Chapter 1. Men’s Songs and Women’s Songs Are the voices of women in men’s poetry representative of women’s independent song traditions? What role, if any, did women’s song traditions play in the shaping of men’s epic traditions (and later, tragedy)? In recent years scholars have begun to suggest that women’s lament traditions may have played a crucial role in the development of epic and tragedy, which were… Read more
Chapter 2. Identifying with the Enemy: Love, Loss, and Longing in the Persians of Aeschylus In the first two decades of the fifth century BC, the century in which Greek tragedy as we know it flourished, the Greeks were attacked twice by the vastly larger army and navy of the Persian Empire. Against all odds, they ultimately succeeded both times in fending them off. But the cost… Read more
Chapter 3. Athenians and Trojans Before we can examine the laments and plight of the captive Trojan women in Euripides’ Trojan War plays in a meaningful way, it is first necessary to establish the Athenians’ particular relationship with the Trojan War. What associations does the Trojan War as a theme carry with it? How are Trojans and the fall of Troy represented in Athenian literature and art?… Read more
Chapter 4. The Captive Woman’s Lament and her Revenge in Euripides’ Hecuba Hecuba, a wretch forlorn and captive, when she saw Polyxena first slaughtered, and her son, her Polydorus, on the wild sea-beach next met the mourning woman’s view, then reft of sense did she bark like a dog; such mighty power had grief to wrench her soul. Dante, Inferno Canto xxx,… Read more
Chapter 5. A River Shouting with Tears: Euripides’ Trojan Women The Trojan Women, first produced in 416 BC, is both the easiest and most difficult of the plays under discussion to interpret, and indeed it is this deceptive ease that prompted the writing of this book. The play is an unrelenting portrait of suffering, and has had a great deal of success in modern productions as… Read more
Chapter 6. The Captive Woman in the House: Euripides’ Andromache Euripides’ Andromache may not have been originally produced in Athens, if we may trust the comment of a scholiast at line 445 of the play, nor can we be certain of the date of its production, which is generally assumed to be the mid-420s. [1] It is, moreover, a complicated drama that… Read more
Conclusion. The Tears of Pity λόγος δυνάστης μέγας ἐστίν, ὃς σμικροτάτωι σώματι καὶ ἀφανεστάτωι θειότατα ἔργα ἀποτελεῖ· δύναται γὰρ καὶ φόβον παῦσαι καὶ λύπην ἀφελεῖν καὶ χαρὰν ἐνεργάσασθαι καὶ ἔλεον ἐπαυξῆσαι… τὴν ποίησιν ἅπασαν καὶ νομίζω καὶ ὀνομάζω λόγον ἔχοντα μέτρον· ἧς τοὺς ἀκούοντας εἰσῆλθε καὶ φρίκη περίφοβος καὶ ἔλεος πολύδακρυς καὶ πόθος φιλοπενθής, ἐπ’ ἀλλοτρίων τε πραγμάτων καὶ σωμάτων εὐτυχίαις καὶ δυσπραγίαις ἴδιόν τι… Read more
Bibliography LIMC Ackermann, H. C., and J.-R. Gisler, eds. Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1981-1997 RE Pauly, A., G. Wissowa, and W. Kroll, eds. Realenzyklopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart, 1893- Abrahamson, E. L. 1952. “Euripides’ Tragedy of Hecuba.” TAPA 83: 120-129. Abu-Lughod, L. 1999. Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society. 2nd ed. Read more
Introduction 1. Herodotus and Myth[1] In the first book of his Histories, Herodotus describes how a Median cowherd receives a child and a message from King Astyages: κελεύει σε Ἀστυάγης τὸ παιδίον τοῦτο λαβόντα θεῖναι ἐς τὸ ἐρημότατον τῶν ὀρέων, ὅκως ἂν τάχιστα διαφθαρείη. καὶ τάδε τοι ἐκέλευσε εἰπεῖν, ἢν μὴ ἀποκτείνῃς αὐτό, ἀλλὰ τεῳ τρόπῳ περιποιήσῃ, ὀλέθρῳ τῷ κακίστῳ σε διαχρήσεσθαι·… Read more
6. Epic, Praise, and the Possession of Poetry §1. It has been argued that the athlete follows the ritual paradigm of the hero not only through an ordeal at the Games but also through a reintegration, by way of epinician lyric poetry, with the community at home. In what follows, I extend the argument: just as the Games, as ritual, momentarily collapse the distinction between hero and… Read more
