death, Cassandra ravished and made mad—yet
does he show that theirs are the unconquered and unconquerable
spirits. The victorious men, flushed with pride,
have remorse and mockery dealt out to them by those
they fought for, and go forth to unpitied death.
Never surely can a great tragedy seem more real to
us, or purge our souls more truly of the unreality
of our thoughts and feelings concerning vital issues,
than can The Trojan Women at this moment of the history
of the world.
Francis Hovey Stoddard.
May the first, 1915.
Judged by common standards, the Troaedes is far from
a perfect play; it is scarcely even a good play.
It is an intense study of one great situation, with
little plot, little construction, little or no relief
or variety. The only movement of the drama is
a gradual extinguishing of all the familiar lights
of human life, with, perhaps, at the end, a suggestion
that in the utterness of night, when all fears of a
possible worse thing are passed, there is in some
sense peace and even glory. But the situation
itself has at least this dramatic value, that it is
different from what it seems.
The consummation of a great conquest, a thing celebrated
in paeans and thanksgivings, the very height of the
day-dreams of unregenerate man—it seems
to be a great joy, and it is in truth a great misery.
It is conquest seen when the thrill of battle is over,
and nothing remains but to wait and think. We
feel in the background the presence of the conquerors,
sinister and disappointed phantoms; of the conquered
men, after long torment, now resting in death.
But the living drama for Euripides lay in the conquered
women. It is from them that he has named his
play and built up his scheme of parts: four figures
clearly lit and heroic, the others in varying grades
of characterisation, nameless and barely articulate,
mere half-heard voices of an eternal sorrow.
Indeed, the most usual condemnation of the play is
not that it is dull, but that it is too harrowing;
that scene after scene passes beyond the due limits
of tragic art. There are points to be pleaded
against this criticism. The very beauty of the
most fearful scenes, in spite of their fearfulness,
is one; the quick comfort of the lyrics is another,
falling like a spell of peace when the strain is too
hard to bear (cf. p. 89). But the main defence
is that, like many of the greatest works of art, the
Troaedes is something more than art. It
is also a prophecy, a bearing of witness. And
the prophet, bound to deliver his message, walks outside
the regular ways of the artist.
