I Read Plays: The Trojan Women
The Trojan Women by Euripedes (specifically the 1905 Gilbert Murray verse translation) In this play, set after the fall of Troy, four of the royal Trojan women consider their fate. As part of the spoils of war they will be divided amongst the Greek conquerors. Hecuba, Queen and widow of Priam, king of Troy, is to be taken by Odysseus. Her daughter Cassandra will be taken by Agamemnon. Cassandra takes some bitter glee in this; as a prophetess she knows that both she and Agamemnon will be killed by his wife Clytemnestra. Having been cursed, no one believes this prophecy, so after she sings a bleak wedding song she’s carried away. Andromache, widow of Hector, the son of Hecuba, learns she will be given to Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, her husband’s killer. She has news that Hecuba’s youngest daughter is dead; she is then informed her son will be killed as the Greeks fear he will seek revenge when grown. Helen, wife of Menelaus, whose abduction/elopement to Troy with Pa...
