Other Fiction Euripides: The Trojan Women (verse) v1 2 June 2014

[AlexBell]

Euripides was born in Athens about 480 BC, and lived there until moving to Macedon late in life where he died in 406 BC. He is said to have been a school fellow of Socrates, and was the third of the great Athenian tragedians.

Aristophanes ridiculed him and he won few prizes at drama festivals, perhaps because he questioned religious beliefs, but he was revered by Roman and Renaissance writers.

Gilbert Murray (1866-1957) was an Australian born Professor of Greek at Oxford and Glasgow Universities, and translated almost all the canon of classical Athenian drama into verse.

The Trojan Women takes place over a few hours after the sack of Troy by the Greeks. There is very little plot or action; the murder of Hecuba's infant grandson takes place off stage. Neither is there much character development apart from Talthybius developing enough sympathy for the Trojan Women to regret that he is party to their suffering. The play is instead a harrowing account of the suffering experienced by civilians in war, and the inability or unwillingness of the gods to protect them.

The source text for The Trojan Women was the Project Gutenberg pg10096.html rendition of the 1915 Oxford University Press edition, checked against a pdf from the Internet Archive. I have retained the original foreword, the Introductory Note, the Explanatory Notes (as end notes) and the stage directions, but have omitted the references to print page numbers and strophe markings. I have silently corrected typos, curled quotes, and made minor changes to spelling and punctuation.