Section 6 of feminism in Greek literature. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Feminism in Greek Literature by Frederick Adam Wright Chapter 6. Aeschylus and Sophocles Of the seven plays of Aeschylus that remain, three, the seven against Thebes, the Persians and the Prometheus, are concerned with battles and with strife among men and among gods. It might be expected that women here would play but a small part, but, as a matter of fact, in two of the three, the Chorus, the intermediary between poet and audience, is composed of women, and in the third, a woman is the chief character.  The male characters talk. What little action there is in the play falls to the women of the Chorus. Their first song, for example, when they call on the gods to save them from the ravages of war, was probably accompanied by more vigorous movements than anything in the rest of the tragedy. The unsympathetic male, Etiocles, addresses them, it is true, as unbearable creatures and detestable animals, and says, for my own part, I never want to share my house with any woman kind, nor take them to my troubles and my joys. But his remarks are strictly in keeping with his unpleasant character, and the poet instinctively relies on the female characters for his chief dramatic interest. So in the Persians, a chronicle play composed mainly of choral odes and messengers' speeches, the Queen Mother, Aetosa, takes the first place in the action, and the psychological contrast lies between her womanly strength and Xerxes' manly weakness. In the Prometheus, certainly, most of the characters, gods and demigods, are males, but they have little dramatic significance. As far as they are concerned, the play is a good example of what Matalink calls the static drama. The characters stand still and talk. The action is in the hands of the female characters, the pathetic figure of the wandering cowmaiden Io, and the contrasted group of the mermaid chorus, The Daughters of the Sea. These latter are perhaps the most charming of all the poet's creations, and the fragrance that heralds their approach, when, casting away modesty they venture to appear before a man, spreads through the whole play. Sympathising, but not quite without merriment, inquisitive, but staunch in the hour of danger, they are just such characters as Norsikia herself. In these three plays then, the feminine interest has forced its way, as it were, into the plot, which in its first form offered women no place. The Seven Against Thebes, a fragment from the Table of Homer, differs chiefly from the epic in the feminine element that has been imported by the chorus. The Persians, dealing with the same events as those described by Herodotus, has for its point of difference the prominence given to the female character Aetosa. The Prometheus, which tells the story of the conflict between the fierce young god and the philanthropic old Demiurge, relies for its dramatic interest largely on the episodes of the Nairides and Io, episodes which, strictly speaking, have nothing to do with the main plot. This feminism, inherent in the poet's mind, finds full expression in the remaining four plays. The Suppliant Women, for example, archaic though it seems to us, deals with the social problem and a question of law, which was hotly debated in the poet's time, and finally, in spite of his advocacy, settled against the women. The question is this, should a woman be compelled to marry a man she dislikes, and to hand over to him the control of her property merely because he is the nearest male relative? Iscultus answers in the negative. Athenian law, decided in the affirmative. The characters in the play are nearly all women, the fifty daughters of Deneos, accompanied by their old father, who fled from Egypt to Greece in order to escape from the violence of their cousins, the sons of Egyptus, who wished to marry them by force. It is a lyric drama, and the burden of the action and the music rests with the women. The agony of the crowd of girls crouching helpless at the altar is depicted in the most entrancing melody. They are not regarded as separate individuals, but as representing women in general. Their plight is that of all women kind, and the problem is presented as universal. Swall the daughters of the south, they call upon their god to help them, the god who once found delight in the arms of their ancestors, Hio, and in the play their prayer is answered. The king of Argos protects and gives them shelter, the Egyptian herald who would have taken them back is scornfully dismissed. Of the three male characters, Deneos is the most interesting, and his advice to his daughters is applicable to women generally in ancient times. Children, you must be prudent. Let your utterance be attended before all by absence of boldness, a modest face and a tranquil eye, no wanton looks. Be not forward in your speech nor prolex. People here are very prone to take offence, and remember to be submissive. You are needy, foreign fugitives. It is not seemly for the weak to be bold in speech. So in his concluding words, he hints at some of the difficulties of a woman's life. I charge you, bring me not to shame.  Ripe tender fruit is never easy to protect. Men are like animals. They seek only to destroy. Your garden's fair, the lady of love herself proclaims their dewy freshness, and when a virgin comes in dainty loveliness, every man as he passes by falls victim to desire, and shoots a swift glance to win her fancy. Observe then, this your father's charge, and value chastity more than life itself. The suppleant women presents one particular phase of women's subjection considered impersonally, and scarcely deals with the great question of how far force may be rightly met by force. In the legend, the daughters of Deneos escape from slavery by killing their husbands on their wedding night, but of that, Aeschylus in his play tells us nothing. The problem, however, is too vital to escape his notice, and it forms the central motive of the greatest play in world literature, the Agamemnon, is a woman ever justified in killing her husband. The question had a special interest in Athens, as it must have in any society where women are kept enslaved, for the tyrant always walks in dread of the assassin's knife. Euripides, with his stinging irony, reveals the secret fear. If women are to be allowed to shed male blood, he makes Orestes cry, then we men had better commit suicide at once. If it is a matter only of the will to kill, we may be sure that all women have that already. The Agamemnon deals with this problem. The sequel plays with a second question. Is it right for a son to kill his mother in order to avenge his father's death? But the trilogy of the Orestes, besides being concerned with feminist problems, is a living gallery of woman types. Clytemnestra and Cassandra, Electra and the Nurse, the Chorus of Maidens in the Chorifory, and the Chorus of Women Furies in the Humanities. In the Agamemnon, the two women are sharply contrasted. Clytemnestra, the queen who will not submit to man's rule, Cassandra, the victim predestined by fate, to suffer the caprices of a master, and to pass from the treacherous lover, Apollo, to the brutal owner, Agamemnon. No one can read the play and feel much sympathy with the murdered king. He is done to death with every circumstance of horror. Returning home after many years' absence in a foreign land, where he has been fighting for his country, he finds within his house not a faithful wife, but a secret enemy. She conceals her hatred, allures him to the bath, and there, with her own hands, murders him. And yet the dramatist, and his readers, find the wife, rather than the husband, the sympathetic character. It is partly the intolerable callousness and brutal pride of Agamemnon, who has sacrificed his daughter's life to help on his political schemes, and now brings home with him from Troy the concubine whom he has compelled to share his bed. But there is also the feeling that Clytemnestra is really the better man of the pair, that she is naturally born to rule, and that her subjection to a man will be against the law of nature. Certainly in the play she takes the first place, and Cassandra, a part vocally the most important of any, comes next. The men, Agamemnon, the Watchman, the Herald, Aegisthus, and the helpless chorus of aged counsellors, are merely foils to the manlike queen. The contrast, indeed, between the resolute woman and the irresolute men in the closing scenes is almost comic, and the play ends with her triumph. In the sequel, The Libation Bearers, the main action is again in the hands of women, Elektra and her friends, the maidens of the chorus. Orestes, it is true, does the actual killing, but there is this difference between brother and sister. Elektra acts on her own initiative, and is a woman of strong will, as Clytemnestra herself, Orestes acts only in obedience to the promptings of others. Elektra feels no remorse, Orestes, as soon as he has killed his mother, is tormented by imaginary terrors. Among the characters of the second play, by far the most interesting, is the old nurse. She is obviously studied from the life, and is one of the most vivid figures of Greek drama. Her kindly temper and affection for her former charge are contrasted with the fierce bitterness of Elektra, and she supplies the one touch of humour that lightens the mournful music of this play. Last comes the humanities, which discusses with almost embarrassing frankness the physical problems of relationship. Is the mother who conceives, or the father who begets the child, the nearer relative? And again, is not the murder of a husband, who is no relation by blood, less heinous than the murder of the mother, who brought you into the world? These are some of the questions that are raised but not answered, for the final reconciliation satisfies the religious rather than the practical sense. The plot may be put briefly. A band of women are pursuing a man over the earth, pursuing relentlessly until he shall die of fatigue. Whenever the pursuit slackens, another woman, or rather her spirit, urges on the chase. The man appeals in vain for help from men, and at last a third woman, by skillful diplomacy, persuades the Avengers, or at least some of them, to agree to a reconciliation. Such is the Aeschylean theatre, but as we have said, Aeschylus is a lonely spirit in Athens. The general view of women is represented by the next generation, Pericles, Sophocles and Thucydides, the greatest statesmen, dramatists and historians of their time. The last of the three is particularly significant. You may read through his history from beginning to end, and if you are a student of affairs, you will not find any other book in the world quite so valuable. But concerning one half of the human race, you will get scarcely a word.  In the rest of the history, they are practically never mentioned. To Thucydides, women, even such a woman as Aspasia, hardly existed. Politics were to him the serious business, war the great game of life, and in neither of these did women take part. He probably would have agreed with his hero, Pericles. A woman's highest glory is not to fall below the standard of such natural powers as she possesses. That woman is best, of whom there is the least talk among men, whether in the way of praise or blame. In his indifference, the historian faithfully follows the example of the statesman. Pericles, of whose mistress Aspasia we hear so much, and of whose wife, the mother of his sons, we hear so little, appears never to have considered the part that nature has assigned to women in the creation and management of a state. In his day Athens was faced by a war that in one year robbed her of many of the bravest of her sons. A state funeral was given them, at which, as Thucydides tells us, any one who wished, stranger or citizen, could be present, even women were there to mourn for their relatives at the grave. At the end of the ceremony, Pericles made that funeral oration in praise of Athens, of which echoes are to be found in all contemporary Greek literature. Most of the speech dwells resolutely on the glory of these heroic deaths and the grandeur of the sacrifices made. But, at the last, the gaiorita condescends to human feeling and addresses some noble words of comfort to the men before him, taking them in succession as fathers, sons, and brothers of the dead. Then comes the one final, cold sentence addressed not to the mothers, but to the widows in his audience. A few words of advice, Pericles calls it, and it is the language of reproof rather than that of sympathy. Their ignorance of women made even the greatest minds in Athens insensible to women's true position, and in the case of Thucydides there is a further reason. When the historian came to compose his work, he was too bitterly disillusioned to concern himself with anything but his main subject, the failure of Athens to maintain the Periclean system. In a world where blind chants seem to rule and the highest political ideals went unrealized, the social position of women may well have seen to him a trifle. But Thucydides' testimony is chiefly negative. We get clearer evidence from Sophocles. Sophocles is the typical Athenian, versatile and ingratiating. Eutrapoulos Eucalous. Actor, poet, priest and general, he was one of the most popular men of his time, with men. Of his family life we have not quite such a brilliant picture. His wife is one of the many anonymous women, the wives of great men. His children did not apparently regard their father with as much affection as did the outside world, and in his old age tried to deprive him of the control of his property. As to women and the softer affections of life, outside his own writing we have the anecdote in Plato's Republic. The poet in his old age was asked how he felt in regard to love. Hush, hush, he replied, I have escaped and right gladly. I feel like a slave who has escaped from a mad master. That was the feeling which the conditions of life at Athens engendered. Women and women's love was a necessary weakness. Happy the man who could break free, and if we believe the stories in Atheneus, Sophocles also in escaping from women fell into the Ionian snare. In his plays women are generally a negligible quantity. At least the only women whom he succeeds in making life like are the slave women, the ministering angels like Deonira and Tecmesa who meekly respect their master's words, often dined into their ears. Woman, for women, silence is the finest robe. Tecmesa, beautiful character though she is, and far superior to Ajax in moral strength, has no independent existence from her lord and master. Deonira, deserted by her errant husband, has no thought of resentment. She only wants to get her master back, and is prepared to stoop to any means if she may regain his company. And it is obvious that these two ladies, who would make a modern woman despair, are Sophocles' ideals of feminine excellence. Of the other plays, the Idopus Tyrannus contains only one woman character, Jocasta, the mother married to her own son, a dreadful figure, and one almost impossible to dramatize successfully. In the play she takes only a minor part, and her silent exit is the most effective touch. But it is interesting here to compare Sophocles with Euripides, who, in the Phoenician women, does succeed in making Jocasta a real and most pathetic figure. The Idopus at Colonus has the two girls, Antigone and Ismeni, but they are sexless and dramatically only important as types of girlish devotion. The Philoptites, like the two Idopus plays, has a male chorus and a lone among Greek tragedies, if we accept the Rhesus, has no female characters. It is also, whatever the reason, the dullest play we possess. They remain the Electra and the Antigone, and the first of these is a signal example of the importance for a dramatist of choice of subject. Aeschylus and Euripides have both left us plays dealing with the same story, and a comparison with the three tragedies will reveal the essential differences between the three poets. A dramatist must share, imaginatively at least, in his character's thoughts, and women like Clytemnestra and Electra were so beyond the range of Sophocles' experience and sympathy that he is quite unable to make them live. Like everything that Sophocles wrote, the Electra is full of literary accomplishment. The epic method, for example, is most ingeniously adapted to the theatre, and a vivid narrative of the chariot race in which Orestes is supposed to meet his death forms the centre of the play, but there is no real grip on the dramatic situation. It is literature, not life. In the Antigone on the other hand, the poet is dealing with the subject thoroughly congenial to his temperament, the conflict between law and the individual, and one independent of sex, and the play is a magnificent example of his art. Here certainly the central figure is a woman, or at least a girl, but the interest does not depend upon her sex, for little dramatic use is made of the Heimann episode. It is not her sex but her social position that affects the problem of the play, a problem vital enough in itself without any sex interest. How far is an individual justified in setting his or her conscience against the law of the state? Antigone is a girl often born out of legal wedlock, a slave without a master, and it is a crowning stroke of irony to pit her lonely figure against the majesty of man-made law. To modern readers she seems intensely pathetic, and an Athenian audience would, doubtless, have sympathised with her as a rebel, if not as a woman. There is no word in Greek for to command, and their only word for to obey means literally to allow oneself to be persuaded, so that the conscientious objector was not uncommon. But Sophocles had been a general and knew by experience the way of Athenian soldiers, and it is not certain that he appreciates his heroine's wilfulness in quite so favourable a light, for, as we see in his other plays, he was essentially on the side of law. He was rather an observer with a wonderful command of language than an original thinker or critic of the established order, and it is a curious turn of fortune for a poet who had by no means a close or sympathetic knowledge of women's character, that the Antigone, the only play where a woman takes a vital part, should be, by far, the greatest of his works. The titles and fragments of his lost plays confirm the impression given by the extant tragedies. We have nearly a hundred names of lost plays, and barely one-fifth are called after women. Moreover, a consideration of the titles of those plays that bear one woman's name will reveal the fact that the majority were probably rather anti-feminist than feminist. Helen, Eryphilly, Pandora, Prochris, Tyro, Helen who deserted her husband and her home, Eryphilly who sold her husband for gold, Pandora the incarnate cause of trouble among men, Prochris, bought by a paramour, Tyro seduced by a second lover, that legends of these ladies were arranged to please the Athenian public. Venal and fickle creatures they show plainly how necessary it is to keep a close guard over women, and it may be suspected that Sophocles, in his treatment of the plot, did not disappoint the expectations of his audience. In five plays only is the title taken from the chorus, the Spartan women, the Lemnian women, the water carriers, the women of Skyros, and the captive women, and it is very unlikely, considering the titles, that any of the five was written with much sympathy with feminine ideals. Spartan and Lemnian women were at Athens, almost proverbial for unwomenly females, a water carrier was synonymous with a gossip. With the other two, we have a little definite information. Philostratus tells us that the women of Skyros, treated of the not very pleasant tale of the young Achilles, disguised as a girl in the king's harem, and becoming there the father of Neoptolomus, by the young princess Deidemia. Of the captive women, we know that it had the same plot as Euripides Trojan women, but the incidents were treated humorously. It is not perhaps impossible that an author, even today, might regard the troubles of women in war as a fit subject for a jest, but things have advanced so far that we should hardly regard him now as a flawless genius, or hold him up as the highest product of our civilization. End of Section 6. Section 7 of Feminism in Greek Literature. This is a LibriVox recording, or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Feminism in Greek Literature by Frederick Adam Wright. Chapter 7. Euripides. All Greek literature has one peculiar quality. As the tribe of Scholiaston translators have found from the beginning, it lends itself to interpretation, and Euripides has suffered more than most authors from his interpreters. The ancient belief that Euripides was a misogynist is still sometimes held, and such a misconception is not altogether our own fault. It is partly due to Euripides himself, for the poet's favourite weapon is irony, and irony is a double-edged sword which can be turned against those who dare to use it. Euripides does not say plainly and straightforwardly, you men think yourselves naturally superior to women, braver, more truthful, more unselfish, in reality this superiority is a mere figment of your imagination. Neither the poet nor his audience would have cared for such brutal frankness. Euripides exhibits the facts of life with some little malicious arrangement and leaves the judgement to others. He is too good an artist, as indeed were Ischolus and Sophocles, to make all his women angels and all of his men the reverse. Many of his women have very obvious faults so that if you come to his place with a fixed and comfortable conviction of the superiority of man and can shut your eyes to more than half of the action, you will probably find in what remains convincing proof of women's weakness. But often our belief in Euripides' misogyny has quite another source, our inveterate habit of taking a joke seriously. Aristophanes, who probably knew Euripides, the man and his plays, better than anyone in this world, represents him as a woman-hater in danger from women's vengeance. We draw the inference that Euripides did really dislike women. Now the exact opposite of the truth is what the audience at the performance of an attic comedy expected. It was allowed, it was considered proper, in the case of a comic poet, that he should turn his facts upside down. Socrates, for example, always professed himself unable to teach anything and thought the practice of taking fees for teaching immoral. Therefore he is represented in the clouds as keeping a school and teaching for hire. Euripides is the champion of women's equality. He is represented by Aristophanes as a misogynist. There are similar cases in our own social life. An intelligent foreigner, if he read our literature at the time of a general election and took the election posters seriously, would form a very wrong idea of the estimation in which, we will say the prime minister, is held by most of his countrymen. A perversion of the facts is even with us regarded as humorous in politics and it is thus that we should regard Aristophanes. Classical scholars, however, have always been a serious class and while they recognize the grossness of Aristophanes they often fail to see his humor. The irony of Euripides and the humor of Aristophanes are both alien to the Puritan spirit when they are understood and to appreciate the first it is necessary to make a close study of all the plays. Euripides was, first of all, a dramatist and his main business is with his play. Behind the playwright stands the poet and idealist, a man not at all inclined to look on life with philosophic detachment but feeling as deeply and as bitterly as any man has ever done the basis of injustice on which too often human society has been reared. Euripides championed the cause of women's freedom against the decadence of Ionia as he championed the cause of religious freedom against the reactionaries of Delphi. He realized that the best method of defence is to attack the other side that successful defence is impossible unless, at any rate, you are prepared to take the aggressive. Open militancy, in his case, was impossible for the dramatic poet was ostensibly a servant of the state and the majority, but by no means all, of his countrymen supported the doctrines of the infallibility of the Delphian god and the Athenian man so that he is compelled to work in exactly the opposite method to that of the misogynists. He does not labour his argument he does not paint with a heavy brush if you like to disregard this point of view you can do so and still find much that is supremely interesting his gift of vivid narrative the light music of his verse and his unrivaled sense of dramatic effect but every dramatist consciously or unconsciously has some groundwork of thought some criticism of life which will appear more or less plainly through the dramatic action of his plays in Euripides that criticism is directed chiefly to the testing of three assumptions current in his day that God reveals his purposes to men that war has an ennobling effect on a nation and on individuals that women are by nature inferior to men with the first two of these dogmas we are not now concerned as to the real nature of Euripides ideas on the third we should get the clearest view of the characters of his theatre then the general body of his plays and lastly those four dramas which are particularly concerned with the relations between men and women the two sexes may be subdivided according to Greek fashion into six classes old man, man, young man old woman, woman, young woman and it must be acknowledged at once that Euripides like most Greeks is quite lacking in any reverence for age his old men are apt to be dotards and are treated with humorous contempt and fitrion in the Hercules is a type he lives in a world of illusion he sees visions and dreams-dreams but when serious counsel or vigorous action are necessary he is useless cadmus and teresius in the bacchi are characters of the same sort they are meant to be humorous and the scene in which the two old men wagging their hoary heads and sing is pure burlesque cadmus agrees with Amphitrion in his religious views he is ready to accept the miraculous if it is profitable and he scarcely troubles to make any pretense as regards the divinity of the new god Dionysus his sentiments are that as the fellow anyhow is my daughter's son it is my duty as head of the family to make out that he is a great god cadmus and Amphitrion are at least partly self-deceived aegis is a mere but the old gentleman who believes that his virility can be restored by magic art is a child in Medea's hands and the scene between the two is Aristophanic in its spoken frankness generally speaking old men in Euripides are impotent when they are allowed to act their energies, Tindarius for example and the old servant in the Ion are mischievous in one case only when they are resisting the wanton violence of some full grown man who is attacking women and children sometimes as with Pellius and Iolius they succeed sometimes they fail but in either case their essential weakness is a foil to the presumptuous strength of their opponent coming now to the second class that of grown men we get three main types there is the mean man, the blustra and the simpleton and admatus are mean men mean, selfish and cowardly capable of asking a woman to save their lives at the risk of their own but incapable of gratitude still they are handsome, good company and quite unconscious of their own shortcomings Menelaus is a worst type a one that the poet especially disliked he adds to meanness the vices of cruelty and treachery and is the slave of passion in the Eurestes is coldly treacherous and andromache treacherous and cruel and the other plays where he appears merely despicable then come the blusterers Agamemnon and Heracles, Lycus and Eurystheus the first two are the ordinary sensual man brave enough and capable of great deeds but unfaithful untruthful and self-indulgent they seem to be strong and they are strong in body but they have no strength of mind Lycus and Eurystheus are men of a lower type mere bullies depending solely on force and Eurypides does not attempt to make them interesting lastly there are the simpletons Zuthus, Thoas and Theoclemenos an easy prey for the clever women the priestess, Ephigenia Helen who use them as they will they are the men who with advancing age will be such as Eegius and Amphitreum and they almost exhaust the list in our second class they remain only Thesius a patriotic abstraction the male counterpart of Athena Creon the king the name is given to more than one person an official rather than a living character and some few persons in the second plan of action such as the herald Talthebus and the peasant farmer in the Electra these two latter occupy very subordinate positions but they are in every way more manly more generous, more lovable than the men whom they serve if we accept them there is not a grown man in the whole theatre of Eurypides who can be regarded with sympathy when we come to the young men we are in a brighter world Eurypides is essentially the poet of youth and his younger characters are always lovable the heroic boy Menaceus and the kind lad Ion are figures drawn with a tender hand but soon the shadows of the prison house draw in the hardness which is visible even in Ion becomes intensified in Achilles and still more in Hippolytus the older the person the less attractive he becomes Achilles and Hippolytus are very much like the public school boy of our day in many spheres of conduct they are thoroughly reliable truthful, self-denying and courageous but they are cruelly hampered by the influence of an environment which shuts out the influence of women at the most fashionable time of a man's life Hippolytus is something of a prig and into his mouth in the well-known speech Eurypides puts all the stock invective against women the words are not the lad's own views he is too young to have had much experience of women, good or bad they are literature the views of other men expressed in books and unconsciously assimilated by the younger generation Hippolytus is an ascetic and exaggerates a more manly character his first impulses are generous but he does not carry them into effect for he is too much under the influence of other people's opinion good form is his guide in life he has moreover all a young man's vanity countless girls are setting traps to catch me as a husband he says and he is deeply hurt to think that he is not consulted I would have agreed to her death if I had been asked but I was not, so I will help you this is the best champion that Clytemnestra can find to save her daughter the remaining five characters men unmarried but full grown are less interesting Pentheus is the typical self-pleaser willful, violent and intolerant that he happens to be right in his particular case does not make him more sympathetic nor does it alter the justice of his fate his mode of thought is wrong savage repression is not the way to deal with the cause which enlists women as its chief votaries and is kept active by their enthusiasm the other pairs are Estes and Pilates Etiocles and Polyneses require little notice all four have the curse of Cain upon them they draw the sword and fall by the sword they are murderers first and foremost and chiefly interesting to the criminologist so much then for Euripides men that has now contrast them in their monotony of type impute it to the poet or the sex as you will with the infinite variety of his women Fedra, Andromache Hermione, Creusa, Megara, Helen Alcestis, Clytemnestra Medea there is every shade of conduct here and nearly every form of marital complication if we remember that none of these wives are in love with their husbands and that romantic affection between husband and wife is impossible they are all, when they have children mothers first and wives afterwards the childless woman Hermione and apparently Creusa is embittered by her state and her conduct also is abnormal she is anxious to take life because she has not given life the poet is at pains to show the impossibility of married love under Greek conditions Fedra is married to an old man who years before had seduced her sister Andromache has been forcibly taken by the son of the man who slew her first husband Hermione has been compelled for political reasons to give up her cousin lover and marry a stranger Medea, after abandoning everything for her husband is deserted by him Creusa has been seduced as a girl and as a pisale has married an elderly man Megara has been abandoned by her roving husband she and her children are on the point of being killed by a stranger who directly returns and murders them himself Helen runs away from her lord Clytemnestra has no words bad enough to use of hers none of these women are impeccable Alsistus is the only flawless character and she is meant to be a saint their tempers are as composite as we find them in real life but however wrong or mistaken some of their actions may be not one is altogether unsympathetic so with the old women they are sometimes malignant but they are never contemptible their worst deeds are prompted by maternal affection Fidra's foster mother is a mischievous and immoral old lady but her only wish is to gratify her foster child Hecuba takes a ruthless vengeance on the Thracian king but she is a mother a venging a murdered son it is a favourite motive with Euripides the pathos of the old mother ravished her grandchildren sold into slavery Hecuba in the Thracian women Jocasta in the Phoenician women the chorus of old women in the suppliance all represent the reverse side of war's pomp and glory the men triumph and the women suffer the method is realistic there is little romance in the baser sense of the word in these unkempt miserable old figures and yet they supply the poet with some of his most poignant passages but Euripides is especially successful with his pictures of young girls virgin martyrs the type is not extinct anxious and willing to sacrifice themselves for their male relatives Ifigenia, Polyxena and Macaria are subtle variations of one character and upon the figure of the first the poet spends all his skill at the time of the sacrifice at Orlis she is a sentimental girl so full of timid modesty that the very thought of marriage fills her with shame I hid my face, she says in the soft wrappings of my veil that would not take my baby brother in my arms nor kiss my sister on the lips I felt ashamed before them no, I laid up for myself many a fond embrace which I would give them when I should come back a married woman the argument she uses to her mother to justify her sacrifice are poor enough vague talk of honour, patriotism and the insignificance of women it is better that one man should live than ten thousand women but her heart is right for Ifigenia both marriage and sacrifice prove a delusion she never returns home she is defrauded of the joy of motherhood and spends many years of lonely virginity among strangers and in a strange land when we see her again she is a bitter woman more sensible indeed than the simple girl but infinitely less lovable her thoughts are all of vengeance against Menelaus against Helen, against mankind she performs a horrible task of human sacrifice with no very great reluctance parceling out a tear in sympathy for kindred blood when any Greek victims fall into her hands but killing them all the same for one person alone she still cherishes some affection her brother Orestes whom she left a baby at home and on him she concentrates her frustrated motherhood the final stage of this rancour against life is seen in the character of Ifigenia's sister Electra the unwed as we have her in the Orestes and the play that bears her name Electra's loneliness and suffering her long brooding her craving for revenge have turned her mad and she again has only one sound sentiment her love for her brother she is a dreadful figure but a real one fire in the knife murder, treachery, arson she is ready for all her character is the logical outcome of many years of injuries and insults of denial of rights and of subjection she is a proud spirit and will not submit but her pride cannot alter the situation at last the strain of hopeless rebellion is too great and she becomes mad they make indeed a gloomy picture these unmarried women for Euripides does not shrink the side of a woman's revolt as Medea bitterly says even a bad husband is better than none and for the unwedded girl there are only two alternatives a voluntary sacrifice such as that whereby Makaria escapes from life or a hopeless struggle against the powers that be such as Electra tries to wage we have now taken all the characters of the Euripidean theatre except one and that one the most important of all the permanent character of tragedy the chorus the chorus is the ideal spectator the intermediary between audience and actor the interpreter of the poet's own thoughts it might be expected that a poet who was a feminist at heart would usually have his chorus composed of women while a poet who had little sympathy with women would prefer a chorus of men in our extant place this is exactly what happens it is a curious fact that most of the received ideas about the Greek drama the chorus of elders the statuesque movements the dignity of tragedy etc etc are drawn from the theatre of Sophocles the most academic of the three dramatists they would never be deduced from the usage of Ischolus or Euripides in the seven plays of Ischolus the chorus is composed five times of women twice only of men in both cases they are old men and the weakness of their old age is dramatic action in Sophocles the proportion is exactly reversed the chorus is five times composed of men twice of women moreover it is not the dramatic action that fixes either the sex or the age of the chorus in the Edibus Tyrannus, the Edibus Colonus or the Antigone in the latter play indeed most readers will feel that a chorus of women would be more appropriate the chorus with Sophocles are old men because the old man is the most ideal character of the 17 plays of Euripides in only three cases the Heracles, the Heraclidae and the Alcestis is the chorus composed of men in the first two cases as in Ischolus the ineffectiveness of old men in actual danger is part of the plot the chorus strengthens the impression made by Iolius and Amphitrion in the Alcestis that the chorus are men is part of the general irony of the play in the other 14 plays the chorus is composed of women and it is into the mouth of these women that Euripides puts all the most intimate part of his work sometimes it is a scene of home life as in the Hecuba where a woman describes her last night in Troy it was at midnight that ruin came dinner was over and upon men's eyes sweet sleep began to spread all the songs had been sung my lord had done with the sacrificial feast and was lying in my bower spear on peg for no longer had he to keep watch against the throng of shipmen who had set foot on our Ilyan land of Troy as for me one ringlet of hair I had still to bring to order under my tight bound snood and I was gazing into the infinite reflections of my golden mirror ere I should throw myself upon the pillows of my bed but lo a cry went through the city and a cheer rang out in Troy town hands of the Greeks when ah when will you sack the watch tower of Ilyan and get you home at last then I fled from my dear couch with only my smock upon me like some Dorian maid and crouched by Artemis's holy shrine but woe is me no help found I there my own man my bed fellow I saw slain before me and then I was dragged down to the seashore and in anguish swooned away sometimes it is a vivid description of outdoor life such as the picture of the washing place where the humbler sort of women could meet and enjoy a little leisure that pleasant evil and gossip together there is a rock that drips men say with water from the ocean's bed and sends from the cliff an ever running stream for us to catch in our pictures there I met a friend who was washing pieces of fresh dyed cloth in the river water and laying them in the warm sun upon the flat stones from her lips first this news of my lady came to me every mood of a woman's mind is represented now sad discordant is the music of a woman's life pitiful helplessness is her lot an evil housemate indeed there is the trouble of childbirth the trouble of woman's weakness Hippolytus or a sensorious thing is woman kind if women get a small basis for scandal they soon add more women take a kind of pleasure in talking insincerely about one another finacy now triumphant children promise of children's children to be children to help their sorrow to make more sweet their pleasure to speak with their enemy rather I say than gold than a palace of pride give me children at home write heritors of my blood let the miser plead for the childless side wealth denied children given I bless them and cleave to their better good iron, Verrill's translation or a strange and wondrous thing for women are the children they bear in travail woman kind loves a baby finacy all the questions of sex are considered and judged with clearest sense man's love when it is excessive is neither excellent nor indeed creditable but still sex is a divine thing and a gracious if kept within bounds a moderate temper for that I pray a vaunt contentious anger and the ceaseless bickering that drives a husband astray to another woman's arms media sometimes the question takes a wider range as in the difficult chorus of the ifigenia in all us the stuff of which men and women are made is different their ways are different too but what is really good of that there is no doubt the words of rearing and education have a great influence on ideas of excellence humble modesty is a form of wisdom and yet it is wondrous good to use your own judgment and see your duty for yourself then life is honorable and your frame grows not old it is a great thing to seek after excellence for us women the quest is secret down the secret ways of love for men the marshaled state and the thronging crowd make a city to increase and prosper but the topic on which Eripides insists most is the scandal of literature the unfair ideas of women that have been created and fostered by the perversity of writers two quotations will suffice one from the ion ye scandal masters of the liar that harping still upon the lust of loosal women never tire her lewdness ever now be just how doth her faith superior show beside the lust of loosal man see it and change your music go another way than once you ran ye lyric libels go and vex the faithless found the elder sex ion, Verrill's translation and another from the medea it is men now that are crafty and counsel and keep not their pledges by the gods the scandal will turn an honor come to a woman's life it is coming respect for women kind no longer will pestilence scandal attack women and women alone the music of ancient bards will die away harping ever on women's perfidy Phoebus is the guide of melody and in my heart he never set the wondrous music of his liar else I would soon have raised a song that would have stayed the brood of male singers the long years have many a tale to tell of men as well as of women this last sentence represents Euripides reason judgment on the problems of feminism women are different from men but they are not inferior all the arguments that are used to prove women's weakness could be used equally well against men so we may leave the characters and turn now to the separate plays of the complete dramas that we now possess the resus is probably spurious the Cyclops is a comic play the Halina a burlesque of the tragic manner of the remaining 16 to the supplement women and the children of Heracles are political plays written to glorify Athens as the champion of oppressed nationalities and their interest is mainly political but nothing that Euripides wrote is altogether lacking in vivid touches of feminism in the children of Heracles for example there is one character who in a few words reveals the position of women in Athenian life for a woman silence and discretion are best and to remain quiet within doors so speaks the maiden Makaria before she consents to a voluntary death she has had bitter experience of life and she is willing to die for existence offers her no very pleasant prospect a friendless girl she says who will take me for his wife who will have children by me it is better for me to die her one pathetic desire is to die not on compulsion but as a willing sacrifice to escape from life nobly the word recurs as often in Euripides as it does in Ibsen's Hadagabla to leave the ignoble servitude of women's lot she begs Iolus to deal the death blow and to cover her dead body but Iolus brave old man though he is cannot bring himself to see her die and her last request is that at least she may die not among men but in the arms of women these are her final words for my people I die that is my treasure in death that I take instead of children and my virgin bloom if indeed anything exists below I pray for my part that there will be nothing there if we mortals who must die shall find life's business in that land also I know not where to turn death is counted the surest potion against pain a similar incident forms the most striking scene of the suppleant women here it is not a young girl but a married woman, Evadny who, of her own accord, goes to death but her motive is much the same for the sake of a noble repute I die, she cries that I may surpass all women in generous courage her husband is dead she is a childless woman and she refuses to live on as a widow her father is anxious that she should nurse him in his old age but with strange perversity an old man is left to make a lament my daughter is dead, he cries she who used to draw down my face to her lips and would hold my head fast in her arms nothing is so sweet as a daughter when a father grows old a son's life is a thing of greater importance but sons are not so pleasant when we need fond endearments the main interest of the suppleant women is the same as that of three other plays the Phoenician women the Trojan women and the Hecuba they're concerned with war but war as seen from the woman's side a thing of unredeemed and useless suffering all the glory of conquest disappears women and children are seen paying the price of men's ambition and pride the Trojan women is the most lamentable and the most effective of the series written according to the oldest formula of tragedy the chorus of the chief persons in the action Cassandra and Andromache are only particular representatives of the sufferings which all the women in the play endure the two male characters the lustful hypocrite Menelaus and the honest servant Talthebus are of quite subordinate interest the play is an accumulation of sorrow upon sorrow but the climax is the murder of the little child Asteanax a political crime not inspired by any of the human feelings of hatred and revenge but coldly calculated by men for the sake of future advantage it is the women the mother and the grandmother of the child who have to suffer that men may sleep in safety as Andromache bitterly says she has always followed out the whole duty of woman these things that have been invented as virtuous pursuits for women at those I laboured ever in Hector's house to begin with whether censure should attach to women for it or not I may not say but at any rate the thing in itself brings a woman an evil name when she does not remain ever within doors so I put aside the desire for going out and stayed at home moreover I never admitted within our house the fantastic talk that some females enjoy I found my own sound sense the best teacher in domestic matters and made myself sufficing a silent tongue and a quiet face that was what I rendered to my lord and now she has a reward she is to become a concubine in the house of her husband's murderer and is told that one night in the arms of her new lord will make her forget the past as for her baby boy dear youngling nestling in your mother's arms your skin so sweet and fragrant he is torn away and hurled down to death but Andromache is not worse treated than the other women Hecuba is handed over to Odysseus as a slave to sweep the floor and grind the daily corn the virgin Polyxena is reserved to be slain over the tomb of Achilles for it is not enough that living men should make women their chattels even the dead hero demands the tribute of a maiden's life Cassandra has lived a vestal dedicated to the service of the god and she too has her reward the great king deigns to take her to his bed and in a scene of the grimaced irony the unhappy girl sings her own marriage hymn there is all the music of the hymenal chorus but you have one solitary figure the unwedded bride instead of the joyful procession of youth's maidens the Hecuba deals with the same events as the Trojan women and in the same spirit the sacrifice of Polyxena is consummated and Hecuba takes vengeance on one of her children's murderers the Thracian king Polymnester he guiled into the captive women's tent he sees his own children murdered and is then blinded the scene where he comes reeling out with blood dripping eyes reaches the limits of the horrible but Euripides does not forget to draw the feminist moral if anyone the king says has spoken ill of women in the past or is now in the act of speaking or will someday speak I will cut all his words short listen, neither scene nor land nor race as women are only the man who has to do with them from time to time knows what they can do the unhappy victim of a single woman forgets his logic and imputes the fault of an individual to the sex if the aggressor had been a man his thoughts would have been different and so the chorus tell him be not over fierce against us nor bring the feminine element into your troubles there is no need to blame all woman kind the particular note of realistic horror that marks the closing scenes of the Hecuba appears in another group of four plays the Ephigenia in Taurus the Heracles, the Orestes and the Electra the first three have been exhaustively studied by Dr Verrill and it is enough now to say that the methods of criticism which Thucydides and Euripides use upon the Trojan War are here applied to other tales of the remote and heroic past both writers the historian and the dramatist know that human nature does not change and they strip away remorselessly the glamour of ancient legend if such things happened this is how they happened, says Euripides and so we have the half mad half heroic figure of Heracles the sinister Orestes always ready to unsheath his dagger the ludicrous yet pitiable Phrygian eunuch stuttering and trembling in panic fear and most terrible of all the unsexed woman Electra she has its own scene of horror but the climax perhaps comes when Electra takes the head of the murdered Aegisthus in both hands and pours forth all her bitterness into the deaf ears the apolitus strikes an entirely different note and is perhaps the best known of all the plays it has been adapted by Seneca and Racine used as material by Ovid and transposed into a romantic drama by Professor Murray in spite of all this Phrydra's position and motives are often misunderstood Apolitus is her natural enemy and the enemy of her children the bastard son of Theseus if his father died would probably oust the legitimate but younger children of the wife from their father's throne and himself sees the power Phrydra, a young woman married to an old husband is possessed by a physical desire for the young man but she struggles against her passion for her children's sake when she finally gives up the struggle she secures her children's safety by ensuring Apolitus's death or banishment she knows Theseus and she knows that he will bitterly resent any trespass on his property and punish that trespass with all the severity in his power the charge is a false one but it is only thus that her children's future can be protected the last two plays written in old age and in exile at Macedonia still deal with the double problem the sacrifice to God and the sacrifice to man and they are constructed on the same lines in the Bacchae the men are of three sorts there is the adept an imposter who has taken to religion as a trade the old men Cadmus and Tiresias who are religious for social and family reasons finally the young Pentheus who is openly irreligious and comes to a bad end the women alone believe they are deceived by the adept and much of their belief is delusion but it is a real spiritual benefit to them the ritual of Bacchae was the one chance of escape in a Greek woman's life from the stifling seclusion of the harem home for a few days at least she became a free creature allowed to roam at large upon the mountains the thesus of the god took the place of her master's company the sky was her roof the grass was her bed she could push aside the wine press and the flour mill and live on milk and honey the ecstasy of such an escape has never found more intense expression than in the narrative speeches and the choric songs of the Bacchae in the ifigenia at all us the men again are of three types foils all and each to the idealism of ifigenia and the practical sense of Clytemnestra Menelaus is the meanest the slave of desire ready for any crime to gratify his passions Agamemnon is the ordinary middle-aged man afraid of his wife and fond of his family but capable of deceiving the one and ruining the other Achilles is the young man of the governing classes brought up to despise women and to think that every girl is anxious to become his wife the men quarrel and plot for their own selfish ends but their schemes are detected by the keen wit of Clytemnestra and rendered useless by the unselfish devotion of ifigenia End of section 7 Chapter 8 Euripides, the Four Feminist Plays The three main interests of Euripides' mind realist, pacifist and feminist to use our ugly jargon are to be found in all his theatre but there are four plays which are especially concerned with the relations between women and men the Alcestus, Medea, Ion and Andromachie they are not pleasant plays indeed to a lover of sentimental idealism they would be conspicuously unpleasant if they were fully understood nor are they to be recommended to women readers the relations between the sexes are a delicate thing and human nature, male humanity at any rate is generally none the worse for discreet reticence and tender handling but in these plays Euripides uses the surgeon's knife they were meant for an audience of men grown callous by time and custom and the treatment is ruthless they should be regarded as the painful but necessary operation needed to rid a patient of some long festering ulcer and the dramatist deserves the thanks that we give to the skillful surgeon the particular flaws in the male character with which Euripides deals in the four plays are these meanness, cowardice, selfishness and treachery these are not the faults it will be noticed that are especially appropriate to a ruling class man is not indicted on the score of haughtiness, pride or cruelty his weaknesses are of a less manly sort it is his position as the natural lord of creation that is questioned and put to the test of dramatic action if Jason Admitus, Apollo and Menelaus are impossible characters then Euripides fails altogether in his lesson if their actions though possible are improbable then again he fails in an artistic sense some may think that no one could be quite so mean as Jason quite so cowardly and selfish as Apollo and Admitus quite so treacherous as Menelaus but if we apply the test of experience the cruel facts of life will justify the poet none of the four are tragedies in the sense in which we use the word they are as good examples as we are ever likely to see of la haute comédie the aeon and the andromachie perhaps a little melodramatic the alcestus and the medea in place is almost farcical depending eventually on a subtle study of psychology and social relationships it is probable that they were not originally composed for public representation in the great theater of Dionysus they are intimate studies of humanity and can quite easily be divested of the official chorus, prologue and epilogue which are independent of the dramatic action of the play what is left is Euripides own teaching put as plainly as the ironical spirit will allow the frequency of translation must not blind us to the fact that in essentials Euripides is untranslatable he is one of the greatest masters of irony and there is nothing that is so apt to vanish in translation or create confusion in the English mind all four plays are concerned with problems of motherhood and children especially male children in three child actors are required and play an important part in the action the fourth play, the aeon is a hero a lad just emerging from the awkward age of boyhood between the aeon and the andromache there is a curious resemblance of plot the case was probably not uncommon in the circumstances of race to generation that prevailed at Athens during the fifth century in both plays a husband has a childless wife but a son by an irregular union there are two women to one man and in each case there is another man in the background Apollo who has seduced Creusa and Orestes who has been the Afian slavet Hermione the husbands Zuthus and Pyrrhus are the least important figures in the action indeed Pyrrhus does not appear in person at all they are represented as colourless characters men of position and personal courage dangerous perhaps when roused but generally negligible their young wives Hermione and Creusa regard them with a mixture of contemptuous fear and jealous affection the interest is concentrated on the women and the plays are studies of wifely jealousy why should my husband have a child while I am childless and maternal love Euripides knows well that motherhood is a woman's natural sphere a childless woman is for him an abnormal woman and behaves in an abnormal and antisocial fashion both wives attribute their barrenness probably the natural result of their past history to supernatural causes Hermione believes that the foreign concubine Andromache has bewitched her Creusa that she has incurred the anger of a god Hermione accordingly proposes to break the spell by killing the witch Creusa goes to Delphi to propitiate the divinity and seek his aid both women also in their jealous hate are anxious to kill their husbands bastard Hermione uses her father's help and nearly succeeds in murdering the boy molossus Creusa employs her father's old slave as her agent and all but poisons the boy Ion in neither case is the crime accomplished for the plays are not tragedies but the criminal purpose is there the women have been injured in the past and they are childless they are embittered against life and ready to require evil for evil on the other hand the unwedded mothers in both plays are ready to sacrifice themselves for their children Andromache offers her life to save her son what pleasure have I in life in him all my hope's centre it would be a disgrace for me not to die on behalf of the child I bore children indeed are life those who in ignorance disparage them may feel less pain than we do but they are miserable in their happiness in the Ion Pythia consents to an even harder sacrifice she hands over her child to another woman saves him thereby from the guilt of murder and makes him prince of Athens Andromache and the priestess have been injured in the past but they are saved by their children the maternal not the marital is the holy state but in both plays the feminist interest is complicated by other motives political and religious in the Andromache a bitter attack is made upon the Spartan system in the person of Menelaus you a man old Peleus cries you dusted son of dusted parents what claim have you to be countered among men a fine man it was a Phrygian that robbed you of your wife you left your hearth and home without a lock without a servant to guard as though forsooth you had a virtuous wife within doors she who was the worst of all women why even if she wished none of your Spartan girls could be virtuous they leave the shelter of home and go about with young men their legs bare their dresses open and run and wrestle like men it all seems to be abominable we need not be surprised that your system of education does not produce virtuous women in the Eon the system of Delphi and the Oracle is assailed and a vein of bitter irony runs through the play so ironical is the poet's method that if we take the prologue seriously and confine ourselves to the statements they are made we are apt to get a somewhat misleading idea of the play's purpose Doctor Wei for example who gives the traditional interpretation with the greatest clearness supplies the following summary of the action in the days when Eric Theos ruled over Athens Apollo wrought violence to the king's young daughter Creusa and she having born a son left him by reason of her fear and shame in the cave where in the god had humbled her but Apollo cared for him and caused the babe to be brought to Delphi even to his temple therein was the child nurtured and ministered in the courts of the gods house and in the process of time Eric Theos died and left no son nor daughter saved Creusa and evil days came upon Athens that she was hard bestowed in war then Zuthus, a chief of the Achaean folk fought for her and prevailed against her Euboean enemies and for good honor victory received the princess Creusa to wife and so became king consort in Athens but to these Twain was no child born so after many years they journeyed to Delphi to inquire of the Oracle of Apollo touching issue and there the god ordered all things so that the lost was found and an heir was given to the royal house of Athens yet through the blind haste of mortals and their little faith was the son well nice slain by the mother and the mother by the son this summary quite faithfully represents the statements of the divine Hermes but Euripides knows as well as we do that gods do not walk the earth and that children are not miraculously wafted through the air the prologue satisfies convention the play itself is realistic and one of the chief characters is a woman of whom the prologue tells us nothing the real plot as opposed to the idealistic version is as follows the facts are put down crudely instead of being conveyed by subtle hints and innuendo as they are in the greek a young Athenian girl Creusa wandering one day alone in the fields is attacked by a brutal satyr he drags her into a cave violates her and then makes his escape she faints and on awakening imagines that her assailant who has disappeared as suddenly as he came was a being from another world she had seen him in the full sunlight he is the sun god Apollo she tells no one of her adventure conceals her condition and when the time comes makes her way alone to the same cave the child is born wrapped by the girl mother in a piece of cloth and placed together with a golden bracelet as token in a wicker basket then he is abandoned off his fate we hear no more about the same time at Delphi in one of those periods of promiscuous sexual intercourse allowed and encouraged by temple ritual one of the Delphian women becomes a mother by a roving soldier of fortune named Zuthis the latter leaves Delphi ignorant of his paternity and the woman is soon after appointed priestess of the temple her child Ion ostensibly a foundling is reared within the temple precinct and regards the priestess as his foster mother meanwhile the soldier Zuthis makes his way to Athens and marries Criusa they have no children and come to Delphi to ask advice of the oracle the priestess recognizes Zuthis as the father of her son and so arranges matters remaining herself unseen that after a conversation with the boy he acknowledges him as his child the result of the former hasty connection but those Zuthis has now got a son Criusa is still a childless wife in passionate anger she reveals her long hidden secret denounces the God as the author of her ruin and with the help of a slave attempts to poison Ion the plot fails she is pursued as a murderess by Ion and is on the point of being put to death then the priestess wants more intervenes she has heard Criusa's story in some details not unlike though more lamentable than her own and she determines to help a fellow sufferer she has already given up her son to his father and she now arranges a second trick whereby Criusa shall believe Ion to be her child she has in her possession a baby's wicker cradle a piece of cloth similar to that in which the dead baby was wrapped and Criusa's own bracelet which has been used in the poisoning plot by an ingenious subterfuge she makes all three appear to be the recognition tokens of Criusa's child Criusa with joy Ion with some painful doubts accept the new relationship and so the play ends the Ion and the Andromache both abound in incident the Medea and the Alcestus depend more on a psychological interest they are one part plays the strong woman Medea and the weak man admitus and they have many points of resemblance in the Medea a mother kills her children to save her own pride in the Alcestus a mother consents to death to save her children's position Alcestus is a saint Medea to some people a devil Medea is certainly not meant to be a pleasant character she has laboured too long under a sense of injustice to be pleasant either in her thoughts or behaviour you are always abusing the government Jason says to her and so you will have to be ejected she expresses the revolt of women in its bitterest form of all things that draw breath she cries and have understanding we women are the most miserable we are merely a thing that exists to begin with we must outbid each other to buy ourselves a lord and take a master of our body tis a risky business we may get a nave or an honest man to leave her husband brings a woman no honour and we may not refuse our lords when a woman comes to fresh ways and past is new she needs must be a prophet for she has never been taught at home how best to use the man who now shares her bed if we work our task alright and our lord keeps house with us and does not kick against the yoke then our life is enviable if not better to be dead a man if he is vexed with the company of his household goes out and purges away his heart's annoyance but we women are compelled to look ever at one soul this isolation was the worst feature in a greek woman's life to a clever woman it was soul destroying and Medea is incomparably cleverer than any man in the play the scenes where she forces the two old men King Creeon and King Aegius to do not what they want but what she wants are masterpieces of satirical humour with her husband her cleverness fails her she is too angry to reason she hisses her scorn and foams her disgust Jason keeps cool and so far has the best of the argument you certainly are a clever woman he says but you are only a woman I am a very fine figure of a man you fell in love with me and it was only natural it was always like admittus both are lovers of outward show and have some regard for men's opinion both say with some emphasis that a family of two children is quite large enough both have the same opinion of women and this is how Jason concludes men ought to be able to get their children from some other source the female sex should not exist and then there would be no trouble for mankind such sentiments naturally fail to please either the chorus or Medea the chorus is you have made the best of your case but still surprising though it may seem to you I think you are acting unfairly in betraying the woman who has shared your bed Medea gives full vent to her anger she contemptuously refuses the help in money which Jason says he is ready to give with an ungrudging hand and at last scornfully dismisses him be off with you you are yearning for the new girl you have broken in all the time that you linger outside her house go and play the bridegroom with her but in the next scene Medea has mastered her temper and pretends to submit we are but what we are she says just women you must not take pattern by the evil nor answer folly with foolishness I give way I acknowledge that I was wrong Jason is patronising and friendly in his answer I approve your present attitude and indeed I do not blame your past behaviour only to be expected woman is a thing of moods he consents to ask his new wife for a remission of the children's exile certainly I will and I fancy that I shall persuade her yes indeed you will Medea says if she is one of us all women are alike but I will help you once again in this enterprise too and as in the past she had given him an antidote against the fire breathing bulls so now she gives him the fiery robe to destroy the young bride then comes the crucial scene of the play Medea kills her children and we are faced by the problem when is killing murder a mother who kills her child is to us a dreadful figure and the death penalty is invoked against the deserted girl mother no punishment is inflicted upon the father perhaps because no punishment can be adequate Greek law and custom went further and in a different direction the father was allowed to decide whether the child whom his wife had brought forth should be reared child killing in this fashion when done by the father was not a crime and the exposure of children after birth was a common and by no means held to be a reprehensible act Plato indeed thinks it a fit subject for a jest and that theated us do you think says Socrates that it is right in all cases to rear your own child will you be very angry if we take it the argument from you as we might take a baby from a young mother with her first child oh no answered the other theated us will not mind he is not at all hard to get on with the mother who did mind was regarded as a difficult person but whether she minded or not decision lay with the father as we see in Terence's play the self tormenter there the wife says to her husband you remember don't you when I was pregnant you told me emphatically that if the child should be a girl you would refuse to rear it the child proved to be a girl and so without further question it was got rid of male children were more valuable and unless the circumstances of their birth were exceptional as in the case of Paris and Oedipus they were not often exposed there is this further point what differentiates killing from murder is the question of risk you kill you do not murder when you risk your own life a soldier is not a murderer a man of different type from a pigeon shooter now the Athenian women were not amazons but they fought a battle no less dangerous they say of us, cries Madea that we live a life free from danger within doors while men are fighting like heroes with the spear but men are fools rather would I stand three times in the battle line of shields than bear one child a mother had already risked her life in bringing a child to birth is she not far more justified than the father in ending that child's life if such be her will moreover children are the pledges of marriage the securities given for a business arrangement is it right that the party who willfully breaks the compact should retain possession of the securities such I believe are some of the questions that Euripides meant to suggest it is no answer to them to say that it is an unnatural crime for a mother to kill her children for it is equally unnatural and criminal for a father and yet ancient fathers killed their children without compunction and without blame the Madea then is realistic and little else the Alcestus the first in time if Euripides plays is a blend of style and demands a fuller treatment there are no villains in the Alcestus and there are no heroes there is one heroic character but her heroism is of so common a type that it usually passes unnoticed the three men admittus, ferez and Heracles in varying degrees are animated by the strongest of all male motives self-preservation Alcestus lacks the sound common sense she is guided by passion by the strongest of all female passions and that which comes nearest to the divine the maternal passion of self-sacrifice she has given life once she is prepared to give it again it is commonly assumed and even Verral tacitly allows this to go unchallenged that Alcestus is in love with admittus and admittus is in love with Alcestus the affection which happily for us may usually be expected to exist between husband and wife is taken for granted in the very different conditions of Euripides time now as we have seen this is a cardinal error mutual affection and esteem did not reign in an ordinary Athenian household husband and wife were usually indifferent to one another and even this indifference was an improvement upon the Ionian relationship when husband and wife were often natural enemies that a wife should give up her life out of love for her husband is a state of things so agreeable to the natural man that she is perhaps not surprising if the language of the play has never been too closely examined Alcestus's motive is not love for her husband but love for her children Euripides following Escalus knew that maternal love is a far stronger force than conjugal affection even when the latter exists the mother and the children on them he spends all the resources of his unrivaled pathos the husband is a mark for his bitterest irony it is because Alcestus does not wish her children to be left fatherless that she consents to death the position of the widow as indeed is implied in our language by the form of the word is definitely worse than that of the widower the orphan in ancient times was the fatherless child and the position of the chief's son whose father died in his childhood was particularly unenviable it is described in two of the most pathetic passages in Greek literature by Andromache in the 22nd book of the Iliad and by Tecmesa in the most Euripidean of all the plays of Sophocles the Ajax under the old tribal system a chief's power depended very largely on personal ascendancy so that old men like Laertes and Ferres found it expedient to retire in favour of their grown up son a small boy like Humulus could not have maintained his father's position his father's death would probably have meant considerable danger to his life all this in Euripides time was a commonplace and needed no emphasis he prefers indeed to deal with the reverse picture the sorrows of the motherless children and especially of the motherless girl for the pathos of the sacrifice is partly this it is for the sake of the boy and his future position in life and not so much for the girl that the mother dies let us now examine the play itself Admitus, chief of Ferre has been told by his medicine man that he is a very bad life that indeed he cannot hope to live much longer three months perhaps six months say at the most but he has been a generous benefactor to the profession and in particular has rendered some quite exceptional services to the arch physician Apollo himself accordingly a special provision is made in his case if he can get someone of his own family to transfer to him their vitality the operation may be feasible the problem is to find the man or woman for his family is very small Admitus goes to his father and mother but both even his mother refuse for as we shall see Admitus is not a very sympathetic character or likely to arouse the spirit of self-sacrifice even in a mother's heart finally he asks his young wife the mother of his two little children and she consents at this point the play opens Admitus believes what he is told Alcestus believes what she is told the sixth month is ending and she is marked out for death so death appears and the burlesque dialogue between death and the doctor Thanatos and Apollo forms the prologue where the arch physician who can cure all diseases but one is confronted by that one himself but the prologue and the entrance of the chorus need not detain us the first intimate details about Alcestus are given by the servant woman in her long speech to the chorus and it will be noticed that in the picture of the household which she draws for them the central point is the marriage bed twice already has Alcestus risked her life upon that bed and now another sacrifice has to be made a childless woman might refuse her husband demands her life and she must give it for the sake of the children whom on that bed she has born it is of her children that Alcestus thinks for them she prays she has no petition to make on her husband's behalf in all the narrative indeed the husband scarcely appears the chorus of men notice the emission and inquire of him and this is the answer they get oh yes he is weeping as he holds the woman he loves his bedfellow in both arms he is begging her not to abandon him he wants what he cannot have the chorus then burst into a lament which is interrupted by the appearance of Alcestus and her husband outside the house the following scene is an extreme example of that combination of pathos and irony from which Euripides never shrinks the lamentation of Alcestus expressed in lyrics of the purest quality is answered at regular intervals by Admetus in the ambic couplets with style and thought alike a cruelly commonplace then Alcestus who has been standing supported by her women sinks to the ground and with one last cry to her children thrice repeated seems to faint away Admetus in the name of the children begs her not to forsake him this is worse for me than any death on you we all depend to live or die Alcestus makes her final effort and for the first time addresses her husband by name but in the pathetic speech that follows her last words are for her children and it is plain that she is terribly afraid that Admetus will marry again and inflict a stepmother upon them Admetus himself hesitates to give the promise and it is one of the chorus who answers the dying wife with Alcestus disappears the pathos of the play the rest is ironical a realistic criticism of the resurrection story and hardly concerns us but the scene between Ferres and Admetus with the old father the mother is prudently admitted from the action comes to convey his sympathy is a beautiful illustration of Euripides insight into the weakness of the male character such are the pair father and son behold your ordinary sensual man he seems to say Doctor Verrol spends some time and pains in showing that Admetus is not a hero and doubtless he is not heroic either to us or to Euripides but it does not follow that an Athenian audience would share our or the master's private views we are unconsciously influenced by centuries of romantic literature in which the relations of the sexes have been idealized the Athenians treated women as a sort still treat animals to us Admetus seems almost inconceivably selfish and callous probably many an Athenian never realized that his conduct was reprehensible even so today a vegetarian has considerable difficulty in proving to the ordinary man that it is unjustifiable selfishness to take life for the gratification of appetite I have always eaten meat such a one will say I always shall and so did my father animals were created for use the Athenian might have used the same language about his wife but in the play itself no one is under any sort of delusion as to Admetus the servant woman, the attendant the chorus, Alcestus herself all know him for what he is a selfish coward very religious certainly he is and very hospitable in other words very full of absurd superstitions and very fond of having strangers in the house to divert him from himself Heracles the ravisher appreciate him as an excellent boon companion his own household do not share their views they know too well and there is constant reference to this in the play that he is foolish in the Euripides sense of the word the slave of passions which he is unable to control and so we may leave him in his character Euripides explodes the fallacy that in all cases and in all circumstances man is the superior animal but the wonder of the Alcestus is this in spite of the irony and cruel satire in spite of the bitter criticism of the two doctrines the existence of the supernatural and the superiority of man there remain so many other threads of interest realism and romance pathos and humour that a well-disposed reader can shut his eyes to the unpleasant and usually does what is wanted to bring out the full meaning of Euripides plays is a double translation one version written in prose by a realist with a taste for irony the other composed by a lyric poet neither version will be satisfactory apart for the spirit of Euripides is a compound of the two neither will be final for translations quickly age and Euripides is ever young End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of Feminism in Greek Literature This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Sarah Lerenowich Feminism in Greek Literature by Frederick Adam Wright Chapter 9 The Socratic Circle Sophocles is almost the last representative of the earlier and happier period of the Athenian Empire their golden age as it seemed later went to the complacent imagination of the male citizen things seemed to be working together in the direction of progress and freedom progress indeed there was and for men freedom of thought for the intellectual atmosphere of Athens in the middle of the 5th century BC with its combination of clear knowledge and breezing speculation has never been surpassed but as a society Athens already contained within herself the seeds of decay and destruction the wealth of her intellectual achievement barely concealed the poverty of her social morality and it was only by dint of firmly closing their eyes to the degradation of their women and the misery of their slaves that the Athenians maintained for a time the fond illusion that everything was for the best in the best of all possible cities then came the shock of the Peloponnesian war and the inherent weakness of a free state which refuses political freedom to more than half of its population were cruelly revealed with some few breathing spaces the struggle went on while Athens tried to force a culture intellectually superior but morally inferior to that of many other of the Greek peoples upon a reluctant world and in the end she failed and fell after the 5th century the political importance of Athens disappears her intellectual preeminence is saved for her by a small group of men who under the hard teaching of war discerned the flaws of her social system and set themselves resolutely to the task of criticism and reform the nobility of war the nobility of birth the nobility of sex these are some of the pre-judged questions that the Socratic circle ventured to dispute and their contentions as we have them recorded in literature of the late 5th and the early 4th centuries form perhaps the most valuable legacy that the Greek mind has left us but like so much of Greek thought their ideas require interpretation for a modern reader some of the greatest of the circle Socrates and Antisthenes for example we only know in the writings of other men and we have to disentangle the matter's ideas from those of his disciples Plato and Xenophon were drawn away by metaphysics and soldiering and social problems form only part of their interests Euripides and Aristophanes were compelled to conform to the conventions of Attic tragedy and comedy and we must always discount the influence of the stage Euripides is often less and Aristophanes more serious than suits our ideas of a tragic and a comic writer Lastly, for all the group except Xenophon irony was the favourite weapon of attack and irony so deathly veiled that it made the bitterest criticism possible and still often passes undetected but even so the critics were not popular and the reforms were not accepted Socrates was put to death and found a shelter in political obscurity Euripides, like Escalus passed much of his life away from Athens Xenophon took up his home in the Peloponnes In their lives they fought against a stubborn majority and when they were dead the social organization of Athenian life remained apparently unchanged but their teaching lived on after them and on feminist questions it derives almost an additional value from the general hostility of their fellow countrymen In their criticism of the problems that we call feminism Euripides and Socrates were the initiative forces and a close study of the former's plays is indispensable for anyone who wishes to understand the position of women in Athenian life but the plays of Euripides throw also a certain light on the position of Socrates himself Socrates and Euripides we know were close friends which of the two gathered the sticks and which made the faggot so runs the ancient saying you can tell and in many points of family relationship they had the same experience Euripides' mother the greengrocer Socrates' wife are two of the rare women in Athenian history of whom we know even the names both men were lovers of women in the nobler sense and the later misogynists revenge themselves by enlarging upon their marital infelicities In the case of Euripides there is no real evidence to support these scandals and even if Xanthepe was a woman of strong temper both men were well enough satisfied with the married state to take another wife in addition to their first helpmate when a special law rendered necessary by the waste of male lives in the great war gave formal sanction to such a step both alike agreed in condemning the misogyny of their day and knew that a man who habitually thinks ill of women has probably no very good reason to think well of himself and tried to women as well as to men the great doctrines of liberty equality fraternity Euripides saw in women the equal and not the slave of men Socrates regarded her as his natural friend and not his natural enemy in Xenophon's Socratic books the memorabilia the economicus and the symposium we get the best record of the master's view of the women for Socrates was himself too cautious ever to commit himself to the written word and perhaps the most characteristic of the episodes is the visit to the fair Heterra the one faithful of all the lovers of Alcobiadis described in the memorabilia there lived in Athens a fair lady called Theodote whose habit it was to give her society to anyone who could woo and win her one of the company made mention of her to Socrates remarking that the lady's beauty quite surpassed description painters said he asked her house to paint her portrait and she displays to them all her perfection well said Socrates manifestly we too must go and see her it is impossible for mere hearsay to realize something which surpasses description there upon his informant quick then and follow me so off they went at once to Theodote and found her at home posing to a painter when the painter had finished friends said Socrates ought we to be more theodote for displaying to us her beauty or she to us for having come to see her I suppose if this display is going to be more advantageous to her she ought to be grateful to us but if it is we who are going to make a profit from the site then we ought to be grateful to her very fairly put said one and Socrates resumed the lady is profiting this moment by the praise she receives from us and when we spread the tale abroad she will gain a further advantage but as for ourselves we are beginning to have a desire to touch what we have just now seen when we are going away we shall feel smart and after we have gone we shall still long for her so we may reasonably say that it is we who are the servitors and that she accepts our service there upon Theodote well if that is so it would be only proper for me to thank you for coming to see me afterwards Socrates noticed that the lady herself was defensively arrayed and that her mother's dress for her mother was in the room and general appearance was by no means humble there were a number of comely maidens also in attendance showing little signs of neglect in their attire and in all respects the household was luxuriously arranged tell me Theodote said he have you any land of your own I have not she replied well then I suppose your household is not a house have you a factory then no not a factory either how then do you get what you need when I find a friend and he is kind enough to help me then my livelihood is assured by our lady that is a fine thing to have a flock of friends is far better than a flock of sheep or goats or oxen but do you leave it to chance whether friends are to wing their way towards you like flies or do you use some mechanical device well how could I find any device in this matter surely would be much more appropriate for you than for spiders you know how they hunt for their living they weave gossamer webs I believe and anything that comes their way they take for food do you advise me then to weave a hunting net no no you must not suppose that it is such a simple matter to catch that noble animal a lover have you not noticed that even to catch such a humble thing as a hare people use many devices knowing that hares are night feeders they provide themselves with night dogs and use them in the chase furthermore as the creatures run off at daybreak they get other dogs to sent them out and find which way they go from their feeding ground to their forms again they are swift-footed so that they can get away in an open race and a third class of dogs is provided to catch them in their tracks lastly in as much as some escape even from the dogs men set nets in their runs so that they might fall into the meshes and be caught but what sort of contrivance should I use in hunting for lovers a man of course to take the place of the dog someone able to track out and discover wealthy amateurs for you able also to find ways of getting them into your nets nets for sooth what sort of nets have I one you have certainly close and folding and well constructed your body and within your body there is your heart your charm and the words that please it tells you to welcome true friends with a smile and to lock out overbearing gallants when your beloved is sick to tend him with anxious care when he is prospering to share his joy in fine to surrender all your soul to a devout lover I am sure you know full well how to love love needs a tender heart as well as soft arms I am sure too that you convince your lovers of your affection not by mere phrases but by acts of love nay nay I do not use any artificial devices well it makes a great difference if you approach a man in the natural and proper way you will not catch or keep a lover by force he is a creature who can only be captured and kept constant by kindness and pleasure that is true you should only ask then of your well-wishers such services as will cost them little to render and you should requite them with favors of any sort thereby you will secure their fervent and constant love and they will be your benefactors indeed you will charm them most if you never surrender except when they are sharp set you have noticed that the daintiest fare if served before a man wants it is apt to seem insipid while if he is already sated it even produces a feeling of nausea create a feeling of hunger before you serve your banquet then even humble food will appear sweet how can I create this hunger in my friends? first never serve them when they are sated never suggest it even wait until the feeling of repletion has quite disappeared and they begin again to be sharp set even then at first let your suggestions be only of the most modest conversations seem not to wish to yield fly from them and fly again until they feel the pinch of hunger that is your moment the gift is the same as when a man desired it not but wondrous different now it's value Theodote why do you not join me in the hunt and help me to catch lovers I will certainly said he if you can persuade me to come nay how can I do that you must look yourself and find a way if you want me come to my house then often then Socrates jesting at his own indifference to business replied it is no easy matter today I am always kept busy by my private and public work moreover I have my lady friends who will never let me leave them night or day they would always be having me teach them love charms and incantations what do you know that too why what else is the reason thank you that apollodorus and antisthanes never leave my side why have sebees and simias come all the way from thieves to stay with me you may be quite sure that not without charms and incantations and magic wheels may this be brought about lend me your wheel then that I may use it on you nay I do not want to be drawn to you I want you to come to me well I will come but be sure and be at home I will be at home to you unless there be some lady with me who is dearer even than yourself it is a significant incident charmingly related by xenophon but not altogether charming in itself so the humorous irony of socrates may hide from careless readers all the darker sides of the picture but socrates himself is entirely lovable there is nothing furtive nothing patronizing in the philosophers attitude he behaves to the adote as he would behave to everyone he admires her beauty and like goldsmith recognizes that a beautiful woman is the benefactress to mankind but while he knows the strength of her position he realizes his weakness also and there is a shade of pity in his admiration a similar appreciation of women is shown in many passages of the symposium for example when socrates says women need no perfume they are compounds themselves of fragrance there is that socratic paradox also after the dancing girls performance this is one proof among very many that women's nature is in no way inferior to men's she has no lack either of judgment or physical strength he continues his argument by advising his friends to teach their wives and he deals with the weakest point of women's life the ignorance in which they were kept do not be afraid he says teach her all that you would wish your companion to know there upon and this sin is puts the pertinent question if that is your idea socrates why do you not try and train xanthe pay who is I believe the most of all wives present past and future to this he gets the following reply I have noticed said socrates that people who wish to become good horsemen get a spirited horse not a tame docile animal they think that if they can manage a fiery steed they will find no difficulty with an ordinary horse my case is the same I wanted to be a citizen of the world and to mix with all men so I took her I am quite sure that if I can endure her I shall find no difficulty in ordinary company thus socrates draws benefit even from a shrewish wife his ideas of a happy marriage and the best means of securing that happiness are set out for us by xenophon in the economicus ischimakis socrates' interlocutor is for all practical purposes xenophon himself and the whole passage should be compared with those delightful stories of conjugal happiness the tale of panthea and the wife of t-grenise which the historian gives us in the education of Cyrus the dialogue begins by socrates asking ischimakis how he won his soberque of honest gentleman surely not by staying at home no replies ischimakis I do not spend my days indoors my wife is quite capable of managing our household without my help ah that is what I want to know did you train your wife yourself to be all that a wife should be or when you took her from her parents did you possess enough knowledge to perform her share of house management possessed knowledge when I took her why she was not fifteen years old and until then she had lived under careful surveillance to see and hear and ask as little as possible all that she knew was how to take wool and turn it into a dress all that she had seen was how the spinning woman have their daily tasks assigned as regards control of appetite she had certainly received a sound education and that I think is all important ischimakis then proceeds to detail his system of education it begins with husband and wife offering sacrifice together and praying that fortune may aid in teaching and learning what is best for both then as soon as the wife is tamed to the hand and not too frightened to take part in conversation the husband explains that they are now partners together at present in the house in future in any children that may be born to them they have each contributed a portion to the common stock and must now work together in protecting their joint interests the wife agrees to this but doubts her own capacity everything depends on you she says my business mother said was to be modest and temperate the husband then explains the true functions of man and woman and their points of difference man has a greater capacity than woman for enduring heat and cold wayfaring and brute marching God meant for him outdoor work woman has less capacity for bearing fatigue she is more affectionate more timorous God has imposed upon her the indoor work finally to men and women alike in equal measure God gives memory carefulness and self-control custom agrees with the divine ordinance for a woman to stay quiet at home instead of roaming abroad is no disgrace for a man to remain indoors is discreditable the wife is like the queen bee on whom all the work of the hive depends and a good mistress soon wins the loyal love of all her servants so the conversation proceeds and with this beautiful sentence the first conjugal lesson ends but your sweetest joy will be to show yourself my superior and to make me your servant then you need not fear that as the years roll on you will lose your place of care in the house you will be sure that though you're no longer young your honor will increase even as you become a better partner to myself and the children and a better guardian of the home for it is not beauty but virtue that nurtures the growth of a good name but Iskimaakis does not confine his teaching to words he explains to Socrates how once he asked his wife for some household article which she could not find and how deeply she blushed his ignorance so he gives her a practical lesson in household management by taking her over the house and explaining the uses of the various rooms and different utensils expatiating the while on the beauty of order for a beauty like the cadence of sweet music dwells even in pots and pans set out in neat array his wife profits by the lesson and henceforth everything is in its proper place he deals faithfully too with that most pardonable of women's the desire to please that leads some ladies to attempt to improve upon nature so when one day he finds his wife with powder and rouge upon her cheeks and wearing high healed shoes he begins like this dear wife would you think me a good partner in our business if I were to make a display of unreal wealth false money and sham purples would coated with gold nay surely not she replies and as regards my body me as more lovable if I were to anoint myself with pigments and pay my eyes nay I would rather look into your eyes and see them bright with health believe me then dear wife I am not better pleased with this white powder and red paint than I should be with your natural hue so after that day the young wife gives up cosmetics and on her husband's advice takes healthy exercise instead the physical training he recommends being to need the dough and roll the paste to shake the coverlets and make the beds with one last anecdote we must end socrates asks his friend whether beside his practical wisdom he has any rhetorical and judicial skill of course I have says ischymachus I am always hearing and debating cases in my own household yes and before today I have been taken on one side and have had to stand my trial and see what punishment I should bear and what fine I should pay and how do you get on said socrates when I have the advantage of truth on my side well enough but when I have not truth with me I can never make the worst cause appear the better and how is that who is the judge my wife ischymachus's home at least is no dolls house his wife is as far removed from the humble drudge with whom the ordinary Athenian was familiar as she is from the painted odalisque who to the Ionian was the ideal of the perfect woman