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Tag Archives: Euripides

Some Notes What a Narrative “Means” (with Help From Euripides)

15 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Hermeneutics, Literature, Uncategorized

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Euripides, Greek Poetry, Hecuba, hermeneutics, Meaning, Narrative

Hecuba and Polyxena by Merry-Joseph Blondell

We can understand what a work of nonfiction “means”: the words in the text refer to some objective (typically) event in the physical world. A book on President Grant refers back to the life of President Grant.

When it comes to non-fiction, the question of “meaning” because more difficult: A play or poem or story does not express “meaning” in the same manner. Sometimes the “meaning” of a text is merely the entertainment the text provides.

Another type of “meaning” comes from a text which seeks to bring the reader to a new understanding of the world. There are always exceptions, but typically “bad” writing tells the reader plainly what to think. Most writers who attempt this work may try to “show and not tell” the reader what to think will handle it poorly.

But when a towering master performs this work it is a thing of beauty.  The effectiveness of the meaning comes from its ability to speak and persuade. Here is an example of brilliance in Euripides’ play Hecuba.

It would be easy to get lost in the names, so I’ll do my best to be clear.

The first thing you must know, is that the original audience for Euripides play were Greeks. The play itself concern the exploits of the great heroes and the great war of Greek of imagination: In the dim past the Greeks came to war against City of Troy as revenge for taking Helen from a Greek king. (How and why this took place is another story.)

You need to know that this story would be the equivalent of the Revolution and the Civil War and the World Wars all rolled into one. The men in this story are more than just George Washington or Abraham Lincoln; they are heroes, mythic figures, nearly divine.

The story Hecuba begins after the Greeks have sacked Troy. The king of Troy had sent his son to another kingdom with a treasure to keep him safe should Troy fall. Yet when the king of Thrace heard that Troy fell, he murdered his friend’s son to take the gold and treasure. The play beings with the ghost of the son telling what had happened to him, washed up on the shore, unburied (a horror to the Greeks).

Hecuba was the queen of Troy, now reduced to slavery is the moral and emotional center of the story. The audience hears from her what it is to be reduced and enslaved and in fear for her family. The natural sympathy of the story is thus skillfully built-up throw the eyes of the enemy in the greatest war in Greek history.

The tension increases when the ghost of Achilles appears above his tomb and demands the sacrifice of Hebuca’s daughter, the princess of Troy, Polyxena. It would be hard to overstate the greatness of Achilles in Greek imagination: Alexandra the Great thought himself in some way the second Achilles.

Thus, their greatest hero demanded the murder of an enslaved princess.

The message that Polyxena would be killed was brought to Hecuba by Odysseus. Again the space for Odysseus is difficult to explain. He is the hero of the second-half of the Greek “Bible” (if you will), the Odyssey. He is an arch-type of all Western Culture.

The tension is raised here, because Hecuba had spared Odysseus’s life during the time of the war. He is depicted as a groveling, dishonest, manipulative man who said anything just to stay alive. As he puts it, “Word-words full many I  found to escape death.”

It is this groveling, ungrateful wretch who is the hero of the Greeks seeking the murder of a young woman to appease the ghost of an even greater hero.

As we hear this scene, it comes to us through the perspective of Hecuba: the woman who home has been destroyed by an invading army, who family has been destroyed now sees a liar come to drag her daughter off to murder.

At this point, Euripides has made the enemies of Greek imagination sympathetic, and the heroes of Greek thought wretched and vicious.

The punch-line of this scene comes when Odysseus calls Hecuba a “Barbarian” (the height of Greek insults), because she is unwilling to pay homage to the dead.

Upon this insult, the Chorus, who are the moral conscience of the play respond, “Woe What a curse is thralldom’s nature.” Hecuba and Polyxena are “enduring wrong” and are “overborne” by the “strong constraint” of their captors.

Euripides didn’t say in blunt terms, destroying kingdoms, stealing women and sacrificing captives to barbaric.

Rather, by giving voice to the pain and fear of the “enemy” and showing the callous barbarism of the “heroes” he more effectively overturns a cheap chauvinism in his audience.

The “meaning” of the text is not some bare proposition (killing other human beings is generally bad).  Rather, the meaning is reversal of expectation the shock of heroes failing, the sorrow for the enemy. The meaning of the story is the transformation of perspective. 

One could repeat a proposition and even understand it’s cognitive content without being transformed. But cry for the enemy and feel shock for the hero is different than the bare proposition.  One can know and not be changed; but that would not be the “meaning” of this play. The meaning is the movement of the human heart.

 

Euripides, Hebuca.2

04 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by memoirandremains in Greek, Greek Translation, Uncategorized

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Euripides, Greek Translation, Hebuca, poem, Poetry

Lines 11-20

My father quietly sent a fortune

In gold with me, that should the Illian wall

Crash down, those living would not lack for life.

I was the youngest son of Priam’s house

And he sent me secretly from the land.

Of course, I did not carry any arms

Not even a lance, so young were my arms.

For as long as the boundaries stood secure,

The Towers of Troy upright and unshattered,

And Hector my brother’s spear saw good luck,

Then that man, my father’s Thracian friend,

Well cared for me, so I raised up like a tree.

 

πολὺν δὲ σὺν ἐμοὶ χρυσὸν ἐκπέμπει λάθρᾳ

πατήρ, ἵνʼ, εἴ ποτʼ Ἰλίου τείχη πέσοι,

τοῖς ζῶσιν εἴη παισὶ μὴ σπάνις βίου.

νεώτατος δʼ ἦ Πριαμιδῶν, ὃ καί με γῆς

ὑπεξέπεμψεν· οὔτε γὰρ φέρειν ὅπλα

[15] οὔτʼ ἔγχος οἷός τʼ ἦ νέῳ βραχίονι.

ἕως μὲν οὖν γῆς ὄρθʼ ἔκειθʼ ὁρίσματα

πύργοι τʼ ἄθραυστοι Τρωικῆς ἦσαν χθονὸς

Ἕκτωρ τʼ ἀδελφὸς οὑμὸς εὐτύχει δορί,

καλῶς παρʼ ἀνδρὶ Θρῃκὶ πατρῴῳ ξένῳ

[20] τροφαῖσιν ὥς τις πτόρθος ηὐξόμην, τάλας·

 

Euripides, Euripidis Fabulae, Ed. Gilbert Murray, Vol. 1, ed. Gilbert Murray (Medford, MA: Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1902).

 

 

Euripides, Hecuba.1

02 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by memoirandremains in Greek, Greek Translation, Uncategorized

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Euripides, Greek, Greek Translation, Hecuba, poem, Poetry

Here is the first lines of Polydorus’ introduction to the play Hecuba.

Polydorus

I have come, leaving the depths of the dead,

From the Dark Gates, where Hades dwells apart

From other gods. I am Polydorus

The son of Hecuba, of Cisseus;

Priam my father. After Priam feared

That danger from the Hellenes spear would fall

Upon the Phrygian City of Troy,

He secretly sent me from our land

To the home of his Thracian guest-friend

Polymenstor, who farms Chersone’s fair plain

And rules a horse-loving people by spear.

 

Πολυδώρου εἴδωλον

Ἥκω νεκρῶν κευθμῶνα καὶ σκότου πύλας

λιπών, ἵνʼ Ἅιδης χωρὶς ᾤκισται θεῶν,

Πολύδωρος, Ἑκάβης παῖς γεγὼς τῆς Κισσέως

Πριάμου τε πατρός, ὅς μʼ, ἐπεὶ Φρυγῶν πόλιν

[5] κίνδυνος ἔσχε δορὶ πεσεῖν Ἑλληνικῷ,

δείσας ὑπεξέπεμψε Τρωικῆς χθονὸς

Πολυμήστορος πρὸς δῶμα Θρῃκίου ξένου,

ὃς τήν<δʼ> ἀρίστην Χερσονησίαν πλάκα

σπείρει, φίλιππον λαὸν εὐθύνων δορί.

 

Euripides, Euripidis Fabulae, Ed. Gilbert Murray, Vol. 1, ed. Gilbert Murray (Medford, MA: Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1902).

 

 

Iphigenia in Aulis (Euripides)

25 Saturday Feb 2017

Posted by memoirandremains in Greek, Greek Translation, Uncategorized

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Euripides, Greek Translation, poem, Poetry

In this scene, the slave of Agamemnon is carrying a letter which could jeopardize the progress of the Greek armed trip against Troy (it is to stop the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter to satisfy Artemis). Menelaus, the husband of Helen, and thus the one who most personally desires the war against Troy, stops the slave and tries to take the letter away from him.

It is interesting how strong the slave stands against a king in this short scene. The original Greek is set forth below the translation. As the original is verse, I worked the translation out as blank verse. I have tried to maintain some of the wordplay of Euripides.

 

Slave:

Menelaus, dang’rously you dare

Such things as you should never dare.

 

Menelaus

Back off: you’re far too loyal to your lord.

 

Slave:

Honor for me by your spite to be despised

 

Menelaus:

Tears for you if you do such things as you

Should never do.

 

Slave:

                                    It’s not for you to pry

Into this message which here I bear.

 

Menelaus:

Nor you to bear this evil for the Greeks.

 

Slave:

Others will contend about these things

But you, release this scroll to me.

 

Menelaus:

I will never move.

 

Slave:

                                    I will never go.

 

Menelaus:

Well then, my scepter soon will bleed your crown.

 

Slave:

What fame to die in service of my lord.

 

Menelaus:

Such big words for such a slave to spout –move!

 

Slave:

O Master, we shall be defamed — the letter!

By violence torn, without the will of right,

From out my very hand, Agamemnon.

 

 

Πρεσβύτης

Μενέλαε, τολμᾷς δείνʼ, ἅ σʼ ουʼ τολμᾶν χρεών.

Μενέλαος

ἄπελθε· λίαν δεσπόταισι πιστὸς εἶ.

Πρεσβύτης

[305] καλόν γέ μοι τοὔνειδος ἐξωνείδισας.

Μενέλαος

κλαίοις ἄν, ειʼ πράσσοις ἃ μὴ πράσσειν σε δεῖ.

Πρεσβύτης

ουʼ χρῆν σε λῦσαι δέλτον, ἣν ἐγὼ ʼφερον.

Μενέλαος

οὐδέ γε φέρειν σὲ πᾶσιν Ἕλλησιν κακά.

Πρεσβύτης

ἄλλοις ἁμιλλῶ ταῦτʼ· ἄφες δὲ τήνδʼ ἐμοί.

Μενέλαος

[310] οὐκ ἂν μεθείμην.

Πρεσβύτης

οὐδʼ ἔγωγʼ ἀφήσομαι.

Μενέλαος

σκήπτρῳ τάχʼ ἆρα σὸν καθαιμάξω κάρα.

Πρεσβύτης

ἀλλʼ εὐκλεές τοι δεσποτῶν θνῄσκειν ὕπερ.

Μενέλαος

μέθες· μακροὺς δὲ δοῦλος ὢν λέγεις λόγους.

Πρεσβύτης

ὦ δέσποτʼ, ἀδικούμεσθα. σὰς δʼ ἐπιστολὰς

[315] ἐξαρπάσας ὅδʼ ἐκ χερῶν ἐμῶν βίᾳ,

Ἀγάμεμνον, οὐδὲν τῇ δίκῃ χρῆσθαι θέλει.

 

Euripides, Euripidis Fabulae, Ed. Gilbert Murray, Vol. 3, ed. Gilbert Murray (Medford, MA: Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1913).

Plutarch’s Marriage Advice, Section 40: Do Not Listen to Slanderers

13 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Uncategorized

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Andromache, conjugalia praecepta, Euripides, Granville Sharp Rule, Greek Grammar, Philip, Plutarch, Plutarch Moralia, Plutarch translation, Plutarch's Marriage Advice, Slander, Whisperers

The previous post in this series may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2014/05/10/plutarchs-marriage-advice-section-39-protecting-the-bed/

 Hermione seems to speak the truth when she says,

My destruction came through evil women

Yet, it does not come about quite this simply. It happens when fights and jealousies with her husband opens her door – and not only her door, but her ears to such women.  It is then – especially when things are difficult – that the wife must close up her ears and guard against these whisperers; otherwise, fire will be heaped upon fire. Before this happens, she needs to remember a saying of Philip: For when his friends were provoking him against the Greeks on the ground that he was good them but they were speaking evil of him, he said, “What would happen if I were to do them evil?”

Thus, when the slanderers say to a wife, “Your husband is hurting such a loving and virtuous wife!” she should return, “What would happen if I were to begin to hate and mistreat him?”

 

Greek Text and Notes:

Continue reading →

Plutarch’s Marriage Advice, Section 38: Passions and Quarrels

10 Saturday May 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Greek, New Testament Background, Plutarch

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Affections, Conj, Emotion, emotions, Euripides, Passions, Plutarch, Plutarch Moralia, Plutarch translation, Plutarch's Marriage Advice

The previous post in this series may be found here: http://wp.me/p1S7fR-241

Euripides was right to correct those who add the lyre to wine. It’s best to call for music when someone is a passion or depression, not merely as an added pleasure to pleasures.

You should consider it a fault for two to lie down together solely for pleasure and then live apart just because one of them is angry.

Especially at such times they shall call upon Aphrodite; she is the best the physician for their trouble. Doesn’t even the Poet write of Hera

I will free them from their angry quarrel

And lead them in love to their marriage bed.

Greek Text and Notes:  Continue reading →

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