The Trojan women of Euripides

The Trojan women of Euripides

In his clear preface, Gilbert Murray says with truth that The Trojan Women, valued by the usage of the stage, is not a perfect play. "It is only the crying of one of the great wrongs of the world wrought into music." Yet it is one of the greater dramas of the elder world. In one situation, with little movement, with few figures, it flashes out a great dramatic lesson, the infinite pathos of a successful wrong. It has in it the very soul of the tragic. It even goes beyond the limited tragic, and hints that beyond the defeat may come a greater glory than will be the fortune of the victors. And thus through its pity and terror it purifies our souls to thoughts of peace. Great art has no limits of locality or time. Its tidings are timeless, and its messages are universal. The Trojan Women was first performed in 415 B.C., from a story of the siege of Troy which even then was ancient history. But the pathos of it is as modern to us as it was to the Athenians. The terrors of war have not changed in three thousand years. Euripides had that to say of war which we have to say of it to-day, and had learned that which we are even now learning, that when most triumphant it brings as much wretchedness to the victors as to the vanquished. In this play the great conquest "seems to be a great joy and is in truth a great misery." The tragedy of war has in no essential altered. The god Poseidon mourns over Troy as he might over the cities of to-day, when he cries: ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 10096
Author: Euripides, 480? BCE-406 BCE
Release Date: Nov 1, 2003
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Translator: Murray, Gilbert, 1866-1957