2022 Classics For Everyone Prize Essay

Over the last two years, many of the pillars upon which we construct our idea of modernity have collapsed. A devastating pandemic has found its way inside every community on Earth, prior and new conflicts have disrupted global peace and security, and we are increasingly finding ourselves powerless in response to our rapidly changing climate. While these are certainly some of the most difficult and important challenges of our lifetimes, they also remind us that the human experience has endured and overcome many similar adversities through the centuries. Because of this, many classical texts have become uncomfortably contemporary to modern ears. Among them, few speak more clearly to our present day than The Trojan Women of Euripides.

As with nearly all ancient literature, it is impossible to contextualize The Trojan Women as well as we would like to. For decades it had been believed that the war-conscious play was written in response to the brutal sack, massacre, and enslavement of the people of Melos, a small and neutral island in the Aegean by the Athenians, an act of barbarous aggression only too familiar today. While modern scholarship has challenged and altered those older readings, the play nevertheless presents the horrors of war and suffering in a compelling, personal, and authentic manner. In particular, the play focuses on those who often suffer most in conflicts: the innocent and vulnerable. The narrative follows the outcomes of multiple Trojan women namely Hecuba, Andromache, Cassandra, and Helen after the sack of Troy and their eventual enslavement to various Greek commanders. In a climax of brutality, the play also recounts the death of the infant Trojan prince Astyanax at the hands of the Greeks. Even though the play is set in the age of heroes, the story is conspicuously devoid of them, and the few instances of male military leaders are always presented in an oppressive and negative light. In doing so Euripides reminds us that behind any false glamour, there is also a dark and ugly side to violence.

In all honesty, The Trojan Women should not be applicable today. In a myriad of ways humanity has learned and strove for better over the past twenty-four centuries, and therefore, it seems absurd that we should still be fighting each other. The play’s critiques of violence and its emphasis on the plight of the oppressed should have become long banal truths. Instead, the frequent modern productions of the play indicate that it has become more important and revealing for our time than ever. We have entered into uncertain and unnerving times as progress and resolution seem increasingly far off. Within this environment, The Trojan Women may not give us any concrete answers or assurances, but it does give us a powerful framework for how to respond to our changing world. 

Within The Trojan Women, the reader is constantly reminded that there are multiple perspectives in life. For audiences ancient and modern who would have been reared on the Iliad of Homer, a poem focused primarily on the male heroes of the Trojan War and their martial prowess, The Trojan Women presents a powerful contrast to a "might makes right" mentality. We can see that the culmination of such violent rhetoric, strenuous effort, and fierce fighting is the wholesale slaughter of a city and the suffering of its surviving inhabitants. Whether or not this play was influenced by a real-life act of violence, it nevertheless mirrors human conflict and loss. It is a powerful representation of the consequences of violence and a passionate plea to consider the circumstances of the victims in choices. The gravity of the play can inform how we respond to our own community and environment and it reminds us to consider the consequences and potential victims of any action. The Trojan Women can therefore serve as an important ethical foundation in every facet of human society.

I think it is fitting to conclude with a translation from The Trojan Women (lines 1185-1202). In this scene, Hecuba has just seen the corpse of her infant grandson Astyanax, and despite being overcome with hardships, she chooses to respond with compassion, not hatred:

Now no longer will children bury their elders, but elders their children

in elaborate funerals, aged and bereft of their home and family.

Alas, those countless embraces, my sweet nourishments,

And those shared nights are all lost. What could a

poet write upon your tomb? The Argives out of fear

slaughtered this boy – a shameless stain on Hellas.

Alas child you will not follow in your father’s steps

But his shield will follow you into the tomb.

O lovely shield that protected the arms of Hector,

Now deprived of your most excellent protector.

How sweet is his imprint within its handle,

And his sweat drops around the edges of the wood.

Which often fell from Hector’s brow during battle.

Bring forth and provide any ornaments for the

Sorrowful corpse from whatever you have left

For fortune gives us no pleasant offerings, but

Make use of these few possessions which I still own.