Farewell, Dear City

No gleam of light relieves the gloom of Euripides’ Trojan Women, written in 416 B.C. when Athens was involved in yet another round of wars. Euripides may well not have believed in the all-pervasive influence of divinities though, as was customary, he began his play with a brief discourse between two gods, Poseidon and Athene. His drama clearly laid the blame for Troy’s ruin in the laps of men—and women.

Edith Hamilton’s beautiful translation provides the text for Michael Cacoyannis’ new film of Euripides’ classic. The gods are gone; Cacoyannis concentrates on the humans’ culpability, their literally godforsaken despair. Opening in shadow, with the soldiers of Greece driving the women of Troy from their beloved city, the film freezes at several points to state the historical background concisely in a few paragraphs superimposed on grainy still photographs. Then at daybreak Hecuba, widowed queen of Troy’s King Priam, rises slowly from the ground. “The ways of fate are the ways of the wind,” she moans, slowly coming to her senses as the other widowed, childless women of Troy rally around her.

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David Brudnoy

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No gleam of light relieves the gloom of Euripides’ Trojan Women, written in 416 B.C. when Athens was involved in yet another round of wars. Euripides may well not have believed in the all-pervasive influence of divinities though, as was customary, he began his play with a brief discourse between two gods, Poseidon and Athene. His drama clearly laid the blame for Troy’s ruin in the laps of men—and women.

Edith Hamilton’s beautiful translation provides the text for Michael Cacoyannis’ new film of Euripides’ classic. The gods are gone; Cacoyannis concentrates on the humans’ culpability, their literally godforsaken despair. Opening in shadow, with the soldiers of Greece driving the women of Troy from their beloved city, the film freezes at several points to state the historical background concisely in a few paragraphs superimposed on grainy still photographs. Then at daybreak Hecuba, widowed queen of Troy’s King Priam, rises slowly from the ground. “The ways of fate are the ways of the wind,” she moans, slowly coming to her senses as the other widowed, childless women of Troy rally around her.