speculation, were very famous in antiquity. And dramatically they are
most important. All through the play Hecuba is a woman of remarkable
intellectual power and of fearless thought. She does not definitely deny
the existence of the Olympian gods, like some characters in Euripides,
but she treats them as beings that have betrayed her, and whose name she
scarcely deigns to speak. It is the very godlessness of Hecuba's
fortitude that makes it so terrible and, properly regarded, so noble.
(Cf. p. 35 "Why call on things so weak?" and p. 74 "They know, they
know....") Such Gods were as a matter of fact the moral inferiors of
good men, and Euripides will never blind his eyes to their inferiority.
And as soon as people see that their god is bad, they tend to cease
believing in his existence at all. (Hecuba's answer to Helen is not
inconsistent with this, it is only less characteristic.)
Behind this Olympian system, however, there is a possibility of some
real Providence or impersonal Governance of the world, to which here,
for a moment, Hecuba makes a passionate approach. If there is _any_
explanation, _any_ justice, even in the form of mere punishment of the
wicked, she will be content and give worship! But it seems that there is
not. Then at last there remains--what most but not all modern
freethinkers would probably have begun to doubt at the very
beginning--the world of the departed, the spirits of the dead, who are
true, and in their dim way love her still (p. 71 "Thy father far away
shall comfort thee," and the last scene of the play).
This last religion, faint and shattered by doubt as it is, represents a
return to the most primitive "Pelasgian" beliefs, a worship of the Dead
which existed long before the Olympian system, and has long outlived it.
[38] The fire-brand's image.]--Hecuba, just before Paris' birth, dreamed
that she gave birth to a fire-brand. The prophets therefore advised that
the babe should be killed; but Priam disobeyed them.
[39] Three Crowns of Life.]--On the Judgment of Paris see Miss Harrison,
_Prolegomena_. pp. 292 ff. Late writers degrade the story into a beauty
contest between three thoroughly personal goddesses--and a contest
complicated by bribery. But originally the Judgment is rather a Choice
between three possible lives, like the Choice of Heracles between Work
and Idleness. The elements of the choice vary in different versions: but
in general Hera is royalty; Athena is prowess in war or personal merit;
Aphrodite, of course, is love. And the goddesses are not really to be
distinguished from the gifts they bring. They are what they give, and
nothing more. Cf. the wonderful lyric _Androm_. 274 ff., where they come
to "a young man walking to and fro alone, in an empty hut in the
firelight."
There is an extraordinary effect in Helen herself _being_ one of the
Crowns of Life--a fair equivalent for the throne of the world.
[40] Alexander ... Paris.]--Two plays on words in the Greek.
[41] The old Gate-Warden.]--He and the Watchers are, of course, safely
dead. But on the general lines of the tradition it may well be that
Helen is speaking the truth. She loved both Menelaus and Paris; and,
according to some versions, hated Dêiphobus, the Trojan prince who
seized her after Paris' death. There is a reference to Dêiphobus in the
MSS. of the play here, but I follow Wilamowitz in thinking it spurious.
[42] Chorus.]--On the Trojan Zeus see above, on p. 11. Mount Ida caught
the rays of the rising sun in some special manner and distributed them
to the rest of the world; and in this gleam of heavenly fire the God had
his dwelling, which is now the brighter for the flames of his City going
up like incense!
Nothing definite is known of the Golden Images and the Moon-Feasts.
[43] Towers of the Giants.]--The pre-historic castles of Tiryns and
Mycênae.
[44] May Helen be there.]--(Cf. above.) Pitanê was one of the five
divisions of Sparta. Athena had a "Bronzen House" on the acropolis of
Sparta. Simoïs, of course, the river of Troy.
[45] I make thee whole.]--Here as elsewhere Hecuba fluctuates between
fidelity to the oldest and most instinctive religion, and a rejection of
all Gods.
[46] Lo, I have seen the open hand of God.]--The text is, perhaps,
imperfect here; but Professor Wilamowitz agrees with me that Hecuba has
seen something like a vision. The meaning of this speech is of the
utmost importance. It expresses the inmost theme of the whole play, a
search for an answer to the injustice of suffering in the very splendour
and beauty of suffering. Of course it must be suffering of a particular
kind, or, what comes to the same thing, suffering borne in a particular
way; but in that case the answer seems to me to hold. One does not
really think the world evil because there are martyrs or heroes in it.
For them the elements of beauty which exist in any great trial of the
spirit become so great as to overpower the evil that created them--to
turn it from shame and misery into tragedy. Of course to most sufferers,
to children and animals and weak people, or those without inspiration,
the doctrine brings no help. It is a thing invented by a poet for
himself.
[47] Thou of the Ages.]--The Phrygian All-Father, identified with Zeus,
son of Kronos. (Cf. on p. 11.)
[48] Now hast thou found thy prayer.]--The Gods have deserted her, but
she has still the dead. (Cf. above, on p. 71.)
[49] Forth to the dark Greek ships.]--Curiously like another magnificent
ending of a great poem, that of the _Chanson de Roland_, where
Charlemagne is called forth on a fresh quest:
"Deus," dist li Reis, "si penuse est ma vie!"
Pluret des oilz, sa barbe blanche tiret....
End of Project Gutenberg's The Trojan women of Euripides, by Euripides