Self-Referential Choral Projection in Euripides' Hecuba

 

The members of the chorus of Hecuba are Trojan captured women after the city’s defeat. In the first stasimon (444-483) they lament their misfortune and, while thinking about their impending exile, mention by name the places in which they could probably take refuge. Having referred to the Greek regions of Doris and Phthia (450-451), in the first antistrophe (455-465) they wonder if it would be better to arrive on Delos, the sacred island where Apollo and Artemis had been born:

“Or to an island home, sped on my way in grief by an oar plied in the brine, to spend a life of misery in the house, there where the date palm, first of all its line, and the laurel tree sent up their holy shoots as an adornment dear to Leto to grace the birth of her children by Zeus? Shall I with the maidens of Delos sing in praise of the golden headband and bow of the goddess Artemis?”

In particular, they refer to the famous palm of the island, beside which Leto gave birth to her twins (458-461). Strikingly the women refer to the choruses of Delian maidens12 (462-465) who praise Artemis as the goddess of the Bow. To be exact, the Trojan women express their desire to take part in the cultic hymn performed by the virgins for Artemis. But, as the performance would involve songs as well as dances (εὐλογήσω, 465) for the goddess, the wish of the chorus generates an imaginative khoreia, being projected to the chorus of the Delian Maidens; and set in a named place (on sacred Delos), though in an undefined future time. In fact, the desire of the Trojan women is an antidote to their inevitable exile, because the eternity of Artemis’ rituals on Delos, with the peaceful holy atmosphere of the island and the euphoria of the choruses dancing for the goddess, could be the balm for the sufferings of the women. Here, the word ἄγαλμα (461), aptly placed, characterizes the ancient (prōtogonos, 458) laurel of Delos. This word implies a subtle comparison between the sufferings of the Trojan women and the labors of Leto; that is, in the same place where a goddess was granted her desired release, the desperate women of Troy envisage the relief from exile from their beloved homeland. Immediately afterwards, in the second strophe (466-474), the chorus considers the possibility of coming to Athens in order to meet the maidens of Pallas Athena at her festival:

“Or shall I after all in the city of Pallas embroider in Athena’s saffron-colored gown with threads of flowered hue the yoking of her lovely chariot-mares or the race of Titans, which Zeus, Cronus’ son, laid low with his thunderbolts of double flame?”

Obviously, a new choral projection is generated, this time to the Panathenaea; but the Panathenaea were one of the Athenian festivals, as were the Great Dionysia, too. As, then, the space of the new khoreia is transferred from Delos to Athens, the vague future of the dramatic event overlaps with the here and now of the city’s festivity, even as the tragic chorus of Hecuba performs its own khoreia in the orchestra of the State Theater of Dionysus. The poet self-consciously creates alternate images of these off-stage, more or less distant choruses, representing them as desirable reflections of the chorus in the orchestra. The timeless dimension of the worship of other gods (apart from Dionysus), distinguishable by its ritual content, offers the Trojan women an escape from their captivity. In fact, these few moments of happiness last only as long as the orchestra’s khoreia that produces them. In their imagined world, however, time stops and, thus, through the power of eternity, the desired resolution of the catastrophe is accomplished. The dramatic events, of course, will be different. The Trojan women well know that expulsion will only save them from death. Hence, they recall their real condition in the second antistrophe: Troy’s defeat, the destruction of the city and their own captivity (475-483).