“The man is a fool who imagines he is firmly prosperous” The pacifistic gesture of Euripides’ Trojan Women and its resonances in the adaptations by Jean-Paul Sartre and Ong Keng Sen

MASTERARBEIT zur Erlangung des Mastergrades an der Kultur- und Gesellschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Paris-Lodron Universität Salzburg

Fachbereich Kunst-, Musik- und Tanzwissenschaft Gutachterin: Univ. Prof. Dr. Nicole Haitzinger

eingereicht von Julia Lipold, BA

Salzburg, Oktober 2019

Eidesstattliche Erklärung

Ich erkläre hiermit eidesstattlich [durch meine eigenhändige Unterschrift], dass ich die vorliegende Arbeit selbständig verfasst und keine anderen als die angegebenen Quellen und Hilfsmittel verwendet habe. Alle Stellen, die wörtlich oder inhaltlich den angegebenen Quellen entnommen wurden, sind als solche kenntlich gemacht. Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde bisher in gleicher oder ähnlicher Form noch nicht als Bachelor- / Master- / Diplomarbeit/ Dissertation eingereicht.

______Datum, Unterschrift

I Abstract

Whether myth or reality, the events surrounding the fall of Troy show the horrors of war and, as a consequence of it, the suffering of women. These women convey the pacifistic gesture of the tragedy on stage and thus act as a mouthpiece for the playwright, in this master thesis in three concepts by Euripides (415 BC), Jean-Paul Sartre (1965) and Ong Keng Sen (2016). Euripides’ Trojan Women shows captive women who express their grief and pain through lament, whereas Sartre's Les Troyennes adds angry tirades against the Greeks, thus depicting female protesters and Singaporean director Ong combines these two approaches by interweaving pansori and Korean pop into changgeuk, a traditional Korean opera. The different representations of the Trojan women can also be deciphered by the role of Helen who is the reason for their suffering and for the destruction of the city; a single person who has caused a collective disaster. In Euripides, Helen fears for her life and tries to convince her husband of her innocence with rhetorical skill. In Sartre’s version a passionate, desperate woman, who is still in love with Menelaus, enters the scene but the latter harshly rejects his wife’s requests and accuses her of lying. Ong casts a male singer in the role of Helen, thus breaking down the boundary between the male and the female. She becomes a transgressive character and an outsider between the Greeks and the Trojans. In the Korean version, the cool and aggressive nature of the Spartan king gives way to a protective, almost loving one when he holds his wife in his arms to protect her from Hecuba’s verbal attacks. In the following master thesis these two topoi are examined. On the one hand the pacifistic gesture of Euripides’ Trojan Women and its resonances and on the other hand the different elaborations of Helen. A bundle of methods is used to work out these motifs: in the chapters on Euripides and Sartre a theatre-historical method as well as an analysis of specific scenes are carried out, the chapter on the Korean adaptation focuses on performance and staging analysis and the last chapter on the role of Helen is the result of a comparative approach in merging Euripides’, Sartre’s and Ong’s works together.

II German Abstract

Ob Mythos oder Realität, die Ereignisse rund um den Fall Trojas zeigen die Schrecken des Krieges, insbesondere das Leiden der Frauen. So vermitteln die trojanischen Frauen die pazifistische Geste der Tragödie auf der Bühne und fungieren als Sprachrohr für den Dramatiker, wie die drei Konzepte von Euripides (415 v. Chr.), Jean-Paul Sartre (1965) und Ong Keng Sen (2016) verdeutlichen. Euripides’ Die Troerinnen zeigt versklavte Frauen, die ihre Trauer und ihren Schmerz durch Klage zum Ausdruck bringen, während Sartre in Les Troyennes wütende Tiraden hervortreten lässt und so weibliche Protestlerinnen darstellt. Der singapurische Regisseur Ong kombiniert wiederum in Trojan Women diese Klage und Tirade und fügt Pansori und koreanischen Pop zu Changgeuk, einer traditionellen koreanischen Oper, zusammen. Die verschiedenen Darstellungen der trojanischen Frauen lassen sich außerdem anhand der Rolle der Helena dechiffrieren, sprich eine singuläre weibliche Figur, die eine kollektive Katastrophe verursacht. Bei Euripides fürchtet sie um ihr Leben und versucht ihren Mann mit rhetorischem Geschick von ihrer Unschuld zu überzeugen. In Sartres Version tritt eine leidenschaftliche, verzweifelte Frau in Erscheinung, die immer noch in Menelaos verliebt ist, aber letzterer weist ihre Bitten scharf zurück und beschuldigt sie der Lüge. Ong besetzt die Rolle der Helena mit einem männlichen Sänger und hebt damit Gendergrenzen auf. Seine Helena ist ein grenzüberschreitender Charakter und eine Außenseiterin zugleich. In der koreanischen Oper weicht das kühle und aggressive Wesen des spartanischen Königs einer beschützenden, fast liebevollen Art, wenn er beispielsweise seine Frau in den Armen hält, um sie vor Hekabes verbalen Angriffen in Schutz zu nehmen. In der folgenden Masterarbeit werden beide Topoi untersucht, einerseits die pazifistische Geste von Euripides’ Die Troerinnen und deren Resonanzen, andererseits die grundlegend unterschiedlichen Ausarbeitungen der Rolle der Helena. Dies erfolgt durch eine multimethodische Herangehensweise, da im Hinblick auf eine Verflechtungsgeschichte der Werke von Euripides, Jean-Paul Sartre und Ong Keng Sen sowohl theaterhistorisch, inszenierungs- und szenenanalytisch gearbeitet, als auch komparatistisch wird.

III Preface

Euripides' Trojan Women has been with me for the last two years. I have Nicole Haitzinger, Sigrid Gareis and Ong Keng Sen to thank who made my internship in Singapore possible. Furthermore I would like to mention my colleagues at the Singapore International Festival of Arts who welcomed me in the warmest way possible and made my stay unforgettable. Especially Nicole deserves my sincere thanks, because she gave me the idea to use the stay abroad for a possible master thesis. She also holds an important position in my professional and personal career, as I was able to learn a lot under her leadership while working as her assistant. She not only gave me the opportunity to go to Singapore, but also to accompany her on a research stay at the University of Oxford where I was able to work at the APGRD, the Archive of Performances of Greek & Roman Drama under the guidance of Fiona Macintosh. My special gratitude goes to my parents and siblings, whose continuous support in good times and bad has made the completion of this master thesis possible. I have a handful of friends to thank, but since it would go beyond the scope, I will only say this much: you know who you are. There is one person outside my family who has been at my side since the very beginning of this adventure: my colleague, fellow fighter and close friend Andrea Pilz. I would not have been able to continue my work without your professional and emotional support over the past two years.

IV Contents

EIDESSTATTLICHE ERKLÄRUNG I

ABSTRACT II

GERMAN ABSTRACT III

PREFACE IV

1. INTRODUCTION 1

2. THE TROJAN WOMEN, EURIPIDES (415 BC) 6 2.1. THE TROJAN TRILOGY 6 2.2. EURIPIDES’ INTENTION: TROJAN WOMEN AS A WARNING OF IMMINENT DISASTER? 9 2.3. PERIPETY, IGNORING MORALITY AND HOSPITALITY 12 2.4. LAMENT AND MOURNING 18

3. LES TROYENNES, JEAN-PAUL SARTRE (1965) 31 3.1. SARTRE’S INTENTION: ANTI-WAR MESSAGES 31 3.2. SARTRE’S CHANGES: DEBATES AND TIRADES EMERGE FROM RITUAL MOURNING 33

4. TROJAN WOMEN, ONG KENG SEN (2016) 39 4.1. PANSORI AND CHANGGEUK 39 4.2. DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTION 44 4.3. TROJAN WOMEN AT THE SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF ARTS 2017 48 4.3.1. CAST AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 48 4.3.2. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS 49

5. HELEN: AN INCREASE IN SORROW AND THE QUESTION OF GUILT 61

6. CONCLUSION 70

BIBLIOGRAPHY 74 ONLINE SOURCES 78 OTHER SOURCES 80

V 1. Introduction

The theme of war as a social phenomenon is suitable for tragedy because all areas and relationships of human life are decisively affected. Tragic dramatists discuss and question concepts such as justice and responsibility, relationships between individuals and throughout the community as well as tensions between the divine and the human will in the exceptional situation of war. About a quarter of the tragedies that have survived refer to the topic of the Trojan War. While Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes, and Euripides’ Trojan Women, Hecuba and Iphigenia in Aulis are the tragedies that explicitly refer to it, there are various mentions in other plays such as in Sophocles’ The Libation Bearers and Electra, and in Euripides’ Electra, Helen, Andromache, Iphigenia in Tauris and Orestes.1

As a warning sign of the imminent war, Euripides confronted the citizens of fifth- century Athens with the devastating effects of war on both victors and defeated through his play Trojan Women. Tragedians incorporated this topos into their works and thus kept the history and the memory of the fallen city alive – “[…] art can record what history forgets.”2. Reinterpretations, restagings and adaptations of this theme made the Trojan War part of the collective memory to this day and an example of the shattering consequences of war on those affected. Still, the Trojan War is regarded as a myth because archaeological research has not provided any compelling evidence for the events around Troy yet. The ancient Greeks believed very well that this myth was an event of their past and tried to determine its temporal classification. However, tragedians have dealt with the saga in a literary way, not questioning whether the events actually happened.3 As Froma I. Zeitlin puts it, the fate of Troy has merged into a comparatively diffuse and complex web of associations in tragedy and has a rather ambivalent dramatic potential. Euripides’ Trojan repertoire is very rich, five of his twelve transmitted tragedies deal directly with this topos: Trojan Women, Hecuba, Helen, Iphigenia in Aulis and Rhesus. Five other plays deal with

1 Cf. Pallantza, Elena. 2005. Der Troische Krieg in der nachhomerischen Literatur bis zum 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, pp. 207–208, 211. 2 Rehm, Rush. 2003. Radical Theatre. Greek Tragedy and the Modern World. London: Duckworth. 3 Cf. Pallantza 2005, pp. 15–16. 1 events after the Trojan War and reflect the return of the Greek heroes in different ways: Electra, Iphigenia in Tauris, Orestes, Andromache and the satyr play Cyclops.4

Euripides’ Trojan Women is a play about the aftermath of war. More specifically, about the immediate suffering of the female survivors outside the fallen city of Troy. The siege by the Greeks is over and the city walls are destroyed. Hecuba, the former queen, stands before the ruins – she has survived the Greek ambush alongside her daughter Cassandra, two daughters-in-law, Andromache and Helen, her grandson Astyanax and a chorus of Trojan women. The play has a very static, episodic character with individual episodes connected by the central figure of Hecuba.5 She has gone through a reversal of circumstances from enormous bliss as queen of Troy with many children to immense misfortune as prisoner of war in the course of the dramatic plot.6 Her husband Priam was executed at the house altar before her very eyes while her sons were killed in action.7 In the course of the play she is to be confronted with even more suffering. At first glance it seems as if Euripides’ Trojan Women has a straightforward narrative with the queen as the centre of the plot, showing the suffering of the captive women and the consequences of war. But the play contains a multitude of possible interpretations and approaches on closer inspection. N. T. Croally argues that it may be a “condemnation of purposeless and excessive bellicosity; more arguably, it could be interpreted as a drama of ‘total nihilism’, an anti-war, anti-expansionist harangue with Euripides using the voice of Cassandra to preach his message.”8 While it has been often regarded as a rather bad play, this thesis should disprove this assertion by presenting various analytical approaches and interpretations from different decades of the 20th and 21st century.

4 Cf. Zeitlin, Froma I. 2009. “Tragödien um Troja. Das Gewissen Griechenlands.” In: Fischer-Lichte, Erika and Matthias Warstat. Staging Festivity. Theater und Fest in Europa. Tübingen and Basel: A. Francke Verlag, pp. 127–147, here pp. 129, 135. 5 Cf Harder, Ruth E. 1993. Die Frauenrollen bei Euripides. Untersuchungen zu “Alkestis”, “Medeia”, “Hekabe”, “Erechtheus”, “Elektra”, “Troades” und “Iphigeneia in Aulis”. Stuttgart: M & P, Verlag für Wissenschaft und Forschung, p. 151. 6 Cf. Gärtner, Thomas. 2004. “Leiden nach dem Krieg. Beobachtungen zu den Euripideischen Tragödien ‘Hekabe’ und ‘Troerinnen’ I.” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 78:3, pp. 37–58, here p. 39. 7 Cf. Vellmer, Erich. 1967. “Mensch und Welt in den ‘Troerinnen’ des Euripides und ihrer Bearbeitung durch J.-P. Sartre.” Glaube, Geist, Geschichte. Festschrift für Ernst Benz zum 60. Geburtstage am 17. November 1967, edited by Gerhard Müller and Winfried Zeller. Leiden: E. J. Brill, pp. 3–23, here pp. 3–4. 8 Cited after Croally N. T. 1994. Euripidean Polemic. The Trojan Women and the function of tragedy. Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, p. 253. 2 In order to present a contemporary interpretation of this timeless subject matter, the musical theatre adaptation of Euripides’ Trojan Women for changgeuk, a traditional Korean opera, directed by Ong Keng Sen is at the heart of this master thesis. Trojan Women was first performed at the National Theater of Korea on 11 November 2016, combines Korean pop with pansori, a Korean genre of musical storytelling and intertwines the events of the Trojan War with those of the Second World War in Korea and the so-called comfort women. In 2017 it was staged at the Singapore International Festival of Arts and marked the end of Ong’s time as festival director. A ten-week internship at this festival allowed me to attend the rehearsals as well as to witness a performance at the Victoria Theatre in Singapore.

Hereafter, I will explain the structure of this master thesis, which is subdivided into the chapters of Euripides’ Trojan Women (415 BC), Jean-Paul Sartre’s Les Troyennes (1965) and finally Ong Keng Sen’s Trojan Women (2016). In order to highlight the importance of this play in the oeuvre of Euripides, it is necessary to consider it in the so-called Trojan trilogy and in fifth-century political events. It can be argued that Euripides used his plays as a mouthpiece to express his disapproval of war and its horrors. Three different approaches that cover a period of more than one hundred years will be presented here to examine Euripides’ intention. Rush Rehm (1994) and Martin Hose (2008) attempt to find the answer in previous wars and atrocities that may have influenced Euripides, and Hugo Steiger (1900) deals with it from within the play, meaning that Euripides used the roles in Trojan Women to express his condemnation of war. A more in-depth analysis of the plot in terms of peripety as well as of the ignorance of morality and hospitality follows – three important terms that are of the highest significance in the play. The analyses are not arranged according to the chronology of the storyline but thematically. Thomas Gärtner (2004) uses the prologue to examine it with regard to the sudden change of fate to the contrary, the apparent hybris of the victors, and Athena’s change of heart in response to the crimes the Greeks have committed in the conquest of Troy. This will also be discussed by Ulrich Wilamowitz- Moellendorff (1906), Hartmut Erbse (1984), and David Kovacs (1996). Froma I. Zeitlin (2009) then studies the hybris of the Trojans and the Greeks before systematically examining Euripides’ Trojan plays.

3 This is followed by a discussion of the themes of suffering, a mother’s grief, ritual and lament, whereby the latter is omnipresent in Greek tragedy. Philologist Konrat Ziegler notes that if one considers not only the actual scenes of lamentations for the dead, but also the scenes of lament in general, then a significant part of the total extent of the tragedies that have survived falls under this motif.9 Nicole Loraux (1992) takes up the intimacy of a mother’s pain in Greek tragedy supported by Giulia Maria Chesi’s (2014) statements. Rush Rehm (1994) examines the funeral ceremony and the mourning ritual in Trojan Women more closely and Elena Pallantza (2005) focuses on the suffering of the fighters, the mourning of the dead, threnos and slavery as a result of war. Elinor Wright’s (1986) analysis of the final scene as a full lament and Markus Schauer’s (2002) work on the dramaturgical function of lament scenes in Greek tragedy take a content-specific and linguistic approach. This should give an insight into how much can be worked out in Euripides’ play with respect to lament and mourning alone.

Since Ong’s Trojan Women is influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre’ Les Troyennes, it is important to explain Sartre’s approach to his adaptation. He chooses the same scenic structure like Euripides, reacts to contemporary political events but at the end he gives a harsh voice to war criticism. Supported by Gerhard Petersmann (1977), Barbara Goff (2009), Gary Cox (2018), Avery T. Willis (2005), Ronald Hayman (1988) and Nicole Loraux (2002), this chapter contains statements by Sartre that were printed as an introduction to his text and originally appeared in an article by Bernard Pingaug in Bref, the monthly journal of the Théâtre National Populaire, in February 1965.

To understand the uniqueness of the Korean adaptation, it is important to provide an introduction to the history and origins of pansori using Heinz-Dieter Reese’s article on pansori (1985) as a basis, which is followed by the transition to changgeuk operas. Afterwards, the development and production of Ong Keng Sen’s Trojan Women will be examined as well as the performance analysis of the Singaporean production. The main sources here are the programme booklet, an unpublished video recording and my notes taken during the rehearsals alongside with numerous Asian and European online reports and reviews.

9 Cf. Ziegler, Konrat. 1937. “Tragoedia”. RE VI A 2, col. 1889–2075, here col. 1946. Cited after Schauer, Markus. 2002. Tragisches Klagen. Form und Funktion der Klagedarstellung bei Aischylos, Sophokles und Euripides. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, p. 15. 4 The last chapter brings all three productions together to discuss the role of Helen with respect to her special position between the Greeks and the Trojans. Oriented towards Martin Hose's book (2008), my own observations are incorporated into the plot's rendering of Euripides’ Trojan Women. This is followed by the transition to the other two versions, whose presentation of Helen is fundamentally different from that of Euripides. This is done on the basis of my own analysis of the text of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Les Troyennes and the video recording of the Korean production of Trojan Women.

The decision to also use apparently out-dated books and texts on the Trojan Women for this master thesis is based on the realization that numerous works on Euripides’ play in recent decades refer to them. This is particularly true for Ulrich von Wilamowitz- Moellendorff who has written numerous books on Greek literature. It is also interesting to note that different approaches to analysis, which differ widely in time, repeatedly come to similar conclusions.

In the following master thesis two topoi are examined. On the one hand the pacifistic10 gesture of Euripides’ Trojan Women and its resonances in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Les Troyennes and Ong Keng Sen’s Trojan Women and on the other hand the different elaborations of Helen. A bundle of methods is used to work out these motifs: in the chapters on Euripides and Sartre a theatre-historical method as well as an analysis of specific scenes are carried out, the chapter on the Korean adaptation focuses on performance and staging analysis and the last chapter on the role of Helen is the result of a comparative approach in merging Euripides’, Sartre’s and Ong’s works together.

10 Cheyney Ryan, fellow of Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC), “[…] distinguishes between personal pacifism and political pacifism. He describes personal pacifism as an opposition to all forms of killing, including in personal self-defence. Political pacifism, in contrast, opposes war as a social practice […]. It focuses on developing institutional alternatives to war that enable the peaceful resolution and avoidance of conflicts.” Frowe, Helen and Setz Lazar. 2017. “The Ethics of War.” The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of War. Edited by ibid. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–18, here p. 9. 5 2. The Trojan Women, Euripides (415 BC)

Euripides’ Trojan Women is part of the Trojan trilogy and was first performed at the Dionysia in 415 BC along with the other two plays Alexandros and Palamedes and the satyr play Sisyphus.11

2.1. The Trojan trilogy

The plot of Alexandros can be reconstructed from fragments and from Eunius’ Latin translation for the Roman stage. In the prologue, Cassandra, the chaste daughter of king Priam, recounts how her mother dreamt of giving birth to a torch while being pregnant with a son. This was interpreted as a bad omen and it would mean Troy’s extinction if the boy was not taken away. The parents ordered a servant to abandon the boy on Mount Ida but he spared him and put him in the care of shepherds. Unaware of his descent, Paris, also known as Alexandros, grows up to be a brave youth and participates in gymnastic competitions whereby he arrives in Troy unrecognized. He wins against his supposed brothers who do not know who he really is and demand punishment for the alleged servant. Eventually, the old servant who once saved his life clears up the situation and the parents are happy about their son’s return while they keep their mind off the warning. Cassandra intervenes and predicts the disaster to no avail.12 The play ends with a paradox, for Hecuba has found her son who had been believed dead, but at the same time the beginning of Troy’s end is made. If she had let her sons kill Alexandros/Paris this would have been avoided.13

It cannot be said much about Palamedes because its plot can only be roughly reconstructed on the basis of few fragments. It is about the trial of the smartest of all Greeks, Palamedes who is sentenced for treason by the Achaean under command of the Atreides. German classical philologist Ulrich Wilamowitz-Moellendorff proposes that Palamedes is about the convict’s innocence and links his thesis to the following fragment: “. . . you have killed, you have killed, O you Danaans, that all-wise nightingale of the Muses, that harmed no man” (. . . ἐκάνετ᾿ ἐκάνετε τὰν πάνσοφον, ὦ

11 Cf. Hose, Martin. 2008. Euripides. Der Dichter der Leidenschaften. München: C.H.Beck, p. 121. 12 Cf. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Ulrich. 1906. Griechische Tragoedien. Third Volume. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, pp. 260–261. 13 Cf. Hose 2008, p. 124. 6 Δαναοί, τὰν οὐδέν᾿ ἀλγύνουσαν ἀηδόνα Μουσᾶν. (Frag. 588)).14 The play is set in the Greek camp in front of the fallen city of Troy. Because Palamedes had outsmarted Odysseus who pretended to be insane and thus unfit for war, he forced him to take part in the war campaign against Troy. In the camp, Odysseus takes revenge by hiding gold in Palamedes’ tent, capturing a Trojan man, killing him and hiding a fake letter in which the Trojan king Priam thanks Palamedes for his help and thus for betraying the Greeks. They are convinced of his guilt and he is stoned to death.15 Palamedes’ brother writes the sad news on planks and throws them into the sea so they can be carried across to the shore of Euboea where their father Nauplius can gear up for revenge. He lures the Aegean ships into the surge of the Euboean coast full of cliffs and no ship was ever able to escape.16

In order to provide a basis for the further course of this master thesis, I will make a short description of the plot of Trojan Women here based on Martin Hose’s detailed synopsis. The play begins with a prologue of the gods in the context of which Poseidon wants to bid farewell to the destroyed city. In order to familiarize the audience with the previous events, Poseidon tells the story of what happened, a frequently used technique by Euripides. Thus the city was conquered by the use of the Trojan horse, its sanctuaries and temples were dripping with blood, Priam was killed at the altar of Zeus and the Greeks drag the riches of Troy onto their ships. In the second part of the prologue, the viewer learns that some of the enslaved Trojan women have already been assigned to their new masters while the other women are still unaware of their fate and wait in tents outside the city to be taken away, with them Helen, who had left her husband Menelaus for Paris. Poseidon mentions Hecuba, the queen of Troy, who cries over her great misfortune and whose daughter Polyxena was secretly sacrificed at Achilles’ grave without the mother’s knowledge. King Priam and the sons are gone and Agamemnon will force the virgin Cassandra to be his secret love affair. Thus Poseidon not only gives insight into the past but also an outlook. A further prognosis is provided by his promise to Athena who enters the scene. She recounts that the Greeks have desecrated her

14 Cf. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1906, pp. 261–262. Fragment and translation from Euripides. 2009. Fragments: Oedipus-Chrysippus. Other Fragments. Edited and translated by Christopher Collard, Martin Cropp. Loeb Classical Library 506. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Fra. 588. 15 Cf. Hose 2008, p. 123. 16 Cf. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1906, p. 262. 7 temple and Poseidon promises to bring a catastrophe upon the Greeks. On their way home, a storm is to sweep over them.17 Now, the audience knows that the downfall awaits the Greeks and that the play is therefore not about the defeated and the victors, but about the victims of a catastrophe that has already taken place and the victims of a future disaster. After the departure of the gods follows Hecuba’s monologue in which she laments her sorrow, the death of her family, the fall of the city and her social decline before calling the chorus, the fellow slaves, to come out of the tents. The Trojan women worry about their future, ask themselves to whom they are assigned as slaves and where they will be taken. As they mention different places in the Greek world, they choose Attica as their favorite option.18 The first scenes thus form the beginning of a story of suffering that will intensify until they leave Troy. In the episodes a constant course of action follows in which the Greek herald Talthybios enters and leads a woman from the camp to her new master. First he brings Cassandra to Agamemnon, then Andromache to Neoptolemos and at the same time Astyanax, the son of Hector and Andromache, to his death. Menelaus’ entrance is a variation to the episodic plot in which he intends to escort his wife Helen off for execution. When the messenger brings the baby’s dead body to his grandmother Hecuba, she adorns it and gives some kind of eulogy. Talthybios orders the Greeks to burn down the city (αὐδῶ λοχαγοῖς, οἳ τέταχθ᾿ ἐµπιµπράναι Πριάµου τόδ᾿ ἄστυ, µηκέτ᾿ ἀργοῦσαν φλόγα ἐν χειρὶ σῴζειν ἀλλὰ πῦρ ἐνιέναι […]. / “Captains, who have been assigned to burn this city of Priam, no longer keep the flame idle in your hands but hurl it […].” (Eur. Tro. 1260–1262)19) and informs Hecuba that she will be taken to her new master Odysseus before the play ends with the lamentation of the Trojan women as they leave their homeland.20

Hose sees in the flames in the hands of the Greek army a possible reference to the torch in Hecuba’s dream and in Cassandra’s warning in Alexandros and therefore a closure of the trilogy. Furthermore, if one compares the Trojan Trilogy with earlier works by Euripides, a connection can be discerned. The two pieces Alexandros and Trojan

17 Cf. Hose 2008, pp. 124–126. 18 Cf. ibid., pp. 126–128. 19 Euripides. 1999. Trojan Women. Iphigenia among the Taurians. Ion. Edited and translated by David Kovacs. Loeb Classical Library 10. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, vs. 1260–1262. Unless otherwise stated, all other quotations from Euripides’ Trojan Women, whether in the continuous text or as block quotation, are taken from this source. 20 Cf. Hose 2008, pp. 128–129. 8 Women show some form of self-destruction, which is, however, different from Euripides’ two earlier pieces. Electra features self-destruction from hatred and delusion and Heracles due to madness, whereas it is a consequence of mother love in the Trojan plays. She knows that the protection of her son means the downfall of the city, which she obviously accepts.21

2.2. Euripides’ intention: Trojan Women as a warning of imminent disaster?

Euripides’ Trojan trilogy – Alexandros, Palamedes and Trojan Women – can certainly be dated back to the Dionysia in 415 BC because the Roman author Aelian states in his Varia Historia that Xenocles and Euripides competed against each other during the 91st Olympiad in which the latter took second place with his trilogy and the satyr play Sisyphus. However, since the 91st Olympiad covers the period 415 to 412 BC, no exact dating can be obtained from this statement. Two scholia22 on Aristophanes’ comedies make this possible. First, a scholium on The Wasps (422 BC) states that Trojan Women was performed seven years later, and a second one on The Birds (414 BC) mentions the recently staged Palamedes. The determination of the performance date is important in order to find out whether Euripides refers to contemporary events in his plays. It seems as if he reacted to the conquest of the small island of Melos by the Athenians 416 BC and to the debates on the Sicily expedition 415 BC but these are inaccurate assumptions: Firstly, classical philologist Martin Hose cites Thucydides and his History of the Peloponnesian War who describes the events around Melos whose inhabitants refuse to join the Delian League. Athens sends troops to force them to join but negotiations begin before the fight. In the end Melos falls, the Athenians execute the men and sell the women and children into slavery. But Thucydides seems inaccurate as Melos already appears on a list of cities that pay tribute to Athens in 425 BC. And secondly, Euripides had submitted his plays before the start of the Sicily exhibition.23 Rush Rehm recalls another disaster that shook Athens sixty-five years before Melos, which may have been another reason for Euripides to draw attention to contemporary

21 Cf. Hose 2008, pp. 124, 129. 22 Scholia (τὰ σχόλια) are handwritten notes in a text. They were taken from ancient comments, which are mostly not preserved. In modern text editions, they are printed as annotations. Scholia on Greek authors include the Iliadic scholia, the Hesiodic scholia, the Sophoclean scholia et al. Cf. Dyck, Andrew and Andreas Glock. 2006. “Scholia.” Brill’s New Pauly. Antiquity volumes. Edited by Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider. Online: https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/der- neue-pauly/scholien-e1104350#e1104370. Last accessed 22 October 2019. 23 Cf. Hose 2008, pp. 121–122. 9 political events through his art, especially the imminent invasion of Sicily. At that time the Persians had burned down buildings on the Acropolis in Athens, underneath in which Trojan Women was performed:24

“Although Euripides could not have known the outcome of the Sicilian expedition, his Troades makes it clear that destruction like that at Melos will come back to haunt its perpetrators. Like Agamemnon wedded to Kassandra, or Polyxena to Achilles, the Athens that is mirrored in Euripides’ tragedy seems bound to a future of lamentation and death.”25

According to Rehm, playwrights like Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides can use their texts to challenge the audience to link the past with things that might happen. Hence, they are able to change their audience’s perspective and force them to perceive the world around them and themselves more clearly – “to confront the world before them”.26

Trojan Women is generally regarded as a rather bad play.27 Literary historian Julius Klein wrote in his Geschichte des Drama’s (transl.: History of the drama) that the play is held together through Hecuba’s fate composed of a series of unfortunate events. Though in an epic manner, these events do not intertwine nor are they mutually dependent or connected by a dramatic causal relation. Trojan Women is merely an accumulation and a concertinaing of lament and sorrow, Klein even refers to it as a pot full of diverse catastrophes.28 Other critics point to the fact that it is not even a tragedy as there are “no heroes, no ghastly errors of judgment, no terrifying realizations or reversals”.29 Ancient philologist Otfried Müller lists the play’s individual episodes and comes to the conclusion that they are nothing but meaningful, thought-provoking images that follow one another. Hence, Hugo Steiger poses the question of why Euripides wrote Trojan Women and attempts to answer this question by pointing out

24 Cf. Rehm, Rush. 1994. Marriage to death. The conflation of wedding and funeral rituals in Greek tragedy. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, p. 135. 25 Ibid. 26 Cf. and cited after ibid., p. 140. 27 Cf. Steiger, Hugo. 1900.“Warum schrieb Euripides seine Troerinnen?” Philologus 59:1, pp. 362– 399, here p. 362. 28 Cf. Klein, Julius. 1865. Geschichte des Drama’s. 1. Einleitung. Griechische Tragödie. Leipzig: T. O. Weigel, pp. 362–363. 29 Goff, Barbara. 2009. Euripides: Trojan Women. London: Duckworth, p. 11. 10 similarities between the play’s messages and Euripides’ point of view on certain topics.30

As an example of his extensive essay, I will focus on the prologue and Steiger’s interpretation of it. Poseidon opens the play and emphasizes the abomination that took place. Athena enters and declares: “I want to bring joy to my former enemies, the Trojans, and to give the Achaean army a journey home they will not like” (τοὺς µὲν πρὶν ἐχθροὺς Τρῶας εὐφρᾶναι θέλω, στρατῷ δ᾿ Ἀχαιῶν νόστον ἐµβαλεῖν πικρόν. (Eur. Tro. 65–66)). Poseidon consents to endorse her intention:31

ἔσται τάδ᾿· ἡ χάρις γὰρ οὐ µακρῶν λόγων δεῖται· ταράξω πέλαγος Αἰγαίας ἁλός. ἀκταὶ δὲ Μυκόνου Δήλιοί τε χοιράδες Σκῦρός τε Λῆµνός θ᾿ αἱ Καφήρειοί τ᾿ ἄκραι πολλῶν θανόντων σώµαθ᾿ ἕξουσιν νεκρῶν. ἀλλ᾿ ἕρπ᾿ Ὄλυµπον καὶ κεραυνίους βολὰς λαβοῦσα πατρὸς ἐκ χερῶν καραδόκει, ὅταν στράτευµ᾿ Ἀργεῖον ἐξιῇ κάλως. µῶρος δὲ θνητῶν ὅστις ἐκπορθεῖ πόλεις, ναοὺς δὲ τύµβους θ᾿, ἱερὰ τῶν κεκµηκότων, ἐρηµίᾳ δοὺς αὐτὸς ὤλεθ᾿ ὕστερον. (Eur. Tro. 87–97)

It shall be so: the favor you ask requires no long discussion. I shall throw the Aegean main into confusion. The beaches of Mykonos and the reefs of Delos and Scyros and Lemnos and the promontories of Caphereus shall be filled with the bodies of many dead. So go to Olympus, take the lightning bolts from your father’s hand, and wait until the Argive fleet is making full sail.

Foolish is the mortal who sacks cities and yet, after giving over to desolation temples and tombs, holy places of the dead, perishes later himself. (Eur. Tro. 87–97)

With these words he concludes the prologue by condemning the Trojan War. Euripides was a friend of peace and excoriated any kind of battle.32 He was even referred to as an apostle of humanity who disapproved strongly of war and its horrors in the most critical way.33 Hugo Steiger enhances this assumption by stating that Trojan Women is a

30 Cf. Steiger 1900, p. 363. 31 Cf. ibid., p. 364. 32 Cf. ibid., pp. 364–365. 33 Cf. Römer, Adolf. 1892. Die Notation der Alexandrinischen Philologen bei den griechischen Dramatikern. München: Verlag der k. Akad, p. 675. 11 political act that stood right beside Athenian politician and general Nikias and other few friends of peace. Euripides rose up against supporters of war and did not cease to speak. Thus, the prologue reveals the author’s stance on his play and the audience should follow from this point of view.34 According to Hugo Steiger, Euripides pursued politics through his drama. With the aid of his art, he did not depict the fates of individuals but the fall of a whole nation and he examined war and its horrors in order to preach peace to the bellicose people of his day. In 415 BC, when Trojan Women was first performed, Euripides meant to warn his fellow citizens of the war by showing Troy’s destruction without any poetic embellishment in its unadorned realness. Instead of putting one specific role at the heart of the play, individual fates split the audience’s interest. In this way, the drama takes a desolate and somber course from start to finish. Audience members are left behind feeling deeply affected by the high amount of sorrow and misery. Steiger concludes that Euripides did not write Trojan Women as a poet but as an Attic citizen who used his art as a weapon to parry off imminent disaster.35

2.3. Peripety, ignoring morality and hospitality

In 424 BC Euripides wrote Hecuba and it is obvious to compare this tragedy to Trojan Women as both deal with the misfortune of the fallen city’s queen and a chorus of Trojan women representing the collective of suffering wives. Chronologically, the storyline of Hecuba begins later than Trojan Women and the queen is almost constantly on stage in both plays. While in the latter play the women are in front of the ruins of the city, they have already been enslaved and abducted by the Greek army and taken to the coast of Thrace in Hecuba. Thomas Gärtner poses the question on why Euripides wrote two plays with such similar and even overlapping subject matters within roughly ten years and presumes that Euripides pursued two substantially different concepts of meaning. In his essay “Leiden nach dem Krieg. Beobachtungen zu den Euripideischen Tragödien ‘Hekabe’ und ‘Troerinnen’ I” (transl. “Suffering after the war. Observations on the Euripidean tragedies ‘Hecuba’ and ‘Trojan Women’ I”) he attempts to work out the different artistic realizations within both plays.36 I will focus on his interpretation of Trojan Women.

34 Cf. Steiger 1900, pp. 365–6. 35 Cf. ibid., pp. 369, 398–9. 36 Cf. Gärtner 2004, pp. 37–8. 12 Like Hugo Steiger, he begins his interpretation with the prologue between Poseidon and Athena. The latter pursues the plan to cause a painful homecoming with heavy losses due to severe weather for the Greeks. During the Trojan War, Athena used to support the Greeks but because of Cassandra’s sacrilegious abuse by the Greek Ajax she had a change of heart.37 With the prologue’s last sentence, Poseidon describes the paradox that people who only just destroyed the holy places of a foreign community are going to decay in the next moment. He depicts the forthcoming storm at sea and envisions a gruesome picture of the shipwrecked corpses washed up at the coast. Thomas Gärtner describes Poseidon as a god fully aware of his destructive power who turns the Greeks’ cluelessness into ridicule. This ignorance is cynically construed as stupidity. To destroy a foreign city without expecting perdition is impossible and implicates a moral universal law that punishes any criminal act. Gärtner’s interpretation suggests a certain degree of cynicism of Poseidon that makes him seem almost ungodly. Poseidon does not give voice to a moralizing doctrine in order to justify the Greek’s decay and to warn other human beings of similar harm. Indeed, he makes a sarcastic remark on their cluelessness referred to as ignorance after having destroyed Troy’s sanctuaries and not anticipating their own downfall brought about by the gods themselves.38 Thomas Gärtner tries to explain Athena’s change of mind and proposed actions against the Greeks. Her pique with Ajax’s committed crimes might prove her right but it does not justify her drastic turn against the entire Achaean army. Athena’s reaction overstates the situation, shows arbitrary extremity and calls the image of an objectively divine fairness into question. Poseidon’s question signifies this: “But why do you leap about so, now with one character, now with another? Why hate and love whomever you chance to so excessively?” (τί δ᾿ ὧδε πηδᾷς ἄλλοτ᾿ εἰς ἄλλους τρόπους µισεῖς τε λίαν καὶ φιλεῖς ὃν ἂν τύχῃς; (Eur. Tro. 67–68)).39 German classical philologist Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff is declaratory of Poseidon’s surprise at Athena’s fickle mind. But the God of the Seas does her the favor of helping her, as does Zeus who provides her with thunderbolts. It becomes apparent that the goddess’s actions are subject to whim and there is no relying on her. Euripides had to be vigilant against such heresy but in the prologue he only followed orally transmitted narratives.40

37 Cf. ibid., p. 39. 38 Cf. ibid., pp. 41–3. 39 Cf. ibid., pp. 43–4. 40 Cf. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1906, pp. 263-4. 13 In the many studies written on Euripides, researchers lay the focus on Athena’s enunciated grievance and put it at the heart of the overall interpretation of Trojan Women. German classical philologist Hartmut Erbse agrees with Kevin Hargreaves Lee, expert in the field of Greek drama, in saying that the revelation of the Greek hybris is the leading thought that holds together the individual scenes.41 Thomas Gärtner argues that if Euripides had wanted to depict the hybris as central motif, then there would have been better ways than expressing it through a capriciously overambitious Athena and Poseidon who obeys her wishes for overtly personal reasons.42 He relies on Emeritus Hugh H. Obear Professor of Classics David Kovacs’ closer examination on Euripides’ reason behind writing the prologue. If it would be in Euripides’ interest to present a righteous force that punishes humans who have destroyed the keeper’s temples and graves, why do so through Athena who helped the Greek to conquer Troy and through Poseidon who holds no grudge against Troy’s perdition and who needs to be persuaded into prosecuting them?43 Poseidon has no call to take actions against the Greeks as he is already about to leave the city at the end of his introductory monologue. He avails himself of the opportunity to settle the feud with Athena although he does not know the particular reason at first – apparently he is not concerned with it. Hence, Poseidon’s undertaking has nothing to do with the intruder’s behavior. He constitutes the Greek decay as objective legitimacy and ascribes them as being stupid as they are not aware of this legality caused by their own actions. The stupidity consists in the inevitable ignorance of the doom following Troy’s devastation. Poseidon’s quotation finds affirmation in Hecuba’s lament at the end of the play after she lays the corpse of her grandson Astyanax to rest:44

θνητῶν δὲ µῶρος ὅστις εὖ πράσσειν δοκῶν βέβαια χαίρει· τοῖς τρόποις γὰρ αἱ τύχαι, ἔµπληκτος ὡς ἄνθρωπος, ἄλλοτ᾿ ἄλλοσε πηδῶσι, †κοὐδεὶς αὐτὸς εὐτυχεῖ ποτε†. (Eur. Tro. 1203–1206)

That man is a fool who imagines he is firmly prosperous and is glad. For in its very nature fortune, like a crazed man, leaps now in one direction, now in another, and the same man is never fortunate forever. (Eur. Tro. 1203–1206)

41 Cf. Erbse, Hartmut. 1984. Studien zum Prolog der euripideischen Tragödie. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, p. 62. For Lee’s introduction and commentary on Trojan Women cf. Euripides. 1976. Troades. Basingstoke: MacMillan. 42 Cf. Gärtner 2004, p. 45. 43 Cf. Kovacs, David. 1996. “ΜΩΡΟΣ ΔΕ ΘΝΗΤΩΝ ΟΣΤΙΣ ΕΚΠΟΡΘΕΙ ΠΟΛΕΙΣ: Nochmal Zu Euripides, Troerinnen 95-97.” Rheinisches Museum Für Philologie 139:2, pp. 97–101, here p. 101. 44 Cf. Gärtner 2004, pp. 46–7. 14 Both sections deal with the foolishness of human beings and the sudden change of fate to the contrary. In the prologue Poseidon says that the one who tears down holy places of foreign cities plunges into disaster and Hecuba notices that fate can switch drastically at any given moment. As previously mentioned, the foolishness is caused by the ignorance of the imminent misfortune. However, this lack of knowledge is forgivable, as humans are not aware of their future.45 The prologue pronounces a peripety of the Greeks’ fate with the particularity that this peripety will not be shown in the storyline of Trojan Women. Cassandra’s predictive foreknowledge is comparable to the one of Poseidon in the prologue. She does not mention the Greeks’ culpability at any point of her performance but she interprets their misfortune as her personal vendetta, which she plans to exert on the Greek commander Agamemnon through her conjugal union. After Ajax’ abuse, it should be her right to castigate the Greek arrogance but throughout her performance she makes no mention of this incident. Cassandra’s divinations focus on the thought to repay the inflicted sufferings as a whole but not to act in revenge for certain malicious happenings. Like Poseidon, she predicts the imminent misfortune as the Greeks celebrate their victory and are not aware of what lies ahead. In Agamemnon’s subjective perception, he enjoys the devastation of Troy ignorant of his fate – the assassination by Clytemnestra.46 After Cassandra’s scene, Andromache enters holding her son Astyanax. Hecuba’s dialogue with her daughter-in-law is interrupted by Talthybios who picks up Astyanax. As the only surviving Trojan male he has to be executed. Later in the play, Talthybios returns Astyanax’ dead body to his grandmother as Andromache has already left for Greece. The Helen scene is between the two scenes of Astyanax’s collection and return. According to Thomas Gärtner, this arrangement of scenes weaves the execution of Astyanax and Helen’s defense together compositionally. When following up this interior correspondence one can discern that the hybris-like demeanor of the Greeks towards the Trojans is not Euripides’ central motif. Astyanax has to innocently atone for Troy’s ruin while Helen goes unpunished. These two scenes are in contradistinction to each other. The Euripidean dramaturgic contexture of both sequences puts the disparity between the obliteration of innocent people and the compassion for culprits in perspective that furthermore harrows the Trojan women in the post-war situation.47

45 Cf. ibid., pp. 47–8. 46 Cf. ibid., pp. 49–52. 47 Cf. ibid., pp. 52–55. 15 Gärtner outlines Euripides’ poetic conception of Trojan Women as follows: the prologue manifests the fate of the Greeks and the correspondence between Poseidon’s and Hecuba’s words makes abundantly clear that the ignorance is not only applicable to the Greeks as they are not aware of their own demise but also to Hecuba in the time before Troy’s devastation. The audience occupies the same level of knowledge as Poseidon and Cassandra while Hecuba acquires the awareness of her own stupidity through undergoing her own grief. The current state is excruciating for the Trojan women, which climaxes in Troy’s incineration that marks the end of the tragedy. The despair remains undissolved. Nevertheless, the spectator is aware of the imminent peripety, as the storm at sea is about to happen. This does not implicate moral justice of Greek hybris but it signifies a factual balance between the suffering Trojan women and the destructive Greeks. As per Thomas Gärtner, there is no leading character in Trojan Women. It is about the misrecognition of the immediate changeability of their situation. Indeed, Hecuba is on stage throughout the whole play but she is not the principal character as her personal peripety is not at the heart of the tragedy.48

Froma I. Zeitlin takes a fundamentally different approach, focusing on the city of Troy, the shock wave triggered by the disaster and the scenario of destruction. He argues that it was Troy’s fate to become a non-place and the chorus laments at the end of the play that “the great city is now no city and has perished. Troy is no more” (ἁ δὲ µεγαλόπολις ἄπολις ὄλωλεν οὐδ᾿ ἔτ᾿ ἔστι Τροία. (Eur. Tro. 1291–1292)). Zeitlin even goes so far as to claim that Troy has become a nowhere, for the city walls have been torn down, the castle complex razed to the ground, the temples and shrines destroyed and the Trojans dead or enslaved. It is a justified war as punishment for Paris’ abduction of Helen and the subsequent Trojan hybris as they refused to surrender her “even at the price of their nation’s peace and well-being”, and “by the second quarter of the fifth century B.C., the expedition against Troy was seen as a righteous struggle, a war of retribution”.49 Mythical tradition, however, recounts that the Greeks themselves were guilty of hybris when they conquered Troy. According to the Iliupersis, a poem of the epic cycle, also known as the “The Sack of Troy”, the Greeks not only sinned because they slaughtered old men and children, but the ways in which such acts of violence were committed were an outrage against the gods themselves. King Priam was killed at the altar of Zeus,

48 Cf. ibid., pp. 55–56. 49 Cf. Zeitlin 2009, pp. 129–130. Cited after Castriota, David. 1992. Myth, ethos, and actuality. Official Art in Fifth-Century B.C. Athens. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, p. 87. 16 Hector’s son thrown from the castle wall, Cassandra raped in the sanctuary of Athena and Polyxena sacrificed to calm the spirit of Achilles. Aeschylus’ Oresteia blames both sides. Paris robs the wife of another man, so it is no wonder that the Greeks take back what is rightfully theirs. Zeitlin concludes his discussion by referring to the prologue as well. Due to the Greek atrocities, Athena’s radical change of mind is not surprising, and Poseidon’s fulfilment of her request seems plausible.50

Although the city of Troy has disappeared, its tale is still omnipresent. Zeitlin takes up this theme and makes a further analytical approach by systematically examining Euripides’ plays that deal with the Trojan myth: Trojan Women alongside Hecuba, Helen, Andromache and Orestes. He assigns them to the three categories recollection, revision, and reenactment. Hecuba and Trojan Women fall into the first category because they are set immediately after the fall of Troy and the mourning is still fresh. Troy and its connotations are about to enter the collective memory of the winner and the defeated. To work out the different tales of Helen, he examines the play with the same name and Orestes under the term revision. In the first, Helen is a faithful wife who never went to Troy and in the second, she is an adulterous woman who barely escapes the assassination attempt by Orestes. Finally, Andromache is discussed in the third category re-enactment, a difficult play that represents an almost uncanny repetition of the past.51 In the sense of this master thesis, I will focus on the first category and will summarize his analysis of Trojan Women in particular. Both tragedies have in common that Hecuba tries to fight the Greek atrocities once. Hecuba engages in a discussion with Helen in the hope of persuading Menelaus to condemn his wife to death. She uses her rhetorical gifts to achieve what she considers justice. He does not kill her immediately but proclaims that he will extradite her to atonement. However, we know that he will not keep this promise. As a broken woman, Hecuba laments the gods’ hatred of Troy in the end but she knows nothing of the imminent punishment of the gods that awaits the Greeks on their way home. A punishment for the crimes they have already committed before the beginning of the plot, i.e. before the abominable acts of violence they carry out in Trojan Women. Zeitlin concludes his analysis of the play with the assertion that the gods’ advantage in knowledge reinforces the dramatic situation, the suffering and humiliation that all Trojan

50 Cf. Zeitlin 2009, pp. 131–133. 51 Cf. ibid., pp. 136–137. For revision cf. ibid., pp. 139–143 and for re-enactment pp. 143–145. 17 women endure. Thus the suffering of the women becomes a powerful statement against war in which the perspective of the defeated enemy is forced upon the spectator.52 The queen’s actions differ fundamentally in Euripides’ Hecuba. In addition to the Trojans and the Greeks, there are also the Thracians in whose territory the Greeks have pitched their camp. Polymestor, king of Thrace, secretly killed Polydoros, the child of Hecuba and Priam, when he wanted to take Troy’s treasure to safety in the house of the supposed friend. Like Paris, Polymestor thus disregarded the rules of hospitality, killed for money and violated every norm of civilized behaviour. He also failed to bury the body, which only came to light when the body washed up on the beach. Agamemnon, the commander of the Greek army, lacks the courage to judge the king of the Thracians righteously. In response, Hecuba herself takes action by luring the treacherous king and his children into her tent, where she is imprisoned with the other Trojan women. There they kill the children in front of his eyes before the queen pokes Polymestor’s eyes out. To help justice win, Hecuba commits an act of cruelty in which she is given a piece of power.53

2.4. Lament and mourning

This chapter gives insight in the numerous analytical approaches on the topic of lament and suffering in Trojan Women. First, Nicole Loraux discusses a mother’s pain in Greek plays and Rush Rehm goes one step further and illustrates the importance of the funeral ritual in Greek everyday life and tragedy. Elena Pallantza evaluates the Trojan War with regard to specific categories and finally, Markus Schauer and Elinor Wright make a text-related analysis.

French ancient historian Nicole Loraux argues that in Greek poetic and tragic texts the intimacy of a mother’s pain lies within an intensification of the feeling of physical closeness. A sensation that deepens in cases of loss and leaves a mother isolated in this situation of grief. It is the expression of a mother’s pain that leads civic mourning. In The Phoenician Women by Euripides, Iocaste is the first to express shrieking lament before the burial of her son Polyneices. In Homer’s Iliad Book 22, King Priam and Hecabe try to persuade their son Hector to not face Achilles in war. The king plucks and tears his hair while Hecabe wails, sheds tears, loosens her robe and holds out her breast (Hom. Il. 22.78–89). And after the battle, the queen cries over her son’s death “his head

52 Cf. ibid., pp. 137–138. 53 Cf. ibid., p. 138. 18 all befouled with dust”, and it is her who leads the lamentation among the Trojan women (Hom. Il. 22.405–436):54

τέκνον, ἐγὼ δειλή· τί νυ βείοµαι αἰνὰ παθοῦσα, σεῦ ἀποτεθνηῶτος; ὅ µοι νύκτας τε καὶ ἦµαρ εὐχωλὴ κατὰ ἄστυ πελέσκεο, πᾶσί τ᾿ ὄνειαρ Τρωσί τε καὶ Τρῳῇσι κατὰ πτόλιν, οἵ σε θεὸν ὣς δειδέχατ᾿· ἦ γὰρ καί σφι µάλα µέγα κῦδος ἔησθα ζωὸς ἐών· νῦν αὖ θάνατος καὶ µοῖρα κιχάνει. (Hom. Il. 430–436)55

My child, how unhappy I am! Why shall I live in my dreadful suffering now you are dead? You were my boast night and day in the city, and a help to all, both to the men and women of Troy throughout the town, who always greeted you as a god; for surely you were to them a very great glory, while yet you lived; but now death and fate have caught up with you. (Hom. Il. 430–436)

To hold the dead body of the son is the wish of the pleading mother – a request that causes both the end of suffering and an increase in pain. This moment full of intensity between two bodies against the background of loss becomes evident in Euripides’ Trojan Women when Andromache says goodbye to her doomed son Astyanax:56

νῦν, οὔποτ᾿ αὖθις, µητέρ᾿ ἀσπάζου σέθεν, πρόσπιτνε τὴν τεκοῦσαν, ἀµφὶ δ᾿ ὠλένας ἕλισσ᾿ ἐµοῖς νώτοισι καὶ στόµ᾿ ἅρµοσον. (Eur. Tro. 761–763)

Now, and never again, kiss your mother, fall into my embrace, put your arms around me and press your lips against mine! (Eur. Tro. 761–763)

Since a child is the most precious possession and the most painful good of any mother, Euripides calls it λόχευµα – the born. In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Clytemnestra refers to her murdered daughter Iphigenia as φιλτάτην ἐµοὶ ὠδῖν, “the darling offspring of my pangs” whereas ὠδίς means throes of childbirth (Aesch. Ag. 1417–1419)57. According to Loraux, this term signifies that Iphigenia embodies a life, which is hardly separated

54 Cf. Loraux, Nicole. 1992. Die Trauer der Mütter. Weibliche Leidenschaft und die Gesetze der Politik, Frankfurt/ New York: Campus Verlag, Paris: Edition de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, pp. 51–52. 55 Homer. 1925. Iliad. Volume II. Books 13–24. Translated by A. T. Murray. Revised by William F. Wyatt. Loeb Classical Library 171. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, vs. 430–436. 56 Cf. Loraux 1992, pp. 52–53. 57 Aeschylus. 2009. Oresteia. Agamemnon. Libation-Bearers. Eumenides. Edited and translated by Alan H. Sommerstein. Loeb Classical Library 146. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, vs. 1417–1419. 19 from her mother’s body and by losing her, Clytemnestra relives the pain of childbirth.58 Giulia Maria Chesi even goes so far as to claim that Iphigenia’s blood at the altar is a connection to her mother’s blood. Clytemnestra also uses the word φιλος meaning loved, dear, “in relation to her child as the fruit of her womb […], she conceives the mother- daughter dyad as a bond […] that links people related by maternal blood.” This indicates that the bond between a mother and her child is more important than the affiliation to a spouse. This is why Clytemnestra has no problem killing her husband because she acts out of revenge for her daughter.59

Coming back to the role of Astyanax, the funeral ceremony and the mourning ritual will be examined more closely. When Andromache is to be brought to her new master, Hecuba asks her to prepare nicely for her new husband in the hope that Astyanax will grow up with her future children and take revenge on the Greeks when as an adult. The Greeks are aware of this possible scenario and therefore kill every Trojan male citizen. Soon Hecuba and Andromache learn that he is to be killed; the hope for revenge in the form of Astyanax fades away. He thus stands for the innocent people who live in a world “in which barbaric actions are made to appear reasonable and even necessary.” Now, the importance of the funeral becomes apparent, as he warns the mother not to oppose the verdict, otherwise she will be denied to bury her son. Andromache exits the stage and Talthybios takes the baby that is to be thrown from the city walls of Troy.60 Following the Helen scene, Talthybios returns with the corpse of Astyanax on his father’s shield. He recounts Andromache’s departure, where he could not hold back his tears when she “set out from the land lamenting for her country and saying farewell to the tomb of Hector” (πολλῶν ἐµοὶδακρύων ἀγωγός, ἡνίκ᾿ ἐξώρµα χθονός, πάτραν τ᾿ ἀναστένουσα καὶ τὸν Ἕκτορος τύµβον προσεννέπουσα. (Eur. Tro. 1130–1133)). The herald further recalls that Andromache, when she had to leave the city in a rush, asked Neoptolemus to have her son’s body buried on Hector’s shield:61

58 Cf. Loraux 1992, p. 54. 59 Cf. Chesi, Giulia Maria. 2014. The Play of Words. Blood Ties and Power Relations in Aeschylus’ Oresteia. Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter, pp. 22–23 and cited after ibid., p. 23. 60 Cf. Rehm 1994, pp. 131–132 and cited after ibid., p. 131. 61 Cf. ibid., p. 133. 20 καί σφ᾿ ᾐτήσατο θάψαι νεκρὸν τόνδ᾿, ὃς πεσὼν ἐκ τειχέων ψυχὴν ἀφῆκεν Ἕκτορος τοῦ σοῦ γόνος· φόβον τ᾿ Ἀχαιῶν, χαλκόνωτον ἀσπίδα τήνδ᾿, ἣν πατὴρ τοῦδ᾿ ἀµφὶ πλεύρ᾿ ἐβάλλετο, µή νιν πορεῦσαι Πηλέως ἐφ᾿ ἑστίαν µηδ᾿ ἐς τὸν αὐτὸν θάλαµον οὗ νυµφεύσεται [µήτηρ νεκροῦ τοῦδ᾿ Ἀνδροµάχη, λύπας ὁρᾶν], ἀλλ᾿ ἀντὶ κέδρου περιβόλων τε λαΐνων ἐν τῇδε θάψαι παῖδα· σὰς δ᾿ ἐς ὠλένας δοῦναι, πέπλοισιν ὡς περιστείλῃς νεκρὸν στεφάνοις θ᾿, ὅση σοι δύναµις, ὡς ἔχει τὰ σά· ἐπεὶ βέβηκε καὶ τὸ δεσπότου τάχος ἀφείλετ᾿ αὐτὴν παῖδα µὴ δοῦναι τάφῳ. (Eur. Tro. 1133–1146)

She begged Neoptolemus that this dead child, who was hurled from the walls and breathed his last, the son of your Hector, be buried. She begged him also not to bring this bronze-backed shield, the Achaeans’ terror, which this boy’s father used to hold against his side, to the home of Peleus or to take it into the same chamber where she will become his bride [the mother of this dead boy, Andromache, so as to see grief], but to bury the boy in it instead of a cedar coffin and a stone tomb. She asked him to put it into your hands so that with funeral clothes and garlands you may deck out the corpse as well as you can in your present circumstances. For she is gone, and her master’s haste has prevented her from burying the boy. (Eur. Tro. 1133–1146)

Talthybios himself washed the corpse in the river and he will also dig the boy’s grave. Hecuba has the opportunity to adorn the body before the Greeks cover it with earth and leave Troy. The washing of the corpse and the cleansing of the wounds are part of the mourning ritual and were usually done by family members and not by professionals. In her lament she asks the women to find adornments and dresses the body in Trojan robes, which she should have worn at his wedding – another ritual he will not perform.62 In Greek tragedy, mourning women often address the reversal of the social order as a consequence of war. The natural cycle after which the children bury their dead parents is reversed as in the case of Hecuba and her grandson (σὺ δ᾿ οὐκ ἔµ᾿, ἀλλ᾿ ἐγὼ σὲ τὸν νεώτερον,γραῦς ἄπολις ἄτεκνος, ἄθλιον θάπτω νεκρόν. / “For now you are not burying me but I am burying you, who are younger, I an old woman with no city or children and you an unlucky corpse.” (Eur. Tro. 1185–1186)).63 To commemorate the shame of her grandson’s murderers, the following should be written on his tomb: “This

62 Cf. Euripides 1999, vs. 1147–1155 and cf. Rehm 1994, pp. 133–134. 63 Cf. Pallantza 2005, pp. 236–237. 21 child the Argives killed upon a time – in terror” (Τὸν παῖδα τόνδ᾿ ἔκτειναν Ἀργεῖοί ποτε δείσαντες; (Eur. Tro. 1190–1191)).64

In her book on the Trojan War in post-Homeric literature until the 5th century B.C., Elena Pallantza evaluates this specific war and divides it into the following categories: glory, grief, justice, hybris and the motif of Helen. I will focus on the second which is further subdivided into suffering of the fighters, mourning the dead, threnos, slavery and war versus oikos 65 , focusing on those categories where Pallantza mentions Euripides’ Trojan Women. Euripides’ special way of portraying the grief of the women for their dead relatives and for their destroyed city, expresses a negative attitude towards war. The fate of women is at the centre of the plot in Hecuba and Trojan Women (also sporadically in Helen and Andromache) and these plays show several examples of embedding threnos66 in the tragic plot. Here the relationship of the myth to the ritual and to literature becomes clear. Euripides uses forms of ritual lament for the dead in the depiction of the female threnos as for example antiphonies between a woman and the chorus (Eur. Tro. 1287–1332) or between two women (Eur. Tro. 577– 708). But he also makes use of literature by integrating scenes from the Iliupersis into the choral songs (Eur. Tro. 511–567). Against the background of the abrupt change from happiness to misfortune, he mentions the wooden horse, the festivities in the city and the appearance of Ares behind the work of Pallas, which marks the beginning of the end.67 The threnos is the anticipated way of expressing and reacting to death and disaster within the female world. This becomes particularly clear when women advise each other to lament: Hecuba calls for the Trojan women to start a lament (τύφεται Ἴλιον, αἰάζωµεν. µάτηρ δ᾿ ὡσεί τις πτανοῖς, κλαγγᾶν ἐξάρξω ᾿γὼ µολπάν […]. / “Ilium is

64 Cf. Rehm 1994, p. 134. 65 “If you look up οἶκος in Liddell and Scott, you find the instances classified in three main divisions:' first those meaning a house, or sometimes other kinds of building; secondly 'one's household goods, substance', for which I shall generally say 'property', though Liddell and Scott do not actually use that word; and thirdly 'family'.” MacDowell, Douglas M. 1989. “The Oikos in Athenian Law.” The Classical Quaterly 39:1, pp. 10–21, here p. 10. 66 Threnos, θρῆνος, means dirge, lament. “Homer apparently differentiated between a more spontaneous γόος (góos, ‘weeping’, ‘wailing’) by relatives or friends (cf. Hom. Il. 18,316; 24,723; 24,747) and the threnos sung by outsiders: Hector's body, laid out on a bed, is surrounded by singers (Hom. Il. 24,719-722) , the leaders of the threnos (ἔξαρχος/éxarchos: Hom. Il. 24,721; ἐξάρχειν/exárchein: 18,316) and the women who accompany the song with lamentations. […] In Antiquity, the custom of singing the threnos was assumed to be of non-Greek origin […]; threnoi are mentioned for Trojans only […].” Robbins, Emmet. 2006. “Threnos.” Brill’s New Pauly. Antiquity volumes. Edited by Cancik, Hubert and Helmuth Schneider. Online: https://referenceworks. brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-new-pauly/threnos-e1212420#. Last accessed 22 October 2019. 67 Cf. Pallantza 2005, pp. 232–234. 22 burning: let us wail aloud! Like a mother bird to her winged brood, I lead off the song of lamentation […].” (Eur. Tro.145–147)) and the Trojan women, on the other hand, ask Hecuba to bewail her grandson Astyanax (στέναζε, µᾶτερ . . . νεκρῶν ἴακχον. / “Utter aloud, mother, the groan . . . of lament for the dead!” (Eur. Tro. 1229–1230)) and make use of the appropriate facial expression, a ritual behaviour connected with the lament for the dead ἄρασσ᾿ ἄρασσε κρᾶτα πιτύ- λους διδοῦσα χειρός, / “Strike, strike your heads, moving your hands in rhythm!” (Eur. Tro. 1235–1236)). The absence of the threnos, however, is perceived as negative: Cassandra feels pity for the dead Greeks, whose graves are far way from their homeland and who will not have a funeral with their relatives in attendance, which implies the absence of the corresponding death ritual. The same applies for their relatives who die and are buried without their sons (Eur. Tro. 374–385). Hence, the omission of the death ritual as a consequence of war causes the absence of an elementary aspect of human existence, which is to deal with death. He uses the threnos to emphasize the pathos68 in order to increase the intensity of emotions not only on stage but also in the auditorium. Euripides enhances his criticism towards war by inserting threnodic scenes into the dramatic plot. He sees the ritual incompleteness of the death ceremony as an anomaly and war as a circumstance that violates the order of human life. Furthermore, he refers to the universal character of the threnos, which means equal suffering for both sides: the fact that the Greek women have to mourn their children as well is the only consolation for the Trojan women (Eur. Tro. 365–385). Its universality suggests that the effects of war on human existence do not distinguish between winners and losers.69

Because the women are already inferior to the enemy, they can only lament but not act politically due to their social status as slaves. This is why they often express their helplessness or their fear of the uncertain future: the Trojan women do not know which men and in which city they must serve as slaves. But there is also sympathy for these women when Talthybios reluctantly informs them about the decisions of the Greeks and expresses his pity for them. That death can bring about the redemption of suffering is also a thought of the captive women: Andromache envies Polyxena’s fate – she would

68 Pathos, πάθος, means “the presentation of the subject matter in a way calculated to produce an emotional response from the listener”. Walde, Christine. 2006. “Pathos.” Brill’s New Pauly, Antiquity volumes. Edited by Cancik Hubert and Helmuth Schneider. Online: https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-new-pauly/pathos-e909680#. Last accessed 23 October 2019. 69 Cf. Pallantza 2005, pp. 234–235. 23 rather be dead than to be carried off war away while coping with the death of her husband:70

καὶ νῦν ὄλωλας µὲν σύ, ναυσθλοῦµαι δ᾿ ἐγὼ πρὸς Ἑλλάδ᾿ αἰχµάλωτος ἐς δοῦλον ζυγόν. ἆρ᾿ οὐκ ἐλάσσω τῶν ἐµῶν ἔχει κακῶν Πολυξένης ὄλεθρος, ἣν καταστένεις; ἐµοὶ γὰρ οὐδ᾿ ὃ πᾶσι λείπεται βροτοῖς ξύνεστιν ἐλπίς, οὐδὲ κλέπτοµαι φρένας πράξειν τι κεδνόν· ἡδὺ δ᾿ ἐστὶ καὶ δοκεῖν. (Eur. Tro. 677–683)

And now you are dead, while I am going by ship to Greece as a captive to bear the yoke of slavery. Does not Polyxena’s death, which you weep for, involve less misery than mine? I do not have hope as my companion, the thing that is left behind for all mortals, and I do not delude myself that I shall fare well, though even delusions are pleasant. (Eur. Tro. 677–683)

For the royal women, slavery also means the loss of their former privileges: Hecuba mourns her fate as a slave, having previously been worshipped as a queen (Eur. Tro. 190–196; also: οὐκέτι Τροία τάδε καὶ βασιλῆς ἐσµεν Τροίας. / “This is no longer Troy you see, and we are no longer Troy’s rulers.” (Eur. Tro. 99–100)) and Andromache points out that she has lost her noble status and is now prey with her son (ἀγόµεθα λεία σὺν τέκνῳ· τὸ δ᾿ εὐγενὲς ἐς δοῦλον ἥκει, µεταβολὰς τοσάσδ᾿ ἔχον. / “I am carried away as booty with my son: nobility has been enslaved and has suffered so great a change!” (Eur. Tro. 614–615)). In a reversal from happiness to misfortune, Hecuba laments her former privileges, her murdered children and her current situation as a slave in order to question happiness (Eur. Tro. 466–510.), but finds comfort in poetry as her fate will be remembered by posterity (Eur. Tro. 1240–1245). While she prepares Astyanax to be buried on Hector’s shield, she laments the painful turn of fate for which she holds the gods responsible and thinks about the illusory nature of human happiness:71

70 Cf. ibid., pp. 237–239. 71 Cf. ibid., pp. 240–243. 24 θνητῶν δὲ µῶρος ὅστις εὖ πράσσειν δοκῶν βέβαια χαίρει· τοῖς τρόποις γὰρ αἱ τύχαι, ἔµπληκτος ὡς ἄνθρωπος, ἄλλοτ᾿ ἄλλοσε πηδῶσι, †κοὐδεὶς αὐτὸς εὐτυχεῖ ποτε†. (Eur. Tro. 1203–1206)

That man is a fool who imagines he is firmly prosperous and is glad. For in its very nature fortune, like a crazed man, leaps now in one direction, now in another, and the same man is never fortunate forever. (Eur. Tro. 1203–1206)

Taking the totality of all surviving depictions of lament into consideration, Markus Schauer examines the dramaturgical function of lament scenes and songs in their entirety but also of individual structural elements. He chooses an ahistorical approach, since the texts are considered in their own right and, above all, analysed in terms of their construction principles. Furthermore, lamentations or scenes of lament were conceptually unknown to contemporary poets, so a historical classification of the analysis would not make any sense. Schauer differentiates between threnetic components and threnetic units.72 Threnetic components are all recurring, more ore less stereotypical phrases, topoi, metaphors, themes and motifs that occur in lamentation. He uses the term threnetic unit instead of scene because the demarcation of lamentation does not correspond with the beginning and the end of a scene in a drama or tragedy. Whereas the unity of a scene can be demarcated by changes of figure constellation or changes of scene e.g., a lamentation can transcend these formal segmentation criteria. This non-conformity derives from the fact that Schauer determines the scope of lamentation by content criteria instead of formal or stage-technical. Hence, the beginning and the end of a threnetic unit are marked by the duration of lamentation with a specific plot, action and theme whereby the section emerges as a closed, dramaturgical unit.73 On the attic stage, the occurring suffering is not shown or performed on stage but is told in linguistic form, through a report by a messenger for example, particularly. The representation of the response to suffering through lament is, on the other hand, immediate. Lamentations are mimetic actions because nearly all components of lament, i.e. literal and mournful expression, gestures of sorrow or song can be performed onstage. Lament can be enacted through music, gesture and word whereas the latter has

72 The word threnetic comes from the Greek θρηνητικός and means inclined to lament, matter for lament, expressing lament. Cf. Schauer, Markus. 2002. Tragisches Klagen. Form und Funktion der Klagedarstellung bei Aischylos, Sophokles und Euripides. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, p. 341. 73 Cf. ibid., pp. 20–21, 27, 159–160. 25 a special status since gestures and songs can be described through spoken word.74 Markus Schauer lists all threnetic components and units in the tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, I will make a selection and discuss the ones from Trojan Women.

The polyptoton is a stylistic device that is used frequently to demonstrate the incessant succession of misfortunes or to compare a term by repeating it in a different form (ἐπὶ δ᾿ ἄλγεσιν ἄλγεα κεῖται. / “Woe lies on top of woe!” (596); δάκρυά τ᾿ ἐκ δακρύων / “tears succeeding tears” (Eur. Tro. 605); κακῷ κακὸν γὰρ εἰς ἅµιλλαν ἔρχεται. / “For one disaster comes to compete with another.” (Eur. Tro. 621)). The figura etymologica, on the other hand, is a rhetorical figure wherein two words with the same root follow one another, for example verb and subject (ἐπ᾿ ἄλγεσι δ᾿ ἀλγυνθῶ. / “and let me not have grief upon grief!” (Eur. Tro. 172)). In addition, there are formulations that have the character of a word play (ἁ δὲ µεγαλόπολιςἄπολις ὄλωλεν οὐδ᾿ ἔτ᾿ ἔστι Τροία. / “But the great city is now no city and has perished. Troy is no more.” (Eur. Tro. 1291–1292)), and an oxymoron, a combination of contrasting terms (ὄλωλεν ὡς ὄλωλεν· ἀλλ᾿ ὅµως ἐµοῦζώσης γ᾿ ὄλωλεν εὐτυχεστέρῳ πότµῳ. / “She died as she died. But her death is a happier lot than mine, who am alive.” (Eur. Tro. 630–631).75

The wailing party not only weeps for lost loved ones but also calls on gods, other people or objects they associate with the present situation. They mention cities and regions they have to leave behind or bid farewell to and on occasion they address abstract and elementary things such as light, earth, lightning or night whereas it is difficult to determine whether they speak of elements or of divine power.76 Schauer differentiates between address, epiclesis and exclamation. While he lists the verses in which you can find them, I will work out the ones of Trojan Women and locate them in terms of storyline. After Poseidon and Athena have left the stage, Hecuba rises and mourns the death of her husband, her children and the destruction of Troy before addressing the pride of her ancestors directly (ὦ πολὺς ὄγκος συστελλόµενος προγόνων, ὡς οὐδὲν ἄρ᾿ ἦσθα. / “Great pride of my ancestors, now cut short, how slight a thing you were after all!” (Eur.

74 Cf. ibid., p. 205. 75 Cf. ibid., p. 206–208. For the definition of the figura etymologica cf. Fehling, Detlev. 1969. Die Wiederholungsfiguren und ihr Gebrauch bei den Griechen vor Gorgias. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co, p. 153 and for the term oxymoron cf. ibid. p. 286. 76 Cf. Schauer 2002, p. 209. 26 Tro. 108–109)). When the chorus of captive Trojan women enters and the exchange with Hecuba begins, the queen weeps for the fallen city (Τροία Τροία δύσταν᾿, ἔρρεις, δύστανοι δ᾿ οἵ σ᾿ ἐκλείποντες καὶ ζῶντες καὶ δµαθέντες. / “Troy, unhappy Troy, you are gone, and unhappy are we who leave you, both the living and the dead!” (Eur. Tro. 173– 175)). And both, Hecuba and Andromache call on Hector – a lost husband, father and son:77

ΑΝΔΡΟΜΑΧΗ µόλοις, ὦ πόσις µοι . . .

ΕΚΑΒΗ βοᾷς τὸν παρ᾿ Ἅιδᾳ παῖδ᾿ ἐµόν; ὦ µέλεος, σὺ δάµαρτος ἄλκαρ;

ΑΝΔΡΟΜΑΧΗ σύ τοι, λῦµ᾿ Ἀχαιῶν . . .

ΕΚΑΒΗ τέκνων δή ποθ᾿ ἁµῶν πρεσβυγενὲς Πριάµῳ, κόµισαί µ᾿ ἐς Ἅιδαν. (Eur. Tro. 587–594)78

ANDROMACHE Come, my husband . . .

HECUBA Do you call upon my son in Hades? Poor man, can you defend your wife?

ANDROMACHE You, who once destroyed the Greeks . . .

HECUBA Yes, eldest of my children I bore to Priam, bring me to Hades! (Eur. Tro. 587–594)

Andromache speaks of her marriage and marital bed (ὦ λέκτρα τἀµὰ δυστυχῆ τε καὶ γάµοι / “O unhappy marriage bed and marriage of mine” (Eur. Tro. 745)), and Hecuba talks to the earth (ἰὼ γᾶ τρόφιµε τῶν ἐµῶν τέκνων. / “O land, nurse of my children!” (Eur. Tro. 1301)) and her dead children (ὦ τέκεα, κλύετε, µάθετε µατρὸς αὐδάν. / “My

77 Cf. Schauer 2002, p. 211. 78 Markus Schauer states that king Priam is called on but I see a direct address to Hector. 27 children, hear, listen to your mother’s voice!” (Eur. Tro. 1303)). Additionally, Hecuba and Andromache weep for their homeland:79

ΕΚΑΒΗ ὦ πατρίς, ὦ µελέα . . .

ΑΝΔΡΟΜΑΧΗ κατερειποµέναν σε δακρύω.

ΕΚΑΒΗ . . . νῦν τέλος οἰκτρὸν ὁρᾷς.

ΑΝΔΡΟΜΑΧΗ καὶ ἐµὸν δόµον ἔνθ᾿ ἐλοχεύθην. (Eur. Tro. 601–604)

HECUBA O unhappy fatherland . . .

ANDROMACHE I weep for you as you are being razed . . .

HECUBA . . . now you behold the pitiable end.

ANDROMACHE . . . and weep for my home, where I gave birth. (Eur. Tro. 601–604)

Schauer also notes words of exclamation. When Andromache announces the death of Polyxena, the queen cries out αἰαῖ (αἰαῖ, τέκνον, σῶν ἀνοσίων προσφαγµάτων·αἰαῖ µάλ᾿ αὖθις, ὡς κακῶς διόλλυσαι. / “Alas, my child, for your unhallowed slaughter! Alas, once more! How painful was your death!” (Eur. Tro. 628–630)), and while the queen and the choir lament the death of the grandchild, Hecuba calls out οἴµοι and the chorus answers οἴµοι δῆτα σῶν ἀλάστων κακῶν. (“Yes, alas for your miseries none may forget!” (Eur. Tro. 1231)). Moreover, Hecuba talks to her own body in her opening monologue (οἴµοι κεφαλῆς, οἴµοι κροτάφωνπλευρῶν θ᾿, / “Alas for the temples of my head and for my sides!” (Eur. Tro. 115–116)) and to herself as it is her fate to be enslaved by the enemy (ἰώ µοί µοι. µυσαρῷ δολίῳ λέλογχα φωτὶ δουλεύειν, πολεµίῳ δίκας, παρανόµῳ δάκει, / “Ah me, ah me! It is my lot to be a slave to a vile and treacherous man, an enemy of justice, a lawless creature!” (Eur. Tro. 281–284)).80

Numerous wails can be found in the Greek language. Schauer deciphers four different ones in Trojan Women: ἒ ἔ. (“Ah, ah!” (Eur. Tro. 168)), αἰαῖ … αἰαῖ µάλ᾿ αὖθις (αἰαῖ,

79 Cf. Schauer 2002, p. 211. 80 Cf. ibid., pp. 212–213. 28 τέκνον, σῶν ἀνοσίων προσφαγµάτων·αἰαῖ µάλ᾿ αὖθις, ὡς κακῶς διόλλυσαι. / “Alas, my child, for your unhallowed slaughter! Alas, once more! How painful was your death!” (Eur. Tro. 628–629)), αἰαῖ µάλ (αἰαῖ µάλ᾿· οὐ γὰρ µέτρια πάσχοµεν κακά. / “Ah, ah once more! The misfortunes I suffer are beyond all measure!” (Eur. Tro. 722)), and ὀτοτοτοτοῖ. (“O woe!” (Eur. Tro. 1287, 1294).81

Elinor S. Wright presented a dissertation in Classical Studies on The Form of Laments in Greek Tragedy to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in 1986 wherein she describes the characteristics of laments in the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. She defines lament “as a song or speech given by a character alone or with other characters or the chorus on the occasion of death” and compares structure, content of lament and metres of the tragedies to show similarities. Furthermore, she distinguishes between full lament and reduced lament. In order to achieve a full lament, four different aspects (occasion, structure, metre and content) have to be fulfilled and Wright lists eight tragedies that contain such full laments: Aeschylus’ The Persians and Seven Against Thebes, Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus Tyrannus and Antigone as well as Euripides’ The Suppliants, Trojan Women and Andromache. The included scenes of lamentation incorporate all four aspects and show similarities to the extent that they appear towards the end of the respective play to achieve the dramatic climax. Reduced laments, on the other hand, are important too as they bring dramatic effect to the specific scene without triggering the climax of the play.82

The full lament in Euripides’ Trojan Women can be found in verses 1287 to 1332.83 The chorus mourns the demise of Troy (στιν ἁ τάλαινα Τροία. / “and poor Troy is no more!” (Eur. Tro. 1324)) and the loss of Hecuba’s family before they leave the fallen city as Greek slaves. The final scene begins with an outcry from the queen (ὀτοτοτοτοῖ. / “O woe!” (Eur. Tro. 1287)) and she calls on Zeus (Κρόνιε, πρύτανι Φρύγιε, γενέτα γονᾶς, τάδ᾿ οἷα πάσχοµεν δέδορκας; / “Son of Kronos, lord of Phrygia, father of our race, do you see what things we suffer?” (Eur. Tro. 1289–1290)). Hecuba weeps over her husband and laments her own fate (ἰὼ ἰώ, Πρίαµε Πρίαµε, σὺ µὲν ὀλόµενος ἄταφος ἄφιλοςἄτας

81 Cf. ibid., pp. 213–214. The quoted wails occur several times throughout the play, here Schauer made a selection. 82 Cf. Wright, Elinor S. 1986. The Form of Laments in Greek Tragedy, Dissertation. University of Pennsylvania, pp. v–vi and cited after ibid., p. 2. For a metrical analysis and stylistic features of the final lament in Trojan Women cf. ibid., pp. 104–107. 83 Wright indicates that the full lament takes place in verses 1352–1332, but I assume it is a typing error because it is in the verses 1287–1332. 29 ἐµᾶς ἄιστος εἶ. / “Oh, oh, Priam, Priam! You have perished without a grave, without a friend, and have no knowledge of my destruction!” (Eur. Tro. 1312–1314)), while the chorus mentions the transitoriness of the city and its fall:84

ΧΟΡΟΣ ὄνοµα δὲ γᾶς ἀφανὲς εἶσιν· ἄλλᾳ δ᾿ ἄλλο φροῦδον, οὐδ᾿ ἔτ᾿ ἔ- στιν ἁ τάλαινα Τροία. (Eur. Tro. 1323–1324)

CHORUS The land’s name shall be wiped out! In one place one thing, in another another vanishes away, and poor Troy is no more! (Eur. Tro. 1323–1324)

In the final verse, the chorus asks the queen to board the Achaean ships (δὲ πρόφερε πόδα σὸν ἐπὶ πλάτας Ἀχαιῶν. / “go forward now to the ships of the Achaeans.” (Eur. Tro. 1332)) before “HECUBA, TALTHYBIUS with retinue, and CHORUS” exit the stage.85

84 Cf. Wright 1986, pp. 101–102. 85 Cf. Euripides 1999. and cited after ibid., p. 143. For reduced laments cf. Wright 1986: laments in iambic trimeter (740–763 and 1167–1206) pp. 121–122, 124, lament in anapaests (790–798) p. 124, and small lament in preparation for the finale (1216–1237) pp. 115–117. 30 3. Les Troyennes, Jean-Paul Sartre (1965)

Euripides’ Trojan Women has been translated and dramatically adapted multiple times. Some authors focus on philological faithfulness to the text while others maintain the substantial and formal elements of an ancient tragedy. The latter includes modern interpretations of an ancient work of art whose content matter is still as significant as it was thousands of years ago. Jean-Paul Sartre incorporated the historic aspect in his play Les Troyennes by embedding the Algerian War that shook France in the 1960s. Like Euripides, Sartre did not write Les Troyennes as a closet drama but as a play for the stage and the theatre of his time.86 In this chapter I will take a closer look at Sartre’s political actions and his intention behind writing this play before I will analyze his textual changes in comparison to Euripides’ Trojan Women.

3.1. Sartre’s intention: anti-war messages Sartre visited a staged version of Euripides’ play by Jacqueline Moatti during the Algerian War that inspired him because it signified the oppressiveness of the French colonial occupation that used torture systematically. Among other French intellectuals, Sartre disapproved strongly and saw a connection between the French imperialism in Algeria and the Greek colonialization of Asia Minor. He used this fact to raise an indictment against war and nuclear war in particular. In view of nuclear destruction he took up the theme of equality between winner and loser in Trojan Women and placed it in his time. Hence, he emphasizes the high political importance of this tragedy in Euripides’ days.87.

“It was an explicit condemnation of war in general, and of imperial expeditions in particular. We know today that war would trigger off an atomic war in which there would be neither victor nor vanquished. This play demonstrates this fact precisely: that war is a defeat to humanity. The Greeks destroy Troy but they receive no benefit from their victory. […] The message is that men should avoid war. […] It is sufficient to leave the final statement to Poseidon: Can’t you see war will kill you, all of you?”88

Jacqueline Moatti’s Les Troyennes “convinced Sartre that he could express his own anti-war, anti-colonial messages by adapting this classical text.” His life as an active

86 Cf. Petersmann, Gerhard. 1977. “Die Rolle der Polyxena in den Troerinnen des Euripides.” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 120: 2, pp. 146–58, here pp. 146–7, 149. 87 Cf. Goff 2009, pp. 80–82. 88 Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1967. The Trojan Women – Euripides. English version by Ronald Duncan. London: Hamish Hamilton, p. 9. 31 protester had enormous impact on his text. He participated in protests against the government, wrote manifestos and took part in rallies. After he had finished the script, he rejected the Nobel Prize for Literature, because he did not want it as an author in general, but would have been happy to receive the prize during the Algerian War, which had thus been a sign of peace. 89 Directed by Cacoyannis, his Les Troyennes was first staged at the Théâtre Nationale Populaire in Paris on 10 March 1965 and constitutes Jean-Paul Sartre’s last play.90 Sartre was unable to attend rehearsals due to influenza and when he saw the production with his partner Simone de Beauvoir, he was shocked. The music of John Prodromides drowned out the text and the choreography of the choir was terrible. But it was too late for radical changes, he could only persuade Cacoyannis to remove some of the theatrical effects.91 While he had the Algerian War in mind when he wrote the play, it was more of a commentary on the escalating Vietnam War at the time of its premiere. He condemned the US for interfering in Vietnam and cancelled a series of lectures at Cornell University in New York. 92 In February 1965 the American Air Force bombed North Vietnam and on 8 March, two days before the premiere of Les Troyennes, 3500 infantrymen of the US Navy landed in South Vietnam. Although this lecture series on Flaubert and ethics would have given him the opportunity to protest from within, he declined. At the beginning of May he sent a long telegram to the organizers of a teach- in about Vietnam at Boston University in which he expressed his hope that they might be more successful in the fight against war than the French intellectuals. At least, they would show the world that the young generation in America opposed their political leaders.93 His objection to the Vietnam War culminated one year later in November 1966, when the English philosopher Bertrand Russell summoned an international tribunal to investigate war crimes committed by the United Sates in Vietnam. They concluded that the American military action was nothing less than genocide.94 In the following, Sartre’s text will be discussed in more detail in comparison to the Euripidean play.

89 Cf. Willis, Avery T. 2005. Euripides’ Trojan Women. A 20th century war play in performance. D.Phil Thesis, University of Oxford, pp. 111–113 and cited after p. 114. 90 Cf. Goff 2009, p. 80. 91 Cf. Hayman, Ronald. 1988. Jean-Paul Sartre. Leben und Werk. München: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, p. 580. 92 Cf. Cox, Gary. 2018. Jean-Paul Sartre. Existentialismus und Exzess. Darmstadt: Theiss Verlag, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, pp. 194, 196. 93 Cf. Hayman 1988, pp. 580–581. 94 Cf. Cox 2018, pp. 199–200. 32 3.2. Sartre’s changes: debates and tirades emerge from ritual mourning He focused upon Euripides’ fictional work and justified any additions or alterations in the preface.95 Sartre argues that Euripides wrote in traditional mode for an audience that called obsolete views into question. They “were listening to characters who had beliefs which they no longer held themselves”.96 He saw it as his task to bridge the gap between the past and the present, more particularly between people of Euripides’ time and Sartre’s audience. The gods in Trojan Women presented Sartre with a significant problem and he asked himself how to update them for a contemporary audience who perceived them differently to people in ancient Greece. In this case he decided to simply reword the original and to use adaptation rather than translation. He made adjustments in order to intensify dramatic moments and to explain clues that people would not understand today. 97 Sartre’s alterations had decisive influence on subsequent, particularly European adaptations of Euripides’ play. For example, the women became specifically identifiable as Algerian women or the Greek army as American soldiers.98 In its most fruitful time, authors of Greek tragedy made no use of stage directions. Other than Jean-Paul Sartre who embedded stage directions into his play to add commentaries on feelings or on actions on the one hand or to even give directions on how to act or stage the respective scene on the other hand. Already at the beginning of the play, after Poseidon has said farewell to Troy and Athena/Pallas enters, Sartre notes “(Il la regarde avec colère, se détourne et va pour sortir.)”99 (“[He turns, sees her and angrily goes to leave]”100 ) before she asks him to stay.101 In the opening monologue, Sartre directs Hecuba’s movements: first she lies on the ground before she tries to get up, then she wants to throw herself back to the ground but stops before she finally claps her hands to call on the Trojan women to stand up and look down at the ruins of the city and express their sorrow.102 French historian Nicole Loraux criticizes Sartre’s use of stage directions. She says an adaptation does not have to be historically correct, because during the height of the Greek tragedy there were no stage directions, if at all only minimal. But his instructions are very psychologizing and in Greek tragedy “there is

95 Cf. Petersmann 1977, p. 148. 96 Cf. Sartre 1967, p. 6 and cited after ibid. 97 Cf. Goff 2009, pp. 80–81. 98 Cf. Avery 2005, p. 111. 99 Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1965. Les Troyennes. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, p. 19. 100 Sartre 1967, p. 23. 101 Cf. Loraux, Nicole. 2002. The Mourning Voice: An Essay on Greek Tragedy. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, p. 4. 102 Cf. Sartre 1967, pp. 25, 27–28. 33 nothing to be known about the characters and their feelings other than what is said in the text”.103 Furthermore, Loraux argues that the great difference between Euripides’ Trojan Women and Jean-Paul Sartre’s Les Troyennes lies within the use of tone. The latter applies a simple, even vulgar language instead of Euripides’ noble style. For example, whereas Menelaus refers to Paris as a traitorous visitor in Trojan Women, he speaks of him as “cette ordure, que j’avais reçu dans mon palais”104 (“The shit whom I took into my palace”105) in Sartre’s drama. The significance of the tonus is also evident in the Cassandra scene. In Euripides’ play she speaks of the Trojans defeat as “their greatest glory” (Τρῶες δὲ πρῶτον µέν, τὸ κάλλιστον κλέος, ὑπὲρ πάτρας ἔθνῃσκον·(Eur. Tro. 386–387)) because they have defended their city to the death, she merely states: “Nous, nous l’avons perdue mais je n’en ai pas honte”106 (“True, we have lost [the war]”107) in Les Troyennes. ‘Beautiful death’ thus gives way to the recognition of loss.108 Sartre deliberately omits Euripides’ usage of stasimon109 and replaces it with dialogues. Nicole Loraux poses the question of whether these alterations had to be made in order to make Les Troyennes clearer to an audience of 1965 and proffers that it would make the staging of the chorus easier when using dialogue instead of stasimon. She states that it is an “attempt to animate, to render more expressive, a text which […] seems remarkably discreet about its own power”.110 The splitting of the speeches and the choral stasima resulted in bitter exchanges between two roles, for example in the scene between Hecuba and Andromaque, as she is called in Sartre’s adaptation.111 This creates a tension between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law that is hardly present in Euripides Trojan Women. A passage with lyrical emotion becomes a bitter exchange; both quarrel and insult each other:112

103 Cf. Loraux 2002, pp. 4–5 and cited after ibid., p. 5. 104 Sartre 1965, p. 71. 105 Sartre 1967, p. 55. 106 Sartre 1965, p. 50. 107 Sartre 1967, p. 39. 108 Cf. Loraux 2002, pp. 5–6. 109 In ancient Greek theatre, a distinction is made between parodos, the chorus’ entrance song, and stasimon, the stationary song of the chorus performed in the orchestra. Cf. Seeck, Gustav Adolf. 2000. Die griechische Tragödie. Stuttgart: Reclam, p. 192. 110 Cf. Loraux 2002, p 7 and cited after ibid. 111 Cf. Avery 2005, p. 117. 112 Cf. Loraux 2002, p. 5. 34 “HÈCUBE (ébranlée, se cache la figure de ses mains) Priam, mon époux, mon Seigneur, Sors de l’Hadès, Dis-lui qu’elle ment! Viens me protéger. ANDROMAQUE Hector, mon home aux bras puissants, qui t’es sacrifié pour rien, noble victime des crimes de ton frère, viens me sauver ou me venger.

(Elle se reprend. Plus doucement, mais sans tendresse.)

Vieille, je ne t’aimais guère Car tu n’as pas toujours été bonne pour moi. Mais je te plains de tout mon cœur.”113

“HECUBA [broken, her face in her hands] If Priam could cry out from Hell He would shout: ‘You lie, you lie.’ ANDROMEDA. If Hector could come back He would save me. He would revenge me.

[then quietly but without gentleness]

I have never liked you. You have never liked me. But you’re an old woman: I feel sorry for you.”114

But Sartre not only converts monologues and discourses into dialogues, but also eliminates lyrical passages. When the queen bends over the body of Astyanax, the monologue does not become a dialogue, as Sartre’s practice would suggest, but he erases the commenting chorus in this scene. Thus Hecuba’s lament is transformed into an anti-colonial triad:115

“[…] Sartre erases every trace of the lamentations with which […] the women of Troy punctuate Hecuba’s threnody and the dressing of the dead child […].”116

Sartre made significant linguistic changes in order to express his anti-colonialist attitude, as for example in Andromaque’s speech. Unlike Euripides, she does not blame

113 Sartre 1965, p. 68. 114 Sartre 1967, p. 47. 115 Cf. ibid., p. 8. 116 Ibid. 35 Helen for the death of her son (ὄλοιο· καλλίστων γὰρ ὀµµάτων ἄπο αἰσχρῶς τὰ κλεινὰ πεδί᾿ ἀπώλεσας Φρυγῶν. / “From your fair eyes you brought foul ruin on the glorious plains of the Phrygians” / (Eur. Tro. 772–773)), but denounces the Euripidean men and she poses the question of how the Greeks can call the Trojans barbarians while they execute innocent children:117

“Hommes de l’Europe, vous méprisez l’Afrique et l’Asie et vous nous appelez barbares, je crois, Mais quand ls gloriole et la cupidité vous jettent chez nous, vous pillez, vous torturez, vous massacrez.”118

“Men of Europe, you despise Africa and Asia and call us barbarians, I believe, but when vainglory and avarice throw you upon us, you pillage, you torture, you massacre.”119

The Cassandra scene also shows Sartre’s attitude towards war, for even the seemingly victorious Greeks will die:120

“Gloire aux défenseurs de la patrie. Mais les autres, les conquérants, Ceux qui font une sale guerre et qui en meurent, leur mort est plus bête encore que leur vie.”121

“We who defended our native land are glorified, But those who conquered us shall be cursed. They started this filthy war: They will die as stupidly as they lived.”122

In his dramatic adaptation, Sartre took up a time-dependent problem by resorting to an antique drama instead of an ancient, commonly known theme. Sartre’s interpretation emerges from Euripides’ scenic structure and follows its path but ends differently.123

117 Cf. Avery 2005, p. 115. In his translation of Sartre’s text, Robert Duncan notes that he took the liberties in the adaptation that Sartre took in relation to Euripides. Thus he erased this triad. 118 Sartre1965, p. 81. 119 Avery 2005, p. 115. 120 Cf., ibid. 121 Sartre 1965, p. 51. 122 Sartre 1967, p. 39. 123 Cf. Petersmann 1977, p. 148. 36 Les Troyennes does not end with the Trojan women leaving their fallen city but with Poseidon who looks down at them while they wait at the beach. He opens his monologue by announcing to Hecuba that she will go down with the ship, she will rise as a rock on the shore, Poseidon’s waves will break incessantly over her and her sorrows will repeat themselves again and again. He curses the people who wage war and in so doing inflict suffering on themselves. In the end they are to blame for the war, not the gods:124

“A présent vous allez payer. Faites la guerre, mortels imbéciles, ravagez les champs et les villes, voilez les temples, les tombes, et torturez les vaincus. Vous en créverez. Tous.”125

“Idiots! We’ll make you pay for this. You stupid, bestial mortals Making war, Burning cities, violating tombs and temples, torturing your enemies, bringing suffering on yourselves. Can’t you see War Will kill you: All of you?”126

Jean-Paul Sartre emphasizes the injustice, depravity and futility of war and questions the distinction between victors and vanquished. Since war brings death and devastation to both sides, mankind destroys itself through it: man is his own worst enemy.127 The last word in Les Troyennes, ‘tous’, “in a line by itself, stresses that not one single human being will escape the affect of a nuclear attack; there is no hope of survival, even innocent people will die”.128

124 Cf. Cox 2018, p. 195. 125 Sartre 1965, p. 130. 126 Sartre 1967, pp. 75–76. 127 Cf. Cox 2018, pp. 195–196. 128 Cf. Avery 2005, p. 117 and cited after ibid. 37 Sartre’s changes resulted in the substitution of ritual mourning with angry, passionate tirades. Euripides’ subtle relationships between the main characters were replaced by intense interactions. Since there is no hope, there is no reason to grieve or for rituals. Like Sartre Hecuba is a rebel and a fighter and the Trojans are not mourners but protesters. Cacoyannis was disappointed that Sartre erased the ritual gesture at the end in which the Trojan women hit the ground. After a short argument, the latter gave in and could be convinced to keep the original version, but this happened only on stage and never in the print version. In conclusion, the “dramatic and emotive power of the play lay in the balance between the political aspects and the personal lament”, whereby the political aspects predominate.129

129 Cf. ibid., pp. 120–122 and cited after ibid., pp. 121–122. 38 4. Trojan Women, Ong Keng Sen (2016) Trojan Women is a new version for changgeuk written by Bae Sam-sik in cooperation with Ong Keng Sen after Jean-Paul Sartre’s Les Troyennes.130 It merges Greek tragedy with Korean opera, pansori and K-pop.131 Trojan Women premiered on 11 November 2016 at the National Theater of Korea in Seoul and is a co-production with the Singapore International Festival of Arts.132 Since then it has been staged at Singapore International Festival of Arts (2017)133, again in Seoul at the Daloreum Theater (2017), at Brighton Festival (2018), at LIFT – London International Festival of Theatre (2018), at Holland Festival (2018) and at the Wiener Festwochen (2018). The focus of the following chapter lies on the performance at the Singapore International Festival of Arts in 2017.

This chapter begins with a detailed discussion of the emergence and history of pansori and changgeuk, followed by a description of the production process and Ong Keng Sen’s approach to Trojan Women and changgeuk, before focusing on the production at the Singapore festival and its performance analysis.

4.1. Pansori and changgeuk

The following chapter provides an introduction to the history and origins of pansori on the basis of Heinz-Dieter Reese’s article on pansori in Wolfgang Burde’s book on Korean music tradition before making the transition to the emergence of changgeuk operas.

Pansori is regarded as one of the central genres among Korean popular music. In early times, touring companies performed pansori at village markets; nowadays it is considered to be a highly developed form of music enacted by professional musicians. It is a form of vocal music where a singer, standing on a straw mat, performs a lengthy epic dramatic text accompanied by a drummer. The performance involves certain gestural and mimic elements; hence, pansori is often regarded as a one-man opera or as

130 Cf. Wiener Festwochen. 2018. Programme for Trojan Women. Vienna. 131 Cf. Ng, Yi-Sheng. 2017. “Trojan Women: An Interview with Ong Keng Sen.” Singapore International Festival of Arts Blog, Online: https://sifa.sg/2017/theopen/blog/trojan-women-an- interview-with-ong-keng-sen. Last accessed 15 September 2018. 132 Cf. National Changgeuk Company of Korea. 2016. “Trojan Women.” Brochure by the National Theater of Korea. 133 Singapore International Festival of Arts. 2017. Trojan Women by National Theater of Korea, Ong Keng Sen. Online: https://sifa.sg/2017/sifa/programme/shows/trojan-women/. Last accessed 18 September 2018. 39 a musical solo-piece. According to Heinz-Dieter Reese, this ascription overemphasizes the scenic aspect of pansori and he suggests characterizing it as epic singing. The term pansori derives from the Korean words pan and sori. Translated literally sori means ‘sound’, in this context song or chant and the precise origin of pan is unknown but it is often understood in the sense of ‘meeting place’ referring to the term nori-p’an meaning a ‘space for performance’.134 The origins of pansori are obscure: Yu Chin-han’s 1754 writing Manhwajip provides the first piece of evidence containing a version of the tale Ch’unhyang-ga in Chinese verses that is still an essential part of the pansori repertoire. It can be assumed that pansori had already existed as an independent art form in the second half of the 17th century according to orally recorded genealogies of musicians. Ha Han-dam and Ch’oe Sŏn-dal are the first pansori singers known by name. They belonged to a group of musicians who referred to themselves as kwangdae meaning big, vast, profound, suggesting a close connection to shamanistic folk religion. In order to entertain and propitiate summoned ghosts, various kinds of music were required in shamanistic rituals. Usually, itinerate musicians who were often married to female shamans took care of these ritualistic chants. Particularly since governmental pressure and the propagation of Confucianism in early Chosŏn dynasty times (1392–1910) repressed shamanism, these music performances lost religious function progressively.135 Touring companies continued to present their performances in public spaces for entertainment reasons. In addition to pansori, these travel troops also performed dance, acrobatics, jugglery and other activities. In the 17th century, the singers presumably left these companies because their artistic qualities stood out from the other arts and they could lead a better life. Early pansori pieces were of simple form with relatively short texts, mostly improvised, in the language of the common people, predominantly declaimed and only some passages were sung to given folk song melodies. From the end of the 18th century, representative of the aristocratic yangban-class also wanted to adapt this art from to their ideals of literature and music, which were influenced by Confucianism. Twelve songs cycles, mandangs, were taken out of a very extensive repertoire, which were written down for the first time during the reign of King Sunjo (1800–1834). The focus on a few pieces resulted in an increase in complexity and scope, and as a consequence singers were able to refine their art and gained recognition

134 Cf. Reese, Heinz-Dieter. 1985. “P'ansori.” Korea: Einführung in die Musiktradition. Edited by Wolfgang Burde. Mainz, London, New York and Tokyo: Schott, pp. 113–28, here p. 113. 135 Cf. ibid., pp. 113–4. 40 at the royal court. They enjoyed the prestige among the artists of the popular music scene and were awarded honorary titles. At the beginning of the 19th century, personal and regional styles emerged, indicating a high degree of aesthetic differentiation.136 Sin Chae-hyo (1817–1884) was a significant patron. Almost every pansori singer studied under his guidance in the second half of the 19th century. Sin revised and rewrote six song cycles, five of which – Ch’unhyang-ga, Sim-Ch’ŏng-ga, Hŭngbu-ga, Sugung-ga and Chŏkpyŏk-ka – constitute the pansori repertoire down to the present day. Sin Chae-hyo is considered the founder of pansori singing for women; hence, women became pansori’s leading exponents in the past century. Sin also composed a number of short songs, tan’gas, to warm up the voice and the audience before a performance. One of those short songs called Kwangdae-ga (transl. Song about a pansori singer) is of peculiar interest as its text can be regarded as the oldest evidence of an art-theoretical reflection on pansori.137 Heinz-Dieter Reese’s translation of this song highlights the four necessary requirements to presenting pansori well: character (inmul), mastery of storytelling (sasŏl), dramatic capability of depiction (nŏrŭmsae) and musical talent (tŭngŭm). According to Kwangdae-ga it is hard to become a pansori singer (kwangdae). Dramatic depiction is the most difficult requirement to obtain as it entails switching roles from fairy to ghost; causing audiences to laugh and weep. Through musical talent one is able to differentiate between the five degrees of the scale, to use the six pitches variedly and to raise the voice employing the whole body.138 As previously mentioned, five mandangs are used in artistic practice. Except for Chŏkpyŏk-ka, mandangs draw their themes from myths and folktales; numerous episodes embellish and extend a specific main plot. When a pansori piece is performed in its entirety, it can last up to eight hours. The attraction of this art lies in the way individual scenes are presented by a mastersinger. The text is divided into descriptive- epic and dialogical-dramatic passages and corresponds roughly to the division into sung (ch’ang) and spoken (aniri) sections. A broad linguistic spectrum of expression, from folk-like coarseness to subtle poetry, is a typical feature of pansori texts. Naïve humor and solemn portrayal of feelings shape the narrative.139

136 Cf. ibid., p. 114. 137 Cf. ibid. 138 Cf. ibid., pp. 114–5. 139 Cf. ibid., p. 118. 41 Nowadays, singer and drummer perform almost exclusively on a stage in theatres or concert halls. Only the straw mat lying in the centre of the stage is reminiscent of the open-air presentations on market places or in gardens of wealthy merchants and state officials in earlier times. Drummer and singer both wear traditional Korean costumes, often men wear white while women wear colourful silk fabrics. Regularly, the drummer wears a broad-brimmed hat made out of braided horsehair. A fan and a handkerchief are the only requisites used in the simple scenic enactment that accompanies the vocal performance. Modest dance movements underscore distinctly rhythmic sung section and theatrical insinuations of the portrayed storyline. Thus, the fan becomes a sword in fight scenes or the shooting of an arrow is performed with fan and handkerchief. In scenes with great sadness, the singer throws himself on the ground elucidating the deep pain felt by the depicted character. Nonetheless, the voice remains the central medium of the performance. Pansori requires an unusually raucous powerful vocalization. This kind of voice is generally perceived as having more expressiveness than a smooth and beautiful voice. It takes years of thorough exercise to achieve this.140 The vocal technique is different from the one used in European bel canto. The laryngeal narrowing makes the voice sound strained and there is hardly any differentiation between chest voice and falsetto. Pansori singers are able to lead their voice freely over several octaves and to modulate multifariously. The latter is known as mok meaning florid notes, microtonal variances and the usage of vibrato. The drummer sits on the left of the singer facing towards him playing the puk, a flat barrel drum with a diameter of 50 cm and covered with cowhide on both sides. A long, thin drumstick plays the right hide and the wooden body whereas fingers and palm play the left side. In the former case a high strident note resounds, in the latter a muffled and mellow one. A distinction is made between four playing techniques: in ssang both hides are hit simultaneously, in p’yŏn the drumstick in the right hand plays the wooden body of the drum, in ko the left hand brushes the left hide and in yo the drumstick hits the instrument’s body multiply. By combining these techniques a specific rhythmic pattern emerges providing the basis for the singer’s rendering. Furthermore, the drummer embodies the role of a mute acting partner to whom the singer talks.141 Pansori pieces are divided into spoken or recitative and sung passages. The playing of the drums suspends during spoken sequences, which means there is no rhythmic dependence. Again, there are three basic types of spoken segments. The first one is used

140 Cf. ibid., p. 119. 141 Cf. ibid., pp. 120–121. 42 for dialogues and is identical to the way of speaking in everyday conversation. The second type is appropriate for describing a scene or a person; the common intonation of the spoken word is elevated to an emphatic declamation. Finally, the third type does not feature speaking as such. Words are presented in a rather vocally recitative way with only few notes. As the message is emphasized musically, this type is used for emotional descriptions or for the direct speech of the depicted character. Sung passages are characterized by the differentiated usage of rhythm and melodic formulae. The rhythmic composition of pansori is based on specific basic patterns, changdan meaning long- short, repeated constantly by the drummer with slight variations, also known as rhythmically metric cycles. Various types can be distinguished within changdan depending on the number of drumbeats, their distribution within a metric frame, their accentuation and pace of the performance.142 The combination of rhythmic basic patterns with modes or types of melody causes a musical variety bringing the narrative with all its nuances to life. In succession of contrasting sung passages, greater arcs of suspense develop, leading to the climax. Interspersed spoken or recitative sections provide certain caesurae and contrast with the pathos of sung segments through humor. Of particular importance is the constant change of perspective within the performance. The singer takes on the role of the distanced narrator, and in the next moment that of another character of the plot. The aim of a pansori performance is to mesmerize the audience and make everyone laugh and cry. A performance is regarded as good when imyŏn, meaning backside or inside, is achieved: a psychologically veracious portrayal that makes the depicted acutely comprehensible in the absence of scenic visualization.143

Pansori flourished in the 19th century. This changed when the Chosŏn dynasty came to an end marking a watershed for cultural life in general. Pansori was still the centre of attention. Following Chinese (Peking Opera) and Japanese (Kabuki) examples, there was the urge to originate a national stagecraft in Korea. Finally, ch’anggŭk emerged. Instead of performing soloistically, several singers in costumes enact the text on a stage with scenery and props and the drum accompaniment is expanded to an ensemble consisting of six wind, string and percussion instruments.144 In 1908, Lee In-jik’s Eunsegye (transl. The Snow-Covered World) was the first performance of changgeuk at

142 Cf. ibid., p. 121. 143 Cf. ibid., p. 124. 144 Cf. ibid., pp. 115–6. 43 the Wongaksa Theatre, now known as Jeongdong Theatre, in Seoul inaugurating a new era of modern Korean theatre. Since then, changgeuk is regarded as a comprehensive art genre because of performances in front of realistic scenery in modern Western theatres and the emergence of changgeuk actors. But for a long time it was not able to thrive due to the lack of creative shows and support measures.145 With the reinterpretation of old themes and the modernization of the stage setting, people of all ages swarmed to the changgeuk theatres. This movement was led by the National Changgeuk Company Korea with the objective to hire renowned artistic directors from home and abroad who so far had no experiences with this genre and who adapt one of the five surviving song cycles– Ch’unhyang-ga, Sim-Ch’ŏng-ga, Hŭngbu- ga, Sugung-ga and Chŏkpyŏk-ka – or classical works to changgeuk. Through this synergy effect it became an art form with more contemporaneity and universality.146

4.2. Development and production

Director Ong Keng Sen’s genuinely artistic involvement with Euripides’ Trojan Women began in the fall of 2014 when he visited the National Theater of Korea to talk about a possible collaboration including changgeuk. After months of discussion, Ong proposed Euripides’ Trojan Women in order to expand the changgeuk repertoire, as he did not want to merely revitalize one of the five surviving full-length pansoris by showing directorial innovation and skill.147 The storyline of the Trojan women provided a neutral basis for his experiment. Ong saw a tight correlation between Korean art forms and ancient Greek drama since both are charged with emotions and are epic in every way.148 He considers himself responsible for contributing to the pansori repertoire instead of simply transferring this genre of musical storytelling into the present age.149

145 Cf. Kang, Il-joong. 2016. “Changgeuk erwacht zu neuem Leben.” Koreana 11:1. Online: https://koreana.or.kr/home/homeIndex.do?pubYear=2016&pubMonth=SPRING&pubLang=German &zineInfoNo=0001. Last accessed 26 July 2018. 146 Cf. ibid. 147 Cf. Ong, Keng Sen, 2018. “Der Klang einer Stimme.” Programme for Trojan Women at the Wiener Festwochen, Vienna. 148 Cf. Tan, Corrie. 2018. “Trojan Women: the Greek tragedy that became a queer Korean opera.” The Guardian. Online: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/may/16/trojan-women-ong-keng-sen- euripedes-korea-southbank-centre. Last accessed 14 September 2017. 149 Cf. Ong 2018. 44 “In order to fulfil the dream of creating a work worthy of being in the pantheon of changgeuk plays [...] I approached strong, if not the best, Korean artists to be my collaborators. Mr Bae Sam Sik was an important player. After all, changgeuk begins from pansori and pansori begins with storytelling. I wanted Euripides’ words to be transformed into strong, lyrical Korean that would bridge the gap of close to 2,500 years, from the time Euripides wrote it till now.”150

Ong characterizes his style as “distilled yet rich storytelling [...] through strong concept, integrated choreography and bold visuality.” Pansori’s minimalism was the focus of his work, meaning the collaboration of a single musician with a singer. In Trojan Women, every singer is accompanied by one instrument predominantly and the drummer provides the rhythmical pattern throughout.151 And this is the essence of pansori: a single vocalist performing to a single instrumentalist. All main characters sing a solo, which helps the audience to lay their focus on this specific role. When the chorus comes in, all instruments resound.152 Ong Keng Sen says that today’s changgeuk performances focus more on dazzling settings and exaggerated musical features than on pansori itself.153 The concept of minimalism resurfaces in the set design.154 A pavilion in the centre stage and steps on either side depict the only decor on stage. Ong sees this pavilion as a transit lounge, as a place of departure from a contemporary point of view. After the Trojan War, the enslaved women are deported by ship; in the Korean production the stage is reminiscent of a departure hall at an airport – the Trojan women are waiting to be taken away as slaves to their respective new masters155 The stripping down to the core is also represented in the production’s costumes, as they are white or gray in order to distinguish between the Trojan women and the Greeks.156

150 Ong, Keng Sen. 2017. “The Sound of a Voice.” Programme for Trojan Women at Victoria Theatre, Singapore. 151 Cf. ibid. 152 Cf. Park, Byung-sung. 2016. “Review on TrojanWomen. The Musical.” TrojanWomen Press Review by National Changgeuk Company of Korea. Online: https://ntok.go.kr/Down/Department/ 201710/Changgeuk_Trojan_Women_Press_Review_5.pdf. Last accessed 15 September 2018. 153 Cf. You, Joo-hyeon. 2016. “Director Ong Keng Sen’s Changgeuk ‘Trojan Women’. Co-produced Changgeuk Makes Debut on World Stage.” Online: https://ntok.go.kr/Down/Department/ 201710/Changgeuk_Trojan_Women_Press_Review_5.pdf. Last accessed 15 September 2018. 154 Cf. Ong 2017. 155 Cf. Ong, Keng Sen. Personal nterview by Julia Lipold. Singapore, 14 September 2017. 156 Cf. Hwang, Hojun. 2016. “Singaporean director blends Greek tragedy and Korean opera in ‘Trojan Women’ remake.” Arirang News. Online: http://www.arirang.com/News/News_View.asp?nSeq= 197522. Last accessed 15 September 2018. 45 “I want to hear the words. I want to be inside of the imagination of words. […] So, everything is imagined in the mind of the audience. And so we need to hear the words, but I also believe very much that the less we put on stage, the clearer we can imagine.”157

Ms Ahn Sook Sun, an icon of Korea’s traditional musical storytelling and considered a “living cultural asset”158, was in charge of the pansori composition.159 Ahn developed the pansori orally by dedicating herself to perfectness. She sang vocal lines over and over again to find the perfect final outcome, which caused the blood vessels of the vocal cords to tear.160 She gave her “wisdom to this epic play of women struggling to survive during war. As epic as the ancient Greek theatre, as epic as pansori” with its raw emotionality.161 The special characteristic of the voice creates the “haunting beauty” of pansori that allows the actors to convey the necessary emotions implied in Euripides’ play.162 Furthermore, Ahn Sook Sun plays the Soul of Souls163 herself, which appears at the beginning and at the end of Trojan Women and forms the framework, thus replacing the roles of the gods. Just like the narrator in changgeuk opera, the Soul of Souls introduces the musical’s action. 164 Playwright Bae-Sam-sik decided to displace Poseidon as people nowadays do not have the same relationship to Gods in general compared to an audience in ancient Greece.165 Jung Jae-il was the composer of the contemporary elements. In the developing period, Ong Keng Sen and Jung Jae-il brought the music of slaves into question and

157 Ibid. 158 “Designated by the South Korean government, the living cultural assets are an elite group of individuals considered the best performers of the country’s traditional dance or music. While they’re given lifelong government support, they are also obligated to share and spread their art and expertise throughout the country and the world.” Han, Steve. 2014. “South Korean Living Cultural Asset Ahn Sook-Sun Shares Pansori With LACMA Audience.” Kore Asian Media. Online: http://kore.am/south-korean-living-cultural-asset-ahn-sook-sun-shares-pansori-with-lacma-audience/. Last accessed 7 September 2018. 159 Cf. Ong 2017 and cited after ibid. 160 Cf. Tan, Corrie. 2018. “Trojan Women: the Greek tragedy that became a queer Korean opera.” The Guardian. Online: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/may/16/trojan-women-ong-keng-sen- euripedes-korea-southbank-centre. Last accessed 14 September 2017. 161 Cf. Ong, 2017. 162 Cf. Hwang 2016 and cited after ibid. 163 At the Singapore International Festival of Arts 2017 Miss Sun played the role on 7 September and male performer Yu Tae-pyung-yang sang the role on 8 and 9 September. 164 Cf. Koh, Jae-yeon. 2016. “Sound from the Abyss of Conflict Opens New Phase in Changgeuk.” TrojanWomen Press Review by National Changgeuk Company of Korea. Online: https://ntok.go.kr/Down/Department/201710/Changgeuk_Trojan_Women_Press_Review_5.pdf. Last accessed 15 September 2018. 165 Cf. Lee, Jae-hoon. 2016. “Changgeuk ‚TrojanWomen’: Purity of Sound and the Emotion of Sorrow.” TrojanWomen Press Review by National Changgeuk Company of Korea. Online: https://ntok.go.kr/Down/Department/201710/Changgeuk_Trojan_Women_Press_Review_5.pdf. Last accessed 15 September 2018. 46 interrogated what happens to music when it is transferred from one country to another, just like the Trojan women brought certain sounds into a new land. Hence, music plays an important role in Trojan Women as it bridges the gap between the old and the new – the coexistence of pansori with contemporary music within the scope of changgeuk.166 When the chorus of the Trojan women raises a song collectively, the sound is evocative of an Asian rock opera or musical, in accordance with the wishes of expanding the canon of pansori.167 And the chorus as modern element amongst traditional pansori shows a future form of this genre of musical storytelling when the Trojan women become Greek slaves. Ong Keng Sen says that this “will happen to the future of pansori if it’s not protected, if it’s not preserved in its iconic form but thrown to the market forces”.168 Jung Jae-il not only composed these passages but also acts the part of Paris when entering the stage sitting at a piano to accompany Helen with romantic and tender melodies.169 The piano is the only non-traditional instrument in Trojan Women.170 Scott Zielinski’s light effects span from darkness to full headlights. The latter involves the audience into the action when the whole theatre is lit.171 The video projections by Austin Switser range from water, fire, clouds and rocks to snow.172 And Myung Hee Cho was in charge of the set design. She positioned the pavilion with its pillars in the centre stage and made them turn into the “pier for the Greek ships” at the end of the musical theatre piece.173 In close collaboration, Scott Zielinski, Myung Hee Cho and Austin Switser created an “atmospheric and impactful set”.174 Staging Trojan Women in Seoul in 2016 also bore an important historic aspect. From 1910 to 1945 Korea was occupied by Japanese troops who terrorized and raped Korean women. As so-called ‘comfort women’ they were recruited as sex slaves for soldiers and their fate is still part of the Korean collective memory. As seen from a Korean

166 Cf. Ong 2017. 167 Cf. Ramaer, Joost. 2018. “Ongemeen spannende take op Euripides.” Theaterkrant. Online: https://www.theaterkrant.nl/recensie/trojan-women/ong-keng-sen-ahn-look-sun-jung-jae-il-national- changgeuk-company-of-korea/. Last accessed 14 September 2018. 168 Cf. Ng, Yi-Sheng. 2017 “Trojan Women: An Interview with Ong Keng Sen.” Singapore International Festival of Arts Blog, 4 September 2017. Online: https://sifa.sg/2017/theopen/blog/trojan-women-an-interview-with-ong-keng-sen. Last accessed 15 September 2018. 169 Cf. Ramaer 2018. 170 Cf. Hwang 2016. 171 Cf. Ng, Yi-Sheng. 2017. “Trojan Women, by National Theater of Korea.” Singapore International Festival of Arts Blog, Online: https://sifa.sg/2017/theopen/blog/trojan-women-by-national-theater-of- koreanew-blog-post/. Last accessed 16 September 2018. 172 Cf. ibid. 173 Cf. ibid and cited after ibid. 174 Cf. Joy, Thomas. 2018. “National Theatre of Korea: Trojan Women (2018).” Trendfem. Online: http://trendfem.com/2018/06/national-theatre-of-korea-trojan-women-2018/. Last accessed 16 September 2018 and cited after ibid. 47 perspective, the Trojan women’s fate corresponds to the one of the comfort women.175 They are waiting to be shipped to their new masters to serve them, both members of the royal family and Trojan slaves.176

4.3. Trojan Women at the Singapore International Festival of Arts 2017

From 7 to 9 September 2017, Ong Keng Sen’s Trojan Women played at the Victoria Theatre in Singapore. Ong was the festival director of the Singapore International Festival of Arts from 2014 to 2017 and Trojan Women was his final project. In this section, the assignment of the singers to their instruments is briefly discussed before a detailed production analysis follows.

4.3.1. Cast and musical instruments

The cast of Trojan Women at the Singapore International Festival of Arts 2017 was as follows:

Hecuba, Queen of Troy Kim Kum-mi Cassandra, her daughter Yi So-yeon Andromache, wife to Hector Kim Ji-sook Helen, Queen of Sparta Kim Jun-soo Talthybios, Greek Soldier Lee Kwang-bok Menelaus, King of Sparta Choi Ho-sung Chorus of Trojan women Jung Mi-jung, Heo Ae-sun, Na Yoon-young, Seo Jung-kum, Kim Mi Jin, Lee Youn-joo, Min Eun-kyung, Cho Yu-ah Soul of Souls Ahn Sook Sun, 7 September Yu Tae-pyung-yang, 8 and 9 September Paris (on piano) Jung Jae Il177

Every character is paired with a specific instrument while the changgu, a two-headed drum, plays throughout and provides the musical pattern. Hecuba is accompanied by the geomungo, which produces long and “wavering sounds”. Her daughter-in-law Andromache sings alongside the seven-stringed zither ajaeng. When Cassandra sings and Apollo or Hector are mentioned the taegum, a transverse flute resounds, and

175 Cf. Ramaer 2018. 176 Cf. Arian, Max. 2018. “Over de loopplank naar de Griekse schepen.” De Groene Amsterdammer. Online: https://www.groene.nl/artikel/over-de-loopplank-naar-de-griekse-schepen. Last accessed 14 September 2018. 177 Jung Jae-il’s embodied the role of Paris at the Singapore International Festival of Arts 2017 but not at the Wiener Festwochen in 2018. 48 Menelaus, the King of Sparta, is accompanied by the striking sounds of the bamboo oboe piri. At the beginning and at the end of the performance the ching gongs when the Soul of Souls enters and when Astyanax is assigned to the haegum, a two-string fiddle. Finally, Polyxena sings alongside the kayagum, a twelve-string zither. Only Talthybios does not have a specific instrument as his performance are solely accompanied by the drums.178

4.3.2. Performance analysis

The following is a rendering of Trojan Women’s plot and staging, reconstructed using the author’s notes taken during rehearsals at the Singapore International Festival of Arts 2017 on the basis of an undisclosed performance recording of the production in Seoul in 2016. Direct quotations of the text are taken from the subtitles in the video recording.

Ong Keng Sen’s Trojan Women is about women suffering after they have lost everything. It is about previously prosperous members of the royal family of Troy and about less fortunate slaves. For the latter, nothing is going to change in view of their social status: “A hell turns into another hell, that’s all.”179 Throughout the whole musical theatre piece, eight chorus singers and queen Hecuba are on stage. They are already present when the audience enters the auditorium. All the other roles such as Cassandra and Andromache, Helen, Menelaus and Talthybios appear only when it is their turn to sing; Astyanax, Hecuba’s grandson, is a baby rapped in a blanket – a character that has no speaking or singing part.

4.3.2.1. Scene one: Entrance of the Soul of Souls

The musical opens with the chorus members sitting to each side of the pavilion in the centre stage holding red balls of yarn and queen Hecuba is lying on her side downstage at the top end of the stairs that lead towards the auditorium. On both sides of the

178 Cf. “Korean Traditional Arts. Korean Traditional Musical Instruments.” Handout given by Ong Keng Sen on 14 September 2017, in the hands of the author and cited after ibid. Since this thesis focuses more on the performative than on the theoretical aspects, cf. for Korean musical instruments: Hye-gu, Lee. 1982. Korean Musical Instruments. Seoul: The National Classical Music Institute. 179 National Theater of Korea. 2016. Trojan Women. Directed by Ong Keng Sen. Undisclosed performance recording. Seoul. Unless otherwise stated, all further quotations in this chapter are taken from this source. 49 pavilion there are ten steps connected by a narrow path that goes behind the pavilion and even makes it possible to stand on top of it. The floor is golden just like the background that has a wide, curved window in the upper half. There are seven musicians in the orchestra pit, four of them sitting on the left side of the stairs and three to the right. The ching sounds and the Soul of Souls enters, accompanied by the drum playing tentative beats, both dead and tinny sounds. The atmosphere is somber and cold while there is no video projection throughout the whole scene. The Soul of Souls’ way of singing expresses the deep sorrow she feels when she describes the immediate surroundings at sunset after Troy’s destruction, going from cautiously silent to dramatically loud passages. She walks from stage left to stage right, at times she halts and stretches an arm towards the auditorium in an emotive way. As the ruined city is not shown onstage, the audience members have to imagine the scenery and atmosphere themselves as Troy is “strewn with corpses” and the “once golden wheat fields” are nowhere to be seen. Now that all Trojan men are dead, the Soul of Souls is calling on the gods and compares the surviving women to “pieces of meat left on the bones”. She bids farewell to the beloved city as the gods have deserted it. She hears a women crying, points at Hecuba still lying on her side and demands her not to call the gods because the misery is not over yet and there is more pain to suffer. After the Soul of Souls has left the stage, there is a moment of silence.

4.3.2.2. Scene two: Lament and speculation

The geomungo plays a harsh and scratching tune, and a beam of light leads the spectator’s eye towards Hecuba while the rest of the stage is not illuminated. Crouching on the floor, Hecuba tries to stand up. A video showing calm waves is projected onto the rear end of the pavilion, which is also used for entrances later in the musical theatre piece. Hecuba tries to pull herself together as “tears and sadness will change nothing”. Her singing is intermittent by a moment of lament wherein it sounds as if she bursts out crying. When she remembers her late husband King Priam and her sons before their “throats [were] cut off and hearts pierced”, she is still accompanied by scratching and plucking sounds of the geomungo and the drum comes in with brazen and low-pitched tones. The chorus members and all instruments resound in a pop-like manner, the pavilion’s inside and the broad window in the golden wall at the back of the stage are filled with 50 calm, bluish waves and the stage with the eight chorus members is dimly lit. In unison, they vehemently question their former queen why she has brought “that traitor from Greece, wife to Menelaus” to Troy. Still sitting, they blame Hecuba for this catastrophe and look at her directly. She turns her back to the audience to face the other Trojan women with an expression of despair. As soon as Hecuba sings, only the geomungo and the drums can be heard. One by one, the Trojan women stand up whilst the orchestra pit is silent. One woman points towards the back of the auditorium and indicates that “the Greeks are hoisting their sails” and “are getting ready to go home”. Some chorus members look towards the auditorium while another run furiously around the stage and Hecuba goes to the back of the pavilion with another woman. With geomungo and drums, the queen mentions her daughter Cassandra who lost her mind because of the disaster that happened and who she wants to shelter from facing the Greek soldiers. There is no musical backing, only the buzz of the projector can be heard while the stage is hardly lit, only the inside of the pavilion shows water. The chorus members question themselves on what the Greeks are going to do to them: are they going to kill them? They support Hecuba when she foretells her possible future as a kitchen maid or nurse to Greek children accompanied by occasional plucking on the geomungo. She fears that others will make fun of the former Queen of Troy. All instruments play while the chorus weeps for their homes that burnt down to ashes framed by light blue waves in the pavilion and dark blue water at the back window in the wall. They have nowhere to go back to or anyone who awaits them, they are “uprooted”. A zither and the drums play when one woman wishes to be a slave in Attica and another says that everything is better than Sparta where they would have to face “that bitch Helen” and would have to serve Menelaus, the “butcher of Troy”. A third one points to the fact that they all should not make a fuss as it is not the end of the world, “just a little castle named Troy collapsed, that’s all”. Eight times, the line “One hell turns into another, that’s all.” accompanied by all instruments is sung by one Trojan woman after another before they unanimously enunciate that one cannot speak of hell “when you know nothing about it”. Backed by drums, a slave tells of her previous life and wonders if her parents are alive. The stage seems darker as the rear ends of the pavilion and the stage are projected with waves and the floor is lit from the ceiling whereupon the women stand in front of the pavilion, which is dark on the inside. Another one tells the audience that when war broke out and

51 everyone tried to get into the palace, only the rich and powerful were allowed inside. A woman describes what happened when someone tried to find shelter. There was no place to hide, everything was in ruins and corpses were lying around. The piri sets in and it imitates the lamenting sounds of the women with a nasal tone. All instruments play accompanying six chorus members while they again speak of one hell that turns into another facing the audience while Hecuba remains in the dark inside of the pavilion with two other women. To the beating of the drum, one of the Trojan women points to the back of the audience and hints that a Greek soldier is coming their way who is going to enlighten them of their imminent future. An alteration of reciting, solo and group singing resonates stating that they will remain slaves but with new masters.

4.3.2.3. Scene three: Entrance Talthybios

The headlights turn up and illuminate the whole theatre. There is no video projection and the drum plays a descendant sequence of notes with a high tune of a synthesizer. The Trojan women seek shelter at the back of the stage while Hecuba remains inside the pavilion. She keeps both feet firmly on the ground and awaits the Greek soldier. Talthybios enters through the auditorium, walks up the steps to the stage and turns his back on the audience. He introduces himself as the “herald to the Greeks” and he was instructed to announce their future. Other than the Trojan women who wear white, Talthybios wears grey clothes with a red fabric going from the left shoulder over his chest to the back of his top. The moment they feared the most has come and Hecuba asks him where they are going to take them. He informs her that they are all going to be separated but Hecuba points to the fact that “there’s a difference between the noble and the lowborn” and they will surely not be treated the same way. When the queen sings, the geomungo and the drums can be heard, in Talthybios’ case the drums and a soft, high note resound (zither or synthesizer). The herald declares that Cassandra, King Priam’s daughter, is one of the more fortunate ones as she will end up with Agamemnon but not as a servant to Clytemnestra but rather as his concubine and he might even marry her. The mother insists that she remains a virgin to Apollo. The dialogue between them is mostly in spoken word. Hecuba almost faints when she learns of her daughter’s fate and falls to her knees in the small area between the orchestra pits. The herald stands in a light beam inside the pavilion. In the sense of pansori, both face the audience and speak to them 52 while Hecuba kneels in front of Talthybios. Now she asks about her other daughter Polyxena and Talthybios depicts that she serves the dead Achilles. The geomungo comes in and Hecuba continues to sing in pansori style to ask whether Polyxena is able to “still see the clear blue sky”. She learns that she is dead. An instrumental sequence follows wherein only the plucking of the geomungo can be heard occasionally. Hence, she hears that her daughter-in-law will be brought to Achilles’ son and she herself will end up as a slave in the household of Ulysses. The latter news makes her cry out in pain. She asks the women of Troy to weep for her, their “miserable and lonely queen”. With the sound of the synthesizer, the chorus members run towards the messenger to inquire their fate. They kneel down before him, facing him and turning their back on Hecuba and the audience. He tells them that he does not know, as “the small fry will be sorted out in lots”. Suddenly the sound of a flame can be heard, the women run around confused. Through Talthybios, the audience learns that he sees a fire and with rage he announces that no Trojan woman is allowed to burn herself alive and no suicides are accepted. Facing the upset women he tells them that their “bodies are no longer [their] own”.

4.3.2.4. Scene four: Cassandra

With a sharp note of the transverse flute, the taegum, Talthybios flees the stage which is now completely dark, the window in the back and the pavilion’s inside is projected with flames. Cassandra enters through the door in the pavilion where Hecuba is standing leaning against the wall. She tries to hug her daughter but she rejects holding a white tuft of fabrics in her left hand that resembles a torch. Once again, the queen explains that she has lost her mind. Cassandra sings with a strong, clear voice that matches the tone of the taegum, their interaction is reminiscent of a duet. Her singing is very intense, alternating between clear and rough tones and soft and tender ones. She chants that she is going to be married to the enemy. While she vocalizes that she will “dance joyfully and light up [her] way to his bed” she takes her mother by the hand and turns as if she is dancing. There is no instrumental backing when one of the chorus members stands in the middle of the stage to point out Cassandra’s insanity. With the taegum resounding, the latter is dancing around trancelike holding up her torch before she declares that she is not insane and that Agamemnon’s honeymoon will end up to be his funeral, their marital bed will be his grave. She walks around the Trojan women inside the pavilion who look at her 53 shocked and scared. Cassandra plans to sacrifice herself to “parch his family tree” to seek revenge. To the sound of the geomungo, first Hecuba and then another woman tell her that what she says is impossible and that she should better keep her mouth shut. Still, Cassandra predicts that all Greek soldiers will die. She knells on the front stage, which is lit red and lies down her torch, demanding that the Greeks “shall not see [their] home alive”. The Trojan women standing in the flames inside the pavilion wish they could believe her and laugh with her accompanied by all instruments. Cassandra moves her arms in wavy motions. A chorus member walks up behind her and imitates the flowing movement more slowly. The chorus argues that Cassandra’s words are empty and that they avail to nothing. A long instrumental passage follows. Cassandra and the Trojan woman continue with the flowing movement of the arms, the woman is doing it in a more dancelike way now, moving her whole body tiptoeing and making turns holding the read ball of yarn. The other chorus members dance on each side of the pavilion in the dark also using the red balls of yarn before they enter the pavilion in two lines holding the yarn above their heads. Cassandra still kneels and it seems as if she is calling on the gods. The Trojan women segue into a group dance with seven of them forming a circle while one is dancing in the centre. The dance focuses on the cotton-wool balls, the chorus members stretch their arms to all sides holding the balls while they quickly move their feet. The floor inside the pavilion is now lightened up; Hecuba stands in front of them and looks at Cassandra worryingly. The music quickens, Hecuba kneels down behind her daughter and wraps her arms around Cassandra’s chest; the Trojan women end their dance with quick turns, still holding up the woollen balls until they fall to the floor. The former queen tries to hold on to her daughter while the latter says goodbye. They face each other, Cassandra smiles at her mother and reassures her that they will meet again. In a whispery tone, she tells her that she has only a few days to live. There is silence as they both hug each other. The taegum resounds, Hecuba stands up and walks towards the kneeling chorus members in the pavilion. Cassandra calls on Apollo. Her confidence has faded away as she weeps that Agamemnon is taking her away and asks Apollo to “burn up his filthy body”. She picks up the torch and walks off stage through the auditorium singing: “let us enter the wedding chamber! Enter hell! […] toll the wedding bells!”.

54 4.3.2.5. Scene five: Lamenting, Andromache and Astyanax

The video installation shows a bluish-purple universe in the pavilion’s inside and at the broad window of the back wall leaving the rest of the stage in the darkness. Hecuba kneels in the centre while the women wind up the red balls of wool with full orchestration. They recall that it was only yesterday when they were happy before Troy collapsed and they were cheering at the wooden horse hoping that their suffering was over. They stand up while singing; Hecuba remains on the floor silently. The pop-like singing of the chorus leads over to pansori accompanied by the drums when a woman recalls that the “cries of death parted the night sky” and the enemies jumped out of the wooden horse crying that “every man must die”. Hecuba raises her voice to the geomungo and ascertains that the Trojans were neither defeated nor conquered but “betrayed by the vexed Goddess”. Hector’s wife Andromache enters carrying her son Astyanax who is covered in a blanket. She is accompanied by the ajaeng, a seven-stringed zither and the video projection shows a bright and cloudy sky. She tells the women that she is taking her son to her new husband, and Hecuba cannot believe what she just heard. This is her agony as she is everyone’s mother. Andromache blames her for everything. The gods had ordered Hecuba to “smother [Paris| to death” as he is a “cursed seed” but she refused. Hence, the Trojan women are punished for Hecuba’s sins. Andromache enlightens her mother-in-law of Polyxena’s death as they “cut her throat on Achilles’ tomb”. She falls to the ground and mourns her daughter. She beats her own breast repeatedly to strident tunes of the geomungo. The two women begin to argue as Andromache thinks that Polyxena is better off dead. The ajaeng, the geomungo, the drums and the haegum resound. Andromache looks at her son and holds him tight. She thinks of the time when she was happy as a “virtuous and gracious wife, a devoted mother” while the video projection becomes darker. In tears, she bemoans her future with great emotions. The stage lightens up when the chorus starts to sing standing to each side of the pavilion. Hecuba tells her to forget about Hector and that she should serve her new master well, kneeling down behind her to hold Andromache’s upper arms before she caresses her grandson. Andromache pushes her away and bewails that her own mother- in-law wants her to be with a “dirty, filthy […] whoremonger”. Astyanax is the last of the Trojans bloodline and the “last remaining hope”. Hecuba asks Andromache to face her fate in order to save her son’s life, as he and his sons are the only ones that can revenge them one day.

55 Greyish clouds can be seen at the back door of the pavilion when the headlights illuminate the theatre entailing that the herald Talthybios has entered the auditorium. He is standing on the stairs in the auditorium and is speaking directly to the two women. The chorus is standing at the very back of the stage. Hecuba occupies a defensive posture trying to protect Andromache and Astyanax. The messenger proclaims that his masters have decided to separate mother and son. Talthybios is struggling to explain the situation. Andromache forces the “bastard” to “get to the point”. He rushes on stage and turns toward the audience when he is standing in the pavilion in front of two Trojan women: “They’re going to kill him.” Ulysses persuaded them not to spare his life as he is going to be the “seed of treason, the heir to the Trojan throne”. The chorus members walk slowly towards the front of the stage while Talthybios asks Andromache to give Astyanax to him; the stage is now very gritty. Hector’s wife runs to the top of the stairs that lead down to the auditorium holding on tightly to her son. Talthybios demands Andromache to “succumb to the inevitable” while the pavilion and the broad window are projected with the greyish smoke leaving the rest of the stage in the dark. Andromache kneels and bends her upper body over her son, the chorus members stand behind her with their backs towards the auditorium and Hecuba kneels to the feet of Talthybios. The latter gets furious and asks her to “hand him over quietly” so she might even be allowed to bury him herself. Now all women kneel, Andromache faces the audience. She looks at her son and the haegum plays as the chorus members mourn his destiny one by one and Andromache cries. In a duet-like passage with the ajaeng, she stands up and apologizes that she cannot protect the child. Talthybios walks up to her, takes Astyanax and Andromache exits via the house. Holding the child, the herald declares, “that’s the worst of war”. The ones that give orders do not have to do the dirty work. He walks offstage. Hecuba raises and mourns her “son’s son. There goes our future mine and yours”. The video projection shows the universe again, the pavilion is in a bright blue tone and the broad window in a dark blue tone, and the chorus starts to sing in unison calling out the “barbaric pirates” and scavengers. They indicate that the gods are not going to help them nor do they have mercy. The Trojan women walk towards the back of the stage just like Hecuba who starts to walk up the stairs next to the pavilion.

56 4.3.2.6. Scene six: Menelaus and Helen

The theatre illuminates, the inside of the pavilion and the broad window at the back show a video projection of light-colored stones. Menelaus is standing in the auditorium looking at the spectators. The piri and the drum accompany his steps. Heroically he climbs up the stairs to the stage stretching his blood-soaked arms to either side of his upper body. He turns towards the audience, the lightning gets gloomier and he proclaims, “it is hard to live as a great man”. After all these years he has finally defeated the Trojans. Hecuba is walking on the small path behind the pavilion. Menelaus calls out his wife, the “filthy dirty betrayer” for whom he has no mercy left. He introduces himself as King Menelaus who is known for his bad luck. Menelaus describes Paris as a “scoundrel” that needs to be dead as “that shit sneaked into [his] palace like a rat, seduced [his] wife and ran off with her”. He wonders what would be the best way to punish the “bitch” Helen. The Greek widows could stone her to death. As he demands his soldiers, which are not present on stage, to bring her to him and “make her crawl at [his] feet like a dog”, the Trojan women including Hecuba walk towards him and the stage brightens up. The plucking of the geomungo can be heard as Hecuba proclaims that she finally has faith in Zeus’ justice. It seems as if the “wicked slut” will be punished soon. Hecuba introduces herself to Menelaus and demands him to not look at his wife. He might think that his desire for her is already dead but Hecuba says that this is nonsense. One look at her and “she will rekindle the dying fire”. The chorus members walk in a circle around Menelaus before they form two rows standing closely to each other to the left side of the stage. The light dims, Hecuba stands at the back of the pavilion, Menelaus walks to the left side with a light beam on him as a piano resounds and Helen enters on a small movable platform next Paris on the piano, stopping on the right side of the stage. Helen walks towards her estranged husband: “You need not have used force to bring me to you.” She declares her love for him accompanied by virtuously jazzy melodies on the piano. She wears light makeup, a bright pink lipstick and long eyelashes and is barefoot. There is no video projection as Menelaus tries not to look at her and tells hear that she is going to die. Helen walks further towards him and tries to explain herself but Menelaus does not want to hear filthy apologies. The two look at each other while the Trojan women move uniformly: their arms crossed in front of their chest and their faces facing the ceiling making small steps backwards. Helen demands her husband to look closely at her as he walks past her for then he realizes “what is it [he’s] killing”. Helen strides

57 prideful towards the front of the stage and explains, “everything was Aphrodite’s joke” and she sacrificed the herself. She blames her own beauty, which now has become her shame. Paris plays soft but sad melodies on the piano as the king criticizes her for leaving him. But Helen disagrees at it was her husband who left her alone with the guest when he went to Crete. The piano plays an upbeat musical pattern as their argument continues. Menelaus thinks that his wife “could have resisted” and falls to the floor. Accompanied by sharp tones followed by lyrical movements on the Piano, Helen of Troy argues that she is a “mere mortal” that is not able to resist a goddess. The upbeat musical pattern plays once more when Helen describes that Aphrodite promised her to Paris as long as he should live. She kneels down beside her husband who takes her in his arms. He is clearly upset and the music is softer. The stage brightens up and the chorus is angry about “the tongue of that wicked viper”. They are still arranged in two rows and hold each other’s arms as they quickly move back and forth accompanied by the full orchestra. The geomungo plays, Hecuba moves to the front stage and claims that Helen was “full of lust” when she met Paris: “You ditched your old husband and followed the young lover.” Hecuba demanded Helen several times to leave Paris, which would have prevented the Trojans from such disaster. In the background Menelaus is still caressing his wife and protects his wife from Hecuba’s verbal attack. The Trojan women walk in fast pace around the King of Sparta and his wife in a circle accompanied by the drum. They stand still, look at Helen and accuse her of fake tears: they “have never seen such a shameless woman”. Again with the geomungo, Hecuba commands Menelaus not to listen to Helen and kill her instead. The latter two get up and hold on to each other. In unison, the chorus asks Menelaus to punish her. The stage is dark when only a light beam lies on Helen who walks away from her husband. Whisperingly, he informs her that she has dishonoured him and that she shall die. Satisfied with the decision, Hecuba and the Trojan women turn around and walk towards the back of the stage. No instruments resound when Menelaus accuses her of the past ten years and what everyone had to endure. The piano comes in. In Helen’s point of view no one seems to understand her “unlucky destiny”. Her second song is reminiscent of the pansori style and differs from her first song. There is more lamenting than melodious passages. She states that she was “taken by a strange man, locked in a strange city”. Trojan and Greek men hate her, as she has to face execution by stoning. She begs her husband for forgiveness.

58 There is a short moment of silence and Menelaus asks his men to take Helen to his ship. Disbelievingly, the Queen of Troy runs towards Menelaus and reminds him of his plan to kill Helen immediately but he decides that it is better if she dies in Greece. Both walk off stage through the auditorium.

4.3.2.7. Scene seven: Final lament and end

The stage is dark, the Trojan women are lighted as Hecuba lies in front of them and all instruments can be heard. The chorus laments that Helen is not paying for her crime, she is on her way back to Sparta “as if nothing happened”. Although they have done nothing wrong, the women have lost everything. They are standing in one row, slightly bending their knees and move up and down slowly. They move towards the centre stage standing right behind Hecuba. The back of the stage remains in the dark while the headlights are switched on. Talthybios enters holding Hector’s shield on top of which lies the corpse of Astyanax wrapped in a red blanket. Achilles’ son Neoptolemus had to leave early as another war has begun. Hecuba states that there is “always war somewhere”. Talthybios walks up the stairs and kneels down before Hecuba holding up the shield. The haegum plays and Hecuba can barely look at her grandson’s corpse. She trembles when she touches Hector’s shield but walks off. The herald stands in the centre of the pavilion. The broad window is projected with a dark universe whereas the pavilion is lightened in light blue. Achilles’ son is the rightful owner of the shield but he does not want it because it would tear Andromache’s heart to pieces. The Trojans do not have to bother about finding wood for a coffin; Astyanax “can rest under his father’s shield”. Six of the chorus members kneel down, three on each side of the pavilion, two women walk towards Talthybios and Hecuba stands on the front stage facing the audience. They curse their enemies as the other members walk towards the herald two by two. They argue that the Greeks are afraid of a child and they bid farewell to Astyanax. Hecuba picks up her grandson. All nine women stand closely together singing in unison accompanied by the haegum. They predict that once everything is destroyed, a small tomb will remain with the inscription: “Here lies a child resting, murdered because he frightened the whole of Greece.”. There is silence, the stage is dark and a light beam lays the focus on the women standing in the front stage. Hecuba kneels down while the other women slowly walk away backwards. She holds tight to her grandson and laments that he will “never grow up or know love”. The geomungo, the drum and the haegum 59 can be heard scarcely. She recalls what could have waited for him in his life. Talthybios, who was still at the back of the pavilion, approaches Hecuba, goes down on his knees and asks her if he can help her bury him. She lays the corpse on top of the shield, caresses him and the messenger exits. The women hold on to each other kneeling down around their former queen. She pushes them aside and furiously calls to the “filthy Gods”, no video projection on a semi-lit stage. If the gods had destroyed Troy with an earthquake no one would have ever heard of this city again. “For the next thousands of years our courage will still be talked of!”. Hecuba condemns the gods but a slave asks her to not do that as “misfortune never ends” and she fears that “something worse will come”. Another woman jumps to her feet and notes that the Greeks are setting fire to the ruins of Troy. Talthybios is standing in the audience and proclaims that this is the signal to leave the city. The women climb up the stairs slowly on each side of the pavilion until they are all on top of it. It is reminiscent of a port and the women await their shipment. The whole stage is projected with what seems like rains on a black surface. One more time the ching plays and the Soul of Souls enters to call out the “foolish and ignorant”.

60 5. Helen: an increase in sorrow and the question of guilt

The Helen scene will be discussed here in more detail in Euripides’ Trojan Women, Jean- Paul Sartre’s Les Troyennes as well as Ong Keng Sen’s music theatre piece. The Trojan women consider Menelaus’ mercy a mockery, since she is the reason for their ultimate suffering. The following description of the plot is based on the book by Martin Hose and on my own analysis using Euripides’ text. This is followed by a comparison with Sartre's adaptation and the role of Helen in the Korean version, which were both done by myself.

Martin Hose describes this scene as the intellectual centre of the play. The Greeks have given Menelaus the choice of executing or pardoning Helen. He announces that his wife will first be taken by ship to Greece, where death awaits her. Hecuba observes the events, calls Zeus and concludes her prayer with the words “you direct all mortal affairs toward justice” (προσηυξάµην σε· πάντα γὰρ δι᾿ ἀψόφου βαίνων κελεύθου κατὰ δίκην τὰ θνήτ᾿ ἄγεις. (Eur. Tro. 887–888)). Hecuba’s prayer irritates Menelaus, but she does not respond any further. Instead she warns him not to look at his wife, because “she captures eyes of men, destroys their cities, and burns their houses” (αἱρεῖ γὰρ ἀνδρῶν ὄµµατ᾿, ἐξαιρεῖ πόλεις, πί µπρησιν οἴκους· (Eur. Tro. 892–893)). The soldiers bring Helen to the scene forcibly, a treatment that symbolizes her guilt. When Helen asks her husband to be allowed to bring forward arguments showing that an execution would be unjust, Hecuba interferes:180

ΕΚΑΒΗ ἄκουσον αὐτῆς, µὴ θάνῃ τοῦδ᾿ ἐνδεής, Μενέλαε, καὶ δὸς τοὺς ἐναντίους λόγους ἡµῖν κατ᾿ αὐτῆς· τῶν γὰρ ἐν Τροίᾳ κακῶν οὐδὲν κάτοισθα. συντεθεὶς δ᾿ ὁ πᾶς λόγος κτενεῖ νιν οὕτως ὥστε µηδαµοῦ φυγεῖν. (Eur. Tro. 906–910)

HECUBA Hear her out, let her not die without this, Menelaus, and give me the right to speak on the other side against her! For you do not know the miseries we suffered in Troy. When it has been put together, the entire account will kill her: she will have nowhere to escape. (Eur. Tro. 906–910)

180 Cf. Hose 2008, pp. 130–131. For a discussion of this prayer cf. ibid., p. 131. 61 He eventually gets involved in a verbal battle between Helen and Hecuba, the latter hoping that her arguments would lead to Helen’s death. Although she wanted to prevent Menelaus from seeing his wife, this scene inevitably leads to it. Helen’s apology follows, which extends over verses 914 to 965. She tries to prove her innocence by finding other people to blame. Helen recalls the plot of Alexandros and mentions Hecuba and Priam who failed to kill Paris who brought disaster to the city. Also, Zeus told Paris to judge which of Hera, Aphrodite and Athena is the most beautiful goddess. To bribe the young man, Athena promised military victory over the Greeks, Hera world domination and Aphrodite offered him the love of Helen. Since Paris decided for love, she selflessly avoided Greek slavery in her eyes.181

ἃ δ᾿ ηὐτύχησεν Ἑλλάς, ὠλόµην ἐγὼ εὐµορφίᾳ πραθεῖσα, κὠνειδίζοµαι ἐξ ὧν ἐχρῆν µε στέφανον ἐπὶ κάρᾳ λαβεῖν. (Eur. Tro. 935–937)

But Hellas’ good fortune was my ruin: I was sold because of my beauty, and I am reproached for something for which I should have received a garland on my head. (Eur. Tro. 935–937)

Since Paris made a pact with Aphrodite, Helen is involuntarily exposed to divine power. After his death she was prevented from leaving Troy. As she was forced to stay, she claims that she would be executed unjustly. If the audience is familiar with the plot of Alexandros, the question of Hecuba’s guilt cannot be denied and the appeal to the higher power is not absurd. Helen argues that the guards and the watchmen are witnesses of her attempt to flee.182 The queen of Troy, on the other hand, tries to invalidate these arguments. She does not respond to the accusations against herself and her dead husband and thus commits a possible admission of guilt. She weakens Helen's argumentation regarding Paris’ judgement and claims Hera has no reason to participate in the beauty discussion, as she could not win a better husband than Zeus. Thus she reconstructs the causalities and directs them according to what is considered plausible for her. She turns the words in Helen's mouth around by stating that she has fallen for her son and not the other way round. She justifies Helen's behaviour with sexual and material greed, since she desired Paris as much as the Trojan riches. As she did not cry out for help during her abduction, this means that Helen cannot claim to have been kidnapped against her will. She also denies

181 Cf. ibid., pp. 131–132. 182 Cf. ibid., pp. 132–133. 62 that Helen tried to escape even though the queen had suggested that she return to her rightful husband. Finally, Hecuba criticizes her appearance for she does not wear rags like a Trojan slave but beautiful robes. She demands the death of the traitor and is supported by the chorus leader:183

Μενέλα᾿, ἵν᾿ εἰδῇς οἷ τελευτήσω λόγον, στεφάνωσον Ἑλλάδ᾿ ἀξίως τήνδε κτανὼν σαυτοῦ, νόµον δὲ τόνδε ταῖς ἄλλαισι θὲς γυναιξί, θνῄσκειν ἥτις ἂν προδῷ πόσιν.

ΧΟΡΟΣ Μενέλαε, προγόνων τ᾿ ἀξίως δόµων τε σῶν τεῖσαι δάµαρτα κἀφελοῦ πρὸς Ἑλλάδος ψόγον τὸ θῆλύ τ᾿, εὐγενὴς ἐχθροῖς φανείς. (Eur. Tro. 1029–1035)

Menelaus, here, for your information, is the conclusion to which my speech is tending: crown Greece with glory by killing this woman, an act worthy of yourself! Establish this law for the rest of women: death to her who betrays her husband!

CHORUS LEADER Menelaus, punish your wife in a manner worthy of your ancestors and your house and clear yourself of Greece’s charge that you are not a man, showing yourself noble in the eyes of your adversaries! (Eur. Tro. 1029–1035)

With regards to Alexandros, Hecuba’s guilt cannot be denied and the Trojan trilogy removes the ground from her argument. Although the audience knows that Helen will be spared, Menelaus says he will stone her in Greece, even when she falls to his feet and begs him not to. Hecuba fears the king's fickleness but he reassures her and orders his soldiers to bring the woman to the ship. Hecuba asks him to not let Helen embark on the same ship as Menelaus because “[a]ll passionate lovers love for ever” (οὐκ ἔστ᾿ ἐραστὴς ὅστις οὐκ ἀεὶ φιλεῖ. (Eur. Tro. 1051)). Helen and Menelaus exit the scene leaving Hecuba and the chorus behind. This scene ends with a victory for Helen, because she is spared despite all the assurances of her husband. Since Helen will return to Sparta not as a slave but as a queen, the suffering of the Trojan women is even more devastating.184 While Menelaus is reunited with his estranged wife, the Trojan women have to cope with the separation from their children and husbands. In the following song they pray that Helen and Menelaus will never reach Sparta. Helen's actions have destroyed Troy and

183 Cf. ibid., pp. 133–134. 184 Cf. ibid., pp. 134–135. 63 they wish her ship would sink on the voyage. Recalling the prologue, one knows that the Greek ships will sink, but that of Helen and Menelaus will be spared ironically.185

Sartre and Ong chose a more emotional and aggressive but also passionate approach. In Les Troyennes, Helen is a flirty woman who wants to run towards her husband with open arms. While in Euripides' play she only asks what Menelaus' decision was, here she confesses her continuing love for him, that she only ever wanted him and waited for him. Hecuba, on the other hand, shows a more aggressive attitude in this scene, calls on Menelaus to let his wife defend herself and says offensively: “Va, je lui ferai rentre ses arguments dans la gorge […]”186 (“Whatever she has to say. I have an answer to it. And will stuff her lies down her throat […].” 187). She asks him not to look at his wife and he appeases her that Helen’s death is certain. The latter places herself in front of Menelaus and the following passage shows the ardent woman who tries to avoid death by the use of her body and appearance and to change her husband’s decision:

“Ne te détourne pas, Regarde-moi, Aie le courage de regarder ta victime. Sais-tu que ce serait un crime de me tuer? Tu crois que je suis ton ennemie. Non : toi, tu es le mien. Moi, hélas, je suis bien loin de te haïr.”188

“No, do not turn away. Look at me. Have the courage to look at me for the last time. Look on every part, then know what it is you’re killing. You hate me? I do not hate you.”189

Helen’s usage of her body is a new element added by Sartre and also adapted by Ong Keng Sen. Again, she refers to the storyline of Alexandros and the competition of the goddesses before she blames her beauty for the misfortunes. When asked why she left Sparta, she denies her guilt and blames her careless husband for leaving her when he set off for Crete and left her alone with the guests, including Paris. Her behaviour seems even

185 Cf. Rehm 1994, p. 133. 186 Sartre 1965, p. 97. 187 Sartre 1967, p. 58. 188 Sartre 1965, p. 97. 189 Sartre 1967, p. 58. 64 more desperate as she rejects all accusations and presents herself as a victim of Aphrodite, Paris and the Trojans who she tried to escape from.

“Voilà ma triste histoire : je suis la proie du destin. Enlevée, mariée de force à un home détesté, retenue contre mon gré dans une ville étrangère, j’ai sauvé ma patrie au prix de mon honneur et l’on m’y attend pour me lapider. Haïe des Grecs, détestée des Troyens, Je suis seule au monde, personne ne me comprend.”190

“That’s all I have to say: that’s my story. I am the victim of circumstance; Destiny’s plaything: abducted; married against my will to a man I loathed; forced to live in a foreign city I despised. All this I endured to save my country. […] I am hated by the Greeks, detested by the Trojans, Alone in the world, understood by none.”191

She warns her husband to reconsider his decision, because he would enrage the gods by killing her. After all, it was a goddess who sinned and not Helen. Her arguments make Hecuba laugh and she claims them to be ridiculous. All was Helen's fault: “Greed added to her lust, [s|he didn’t rest till she’d satisfied both desires”. She argues that Helen left her small kingdom for the rich city of Troy and was not kidnapped. If she had, she would have cried over the Greek soldiers who died in war. She turns to her supposed daughter- in-law in the most aggressive way:192

“Alors elle s’est affolée, le corps moite de concoitise, l’âme obsédée de calculs.”193

“You bitch, you know damn well all these men have been butchered and this because of you.”194

190 Sartre 1965, p. 100. 191 Sartre 1967, p. 61. 192 Cited after ibid., p. 63. 193 Sartre 1965, p. 103. 194 Sartre 1967, p. 64. 65 In the Korean adaptation, there is some sort of intimacy during Hecuba’s speech as Menelaus kneels on the ground and holds his wife in his arms, it seems as if he is protecting Helen from the verbal attacks of Hecuba. Meanwhile, the queen makes fun of Helen's appearance, as she wears Trojan jewellery, lots of makeup and wants to seduce her own husband. She should throw herself at his feet, wear rags and beg for forgiveness. Hecuba asks Menelaus not to believe his wife's lies and the chorus warns him that his ancestors and his country would mock him if he did not kill her. Menelaus confirms that his intention is to punish her, since he is convinced that Helen left Sparta voluntarily and that blaming Aphrodite is irrelevant. He says his wife dishonoured him and that she should die. Hecuba is irritated when Menelaus tells his soldier to take Helen to aboard his ship because he thinks Helen should die in Greece in Sartre’s and Ong’s adaptations. Again she admonishes him not to take the same ship as Helen because her beauty could console him:

“Because once the flame of love has burned, It can always flare up again.”195

The Trojan women are left behind feeling horrified. In Sartre, they watch Helen board the ship with Menelaus and return to Sparta unpunished. They mourn the dead who died for nothing. Here the harsh vocabulary of Sartre becomes clear when Hecuba wishes them to die:

“S’il est un Dieu, qu’il prenne à deux mains sa foudre, au’il vise bien, au’un éclair déchire le ciel et frappe de plein fouet le pont de ta galère, au’il la casse en deux, qu’elle prenne feu, qu’elle sombre. Et toi, Ménélas, cocu magnifique, Créve aussi! Que les bouches de l’eau vous avalent tous les deux Et vous rejettent noyés Sur une plage de ta chère patrie. Toi, putain, certe et gonflée d’eau, On verra sit u es encore belle, Et si le crime paie!”196

195 National Theater of Korea 2016, undisclosed performance recording. 196 Sartre 1965, p. 114. 66 “If there’s a God anywhere amongst all these Gods, May he grasp all his lightning like a dagger And strike that ship with it. May it catch fire, sink. And you, Menelaus, you impotent old cuckold, May you drown too. I’d like the sea to swallow you both up then spew your swollen bodies on some beach where your compatriots could contemplate your beauty: kin mottled and putrid, flesh slipping from the bone; Then they could see: If crime pays off so well.”197

To highlight the special treatment of Helen in Ong Keng Sen’s Trojan Women, the last part of this chapter is explicitly dedicated to his version. In the Korean adaptation of Trojan Women, Helen enters the stage half way through the musical theatre piece and is sung by the male performer Kim Jun-soo, wearing heavy makeup.198 He is barefoot in a tunic-like dress embodying an androgynous “vulnerable and sexual” human being.199

“Helen is a very mysterious figure; […] it mostly shows a blonde with blue eyes. I wanted to break this stereotype of beauty. On the other hand, Helen is the seed of the war, and therefore neither Greece nor Troy accepts her as its member. In this sense, I wanted to present her as a figure of a third-sex, and luckily have found the right person for the character. […] I think cross-gender acting is not so unusual in the genre of changgeuk.”200

The dispute between Hecuba, Helen and Menelaus is at the heart of the Singaporean performance. The queen of Troy demands Menelaus to kill his unfaithful wife.201 He is also determined to take his wife back to Greece to execute her as punishment for betraying her country, her husband and her monarch. But he seems to give in when Helen flatters him with doubtful excuses. According to her, it was not her free will to leave her husband for Paris but she fell victim to Aphrodite:202 “Aphrodite sacrificed

197 Sartre 1967, pp. 68–69. 198 Cf. Ramaer 2018. 199 Cf. Ng 2017. 200 You, Joo-hyeon. 2016. “Director Ong Keng Sen’s Changgeuk ‘Trojan Women’. Co-produced Changgeuk Makes Debut on World Stage.” Online: https://ntok.go.kr/Down/Department/ 201710/Changgeuk_Trojan_Women_Press_Review_5.pdf. Last accessed 15 September 2018. 201 Cf. Mottinger, Michaela. “Die Helena als schöner junger Mann.” Mottingers-Meinung.at. Online: http://www.mottingers-meinung.at/?tag=sam-sik. Last accessed 14 September 2018. 202 Cf. Ramaer 2018. 67 me. And my beauty became my shame.”203 By casting a male actor, Ong Keng Sen broke up the border between male and female. In the Korean version, Helen is a transgressive character taking on the role of an outsider between the Trojans and the Greeks. While Jean-Paul Sartre perceived her as a European woman amongst Asians and a Greek woman amongst Trojans, Ong incorporated this aspect and added a gender political dimension.204 He focused not on race but “on gender” and displayed her as “a body who is embodied between the male and the female gender”.205 Helen’s exoticism and significant position as an outsider becomes even more intensified through the choice of musical accompaniment. While all the other characters are assigned to specific Korean instruments, Helen’s musical form is of Western origin as Ong Keng Sen chose the piano as her instrument. In this way, her scene stands out and constitutes an innovation for changgeuk opera. Also, Helen of Troy’s first song does not comply with any other Korean music genre but still sounds “appropriate, rather than awkward”. Her second song is sung in traditional pansori style with Jung Jae-il playing a “free-spirited jazz-style”.206 Helen’s passage is regarded as ‘nundaemok’ in pansori, which is equal to an aria in an opera.207

In summary, critical opinions differ as to whom wins this verbal contest. Formally speaking, Helen is the defendant who tries to avoid death, but in the course of the scene Hecuba has to defend herself as well. A number of critics claim that Hecuba emerges victorious because she is more rational and has a sense of morality and common sense. Others say it is Helen who wins because Hecuba “gives up the moral high ground in her pursuit”.208 Jean-Paul Sartre and Ong Keng Sen presentation of the roles of Helen and Hecuba are fundamentally different to Euripides’ Trojan Women. I argue that the audience sees an emotional, desperate woman in love with her husband, who rejects all guilt and uses her beauty to convince Menelaus of her innocence. While the verbal battle in Euripides is filled with rhetorical power, it is emotionality that gains the upper hand in the other two plays. Ong’s version ultimately incorporates the physicality and

203 National Theater of Korea 2016, undisclosed performance recording. 204 Cf. Ong 2018. 205 Cf. Ong 2017 and cited after ibid. 206 Cf. Song, Taw-hyung. 2016. “Review on TrojanWomen. The Korea Economic Daily.” TrojanWomen Press Review by National Changgeuk Company of Korea. Online: https://ntok.go.kr/Down/Department/201710/Changgeuk_Trojan_Women_Press_Review_5.pdf. Last accessed 15 September 2018 and cited after ibid. 207 Cf. Song, Hyeon-min. 2016. “Review on TrojanWomen. Auditorium.” TrojanWomen Press Review by National Changgeuk Company of Korea. Online: https://ntok.go.kr/Down/Department/ 201710/Changgeuk_Trojan_Women_Press_Review_5.pdf. Last accessed 15 September 2018. 208 Cf. Goff 2009, pp. 70–71 and cited after ibid., p. 71. 68 intimacy of a married couple as they kneel on the ground, hold each other in their arms, and he protects her from Hecuba's verbal attacks. Helen's mercy is the ultimate mockery for the Trojan women, as the cause of their suffering returns as queen while they are shipped as slaves.

69 6. Conclusion

As Rush Rehm expressed so accurately in the introduction to this master thesis: art can capture and reflect what history forgets. And this is what adaptations, restagings and reinterpretations do, they ensure that past events remain in the collective memories of the audience.

“It still amazes me that today what we will hear is the essence of a tale which is said to have happened around 1200BC and which intrigued Homer who inspired Euripides who inspired Jean-Paul Sartre. These words have been translated and adapted through time to arrive today in the mouths of our wonderful singers. This is perhaps the power of storytelling today, […].”209

Ong Keng Sen’s Trojan Women incorporates the main elements of ancient Greek tragedy by integrating destiny, the chorus and “the emotions stirred by the rawness of the voices on stage (that) culminate into the essence of a Greek tragedy – catharsis”.210 Kim Geum-mi plays the Queen of Troy and shows powerful emotions like grief, rage or compassion through her incredible presence and singing onstage. Her sobbing and wailing seems so authentic, that the audience has to fear she might collapse any time. But despite of her ultimate suffering and loss of power, she remains sensible and bears an internal strength. Hecuba can be seen as the leader of the performance as the scenes happening throughout the musical evolve around her.

Hecuba is an example of the strength of a mother who, despite unimaginable suffering, stands by the Trojan women as their leader. As Nicole Loraux puts it, if the queen was not defeated already, she would have to be defeated. She ends up childless and homeless after her children and grandchildren have either been murdered or shipped and her city is no longer there. Her lamentations create an equivalent between the city and her grandson: “Alas for my city, alas for you” (οἲ ᾿γὼ πόλεως,οἴµοι δὲ σέθεν· (Eur. Tro. 795–796)). The unimaginable loss of one's own flesh and blood makes the pain seem unbearable.211 Here comes Talthybios who shows some kind of compassion. He tries to oppose the ritual disorder by performing the funeral ritual for Astyanax. If he had not allowed the grandmother to bury her own grandson, this would have meant that something had gone fundamentally wrong in the world. In ancient Greece, the

209 Ong 2017. 210 Cf. Hwang 2016 and cited after ibid. 211 Cf. Loraux 1990, p. 56. 70 funeral ritual was part of family life and performed by relatives. In a ‘normal’ world and according to the natural order, Astyanax should have mourned at the tomb of Hecuba after her death and not the other way round. But in Trojan Women a sad reversal of the natural order took place “where the old must bury the young”.212

Peripety, the sudden change of luck or misfortune occurs in this play before the plot sets in. The queen has gone from enormous bliss as a mother and wife to being a slave to the Greeks and it seems as if the same is true for Helen. According to the Trojan women, she is the reason for their suffering and for the destruction of the city, but if one examines the play as part of the Euripidean Trojan trilogy, one cannot deny that the queen and king of Troy are partly to blame. On the basis of Alexandros’ plot, the royal couple could have avoided the city's fall by murdering their son Paris. While Euripides leaves it open whether Helen boards the same ship as Menelaus and goes unpunished, Sartre explicitly states that he is liar who lets her right onto his ship where she will surely seduce him with her beauty. This makes her the personification of suffering, since she is not only responsible for the war, but also returns to Sparta with no punishment as queen. In my opinion it is Helen who wins the verbal battle with Hecuba, although the latter seems rhetorically and argumentatively superior to her, at least in Euripides' version. The passionate, emotional and yet aggressive and thus desperate approach of Jean-Paul Sartre and Ong Keng Sen in the portrayal of Helen and Hecuba puts the debate in a different light. Since the queen of Sparta wears beautiful robes and make-up in all three pieces, Ong goes one step further. Helen is played by a man in the Korean version and thus stands out from the Trojan women, although she is held captive with them as a slave in the tent. The special status of this role is also underlined by the element of Korean pop, which makes Helen stand out even more from the other women.

The rise of the tragedy as an art form laid the foundation for discussions and debates as it became

“[…] a powerful instrument for celebration, criticism, […] and ideals, for examining the tensions between heroic legend and democratic ideology, between past and present, and for discussing political and moral questions of the day.”213

212 Cf. Rehm 1994, p. 140 and cited after ibid. 213 Burian, Peter. 1997. “Myth into mythos; the Shaping of the Tragic Plot.” In: Companion to Greek Tragedy, edited by Pat E. Easterling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 206. 71 Both Euripides’ and Ong’s Trojan Women as well as Sartre’s Les Troyennes are carried by the pacifistic thought. However, this gesture is elaborated differently in each piece. Although Euripides’ intention cannot be proven beyond speculations, historians and classical philologists suggest that he reacted to contemporary political events and used his tragedy to warn of imminent disaster. I believe that he had political matters in mind when he wrote Trojan Women, but it is necessary to take a step back and consider Hecuba, which also deals with the Trojan myth and was written ten years before. I assume that Euripides pursued the pacifistic idea in general and that it is not the result of specific contemporary events. I insinuate that he had a vision of peace, which did not derive from a specific trigger. In his play, the focus is clearly on the lament of the women and the disputes between individuals are less important. Emotionality is transmitted mainly through lamentation in monologues and the plot is brought forward in dialogues, but they are not as emotionally charged as in Sartre’s Les Troyennes or Ong’s Trojan Women. In the case of Jean-Paul Sartre, there is no need to question his pacifistic intention, because his actions and statements speak for themselves. His adaptation shows how the horrors of war create an atmosphere of hopeless desolation. Sartre’s textual changes emphasize the anger and the frustration of the Trojan women that lead to heated debates and mutual recriminations. His own attitude towards war, be it the Algerian War, the Vietnam War or war in general, and his role as an active protester are expressed by the women on stage. He maintains Euripides’ structure but blends lament with hate tirades against the Greeks, Helen or occasionally Europe. Thus, the mourning women become protesters who actively rebel against their antagonists. I argue that Sartre’s textual alterations break up the stationary nature of Euripides’ play and that emotional disputes between characters, denunciations in speeches and his choice of words make Les Troyennes seem more fiery, desperate and emotional than Trojan Women. In my opinion, Ong Keng Sen takes a step back and merges these two approaches, thereby creating a balance between lament and denunciation. The performative aspect needs to be considered here, because I have analysed Euripides’ and Sartre’s texts but the staging of the Korean version. Through the performance, the suffering of the women is directly transferred to the audience. The timbre of pansori and the gestures of the characters on stage intensify sorrow and lament. Ong Keng Sen wants to draw attention to the fate of the comfort women in the Second World War through his musical theatre piece and makes use the pacifistic base of the play.

72 I claim that all three pieces balance lament and denunciation. Euripides’ Trojan Women is dominated by lamentation, Sartre’s Les Troyennes by denunciation and recrimination and Ong Keng Sen’s Trojan Women manages to balance it out. I think that the interweaving of pansori intensifies the lament, which is the essence of Euripides’ play. The scratching in the voice of Hecuba brings the despair in the solo passages to its climax and the occasional plucking of the geomungo only reinforces this. The musical accompaniment enhances the mourning and Helen’s solo singing with piano forms the contrast to it. Hecuba stands for lament and Cassandra for denunciation in all three pieces. In the Korean version, this is particularly evident in the singing, as Cassandra’s voice is much louder and clearer in comparison to her mother’s. Ong also incorporates gestures of ritual mourning when the Trojan queen beats her own breast repeatedly to strident tunes of the geomungo. He adapts Sartre’s vulgar language. Andromache, for example, refers to Neoptolemus as dirty, filthy, whoremonger, to Helen as that bitch and to Talthybios as bastard. The hopelessness becomes evident in the scene when Talthybios wants to take Astyanax away and Andromache bends over the baby to protect it while the Trojan women kneel at the Greek herald. Lament is also clear when Helena realizes that she is to be stoned and the K-pop elements give way to pansori singing when she begs her husband for forgiveness. And when Hecuba holds tight to the dead body of her grandson, she mourns that he will never grow up or know love. The geomungo, the drum and the haegum can be heard scarcely as she recalls what could have waited for him in his life.

After all, war is a humiliation of the human order. Euripides wanted to warn the people of his time not to make the same mistakes, and Sartre and Ong reacted to contemporary or past events. Nevertheless, the subject matter and message of Trojan Women remain valid to this day and should serve as a warning sign of possible future acts of violence. The chorus cries for their lost city before Hecuba, Talthybios and the chorus exit the stage at the end of Euripides’ play. By changing the ending, both Sartre and Ong succeed in denouncing the people who wage war and make clear that there are no victors. This master thesis shows the complexity of the film. In the analysis of Sartre’s and Ong’s adaptations it turned out that different accentuations were applied but all three, Euripides’ Trojan Women, Jean-Paul Sartre’s Les Troyennes and Ong Keng Sen’s Trojan Women have the pacifistic gesture in common.

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