MURDER AMONG PHILIA (Friends, loved ones, relations) in Euripides' Andromache.

 MURDER AMONG PHILIA (Friends, loved ones, relations)

At first look, the Andromache to appears to be less centrally concerned with harm to friends and kin than in most other plays.  But in this play, Euripides has concocted a mixture of characters and motivations in which the relationships between any two characters becomes ambiguous and multivalent.

There is no consensus among scholars of Ancient Greek about the exact meaning of the word philos or other related expressions such as philein and philia. It seems apparent, however, that the use of these terms went through significant changes from the time of Homer to the fifth century. In classical Athens, the term could take on different meanings depending on the situation it was used in, sometimes denoting emotional relationships based on personal feelings and attitudes, sometimes referring to socially regulated, politically influenced ones. In the Andromache the terms signifying family relationships and friendships are especially prone to change depending on the speaker's current situation and aims. The main conflict of the play revolves around the status of Andromache and most of the cases in which the term philos is used are connected to Andromache, therefore it seems justified to concentrate on the question of who is or might be regarded as her philos. The characters manipulate and distort the meaning of the word to serve their own purposes. Euripides uses conflicting concepts of philia which belong to different codes of behavior and sets of values and by doing so reveals the inherent tensions in some of the terms and concepts which were prevalent in fifth-century Athens.

Menelaus and Hermione threaten Andromache and her small son Molossos, who are not blood kin to them, and Orestes is implicated in the murder of Neoptolemus, who is not his kin. Although threats to a suppliant occur in the first part of the play, suppliance is not the main concern of the play as a whole. Xenia does not figure in Andromache, nor does spouse murder spouse, as happens in Aeschylus’s Agamemnon and Sophocles' Women of Trachis. Nevertheless, this play, focusing as it does on conflict between the wife and concubine of Neoptolemus, is centrally concerned with violations of philia within the marriage relationship. In the Greek view, the acts it represents are just as dreadful as kin murder and incest.

Left behind by her father, Hermione attempts suicide and expresses great fear of Neoptolemus’s anger. She is saved from her plight by the arrival of Orestes, to whom she had previously been betrothed. He offers her protection and marriage and reveals that he has contrived a plot against Neoptolemus. After they leave together, a messenger reports the death of Neoptolemus at Delphi. The young man's body is then brought in and Peleus mourns the death of his grandson and heir. The play ends with the appearance of Thetis ex Machina, revealing that Peleus is to live with her as an immortal, that they are to be reunited with their son Achilles, who now lives in the Blessed Isles, that Andromache is to marry the ruler of the Molossians, and that Molossos will be the father of Molossian kings. In this tangled plot, Neoptolemus’s philoi injure or attempt to injure one another in a series of actions that leads to the destruction of his house. Relationships in this play are so twisted and perverted that not only do philoi treat one another as enemies, but enemies also treat one another as close philoi. Andromache, the wife of Hector, is the natural enemy of the family of Achilles, who killed Hector. Yet, she is treated as a close phile, who lives in Neoptolemus’s house and has a child by him. In treating this enemy as a friend, Neoptolemus also thereby treats his philoi as enemies. In Andromache, inappropriate relationships with enemies play the same role that kin murder does in other tragedies.

Neoptolemus’s union with Andromache has created a situation in which they themselves and the other dramatic figures are both philoi and enemies to one another. When they are forced to act in these circumstances, their actions are ambiguous, since they help or harm someone who is both philos and enemy. 'All of those connected by blood or marriage with the house of Peleus — Neoptolemus, Andromache, Molossos, Peleus, Hermione, Menelaus, Orestes, and Thetis—are involved in ambiguous situations. Although Neoptolemus is absent throughout the play, appearing only as a corpse, he is at the center of the web of relationships from which the dramatic action springs. He is related to every other major figure in the play either by birth (Thetis, Peleus, and Molossos) or by marriage (Andromache, Hermione, Menelaus, and Orestes). Moreover, because we see him only through the eyes of others, Neoptolemus is defined by his relationships with them, by his roles as husband, master, father, grandson, and son-in-law. To each of these dramatic figures Neoptolemus is both friend and enemy, the sum of the perverted relationships he has created. Neoptolemus is Andromache’s enemy, as a Greek and the son of her husband's murderer. Yet in taking her into his household, he treats her as a phile, becoming her "husband" and the father of her son, Molossos.

Neoptolemus, however, has not acted as a philos to Andromache and her son. He thrust her aside after marrying Hermione (30, 37), and he left Phthia without providing for her protection or clarifying her position in his household. Andromache comments on his absence in time of need and complains that he does not act as a father to Molossos (49-50, 75-76). By failing to protect Andromache, Neoptolemus violates the obligations of philia he has incurred toward her and Molossos. On the other hand, in keeping Andromache and her son in his household, Neoptolemus injures Hermione, his legitimate wife.18 Greek custom held that while a man might keep a concubine in a separate establishment, he should never bring her into contact with his legitimate wife, much less allow the two to live in the same house. It was also held to be shameful for a concubine to usurp the wife's place by bearing and rearing children; only legitimate children should be reared in a man's house.

Neoptolemus also acts wrongly in other ways with regard to Hermione. He marries her against Peleus's will and advice (619-21); he marries a woman who had been promised to Orestes, her relative; and, moreover, he insults his rival (966-81). Neoptolemus also acts wrongly in leaving Hermione in his house during his absence, just as Menelaus did when he left Hermione's mother Helen alone (592-95). Neoptolemus wrongs other philoi as well. He acts offensively toward his father-in-law, Menelaus, in keeping, in the same house as his daughter, a concubine who is, moreover, the widow of Hector, the brother of Paris (655-56), who committed adultery with Menelaus’s wife. Although the play does not explicitly mention Neoptolemus’s injuries to Peleus and Thetis, we may infer that he also wrongs his grandparents when he brings into his household the wife of their son's enemy. In addition, Neoptolemus fails to protect their only great-grandson and deserts his aged grandfather, leaving him without protection in the midst of disorder. Neoptolemus not only acts badly toward Thetis and all of the major mortal dramatic figures, but he also insults Apollo, treating a god who should be honored as the enemy who killed his father (53, 1106—8, 1194-96).

And yet, Euripides has been accused of “rehabilitating “ and “whitewashing” Neoptolemus. This seems only to be justified by the fact that nowhere does the play mention the atrocities Neoptolemus was famous for: murdering Priam at the Altar of Zeus, and hurling Astyanax (Hector and Andromache’s son) to his death from the walls of Troy.

 

 

MOTHER AND CHILD LAMENT in Euripides' Andromache

 MOTHER AND CHILD LAMENT

After Menelaus tricks Andromache into leaving the sanctuary of Thetis’ temple, his guards seize her and take both her and the child off to be prepared for execution. Euripides does this so he can depopulate the stage just enough and more importantly, so Andromache and her son can make a pitiful entrance.

The Lament sung by Andromache and her child requires a boy actor in addition to the regular three. Boys’ choruses competed at the City Dionysia, so competent soloists would have been available. Children appear in nine of Euripides’ extant plays and he is the only tragedian to give them speaking or singing parts.

From the reviews I have read of 2020’s Children in Greek Tragedy: Pathos and Potential by Emma Griffiths, her basic conclusion is that the importance of children in Greek tragedy has two social functions  (i) showing the family capable of repairing itself and establishing values sufficient for it to recover from the worst events, and (ii) suggesting that this can be done without the involvement, interference, or influence of the gods. How this helps with the exegesis of tragedy is unclear in the reviews.

Andromache:

Had’ ego kheras haimateras brokhoisi

keklemena pempomai kata gaias  

Child:

Mater, mater, ego de sa pterugi sungkatabaino

 

Andromache
sung
Here am I, hands bloodied with the tight bonds about them, being sent down to death.

Boy
sung
Mother, o mother, under [505] your wing I go down as well.

Andromache
sung
This is a cruel sacrifice, o rulers of Phthia!

Boy
sung
Father, come and help those you love.

Andromache
sung
[510] Dear child, you will lie below dead with your dead mother, next to her breast.

Boy
sung
Oh me! What will become of me? Unhappy are we, you and I, mother.

Menelaus threatens to kill his son-in-law's "Slave Baby Mama." Euripides' Andromache notes continued.

 Second Episode (309-463).

The sudden arrival of Menelaus, leading in the supposedly hidden child of Andromache and Neoptolemus, steps up the pace of the action.

Andromache, having got the better of Hermione in their agon (debate), now faces Menelaus. With Menεlaus, however, it is quite different. The disparity is not in their age, but in their sex, and right behavior between man and woman is a different thing from appropriate behavior between mistress and slave. After Andromache questions Menelaus’ ability to reason, the chorus reproaches her for going too far as a woman speaking to a man (363). Menelaus also holds real power over Andromache because he has her son. She cannot dismiss his threats the way she ignores Hermione’s. He threatens to kill her son if she refuses to leave the altar; if she does leave the altar, she herself will be killed. Andromache responds with a defiant speech in which she tries to deter Menelaus from his threat (319-63).  When he repeats the threat (380-3) she makes a second speech in which she chooses to die instead of her son (384-420). Menelaus then reveals he intends to kill them both. The act concludes with a denunciation of the Spartans by Andromache (334-51).

Andromache outlines the undesirable consequences for Menelaus of killing either her or her son, subdividing the various possibilities with rhetorical precision. If she is killed, Hermione will incur pollution and Menelaus will be guilty as an accomplice (334-7); if the child is killed, Neoptolemus will divorce Hermione (338-44); no one else would then marry her (344-51).

It seems that in her confrontations with Hermione and her father, Andromache reveals certain aspects of the situation that the two Spartans cannot or do not want to perceive: in the first case she indicates the real fault in Hermione’s relationship to Neoptolemus (205– 212), while in the second she underlines the consequences for Hermione’s marital life of her or her son’s murder (342–351). Moreover, Menelaus’ suggestion that his daughter will decide whether the boy will live or die strengthens the view that it is Andromache, not her son, who is considered a threat to Hermione. In facing the dilemma of whether she or her son will die, Andromache tries to convince herself that her life is not worth living (394–405). Finally, when the plot is revealed, she addresses to Menelaus a tirade against the Spartans (445–452) that has created the impression with some scholars that it is the cause for which the whole play was written!           

Having with these words eliminated the faintest chance of appealing to the man's good nature, Andromache next presents Menelaus with a list of excellent reasons why she should not die. She can come no closer to a plea. Hermione and Menelaus both will carry the pollution of blood guilt. If the boy is slain, Neoptolemus will avenge his death. Hermione will be flung from the land: she will return home, unwanted, and grow gray with age in her father's house. If Andromache is a witch, she should stand trial as one. "That is my opinion about this matter," she concludes, then adds one more comment that she cannot keep back although she knows it will enrage Menelaus even more:

"But there is one part of your thinking that I fear:

it was also because of strife over a woman that you destroyed poor Troy.”

            As the chorus tells her, she spoke the truth but has said too much. But Andromache does draw an interesting parallel: Menelaus here as at Troy is puffing about imperiously over a matter which should go unnoticed by an important military dignitary. (Again, the shadow of the war.) For all his faults of cruelty, Menelaus' greatest weakness may be a systematic susceptibility to the women of his family. His reply to Andromache (366-383) makes no effort to disguise his mission, but only, in the midst of inept platitudes, to justify it. True, he says, the business of his son-in-law’s “slave baby mama” is a small matter. But it has his attention at the moment, and that makes it more important even than capturing Troy (ignoring Andromache's grouping of the two as "female strifes"). Although Andromache has pointed out that Hermione will lose Neoptolemus should anything happen to her or the child, Menelaus implies the opposite: Andromache must die to secure the marriage: "A wife may suffer other, lesser calamities, but if she fails with her husband she fails with her life." Further, even though Andromache is not his own slave, he thinks he still has an ethical right to kill her, "for with friends, if they are truly friends, nothing is privately retained. Rather, all possessions are jointly shared." At any rate (the mother is told) either she or her son must die.

            The contrast of Menelaus’ speech and its pointless generalities with the economically logical rhesis of Andromache is almost too obvious. With his opening lines Menelaus assures us that he is as evil a character as the stage can tolerate. Now we are led to suspect that he will turn out to be, as well as evil, stupid. Menelaus boasts of his cleverness, but it amounts to blackmail and murder disguised as concern for his philoi (loved ones.)  The ethics of retaliation, the claim to be doing both Greece and Neoptolemus a favor, are shown to be merely a front for petty revenge and self-aggrandizement. The perversion of language by Menelaus  reveals the corrupted individualism of a society disfigured by war.

            Menelaus tricks Andromache into leaving the sanctuary of the altar to Thetis by threatening to kill her son. When mother and child are reunited, she learns that not only will she surely die, but that Hermione will decide the fate of her son. In the next installment, I will discuss the duet of mother and son and some notes about singing children in Euripides.

Euripides’ Choruses and Notes on the Choral Ode at Andromache 274-308.

 

Euripides’ Choruses and Notes on the Choral Ode at Andromache 274-308.

Forget the invincible textbooks of theatre history that repeat the irresponsible misconception that  Euripides “de-emphasized” the role of the Chorus. What is true is that  Euripides differently emphasized the chorus, and some of the most beautiful and powerful moments in Greek poetry are in his choral odes.

We are continually reminded in tragedy that, despite their use of mythical tradition in their songs to point parallels or retrace the causative history of the story, the chorus, like other characters, are ignorant of the future, unlike deities or their prophets. They are, in a sense, spectators, an internal audience whose response the theatre audience can use as a correlative for its own.  It is a subjective correlative and tied to the chorus’s identity, their particular limitations and preconceptions. 

Euripides’ choice of choral identity is always tuned to the larger framework of the play. Of the seventeen tragic choruses we have of his, fourteen are female. Frequently their marginal status and limited agency is emphasized by their also being slaves and/or foreigners. Might this have something to do with why male theatre scholars considered the choruses of Euripides to be “minimized” in some way? (Anyone need a dissertation topic intersecting reception, feminist and postcolonial theory and hegemony?)

In the Andromache as in the Medea,  the chorus are local women, whose very rootedness underlines the displacement and isolation of the foreign woman protagonist.  In both plays the bond of womanhood partially bridges the racial divide.

In the first strophic pair, the chorus describes the Judgement of Paris, often evoked in Euripides' plays on the Trojan War. The second strophic pair goes back in time to Paris’ birth,  and deals with the suffering that would have been avoided.

The ode is related to the action, but also contrasts with it. The chorus’ account of the Judgement of Paris takes its cue from the quarrel of human females in the preceding scene. The end of the ode connects the survival of baby Paris to the subsequent sufferings of Greeks and Trojans and of Andromache in particular. On the other hand, the ode makes a sharp break with the preceding action.  It begins, like many odes in tragedy, at a point remote in space and time. 

  In contrast to the realistic tone of the argument (agon) that preceded it, the first part of the ode is decorative and lyrical. The ode takes a dark turn and stays there at the line “Hecuba should have thrown him ( the infant Paris)  backwards over her head like a polluted object and walked away without looking back.”

    The review of the folly that started the Trojan War sets up Andromache’s insulting remark to Menelaus in the next scene “ One should not bring about great evils for small reasons."

    The Euripidean chorus offers not merely reflections of events, or reactions to them, but with the capacity and intent of modifying  our interpretation of the surrounding action. They do not stand outside the play, delivering a commentary from some more objective, authoritative position.

 

Hermione versus Andromache in Euripides

 First Episode (147-273). The Agon of Hermione and Andromache

    The first episode of the play is the only onstage encounter between the Spartan princess, Helen's daughter Hermione and Andromache, and each speaks a single position speech. These are followed by a short stichomythia of brilliant invective.Dramatic agones ( competitive debates) seldom in fact resolve the disputed issues.  It is often difficult to judge who is in the right, or whether both parties have a claim. But the dilemma sharpens our conception of the wider issues raised by the play.  Occasionally we can judge  with confidence that one figure has the better case, yet their arguments are in vain. The failure of persuasion shows provocatively how power and self-interest may override considerations of justice.

    Hermione’s speech begins, as often in oratory,  by establishing the ethos (character) of the speaker, in order to elicit sympathy and support from the audience. Hermione trumpets her Spartan origins and wealth and denigrates her opponent as a slave and a foreigner . (153, 159). But her excess is repellent and we know that Andromache was a princess and is spoudaia (good) as a character.  Hermione’s sneers are to be seen against what we have so far seen of Andromache, not just as intrinsically nasty. Although we sense that she is plagued with jealousy and alienation such insecurity does not justify her present deadly intentions. Her message has all the subtlety of a snake's bite. Its venom is of the variety that one might expect from a Medea; the inconsistencies of thought alone reduce the speaker to an angry and mentally unimpressive adolescent. The chorus throughout does its best to temper the tone of the episode.  Hermione’s elaborate introductory proem ( 147-53) peaks rhetorically with the final word, eleutherostomein (‘to speak freely’, 153). She revealingly defines her right to speech by reference to the prestige of her wealthy dowry and Spartan origin, while denying Andromache this same right of speech.  The connection of independent wealth to free speech is characteristic of the aristocratic world of heroic myth.

    Hermione’s attack on barbarian ( meaning non-Greek) sexual and social mores is the most flamboyant  passage of anti-barbarian rhetoric in extant tragedy. The charges are rebutted by the action of the play itself.  Andromache clearly has no choice but to sleep with Neoptolemus ( whose father killed her husband), while it is Hermione who of her own will leaves with Orestes and, according to established tradition, goes on to bear children not just to the son of the man who killed her husband, but to the murderer himself.  Nobody fits the charge (close relatives kill each other 175-6) better than Orestes, whose sordid and brutal backstory are recalled later at his first entry. Hermione’s ethnic slurs are undermined both by her actions and by the response of Andromache. The Spartans’ rigid categories pf Greek self-definition are exposed as rhetorical constructs in the course of the play. The play’s contemporary background illuminates this process. Unlike the conflict with the Persians, which solidified, if it did not invent, the polarity of Greek and barbarian, the Peloponnesian War was an especially rigorous test of the security of self/other, especially Greek/barbarian distinctions.  The Andromache shows these oppositions in crisis, then in breakdown, and finally reconstitutes "philial" relations along radically new lines.

    Hermione is torn between two radically opposed  visions of women’s role ( independence versus strict control).  Hermione’s confusion, reflected in her contradictory arguments,  contrasts with the stability of Andromache, and leads us to understand her later reversal. As if she had forgotten (or did not mean) her threat of death, she begins to lecture Andromache on proper behavior. Henceforth Andromache must not continue to act like a queen, must learn to conduct herself in a manner befitting a base slave. "Let some man or god be willing to rescue you! Still you must cower in humility for that earlier grandiose pride of yours; you must prostrate yourself at my knee, must sweep my house!”Royalty reduced to sweeping is a commonplace in Euripides ( cf. Cyc 23-32; Hec. 363; Hyps. Fragment 7512). That sweeping is the topper is pretty damn funny.

    Andromache’s reply is sophisticated, at ironic odds with her position as a slave and barbarian. Euripidean speakers often sense that their words will offend and seek to defuse the effect, but Andromache’s response is forthright and courageous under the circumstances. Although she knows a victory in the debate to be counterproductive. Andromache decides on principle to make the best and truest defense possible, since  would be cowardly to let condemnation follow by default.(191).In contrast to Hermione's speech, Andromache's is a carefully worded and well-balanced rebuttal, worthy of any debating bench.  First an introduction (183-191) wherein she acquiesces to one of drama's most frustrating necessities, the speech made in futility. The combination of her own slavery and Hermione's youth and power predetermine her defeat, for should she merit a victory she would only incur more trouble: "For the high and mighty find it bitter to lose an argument to their inferiors." Second, she presents her refutation of Hermione's charges in the form of ironic and even sarcastic rhetorical questions (192-204). Why and how would she usurp Hermione's position? Is she richer? Is she free? Is she young or beautiful? Would she want to give birth to a brood of slaves? The idea is so absurd that she leaves the queries unanswered. Third, having eliminated herself as the cause of Hermione's problems, she points to the real source: Hermione's own disposition (205-221). Beautiful the younger woman may be, but she lacks the talents of a wife. She remains the Spartan daughter of Menelaus whereas she ought now to consider herself the Phthian spouse of Neoptolemus. She is so sexually insatiable, so jealous of her husband's affections, that she cannot tolerate the thought of his ever having had intercourse with another woman, whereas she ought to be content.

    Finally, Andromache draws a brief comparison between the two of them (222-231). She herself was always a loving wife, faithful even in her Hector's moments of infidelity when Aphrodite "tripped" him. This is what he loved in her. Hermione, on the other hand, is so apprehensive that she would not allow even one drop of rain to spatter on her husband's face. "Don't seek to surpass your mother's amorousness," warns Andromache. "Sensible daughters avoid the ways of evil mothers."

     As Andromache predicted, her words were but tinder for Hermione's rage, and, despite the chorus' plea, the two join in a spirited and vicious interchange of remarks (234-273) .16 Hermione at length goes out, but only after promising Andromache that she has the bait with which to fetch the latter out of Thetis' shrine, and that the deed will be accomplished before Neoptolemus returns from Delphi. Andromache remains seated in the shrine, briefly regretting the evils which women inflict upon humankind. What are we to make of these misogynistic saws in the voice of the heroine? That will be a topic for another blog notes.

Euripides' Andromache: Myth, Reception and Legacy.

 

The Andromache combines two myths from the aftermath of the Trojan war: one concerning Hector’s widow Andromache, her life as the concubine of Achilles’ son Neoptolemus (Latin ‘Pyrrhus’), and her eventual marriage to her former brother-in-law Helenus and settlement in Epirus; and the other about Neoptolemus’ marriage to Hermione (the daughter of Menelaus and Helen) and his murder by Orestes, to whom Hermione had originally been betrothed. The two stories are intertwined in Euripides’ play with the added plot of Hermione and Menelaus attempting to kill Andromache and her illegitimate son by Neoptolemus (though unnamed in the play, this son is often referred to by scholars as “Molossus”). The title role actually disappears mid-way through the play, rescued from death by Neoptolemus’ grandfather Peleus.

The reception of Andromache is as broad and varied as that of any of Euripides’ plays, and French drama and Italian baroque opera in particular retold and refashioned the myths of the Andromache-Neoptolemus-Hermione-Orestes tetrad in a surprising number of variations. There are some key plot features that stand out in Euripides’ version, which are significant in assessing its reception:

• Neoptolemus is married to Hermione, but Andromache is his concubine;

• A salacious verbal duel occurs between the female rivals, Andromache and Hermione, in front of a chorus of women;

• Various characters reiterate the belief that a man should not have sexual relations with two women at the same time. The chorus women’s thoughts on the subject express this concisely: “I will never praise double marriages among mortals, nor sons by different mothers; it causes strife and hostile pains for a house” (Andromache 465–8).

• When Andromache is threatened by Menelaus, it is her love for her son (whose life is also threatened) that convinces her to yield to his demands;

• Hermione has a famous breast-baring panic scene, in dialogue with her Nurse;

• Neoptolemus is absent from the entire play (like Creon’s daughter in Medea, and Aegisthus in Euripides’ Electra), and his corpse is carried in only at the end for lamentation by his grandfather Peleus;

• Neoptolemus is murdered off-stage (and in Delphi) by henchmen of Orestes, who plotted his murder out of jealousy for Hermione, with whom Orestes elopes. It is noteworthy that Hermione asks Orestes to help her, but at the same time Orestes had already laid a plot to eliminate her husband even before meeting her;

 • Peleus and Thetis (Neoptolemus’ grandparents) and Menelaus all make brief appearances;

• The play ends with a prediction of Andromache’s marriage to Helenus, their relocation to Molossia (in Epirus, at the modern border between Albania and Greece), and of her son by Neoptolemus as a future king. In Literature Scholars have noted that Euripides’ Andromache is itself an example of the reception of Sophocles, whose Hermione (now fragmentary) preceded Euripides’ Andromache by an unknown number of years. 

      Most agree that the Sophoclean drama focused on Orestes’ murder of Neoptolemus so that Orestes could marry Hermione; the play apparently included a chorus of Phthian women, and a scene in which Peleus lamented over his grandson’s body. It has been argued that Euripides, in composing the Andromache, engaged in a “metapoetic” rivalry with Sophocles by repeating these basic elements and then adding the additional plot of Hermione trying to kill her husband’s concubine and their bastard son. In this way, Euripides created the dramatic incentive for the argument between rival women in the same household, which remains one of the most memorable scenes of the play. The first surviving instance of the reception of Euripides’ Andromache in literature occurs four centuries after it was first performed.

In Book 3 of Vergil’s Aeneid, Aeneas narrates how he and his Trojan refugees were travelling by the coast of Epirus and heard a rumor that Priam’s son Helenus was still alive, had married Andromache, and had succeeded to the throne of Achilles’ son Pyrrhus (Greek Neoptolemus). They land at Buthrotum and investigate, only to find Andromache herself making offerings at altars in Hector’s name. Andromache is astonished to see Aeneas alive. In the course of conversation Aeneas asks whether she is still Pyrrhus’ concubine (Aeneid 3. 319), giving her the opportunity to relate the details of her life since the fall of Troy.

Andromache’s Elegiac Lament: Euripides marathon continues!

Andromache’s Elegiac Lament 103-116 to Parados 117-146

After the servant leaves on her dangerous mission, Andromache is alone and sings her lament to end the prologue and signal the Parados, the entrance of the chorus of local women. Andromache is not content to mourn the fall of Troy and the slaughter of her family, but goes further back to the causes of the war, to Paris and Helen, thereby illustrating a tendency on the part of Euripides' characters and choruses to sound at times like rhapsodists ( performers of epic poetry like the Cycle and Homer).  

In this play there is a consistent preoccupation with causes. Andromache here suggests that the war was prompted by the rape of Helen: three other theories will be presented before the end of the play, two by the chorus and the third by Peleus. One cannot assume that Euripides intended these as purely ornamental digressions. Their primary purpose remains for the present unrevealed, but the immediate effect of Andromache's reflections on the war is to push the beginning of the tragedy further back in time. In review of the prologue, one should note that it ends as it begins, that is, with a statement of Andromache's misfortunes and plight. Yet enough intrusions have separated these two monologues to discourage one from interpreting the entire scene as simply an extended threnos. A second (minor servant) character is introduced, and the plot is actually furthered, if slightly, before Andromache turns to her lamentations.

Andromache’s monodic lament in Andromache recalls her laments in the Iliad, and creates a point of continuity between the Homeric Andromache and the Euripidean Andromache. Andromache herself says in the proem that she is always lamenting (ἡμεῖς δ’ οἷσπερ ἐγκείμεσθ’ ἀεὶ/θρήνοισι καὶ γόοισι καὶ δακρύμασιν/πρὸς αἰθέρ’ ἐκτενοῦμεν· 91-93), a state of affairs which fittingly expands upon Hector’s prediction of her future from Iliad Book 6.39 The lament itself recalls the cause of the Trojan War, the death of Hector, and Andromache’s captivity. The death of Hector and Andromache’s captivity were recounted in the prologue by Andromache herself (8-15). In this song, she explicitly names the culprit: the marriage of Paris: Ἰλίωι αἰπεινᾶι Πάρις οὐ γάμον ἀλλά τιν’ ἄταν/ἀγάγετ’ εὐναίαν ἐς θαλάμους Ἑλέναν (103-104). This is the first of several references to Paris and Helen and the cause of the Trojan War in Andromache. It is fitting that Andromache be the first character to recall the ruin that disastrous union caused: as the sympathetic character of the play, it is her suffering, and the causes of her suffering, which captivate audience and reader.

Andromache also makes use of several typical features of tragic laments. She makes explicit reference to the tears she shed upon being led away as a slave (πολλὰ δὲ δάκρυά μοι, 111) and uses a simile to describe in detail the depth of her sorrow while she clutches the statue of the goddess as suppliant (τάκομαι ὡς πετρίνα πιδακόεσσα λιβάς, 116). She also apostrophizes herself as “wretched me!” (ὤμοι ἐγὼ μελέα, 113), a feature used often by women in laments.The tone of the lament extends the sense of passivity Andromache cultivated in her prologue. She is careful to say that none of the events were of her making; she suffers through the insensitivity and cruelty of others.

“That no man is to be accounted happy until after his last day on earth” is a commonplace of tragedy and Andromache's lament end with it. This bit of truth might at first seem out of place here. It is usually spoken in reproachful warning to one who thinks himself blest by fortune (e.g. Solon to Croesus in Herodotus' account), or by a speaker with unwitting tragic irony (e.g. by the pompous Agamemnon in the Aeschylus play). So is the present use of it partially ironical, but the speaker is both the wit and the victim.  Andromache, who can by no means be called happy in advance of her death and whose last day may well be the most wretched of many, includes the proverb among her preliminary observations as a grim bit of understatement. But the subtlety transcends mere irony, for Andromache stands now in full realization of the truth of this axiom which throughout her life, up to the attack on Troy, had no practical meaning. She once was happy but now is not. Who can say whether she ever will be again?

The Andromache includes the only passage of elegiac couplets in extant Greek tragedy. Elegiac meter was originally associated with mournful songs accompanied by the aulos (double reed wind instrument); its use was later extended to epigrams and love poems. An elegiac couplet consists of a line of dactylic hexameter ( the meter of all Epic)  followed by a shorter line traditionally called a “pentameter.” The dactylic hexameter contains six feet; each foot is either a dactyl (LONG-short-short ) or a spondee (LONG-LONG). The sixth foot is always a spondee, and the fifth is usually a dactyl, so most lines end with the rhythm LONG-short-short LONG-LONG: “Shave and a Haircut.”(No “two bits!”)

The alternating pentameter line is not really five dactylic feet; rather it is  2.5 + 2.5 feet. The pattern: LONG-short-short-LONG-short-short-LONG: “Lions and Tigers and Bears!”( No “Oh my!”) Two dactyls plus a long syllable is called a “hemiepes” (half-foot). Two hemiepes with a word boundary between them, make up the so-called pentameter line. In the first hemipies, a long syllable can be substituted for two shorts.

The elegy of Andromache in the Andromache of Euripides actually shows the evolutionary relationship between lament and elegy. We see it in the simple fact that this elegy is complete as an elegy, but it is incomplete as a lament. The elegiac singing of Andromache is not a complete performance of lamentation. It is only part of a performance, as we see from what happens after Andromache finishes her song of lament. This lament, which is a monody sung by the tragic actor representing Andromache, leads into an antiphonal lament, sung and danced by the chorus of tragedy. At line 117, the hexameter of what was expected to be the next elegiac couplet is picked up as the first line of a choral song—a song that is meant to be sung and danced by the chorus. This choral song is decidedly not elegiac in form. From line 117 onward, there are no more elegiac couplets to be heard since the hexameter at this line will not be followed by a pentameter.

So, the elegy of Andromache, as a monody, is only a part of the lament here, since the choral song of the women of Phthia continues where Andromache left off. From the plot of the tragedy, we can see how the continuation comes about. An ensemble of local women from Phthia has just arrived at the scene of action, finding there a foreign woman from Troy, Andromache. She is in a state of abject isolation, lamenting her misfortunes as she sings her monody of sorrow.

The local women react to the sorrow by singing and dancing an antiphonal lament in response to the monodic lament sung by Andromache. This sharing of sorrow between the two sides, by way of the monody sung by Andromache on one side and the choral song sung and danced by the local women on the other side, leads to a communalization of emotions, in all their diversities. By way of this communalization, the local women from Phthia have in effect accepted the foreign woman from Troy as their lead singer. For the male chorus who represents this ensemble of women, the actor and virtuoso singer who represents Andromache in singing her lament is in fact the lead singer, since the monody he sings leads into the singing and dancing of the chorus. By contrast with epic, which shows a distinction between thrēnos and góos as genres, we see no such distinction in the monody of Andromache as represented in the Andromache of Euripides. Both words thrēnos and góos refer in this monody to laments performed by women In short, the references to female lament in tragedy are in reality references to female lament only as represented by male lament. Such a representation of female lament by tragedy can be considered an act of male appropriation, which Nagy calls a masculinization of women’s lament.” With its power of direct representation, which is called mimēsis in Greek, tragedy is not only more realistic than epic in the ways it shows lament in action. It is also more deceptive since this realism makes it all the more difficult to distinguish between genres of male and female lament embedded within tragedy as a genre of all-male performance. The masculinization of women’s lament in tragedy is so realistic that it becomes barely noticeable. That is what makes tragedy in Athenian State Theater seem so threatening in Plato’s Republic (III 395d–e).The perceived threat is that men who represent the laments of women in tragedy will start to talk and think and even feel like women, not like the men they really are. In the masculinization of women’s lament, from Plato’s point of view, the danger is that men’s lament can in turn be feminized.

In brief, then, the elegy of Andromache composed by Euripides for his Andromache is exceptional in ancient Greek literature because its form represents three different but related genres: (1) lament as performed by women, (2) elegy as performed by men, and (3) threnodic elegy as performed by men who are professional singers. The representation of all three of these genres must have seemed most realistic to the audiences of Euripides, since he is ridiculed in the Frogs of Aristophanes (1301–1303) for heavy-handedly inserting what is called the thrēnos into his tragedies.

    The differences we see in these three genres stem from a basic tendency in the evolution of poetic forms in the prehistory of Greek literature. That tendency can be described as an ongoing differentiation of specialized forms of solo performance evolving out of unspecialized forms of group performance. What results is the emergence of specialized forms that exist only in solo performance, cut off from the corresponding unspecialized forms that continue to exist in group performance. To put it in terms of attested forms of performance in the fifth century BCE, a period of time that coincides with the classical phase of ancient Greek literature, solo performance becomes monodic while group performance remains choral (Nagy 1990a:85, 340–341). Almost all of the poetry we find surviving from the literature of this period has been composed exclusively either for monodic or for choral performance. An exception is tragedy, along with other dramatic forms as attested primarily in the context of Athenian State Theater in the fifth century. Within the framework of tragedy and other drama, the monodic and the choral dimensions of performance are still connected, as in the elegy of the Andromache of Euripides.