#trojan women

[sarafangirlart]

I’m fine with taking creative liberties in adaptions but shifting the blame for Astyanax’s murder to Zeus instead of Odysseus (or at least Neoptolemus) has been disastrous to Trojan war discussions, bc now dumb ppl who have never read the Iliad or Odyssey or watched any adaptations of the Trojan women will think that big mean Zeus pressured poor boy dad Odysseus into killing Astyanax. As if Zeus didn’t favour Hector and was hesitant to destroy Troy.

[ladylazrus]

[katerinaaqu]

According to Dares the Phrygian Helen has a beauty mark between her brows! What do you know? Greeks possibly considered moles attractive from that time hehe 😜 but now I remember this amazing mycenaean female head from around 1300 BC

And now I imagine Helen when doing her makeup instead of painting the usual sun on her forehead she just draws the dots around her beauty mark instead! 🤔

[moony-2001]

You know who I’d like to see more stories about? Hecuba, the Queen of Troy. Her story is genuinely so tragic.

She loses her husband, all of her children, and her kingdom/title

She finds out that one of her daughters, Polyxena, was “claimed” by the ghost of Achilles’ as one of his soils of war and she is brutally murdered at his tomb

Her other daughter, Cassandra, is claimed by Agamemnon the asshole as his “bride prize” and she’s carted off, never to be seen again

Her daughter-in-law is also shipped off to be a “bride prize”

Her grandson is thrown off a roof by Odysseus, the man who Hecuba becomes the “prize” of

As she sets off for Ithaca, she finds out that the man who was supposed to be keeping guard over her last remaining son, Polydorus, has not only stolen the riches meant for him, but that Polydorus had also been murdered

But despite that, in my mind, she gets the last laugh. Not only does she claw out the eyes of and (in some interpretations) kill the man who killed her final son, she manages to be free from having to belong to Odysseus by turning into a dog and even the gods take pity on her.

Hecuba’s story is another wonderful example of the rage of a bereaved mother and the incredibly sad realities of what happened to the losing side after a war.

[evilios]

— Euripides, Trojan Women (trans. by A. Shapiro)

[pelideswhore]

petition to change “written by a woman” into “written by euripides”

[quidam-sirenae]

Playing with this idea of making all the women from the Trojan war unpalatable to our modern tastes

[secretceremonials]

- just a girl x the women of the trojan war

[elektrascreaming]

something something about astanyx being called scamandrius and him being washed in the Scamander to heal the wounds on his dead body (Trojan Women, Euripides)

[minty-mythos]

This was the attendance question in my classic civ class today and there were some polarizing opinions, so:

[sarafangirlart]

“What if Odysseus adopts Astyanax 🥰” tf happens to Andromache in that timeline then?

[katerinaaqu]

Was Helen in Troy for 20 years?

This is a very good question given how sources often contradict themselves as well. Sorry if this gets long! There is a passage in Homer's Iliad in rhapsody 24 during the funeral of Hector or the preparation of it. Helen joins the mourning women and says this:

"Hector, most beloved to my heart than any of my husband's brothers, for the godlike Alexander is my husband, who led me to Troy; if only I had died then! For it is the twentieth year since when I have come here and left my homeland"

(Translation by me)

So it seems like here Helen implies that she was 20 years in Troy. Other sources seem to disagree with this characterization and adapt a more moderate timeline; Helen was traveling around a year with Paris before settling to Troy plus the 10 years of war.

Unlike the Odyssey that has a clear-cut timeline that speaks about 20 years and counting, the Iliad is not as clean as that. Helen doesn't seem to imply anywhere else inside the poem that she was more than the years that the siege of Troy takes place.

Now Homer could indeed be literal and speak of an aparent 10 year preparation between Helen's taking to Troy and Hector's funeral and negotiations and such and there seems to be a record for a first gathering of the fleet before Aulis where the fleet suffered a huge loss from the winds. However one needs to note as well how Iliad doesn't take place at the 10th year of war but somewhere at the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th. So there seems to be one year left to be filled up. Now of course one could count the year where Helen roams about with Paris but there seems to be an interesting thought here; that Homeric texts used the term "20" here as to imply a very long time.

The term "20 years" here could be more equivalent to what we say nowadays "it took eons to do this" or "it took me forever" or "one eternity later". It is possible that Helen is not being literal here but implying she has been a very long time in there. I tend to side with this version more for many reasons; timeline that includes 10 years extra doesn't make much sense. It could imply that the characters involved in it are way above their 40s and that doesn't seem the case. Helen and Menelaus were ellegedly married for 10 years in Sparta. Even if Helen was married at 15 that doesn't seem to be logical to assume that she would be 25 when following Paris and 45 by the end of the war. That would make Menelaus over 50 at the end of the war, Odysseus probably way over 60 and Nestor like way over 70 if not over 80. Not to mention the few years that Menelaus needed to come back to his homeland and his shipwreck in Egypt. That would make him way over his 60s in the Odyssey and that doesn't seem to be the case from his descriptions (he ain't described as being old as opposing to Nestor in Iliad) As a timeline seems to be way too extended. What is more, it seems that preparing 10 years for a siege is not a very logical assumption either. Why would the Greeks wait so long to make a second ensemble? One or tops two years seems reasonable but 10? Why would they wait 10 more years to reach Troy? (of course here we have many local traditions that want to insert some heroes of the Trojan war roaming about the area before reaching Troy).

In one essence this timeline would be way too unreasonably extended even for mythology standards. So in my opinion when Helen says she was "20 years at Troy" she just implies "it has been a lifetime ago since I came here" or "it has been so long since I came here!"

But you can of course interpret it literally if you want. I hope that helps!

[moony-2001]

WIP that I probably won’t finish

[evilios]

— Euripides, Trojan Women (trans. by A. Shapiro)

[arwenmusic]

so y’all know how i’m writing a musical abt the trojan war

WHY DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF

[quidam-sirenae]

I have no idea WHAT I can say next that can possibly hit harder than Hecuba but whatever im sharing this bit of the play cause I’m proud