort of rough contempt.
Thoas, Theoclymenus and Polymestor are not without common qualities. They manifest a sort of raw strength combined with a simplicity which makes them easy dupes for Hellenic wits.
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