The End of Euripides' Andromache: Thetis Ex Machina

ENTER THETIS, EX MACHINA

Peleus’ marriage to Thetis is marked from the prologue on as something extraordinary, for the goddess while dwelling with her mortal consort avoided the crowd and lived apart from the people of Phthia (17–19). The place where she used to live bears her name and Andromache is supplicating her at her altar. In a partial distortion of the truth that aims at enlisting Peleus’ sympathy, Andromache claims that Menelaus has violently detached her from Thetis’ altar (565–567). This is one of the factors that ensure Peleus’ defense of her. In his utter despair Peleus invokes his former wife (1224–1225), who subsequently appears as the dea ex machina and restores him by renewing their marriage. As in Menelaus’ case, this marriage will be restored after a long period of time. Whereas Neoptolemus’ marriage to Hermione has destroyed him and has separated him permanently from his son, Peleus marriage to Thetis saves him by granting him immortality and reunites him with his dead son Achilles.

Recent treatments of the Andromache have advanced a ‘pious’ reading of the action which is part of a general trend against the excesses of the inherited paradigm that states Euripides was an atheist. Like some other “everyone knows” misconceptions about Euripides ( his alleged misogyny, over-use of sibilance and stichomythia, dressing his characters in shabby costumes, etc.) this can be traced to the poet’s lampooning by Aristophanes. Caricatures of Euripides as hostile to the gods thus have a long history. Like Aristophanes, modern critics generally disregard dramatic context  when citing passages that attack the gods or seem to espouse atheism.  When characters comment on the gods (regardless of author) we must consider both speaker and context. Their attitudes are elements in a dramatic situation, not factors in a theological diatribe, Tragedy, especially that of Euripides, remains essentially interrogatory, asking questions rather than supplying dramatic answers.

    How  justified is the critical urge to extort from the texts “religious beliefs” whether in audience or author?  We might state that the gods, without necessarily being the gods that the audience believes in,  are to be taken seriously as agents in the play,  acting with both power and personality. The relationship between poetic representation and everyday religious attitudes is complex. Scholars rightly insist that Greek religion was free of the dogmatism that comes with a holy text or creed, yet there was clearly a metaphysical world-constructing element to Greek religion, and it is this background which tragedy explores and challenges.

    The gods of myth, shaped by the epic tradition, had a powerful influence on Greek religious awareness. In epic the gods are portrayed as subject to rage, spite, and lust. The potential for human suffering in such a context and the conflict it generates between human and divine conceptions of justice are central to Euripides exploration of divinity. As in epic, the gods are represented as acting for reasons which men can both appraise and criticize. The perplexing and problematic actions of the gods complicates the texture of the tragic world and illuminate new aspects of human situation and character. By dramatizing a world of divine reasoning and action which is precarious and dangerous, Euripides can arouse natural feelings of fear and uncertainty. He can also show us that the human response to the unpredictable, the uncanny and sometimes horrendous actions of the gods can possess nobility.

    Humans are also free to violate religious customs but must face unforeseen divine consequences. Menelaus unambiguously violates the rights of the suppliant, stooping so low as to use her child as bait: either she leaves the sanctuary of Thetis’ altar or the child dies. When Andromache relents, Menelaus even reneges on his promise to save the child’s life, passing off responsibility to his distraught daughter for the child’s fate.

    After the reveal of the corpse of ignobly slain Neoptolemus, Peleus and the chorus engage in collective lament. This is of course the moment of deus ex machina. The divinity who appears to close the tragedy is always one appropriate to the action.  The choice of Thetis functions visually and thematically.  Her statue, significantly visible throughout the action,( cf. 115, 246)  is now joined by the goddess herself. She is both goddess and wife of the mortal Peleus. Her altar has been the focus of Andromache’s supplication, and her  personal involvement underlines  the themes of marriage and continuity of descent ( cf. 20, 1231, 1253). A deus ex machina in Euripides is never an arbitrary or “official” resolution of the conflicts in the play. The dramatic technique of having the gods sort things out at the end draws attention to what they have been up to in the rest of the play!

    The Andromache is different in that Thetis’ consolation rewards the sympathetic figures of the drama but does not make it any easier to explain the actions of Apollo in a way that is humanly satisfying.  For all the saving power of Thetis’ intervention, the play remains interrogatory: a benign deity set against a malign one does not remove our questions.The polarity of Greek and barbarian is undermined; two deities are provocatively opposed, one destructive and one benign but with less power; we see reason to question revenge as a justifiable motive for action; the roles of women are explored: as wives, mothers, and most incisively as victims of war, be they Greek or Trojan, victorious or defeated. Euripides offered his audience stimulation and interest rather than theories and ultimate views. 

Euripides' Andromache: And What About Hermione?

 And What About Hermione?

After a choral ode in praise of noble Peleus, Hermione's nurse enters to report excitedly that the young wife is trying to kill herself, both because her father has abandoned her cause and because she dreads the wrath of Neoptolemus when he hears ultimately of her earlier plot against Andromache. Hermione herself then rushes in. We discover first that Menelaus did not follow Peleus' instructions to the letter, for, although he himself is gone, he neglected to take his daughter with him. This failure to do so underlies Hermione's hysterical change of attitude: she is now bereft of protection against Neoptolemus. Why Menelaus left her in such a predicament one can only surmise. He may have been in too great a rush, or he may have felt that she was not worth the trouble (even though he did make the trip, as Andromache told us in the prologue, for the sole purpose of helping his daughter's cause). To be sure, Hermione was not his to take, but this is an ethical point which Menelaus would be more apt to cite as explanation of his actions rather than one on which he would operate. We cannot, however, forget that he has already had a rather wearying experience as a consequence of the removal of another man's wife.

 At any rate, from Hermione's viewpoint her father has thrown up her cause, and she now feels (with good reason) very much alone in the world. The nurse reports that she can scarcely be kept from hanging or stabbing herself, "so greatly does she suffer as she contemplates the evil she has done." In other words, the departure of Hermione's father has led her to reflect on her own deeds and to suffer a change of heart. Such is the nurse's interpretation. The chorus, always (it seems) ready to give Hermione benefit of doubt, supposes the same as it announces her approach: "It looks as if the poor thing is going to show us how much she laments her sins. For here she is, fled from the house and her servants' hands, and anxious for death!"!

Like the chorus, the Nurse insists on seeing people as they ought to be, not as evidence has shown that they in fact are. "Your father," she says complacently, "will not abandon you as you fear, my child, nor let you be driven from your home." It makes no difference to nurse that the father is well out of town.

As the motherly nurse is attempting to soothe Hermione, a stranger enters who turns out to be her cousin Orestes. He glibly tells the chorus that he was on his way to Dodona and thought that he would stop by to see how Cousin Hermione was enjoying married life. Orestes makes his entrance and we learn that he has been lurking around the palace spying. . Upon their questioning he reveals his name, his parentage, and tells them that he is on his way to the oracle of Zeus at Dodona. It occurred to him to stop off at Phthia and inquire after his cousin Hermione the Spartan. Is she alive and happy?

Hermione's relief pours forth at the sight of Orestes, and she falls to her knees in supplication. Orestes can scarcely recognize her (overdoing his act as we are soon to discover), but after proper identification he asks the cause of her distress. "Partly my own," Hermione replies, "partly due to the man who owns me, and partly to some god. In all respects I am ruined!" If a woman has no children, muses Orestes, her problems can center around only one person, her husband. "How perceptive you are!" the girl remarks. Orestes asks if Neoptolemus loves another instead of her, and when Hermione replies sadly that he does, the son of Agamemnon soberly repeats the now familiar remark: "That's not right, one man to have two women." Orestes gives us the dark side of championing monogamy.

He then draws out of Hermione her actions in the matter, asking if she plotted against her rival "as a woman would." Hermione affirms her part of the plot, adding that old Peleus, "honoring the cause of the riffraff," thwarted the plan. If there was any doubt about the nature of Hermione's self-recrimination, these lines dispel it. She resents Andromache's alleged complicity no less now than she did in the first episode. Her own "vice" was not the attempted murder of Andromache but rather the exposure of herself to danger. As she tells Orestes (line 920), it is Neoptolemus whom she fears; she makes no mention of other retributive forces. She acted foolishly, and she knows that she will rue her rashness when her husband returns. In her next lines, as she explains away her folly, she dwells incessantly on this female lack of judiciousness.

Andromache's and Peleus' diatribes derived in both instances from well-provoked outrage resulting from the plot development. Hermione, on the other hand, who-both preceding and following these lines-is only a step away from hysteria, suddenly gains sufficient control over her nerves to deliver a coherent and rather prissy lecture to husbands on the proper way to closet a wife. She was led to her mistake, she explains, by "evil women" who stirred her jealousy with "words of Sirens." She even classifies such women by their motives: some corrupt for personal gain, some for companionship in sinfulness, some simply because they are malicious. "So, guard your house doors well with bars and locks. For women who wander in do nothing that is healthy for the house, and much that is evil." It would be pointless to ask who these wicked women are in the dramatic context, or to note by way of objection that Neoptolemus' home is situated apart from the town and that Hermione would have had few unheralded callers of either sex. Nor can one suppose that the handmaids are reviled here (as they are at Hippolytus 645ff.) since the nurse has already shown her disapproval of Hermione's schemes, and one presumably does not lock the doors against the house's own servants. This approach is futile, for the wicked women are extra-dramatic. Hermione's mention of them, however, is not. Ever the personification of feminine behavior at its worst, she acts against the ultimate return of Neoptolemus by rehearsing her excuses. She will plead the traditional weaknesses of women.

The chorus who knows the tradition perhaps better than Hermione give us the clue. She has loosed her tongue too much, they tell her, against this "nature" of woman. This time she will be forgiven, but she must bear in mind that females rightly disguise ("embellish," "adorn") the shortcomings of their sex. Hermione's earlier hysteria was at least partly contrived, done for the benefit of Neoptolemus who would be sure to hear of it on his return. Her fears are real enough, but her nature-flighty as it may be-is prone to seek means of rescue. Thus, she ties two strings to her bow. On the one hand she works on Orestes, her immediate chance for escape; on the other she plans for an eventual meeting with Neoptolemus. The speech does not "spoil the situation" after all but effectively illustrates the intuitive talent for survival which women like Hermione possess, a spontaneous ability to extricate themselves, even if they endanger others, with tongues "more savage than serpent or fire." Orestes now begins to shed his pretenses. "His was good advice," he says, "who taught mortals to eavesdrop on their enemies. For, knowing of the confusion in this house and of the quarrel between you and Hector's widow, I stood guard and waited to see whether you would remain here or, in your fear of the slave woman, should want to get away."

So, it develops that Orestes did not happen by after all, but rather that he has been lurking about the palace, waiting for an opportunity to make an effective appearance. "I am here," he continues, "not because you bade me come, but with the intention of taking you from this house if you gave me pretext, which you do." The pretext in fact has just been indicated: Hermione has chosen to flee. But Orestes now reveals that her choice was a mere convenience: "You see, you once were promised to me and you have been living with Neoptolemus because your father is a coward. Before he ever left to attack the Trojan borders, he gave you to me as a wife, but later he promised you to him who owns you now if he would sack the city of Troy." This then is the real reason for Orestes' presence: Hermione is his! Her own plans are neither here nor there. Her eagerness to flee makes the abduction an easier matter, but it does not alter the nature of Orestes' mission in Phthia. The nephew of Menelaus continues with his story: "When Neoptolemus returned home I asked him to relinquish his right to you since you had formerly been promised to me. I brought up the misfortunes of my family and myself and explained that I might wed a woman of a related family but not very easily one from some other family, fleeing as I flee in flight from home. But he with wanton insults taunted me with the murder of my mother and the bloody Erinyes who pursue me. And I, humbled by my misfortunes, suffered-oh did I suffer!-but endured it in my misery, and reluctantly went off without you as my wife. So now that you find your fortunes reversed, and are lost in your present predicament, I shall take you home and put you into your father's hands." Hermione has no time for such matters as family promises. She sees in Orestes only a means of removal from Neoptolemus' house, and she urges him to hurry lest her husband or Peleus anticipate their departure. But Orestes has not finished. His most chilling speech is yet to come. He comforts the girl and tells her to fear neither Peleus nor Neoptolemus.

Neoptolemus is about to fall into a trap of death for his insult to Orestes. "I, the matricide Orestes, if my spear-friends at Delphi abide by their oaths, will show that no one marries a woman who is rightfully mine!" Then, shifting abruptly, Orestes states that it is because of Apollo's anger that Neoptolemus will die: "With bitter success will he demand satisfaction of Phoebus Apollo for his father's death! Not even a change of heart shall help him, if now he is. offering the god propitiation." Once more Orestes reverts to his own hatred and schemes: "Rather, in consequence of Apollo and of charges spread by me, he shall evilly die and know my enmity!" Finally, he returns again to Apollo: "For the god topples the fortunes of his mortal enemies nor tolerates their presumptions!" The fate of Neoptolemus is to be a combined result of the mortal revenge of Orestes and the divine wrath of Apollo. What, as the chorus soon asks (line 1036), are we to believe? Orestes has obviously concocted a plan by which Neoptolemus will be (or has been) murdered at Delphi. The plan is on a large scale, involving slander and the help of Orestes' "friends of the spear." This is a case of sheer murder which could take place anywhere. Need we ask then why Orestes implicates the god? He is not trying to pass the blame for the slaying, for with every second breath he credits himself with all the machinery of the plot. He believes, quite obviously, that he is fulfilling the god's wish by killing the son of Achilles. He is acting as an agent of Apollo, a self-styled agent who looks upon Neoptolemus' death as a simultaneous double-slaying by god and man.

Those who dismiss the characters of the Andromache as either two-dimensional purveyors of Spartan wickedness or their over innocent victims fail to explain by such treatment this appearance of Orestes. His part is small, true, but his behavior is startling: he leaves the chorus in a state of shocked confusion from which they will not again recover. The motivation behind his words and actions is nothing short of puzzling, both to the chorus and to us. Tearfully Hermione explains matters to him and begs him to escort her safely back to her father's home before Neoptolemus returns. Orestes reveals that he has come just for that purpose, to take her away, for she was originally promised to him; further, that Neoptolemus will never leave Delphi alive, thanks to a combination of Orestes' plotting and Apollo's wrath. They go off, and, after the next choral stasimon, Peleus returns to verify the news of Hermione's departure.

The entrance of Hermione’s Nurse changed the pace and perspective of the play yet again. Like the Nurses in Medea and Hippolytus, Euripides has this nurse report the emotional turmoil of her mistress, but in this case, not uncritically as the older servant woman does not understand the violent change of mind Hermione is about to display. “Well, my friends, I’m exhausted from keeping my mistress away from the noose.” The Nurse ’s request that the chorus should enter the house, (817-19)  an atypical act,  centers our attention on the skene door from which Hermione now enters (825). Hermione’s panic and hysteria are communicated visually and aurally, she tosses her veil from her head,  tears at her hair,  face and clothes, and sings in dochmaics (the Nurse did not report that) the most impassioned and agitated of lyric meters, while the Nurse replies in reasonable iambic trimeters. With direct reference to her previous scene, Hermione now tears at the elaborate costume she had put on to shame her rival; she is no longer dressed to kill.

Hermione’s extravagant gestures of grief  disrupt the pathos of the scene.  Yet the imagery of her lament  creates significant connections and contrasts between the different parts of the play. Her sudden change of heart is in response to sudden changes in her status when she is abandoned by her father Menelaus. Further exploration of Hermione’s weaknesses also sets up the entrance of the manipulative Orestes. The shallowness of Hermione’s regret complicates our sympathy. Her departure with Orestes, who confesses that he is plotting her husband’s murder, further complicates our response to her despair and terror.

Euripides' Andromache: ENTER PELEUS

Peleus enters from Pharsalus. His arrival has been prepared (79-91) but long enough ago and in doubtful enough terms to be a surprise now. He has arrived in the nick of time, since Menelaus is on the point of killing Andromache (547). It is repeatedly stressed that he is extremely old, but he orders “Lead me faster!”  It would be an effective  dramatic connection if the attendant who leads him were the same slave-woman whom Andromache sent to alert him. There follows an agon between Peleus and Menelaus, in which the Spartan is bested and defeated.  Peleus begins with a series of indignant questions, including “what’s this? (Ti tauta) a colloquialism, one of several that contribute to the portrayal of Peleus as abrupt and excitable.

Then, at 577-80 Peleus forbids the execution and commands the servants to release her.   Orders given to mutes on stage seem normally to have been carried out immediately, but these attendants here are given diametrically opposed orders and accordingly do nothing! Peleus eventually dismisses them (715) and frees Andromache himself.  

Andromache is suppliant, reaching out her fettered arms as far as she can, a stroke of pathos very characteristic of Euripides.  (573 χειραι ) She remains kneeling until  717.  The dramatic moment of Andromache’s release from her bonds,  which marks the defeat of Menelaus’ plans, is made more vivid by the  dense sequence of symbolic stage action, in which Peleus drives off Menelaus’ retinue,  unties Andromache, summons the child to help, and berates Menelaus for his cowardice.

Menelaus, scion of a Greek first family, he cannot believe that Peleus, member of a similar line, would ever side against him with a barbarian slave whom in the name of decency he ought long ago to have chased far from the land and beyond the Nile. Accordingly, he remonstrates with Peleus, mildly and with a patronizing tone (645-690). "Let's be reasonable. This woman's children might grow up to become rulers-of Greeks!" The thought should horrify Peleus as it does Menelaus. When he sees that it does not, he sighs: "Ah, you are old, you are old," and proceeds to set the old man straight on the matter of Helen and the debacle at Troy. "It was the gods," he explains, "who involved my wife in her 'difficulties,' but it did turn out well for the Greeks. They discovered war and companionship in battle, from which, you know, 'men learn all things: Furthermore, it was self-control which kept me from slaying my wife when I found her, which is more than I can say of you when you killed your brother Phocus:' He ends by pointing out the good nature with which he has replied to Peleus and counsels the older man to follow his lead. But Peleus has not been chastened. Menelaus' remarks on war ring unpleasantly in his ears.

                In his next speech (693-726) Peleus gives his own opinions on this great "teacher," opinions which for the third time suggest the intrusion of the playwright. What is war to the Greeks? The rank and file do the work, the generals get the glory. Menelaus and Agamemnon, swollen with pride after Troy, derived their fame from the toil and misery of thousands of others cleverer than they. The democrat's view of an army is quite in tune with this drama wherein vicious leaders vie with talented slaves. As we look back over the characters, we note how virtue increases as status wanes. Peleus, in fact, is the first "free" person to display any commendable qualities at all, and he is here, as earlier at 639- 641, a benevolent spokesman for the common folk. He disdains further conversation with Menelaus.

After ordering him once again to depart and to take his "barren heifer" of a daughter with him, the old king turns his complete attention to Andromache. Fumbling, and with clucks of disgust, he finally unties the poor woman's ropes, while the chorus notes his irascible pertinacity. Menelaus has stood by in silent defeat, perhaps thinking out a plan by which he can make a graceful exit. He has no choice but to leave, yet he cannot admit that he has been bettered. He must state explicitly some reason for going if he is to keep face, a reason, that is, other than the true one, Peleus' palpable victory. "It was to oppose violence that I came to Phthia," he begins, speaking to no one, and adding with marvelous pomposity: "and I shall neither commit nor endure any nonsense!" As he speaks, a good excuse comes to mind: he was planning to leave all along. He is a busy general, after all. Why, right at the present time there is-a city, yes, that's it! a city, near Sparta, once friendly but now hostile. It's imperative that he go reduce it at once! When matters are once again under control at home, however, he will return and confront Neoptolemus himself on this matter. He takes a final stab at Peleus: "You are but an opposing shadow with a voice, powerless to do anything but chatter." This is not only petty and obviously untrue, but not even original, for it echoes Peleus' own succinct estimate of Menelaus at line 641: "As for you, you are nothing!"

Menelaus left only because of Peleus' unquestioned superior position as commander of the local armed forces. But is this the impression which the scene is supposed to leave? Is Peleus really drawn as a pathetic and effete old man who achieves his end not, as he thinks, because he is brave but only because he happens to have the army on his side? Is this not perhaps a pitfall for those who recall the characterizations of Amphitryon in the Heracles and of lolaus in the Heraclidae? There is nothing unduly "touching" about Peleus. He stands in such extreme contrast with those who have preceded him on the stage, and his arrival is so welcome, his attitudes so refreshing, that we may tend to "love" him more than he deserves. His virtues are those of courage, determination, and a resolute feeling for justice. They should win our serious respect before our affection, as they won the respect of the chorus. The episode opened on a woman and her child about to be murdered by an evil, interfering general. It closed with the general in hasty retreat, the woman and child freed from their predicament. One old man accomplished this turn of events with nothing more than bold words, the conviction of wisdom and justice, and a brandished stick. He accomplished it only because he was courageous and the general was a coward.

Thus, virtue momentarily has triumphed. The conflict developed in the first scenes of the play has to some degree been resolved. What will happen next? wonders the audience. Menelaus may go through with his threat to return and see the plan of murder to its fulfillment. Where is Hermione? She may have left with her father as Peleus angrily demanded, or she may still be in the palace hatching new plots in her jealous mind. Neoptolemus too has yet to make an appearance. So much is left undeveloped or untold: the play has by no means ended.

NEXT- And what about Hermione?