In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

5 Trojan Women The Trojan Women has often been described as a study in despair.l Like the Hecuba it adopts a somber perspective on the Trojan War, concentrating on the defeated Trojans rather than the victorious Greeks.2 Yet in this tragedy (produced in 415 as last in a trilogy devoted to the matter of Troy) the condition of the captive women is even more desperate. Because their defeat is still so recent they have not had a chance to accommodate themselves to misfortune; indeed, the opening of the play fInds them in a condition of psychic shock. As Andromache explains (639-40): "Someone who has been fortunate and falls into misfortune wanders in spirit from [the memory of] former happiness." In practical terms the situation could scarcely be more terrible. The war has just ended and the royal captives have not yet been divided up among the Greeks: they are not entitled to even the minimal protection that slaves could expect from their masters. Their sphere of action , as befIts prisoners of war, is severely restricted. They can give vent to grief by beating their breasts and tearing their hair: such gestures, as Hecuba notes (793-95), they still command. They can render one another limited service, as when Andromache offers the last rites of the dead to Polyxena (626-27), and Hecuba does the same for Astyanax. But as the herald Talthybius is quick to point out, they are essentially without power (729). Even death is forbidden them, for Talthybius is on the lookout against attempted suicide (299-305, 1284-86). Only in the realm of speech do they retain any independence , and even that is precarious: Talthybius does his best to rob Cassandra 's prophecies of their force (417-19) and to reduce Andromache to silence (734-36). The action of Trojan Women unfolds a series of disasters, each more gratuitous than the last. The play opens when the city of Troy has fallen; the men have been killed, the women reduced to slavery. The Greeks then proceed to additional outrages in the sacrifIce of Polyxena , the murder of Astyanax, and the fIring of Troy. There is no relief, 155 156 Euripides and the Instruction of the Athenians no variation from the relentless litany of horrors. Although the audience learns from the prologue that the Greeks will soon be pUnished for their sacrilegious crimes, that knowledge is not shared by the Trojans , who despair of any justice emanating from the gods. In terms of the action the play is one of the darkest Euripides ever wrote. Yet such a description fails to take other dramatic elements into account . The physical and temporal frame seems designed to mute the violence of the action and establish a sense of pause and suspension. The setting is an encampment by the sea, lying between the ruined city of Troy where the women once made their homes and the ships that will soon transport them to new destinies in Greece. Troy presents a scene of desolation-eremia, as Poseidon calls it in the prologue (26, d. 15)- but the remnants of a Trojan community have been reconstituted on the seashore. The play encompasses a time of transition for both conquered and conquerors. As the action begins, the Greeks are loading the ships with spoil while awaiting the favorable wind that they expect will bear them home (18-22). As for the Trojan captives, they have already suffered terrible losses (of fatherland, children, and husbands, as Hecuba notes, 107), and they anticipate further separations (484-88, 10&]-99), which indeed inexorably take place in the course of the play. But for the moment they are still together. The presence of a leader, the sharing of lamentation and the exchange of mutual support, and the very persistence of old tensions and differences contribute to a sense of community and postpone the final break with the past. This period of waiting offers the Trojan women a rare chance for reflection. They have not been idle in the past: to remember Troy is to remember work at the looms (199-200). Nor do they expect to be idle in the future: they anticipate service as concierges or nursemaids, as concubines, water bearers or bakers for their Greek masters (194-95, 202-6, 491-94). Their present leisure is that of slaves whose time is at their masters' disposition: that point is underscored when Cassandra is ordered both on and offstage by Talthybius and when Andromache is...

Share