Trojan Women

Fiction | Play | Adult

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Lines 1-484

Lines 485-828

Lines 829-1112

Lines 1113-End

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Lines 829-1112Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Summary: Lines 829-999 (Choral Ode, Helen’s Speech)

Astyanax is taken offstage for his execution. Andromache exits riding on the cart of Trojan spoils. The Chorus launches into another ode, this time focusing on Troy’s legendary past, and the causes of its current and former downfalls. The ode is somewhat cryptic, so it’s worth outlining the myths referenced here. First, by way of introducing the gods who are involved, the Chorus tells the story of Athena and Poseidon’s competition for patronage over the city of Athens. They then reference how Poseidon and Apollo went to Troy and built the city’s walls, but when then-King Laomedon failed to pay them, Poseidon sent a sea monster to eat the king’s daughter. The hero Heracles, traveling with his friend, Telamon, arrived and offered to destroy the sea monster in exchange for Laomedon’s horses. Laomedon agreed, but again failed to hand over the horses once Heracles had completed the task, so Heracles destroyed Troy.

The Chorus addresses Ganymede, the son of King Laomedon, who was renowned for his beauty and who became the cup-bearer (and lover) of the god Zeus. The myth goes that, when Zeus took Ganymede, he sent glorious horses to Laomedon—the same ones that Laomedon would later fail to deliver to Heracles.

Finally, the Chorus mentions the myth of the goddess Eos (Dawn), who fell in love with another son of Laomedon, Tithonus. Dawn obtained eternal life for Tithonus so that they could be married forever, but according to myth, she forgot to ask that he also cease to age. The Chorus indicates that these divine connections ought to have made Troy a favored city among the gods.

Menelaus, the king of Sparta and original husband of Helen, enters at the end of the ode. He is in high spirits, because he has reclaimed his wife as a spoil of war. Menelaus explains that he started the war with Troy not because of Helen, but because of Paris, who stole Helen away. Menelaus explains his plan to bring Helen back to Sparta with him, and to kill her there, and he calls for Helen to be brought out before him.

As Menelaus waits for Helen to emerge, Hecuba speaks up. She prays to Zeus, and then warns Menelaus not to look at his wayward wife, since Helen is irresistible to men: “These are her enchantments. I know her, and so do you, and so do those who’ve suffered” (lines 915-916; page 156).

Helen enters, and asks Menelaus what her fate will be. Menelaus (despite his earlier assertion that he would take her back to Greece) declares that he is here to kill Helen. She requests the chance to speak in her defense, and Hecuba encourages Menelaus to allow it. She continues, though, “But then, give me the chance to speak against her” (line 930; page 156). Menelaus concedes for Hecuba’s sake, and allows Helen to state her case.

Helen’s speech begins with an acknowledgement that her listeners are biased against her, but she promises to address all of the charges against her. She lays the blame for the Trojan War on others: Hecuba was the one who bore Paris, and the old man who was supposed to kill the infant Paris failed to do so. Both of these people carry blame for Paris’s eventual actions in running off with Helen.

Helen describes the ‘Judgment of Paris,’ a famous scene in the life of Paris when the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite asked him to judge which was the most beautiful. Each goddess offered him a prize, and he chose Aphrodite (the goddess of love), who had offered him Helen as his reward. Helen frames herself as a victim of Aphrodite, whose erotic power can’t be resisted by anyone. Finally, Helen gives Menelaus a share of the blame, since he left Helen and Paris alone together.

Helen then claims in her defense that following Paris’s death during the war, she did try to escape Troy and return to Menelaus. She was constantly thwarted, though, and compelled to marry another Trojan prince.

Following the conclusion of Helen’s defense speech, the Chorus turns to Hecuba and encourages her to argue well against Helen, since Helen’s speech is so persuasive.

Summary: Lines 1000-1112 (Hecuba’s Speech)

Hecuba delivers her speech in response to Helen. She focuses on the folly of the stories Helen tells. The ‘Judgement of Paris,’ in particular, suggests that the goddesses were petty enough to hold a beauty contest.

Hecuba also removes Aphrodite from Helen’s account of Paris’ seduction. Whereas Helen blames the goddess of love for rendering her helpless, Hecuba contends that Helen knew exactly what she was doing in seducing Paris and cared only about her own greed and desire. Hecuba also rejects the possibility that Helen was taken against her will.

Moving on to Helen’s behavior during the Trojan War, Hecuba asserts that Helen would show allegiance to whichever side seemed to be winning. Though she did try to escape after Paris’ death, it would have been more becoming of a noble woman for Helen to have tried to kill herself. Hecuba says that she encouraged Helen to return to the Greeks and end the war, following Paris’s death, but Helen still refused to go, because she enjoyed receiving the royal treatment in Troy. Finally, Hecuba chastises Helen for dressing as attractively as possible in this situation, when rags would be more fitting; Hecuba sees that Helen is trying to win back Menelaus’s love.

The Chorus echoes Hecuba’s sentiments, and urges Menelaus to kill Helen. Menelaus concedes that this would be best, and he tells Helen that he will execute her immediately. Helen throws herself at Menelaus’s knees, begging for her life. Despite Hecuba and the Chorus encouraging him to resist, Menelaus relents and announces that he will execute Helen when they return to Sparta after all. Hecuba suggests that Menelaus should not ride in the same ship as Helen, and though Menelaus at first laughs off the suggestion, he agrees that they will ride in separate ships. Menelaus and Helen then exit to their ships.

Lines 829-1112 Analysis

The debate between Hecuba and Helen, featuring long, highly rhetorical speeches, forms the agôn, or contest, of this play. These contests were a favorite tool of Euripides, who used them in almost all of his plays. In this case, the agôn is somewhat detached from the rest of the play, since Helen and Hecuba depart from lamentation and instead argue over culpability.

Helen is arguing for her life in this passage, and her defense hinges on the question of whether a mortal can be held responsible for behavior that is dictated by fate and the gods. Helen throws blame in every direction, including Hecuba and Menelaus, but focuses on Aphrodite. Aphrodite had promised Helen’s heart to Paris, after all, and Helen was powerless to resist the goddess of love. She declares, “Go punish Aphrodite—then you’ll be more powerful than Zeus! He rules over all the other gods, but he is a slave to her. I think that I can be forgiven” (lines 976-979; page 158). She concludes her speech saying, “If what you want is to overpower the gods, then you’re a fool” (lines 995-996; page 159). Helen’s speech thus assigns blame to everyone but herself, whether mortals are ultimately culpable or not: if she is guilty of bringing about the Trojan War, then many other mortals share in the blame, but if the gods brought this about, then it was impossible for her or anyone else to prevent this tragedy.

Hecuba’s speech, in turn, secularizes Helen’s actions. She mocks the idea that the goddesses would have been petty enough to hold a beauty contest—“Would they go play dress-up like little girls?” (lines 1008-1009; page 159)—and meddle in human affairs in such a way. She dismisses Helen’s claim of being powerless before Aphrodite and thus assigns Helen free will, and therefore culpability. Helen’s actions illustrate her character and show her to be blameworthy. Hecuba ultimately wins the debate, convincing Menelaus that Helen should die (though we know that Helen will ultimately convince him otherwise).

Hecuba’s speech attacks Helen’s character on a number of levels: Besides the outright accusation of shamelessness, Hecuba subtly uses our memory of Andromache’s recent episode for contrast. As discussed above, Andromache portrays herself as an ideal woman, who would “practice wise restraint in every way a woman can” (lines 667-668; page 146). She enumerates her many sensible habits, ruing that they couldn’t prevent her downfall. Andromache longs for death, and hates the idea of submitting to her new Greek “spouse.”

Helen is Andromache’s opposite in almost every way. Hecuba accuses Helen of lusting after Paris because of his wealth, and of constantly shifting her loyalties during the war, depending which side was winning. Hecuba says, “Fortune guided you in everything; you never chose to follow excellence instead” (lines 1048-1050; page 160). The queen even echoes the words of Andromache and chastises Helen with, “all the wrongs you’ve done up to this point should make you want to show a little wise restraint, instead of this shamelessness” (lines 1073-1076; page 161).

Curiously, Hecuba’s image of ideal wifely duty seems to shift between her conversations with Andromache and Helen. When Andromache expressed a wish to die rather than sleep with a man other than Hector, Hecuba urged Andromache to accept her fate and submit to him. However, reflecting on Helen’s behavior after the death of Paris, Hecuba says, “I don’t recall that you were ever caught trying to knot a rope around your neck or sharpening a dagger! Don’t you think a noble woman would respond that way if she were longing for her former husband?” (lines 1053-1057; page 161). This double standard goes unchallenged and unexplained, and, if anything, it teaches us that we should be cautious in drawing conclusions about Greek social values from fictional works.