Plot : On the plains of Troy, Hector is eager to take the fight to the Greeks and burn their ships. He sends out a scout (Dolon) to see what the large number of campfires at the Greek camp means : he thinks they are getting ready to sail home. Meanwhile Rhesus of Thrace arrives with his army to support Hector, after years of delay. Initially Hector boasts that he is on the point of defeating the  Greeks without this late effort from this ally, but agrees to let Rhesus and his army take part on the battle the following day.

Odysseus and Diomedes are also out scouting the Trojan encampment. They capture Dolon and torture information from him, including the camp password. Failing to find Hector, the pair are led by Athena to Rhesus who they kill. Confusion runs through the Trojan camp, but Hector insists on going ahead with his assault on the Greeks come morning.

Nearly missed out on this play – it should have been read back in February. This time I read the Oxford University Press edition Rhesos, translated by Richard Braun (ISBN 0195020499)

My thoughts: Firstly it should be said that some scholars dispute Euripides’ authorship of this play. If he did write it, then they believe it was an earlier play than the other surviving works, and would have been written between 445 and 435 BC.

Secondly it may be incomplete or unfinished as it is relatively short and there is not the usual prologue to set the scene. Also unusual are (i) the night time setting, (ii) the on-stage fight between Odysseus and Diomedes and the Trojan sentries, and (iii) the appearance of the Goddess Athena mid-play rather than at the end where instead we have the appearance of a second immortal, one of the Muses (Rhesus’ mother) to explain matters.

Hector is very different from his portrayal in Homer’s Iliad. Here he is hot-headed and impulsive, yet easily swayed by the arguments of others, even the lowly sentries and shepherd.

Rhesus  seems a blustery coward showing up late to fight for Troy in time for a share in the spoils, with his poor excuses of delay, but The Muse reveals to us that she had warned him that answering Hector’s call would lead to his death, and his bravado masks his fear of facing this.

Odysseus is still the sly pirate as he had been seen in many of the later tragedies, but his ability to disguise himself and slip in and out of the Trojan camp and city almost at will is held in some degree of awe by the Trojans.

Favourite lines/passages:

Dolon claims the right to Achilles’ deathless horses if he succeeds in spying out the Greek camp

“When a man stakes his life on dice some God tosses, the prize should be worth more to him than life”                                                                                                                   Dolon, page 31.

And one of the Trojan soldiers yearns for the life before the war, which we know he’ll never see again…

“When will this ancient Troy again toast rowdy troops of friends and lovers

Door to door, dawn to dark?

When will the round-the-table romp of rival vintages return,

The revelers’ beakers and clashing tunes and the lovers’ singing?”      Third soldier, page 39.

Personal rating: 5. Not a bad story with some multiple storylines coming together.

Next:  So we reach the end of the works of Euripides and indeed the last of all the great Greek tragedies. As a whole they are well worth reading and considering, but I doubt I will read them again soon. On to other other areas of Greek writings, notably their philosophy and science. But first some comedy with Aristophanes and The Frogs.

Plot : The Greek armies are trapped at the seaport of Aulis, waiting for favourable winds before they can set sail for Troy to destroy the city and restore Helen to her husband Menelaus. Their prophet has announced that they will only sail if Agamemnon sacrifices his eldest daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis. Agamemnon agrees under pressure and writes to his wife Clytemnestra to send Iphigenia to Aulis, pretending that she is to be married to the great Greek warrior Achilles.

Clytemnestra and Iphigenia find out the truth once they arrive at Aulis, and Iphigenia eventually offers herself freely to be sacrificed to save her father and Greece. But even then, not all goes according to plan.

This play finishes the Penguin Classics edition Orestes and other plays (ISBN 0140442596) translated by Philip Vellacott.

My thoughts:

Back to the pre-Iliad episode where Agamemnon must sacrifice Iphigenia or the fleet wlll never reach Troy – the prologue to Iphigenia in Tauris, and the motivation for Clytemnestra’s actions in the Oresteia cycle.

The first thing that struck me was how many characters reverse their decisions about the sacrifice. Menelaus turns from villain to supportive brother in a heartbeat, Iphigenia finds the courage to offer herself willingly after the grief and horror have washed through her, Achilles backing away (at least physically) from his stand to defend Iphigenia in the face of the entire Greek army, including his own men, prepared to stone him to death if he interferes, and the most vacillating, Agamemnon, who changes his mind back and forth several times. There is no direct influence by the Gods seen in these reversals, but maybe the Greek audience took that on board without being told.

The central question is what action should King Agamemnon take. The play reveals more fully the reasons behind the whole endeavour. All the Greek leaders had been suitors for Helen, and to prevent bloodshed, her father Tyndareos had made them all swear to support the successful man if ever he should call for their help – so they are all bound on their word to help Menelaus recover Helen from Troy.  Agamemnon’s position as leader and perhaps his and his entire familiy’s lives depend on his acquiescence to sanction the sacrifice of his eldest daughter. And yet the natural love between father and child would surely make this action an insurmountable grief to bear.

If you haven’t read Iphigenia in Tauris, I won’t reveal the ending here. Suffice to say, the fleet sail for Troy almost immediately but Agamemnon and Clytemnestra (the latter was not present at the altar) part ways believing very different things have happened to Iphigenia.

Diversions/digressions: Although I get most of my volumes from the local university library where I work, I do haunt the local public library as well, and yesterday my eyes caught a small paperback title  –  Classical literature : a Pelican introduction, by Richard Jenkyns (9870141977355), which covers a broad sweep of Greek and Roman literature in brief and relatively easy to read and understand chapters. I will go back and read what he has to say on the Greek authors and works I have already covered to see what deeper themes I have missed.

Personal rating : 6

Next : I thought I had finished with Euripides but I have to confess I have missed one. The early Euripidean play Rhesos (although the authorship is disputed) from around 437 BC should have been read back in February around #34-ish. Oh well, better late than never.

Plot : The lately come God Dionysus (Bacchus), the bull-horned “spirit of revel and rapture” is angered with the people of Thebes, particularly the young King Pentheus who refuses to acknowledge or worship him, and his mother Agave and her sisters who slandered their own sister Semele and refused to believe her son Dionysus was the son of Zeus.

Dionysus drives all the Theban women mad and they run off to the mountain wilderness to dance and partake of Bacchic rituals, such as breast feeding wild animals and caressing snakes. Dionysus then appears back in human form in Thebes and first enrages Pentheus to such fits of anger that he loses his sense and is easily led (dressed in women’s clothing) to the mountains where his mother and the other women tear him to pieces with their bare hands, believing him to be a young lion.

Agave and her sisters are now banished from Thebes, along with the old King Cadmus, while Dionysus moves onto another Hellenic city to see how they treat him.

This was the last play in the Penguin classic edition The Bacchae and other plays (ISBN 0140440445) translated by Philip Vellacott.

My thoughts:

Firstly I must say how shocked and sickened the violence in this play left me. I had the idea that Bacchic rites were all wine-drinking and amorous frolicking in the woods. Even the gory dismemberment of cattle did not prepare me quite for the horrendous fate in store for Pentheus. He is described as mad by Dionysus and his Chorus of Oriental women, but until he falls under the direct spell of the God, I felt he is understandably angry and disbelieving of this new God, and is too cruelly repaid. His mother Agave is made the scapegoat of Dionysus’ revenge for her part in slandering Semele, but even poor Cadmus who was willing to recognise Dionysus is punished by being turned into a serpent and destined to lead a foreign army against his home city (figuratively a serpent – turning on his homeland – or literally transformed??)

Dionysus’ self proclaimed migration across the Asian regions to reach Thebes and then other parts of Greece personifies how I believe many scholars imagine religions to migrate from country to country.

Euripides himself left war-tired Athens to retire to the mountain region of Macedon in 407 BC, and died the following year, not seeing The Bacchae go forward to win first prize in the Dionysia festival competition of 405 BC. With Sophocles also dying in 406 BC, Greek tragedy, at least that which remains for us to read today, comes to a fairly abrupt halt,  and the spotlight will soon move away from the theatre for a while to science, history and philosophy instead. Did the defeat of Athens and the resulting brief rule of the Thirty Tyrants discourage playwrights?  Aristophanes has a few comedies left in him yet, but more serious thoughts seem to occupy the next authors.

Personal rating: 5

Next: Iphigenia in Aulis, also by Euripides