Ancient Greece

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Ancient Greece

• Sophocles and Euripides

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Structure of the Greek Theater
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Structure of the Greek Theater
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Sophocles  (born c. 496 bc, Colonus, near Athens
Greecedied 406, Athens)

• One of the three great tragic playwrights of
  ancient Greece, including Aeschylus and
  Euripides.
• The best known of his 123 dramas is Oedipus the
  King and Antigone.
• Oedipus Rex
• The plot of Oedipus the King (Greek Oidipous
  Tyrannos Latin Oedipus Rex) is a structural
  marvel that marks the summit of classical Greek
  dramas formal achievements. The plays main
  character, Oedipus, is the wise, happy, and
  beloved ruler of Thebes. Though hot-tempered,
  impatient, and arrogant at times of crisis, he
  otherwise seems to enjoy every good fortune.

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Oedipus Rex

• As the play opens, the citizens of Thebes beg
  their king, Oedipus, to lift the plague that
  threatens to destroy the city. Oedipus has
  already sent his brother-in-law, Creon, to the
  oracle to learn what to do.
• On his return, Creon announces that the oracle
  instructs them to find the murderer of Laius, the
  king who ruled Thebes before Oedipus. The
  discovery and punishment of the murderer will end
  the plague. At once, Oedipus sets about to solve
  the murder.
• Summoned by the king, the blind prophet Tiresias
  at first refuses to speak, but finally accuses
  Oedipus himself of killing Laius. Oedipus mocks
  and rejects the prophet angrily, ordering him to
  leave, but not before Tiresias hints darkly of an
  incestuous marriage and a future of blindness,
  infamy, and wandering.
• Oedipus attempts to gain advice from Jocasta, the
  queen she encourages him to ignore prophecies,
  explaining that a prophet once told her that
  Laius, her husband, would die at the hands of
  their son. According to Jocasta, the prophecy did
  not come true because the baby died, abandoned,
  and Laius himself was killed by a band of robbers
  at a crossroads.
• Oedipus becomes distressed by Jocasta's remarks
  because just before he came to Thebes he killed a
  man who resembled Laius at a crossroads. To learn
  the truth, Oedipus sends for the only living
  witness to the murder, a shepherd.
• Another worry haunts Oedipus. As a young man, he
  learned from an oracle that he was fated to kill
  his father and marry his mother. Fear of the
  prophecy drove him from his home in Corinth and
  brought him ultimately to Thebes. Again, Jocasta
  advises him not to worry about prophecies.

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Oedipus Rex cont. http//www.britannica.com/biogra
phy/Sophocles

• Oedipus finds out from a messenger that Polybus,
  king of Corinth, Oedipus' father, has died of old
  age. Jocasta rejoices surely this is proof that
  the prophecy Oedipus heard is worthless. Still,
  Oedipus worries about fulfilling the prophecy
  with his mother, Merope, a concern Jocasta
  dismisses.
• Overhearing, the messenger offers what he
  believes will be cheering news. Polybus and
  Merope are not Oedipus' real parents. In fact,
  the messenger himself gave Oedipus to the royal
  couple when a shepherd offered him an abandoned
  baby from the house of Laius. Oedipus becomes
  determined to track down the shepherd and learn
  the truth of his birth. Suddenly terrified,
  Jocasta begs him to stop, and then runs off to
  the palace, wild with grief.
• Confident that the worst he can hear is a tale of
  his lowly birth, Oedipus eagerly awaits the
  shepherd. At first the shepherd refuses to speak,
  but under threat of death he tells what he knows
  Oedipus is actually the son of Laius and
  Jocasta. And so, despite his precautions, the
  prophecy that Oedipus dreaded has actually come
  true. Realizing that he has killed his father and
  married his mother, Oedipus is agonized by his
  fate.
• Rushing into the palace, Oedipus finds that the
  queen has killed herself. Tortured, frenzied,
  Oedipus takes the pins from her gown and rakes
  out his eyes, so that he can no longer look upon
  the misery he has caused. Now blinded and
  disgraced, Oedipus begs Creon to kill him, but as
  the play concludes, he quietly submits to Creon's
  leadership, and humbly awaits the oracle that
  will determine whether he will stay in Thebes or
  be cast out forever.

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Antigone

• After the bloody siege of Thebes by Polynices and
  his allies, the city stands unconquered.
  Polynices and his brother Eteocles, however, are
  both dead, killed by each other, according to the
  curse of Oedipus, their father.
• Outside the city gates, Antigone tells Ismene
  that Creon has ordered that Eteocles, who died
  defending the city, is to be buried with full
  honors, while the body of Polynices, the invader,
  is left to rot. Furthermore, Creon has declared
  that anyone attempting to bury Polynices shall be
  publicly stoned to death. Outraged, Antigone
  reveals to Ismene a plan to bury Polynices in
  secret, despite Creon's order. When Ismene
  timidly refuses to defy the king, Antigone
  angrily rejects her and goes off alone to bury
  her brother.
• Creon discovers that someone has attempted to
  offer a ritual burial to Polynices and demands
  that the guilty one be found and brought before
  him. When he discovers that Antigone, his niece,
  has defied his order, Creon is furious. Antigone
  makes an impassioned argument, declaring Creon's
  order to be against the laws of the gods
  themselves. Enraged by Antigone's refusal to
  submit to his authority, Creon declares that she
  and her sister will be put to death.

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Antigone cont.

• Haemon, Creon's son who was to marry Antigone,
  advises his father to reconsider his decision.
  The father and son argue, Haemon accusing Creon
  of arrogance, and Creon accusing Haemon of
  unmanly weakness in siding with a woman. Haemon
  leaves in anger, swearing never to return.
  Without admitting that Haemon may be right, Creon
  amends his pronouncement on the sisters Ismene
  shall live, and Antigone will be sealed in a tomb
  to die of starvation, rather than stoned to death
  by the city.
• The blind prophet Tiresias warns Creon that the
  gods disapprove of his leaving Polynices unburied
  and will punish the king's impiety with the death
  of his own son. After rejecting Tiresias angrily,
  Creon reconsiders and decides to bury Polynices
  and free Antigone.
• But Creon's change of heart comes too late.
  Antigone has hanged herself and Haemon, in
  desperate agony, kills himself as well. On
  hearing the news of her son's death, Eurydice,
  the queen, also kills herself, cursing Creon.
• Alone, in despair, Creon accepts responsibility
  for all the tragedy and prays for a quick death.
  The play ends with a somber warning from the
  chorus that pride will be punished by the blows
  of fate.

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Euripides (born c. 484 bc, Athens Greecedied
406, Macedonia)

• He became one of the best-known and most
  influential dramatists in classical Greek
  culture of his 90 plays, 19 have survived. His
  most famous tragedies, which reinvent Greek myths
  and probe the darker side of human nature,
  include Medea, The Bacchae, Hippolytus, Alcestis
  and The Trojan Women.

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Medea

• One of Euripides most powerful and best known
  plays, Medea (431 bc Greek Medeia) is a
  remarkable study of the mistreatment of a woman
  and of her ruthless revenge. The Colchian
  princess Medea has been taken by the hero Jason
  to be his wife. They have lived happily for some
  years at Corinth and have two sons. But then
  Jason casts Medea off and decides to marry the
  Princess of Corinth. Medea is determined on
  revenge, and after a dreadful mental struggle
  between her passionate sense of injury and her
  love for her children, she decides to punish her
  husband by murdering both the Corinthian princess
  and their own sons, thereby leaving her husband
  to grow old with neither wife nor child. She
  steels herself to commit these deeds and then
  escapes in the chariot of her grandfather, the
  sun-god Helios, leaving Jason without even the
  satisfaction of punishing her for her crimes.
  Euripides succeeds in evoking sympathy for the
  figure of Medea, who becomes to some extent a
  representative of womens oppression in general.

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The Trojan Women

• The play begins with the god Poseidon lamenting
  the fall of Troy. He is joined by the goddess
  Athena, who is incensed by the Greeks
  exoneration of Ajax the Lessers actions in
  dragging away the Trojan princess Cassandra from
  Athena's temple (and possibly raping her).
  Together, the two gods discuss ways to punish the
  Greeks, and conspire to destroy the home-going
  Greek ships in revenge.
• As the dawn comes, the dethroned Trojan queen
  Hecuba awakens in the Greek camp to mourn her
  tragic fate and curse Helen as the cause, and the
  Chorus of captive Trojan women echoes her cries.
  The Greek herald Talthybius arrives to tell
  Hecuba what will befall her and her children
  Hecuba herself is to be taken away as a slave of
  the hated Greek general Odysseus, and her
  daughter Cassandra is to become the conquering
  general Agamemnon's concubine.
• Cassandra (who has been driven partially mad due
  to a curse under which she can see the future but
  will never be believed when she warns others),
  appears morbidly pleased with this news as she
  foresees that, when they arrive in Argos, her new
  master's embittered wife Clytemnestra will kill
  both her and Agamemnon, although because of the
  curse no-one understands this response, and
  Cassandra is carried away to her fate.
• Hecubas daughter-in-law Andromache arrives with
  her baby son, Astyanax and confirms the news,
  hinted at earlier by Talthybius, that Hecubas
  youngest daughter, Polyxena, has been killed as a
  sacrifice at the tomb of the Greek warrior
  Achilles (the subject of Euripides play
  Hecuba). Andromache's own lot is to become the
  concubine of Achilles' son, Neoptolemus, and
  Hecuba counsels her to honour her new lord in the
  hope that she may be permitted to rear Astyanax
  as a future saviour of Troy.

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The Trojan Women Cont.

• However, as though to crush these pitiful hopes,
  Talthybius arrives and reluctantly informs her
  that Astyanax has been condemned to be thrown
  from the battlements of Troy to his death, rather
  than risk the boy growing up to avenge his
  father, Hector. He warns further that if
  Andromache tries to cast a curse on the Greek
  ships, then the baby will be allowed no burial.
  Andromache, cursing Helen for causing the war in
  the first place, is taken away to the Greek
  ships, while a soldier bears the child away to
  his death.
• The Spartan king Menelaus enters and protests to
  the women that he came to Troy to revenge himself
  on Paris and not to take back Helen, but Helen is
  nevertheless to return to Greece where a death
  sentence awaits her. Helen is brought before him,
  still beautiful and alluring after all that has
  happened, and she begs Menelaus to spare her
  life, claiming that she was bewitched by the
  goddess Cypris and that she did attempt to return
  to Menelaus after the spell was broken. Hecuba
  scorns her unlikely story, and warns Menelaus
  that she will betray him again is she is allowed
  to live, but he remains implacable, merely
  ensuring that she travel back on a ship other
  than his own.
• Towards the end of the play, Talthybius returns,
  bearing with him the body of little Astyanax on
  Hector's great bronze shield. Andromache had
  wished to bury her child herself, performing the
  proper rituals according to Trojan ways, but her
  ship has already departed, and it falls to Hecuba
  to prepare the body of her grandson for burial.
• As the play closes and flames rise from the ruins
  of Troy, Hecuba makes a last desperate attempt to
  kill herself in the fire, but is restrained by
  the soldiers. She and the remaining Trojan women
  are taken off to the ships of their Greek
  conquerors.

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The Trojan Women GSU Spring 2009
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The Trojan Women GSU Spring 2009
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The Trojan Women GSU Spring 2009