Characters:

Notes from Class:

Reversal of fortune.

361 alas weel to woe

Highlights:

• Ghost of Polydore: … then did my father's friend slay me his helpless guest for the sake of the gold … (353B)
• Hecuba: … as sad as once 'twas blest! … (353C)
• This line makes me think of how misconstrued it is to think that the happiest people you see have felt no sadness. I often find that people simply have greater or lesser capacities to feel; therefore, the people who feel the deepest joy are often the people who will also feel the deepest grief.
• Polyxena: … mother doomed to a life of sorrow! for my own life, its ruin and its outrage, never a tear I shed; nay, death is become to me a happier lot than life.(354C)
• Odysseus: Dost know then what to do? Be not forcibly torn from her, nor match thy might ‘gainst mine; recognize the limits of thy strength, and the presence of thy troubles. Even in adversity 'tis wise to yield to reason's dictates. (354D)
• Hecuba: A thankless race! all ye who covet honour from the mob for your oratory. Oh that ye were unknown to me! ye who harm your friends and think no more of it, if ye can but say a word to win the mob. (355A)

…

'Tis never right that those in power should use it out of season, or when prosperous suppose they will be always so. For I like them was prosperous once, but now my life is lived, and one day robbed me of all my bliss. (355B)

…

such influence as thine will persuade them even though thy words are weak; for the same argument, when proceeding from those of no account, has not the same force as when it is uttered by men of mark. (355B)

• Odysseus: For herein is a source of weakness to most states, whene’er a man of brave and generous soul receives no greater honour than his inferiors. (355C)

…

“Shall we fight or nurse our lives, seeing the dead have no honors?”

(355 C)

• Chorus: Alas! how cursed is slavery alway in its nature, forced by the might of the stronger to endure unseemly treatment. (355C/D)
• Polyxena: Lead me hence, Odysseus, and do thy worst, for I see naught within my reach to make me hope or expect with any confidence that I am ever again to be happy.

…

For whoso is not used to taste of sorrow's cup, though he bears it, yet it galls him when he puts his neck within the yoke; far happier would he be dead than alive, for life of honour reft is toil and trouble. (356A)

• Chorus: Woe is me for my children! woe for my ancestors, and my country which is falling in smouldering ruin 'mid the smoke, sacked by the Argive spear! (356D)
• Talthybius: Great Zeus! what can I say? that thine eye is over man? or that we hold this false opinion all to no purpose, thinking there is any race of gods, when it is chance that rules the mortal sphere? (357A)
• Hecuba: Is it not then strange that poor land, when blessed by heaven with a lucky year, yields a good crop, while that which is good, if robbed of needful care, bears but little increase; yet 'mongst men the knave is never other than a knave, the good man aught but good, never changing for the worse because of misfortune, but ever the same? Is then the difference due to birth or bringing up? Good training doubtless gives lessons in good conduct, and if a man have mastered this, he knows what is base by the standard of good. (357D/358A)

…

and I no less, the grey-haired mother of thy race, how are we brought to naught, stripped of our former pride! And spite of all we vaunt ourselves, one on the riches of his house, another because he has an honoured name amongst his fellow-citizens! But these things are naught; in vain are all our thoughtful schemes, in vain our vaunting words. He is happiest who meets no sorrow in his daily walk. (358A)

1. This reminded me of Ecclesiastes.
• Chorus: and from one man's folly came a universal curse, bringing death to the land of Simois, with trouble from an alien shore. (358B)
• Chorus: Alas for thee! how some deity, whose hand is heavy on thee, hath sent thee troubles beyond all other mortals! (358D)
• Do humans have a natural tendency to see their life as a part of a cosmic story, or did drama influence us to have this perspective. But if all humans can naturally have this perspective is it because it is true? I believe that the truer a belief a person adopts the better it will be for them, and drama has seemed to be great for the human soul.
• Hecuba: … help me to punish this most godless host, that hath wrought a deed most damned, fearless alike of gods in heaven or hell; (359C)

…

I may be a slave and weak as well, but the gods are strong, and custom too which prevails o'er them, for by custom it is that we believe in them and set up bounds of right and wrong for our lives. (359D)

1. I find it really interesting that Hecuba (and possibly the Greeks at large) see the gods as subject to custom. It is almost as if the custom is the technology that brings the god to be present.

…

why do we mortals toil, as needs we must, and seek out all other sciences, but persuasion, the only real mistress of mankind, we take no further pains to master completely by offering to pay for the knowledge, so that any man might upon occasion convince his fellows as he pleased and gain his point as well? (359D)

2. I find this really interesting because here Hecuba is basically claiming that rhetoric and persuasion are the greatest arts.
3. But I find this interesting because I know Euripides has a play where he completely bashes the sophists.

…

How then, O king, wilt thou acknowledge those nights of rapture, or what return shall she my daughter or I her mother have for all the love she has lavished on her lord ? For from darkness and the endearments of the night mortals reap by far their keenest joys. (360A)

4. I just like this one because I have often felt this, that the sweetest joys in life will be found during sex and as the result of it. This is why I am hoping to treat this area of my life with such wisdom.

…

For 'tis ever a good man's duty to succor the right, and to punish evil-doers wherever found. (360A)

• Agamemnon: Good luck to thee! for this is the interest alike of individual and state, that the wrong- doer be punished and the good man prosper. (360C)
• Polymestor: But what boots it to bemoan these things, when it brings one no nearer to heading the trouble? (361A)

Dialogues:

356B

He. Die with my daughter I must and will. Od.How so? I did not know I had a master. He. I will cling to her like ivy to an oak. Od. Not if thou wilt hearken to those who are

wiser than thyself. He. Be sure I will never willingly relinquish my child. Od. Well, be equally sure I will never go away and leave her here. Polyx. Mother, hearken to me; and thou, son of Laertes, make allowance for a parent's natural wrath. My poor mother, fight not with our masters. Wilt thou be thrown down, be roughly thrust aside and wound thy aged skin, and in unseemly wise be torn from me by youthful arms? This wilt thou suffer; do not so, for 'tis not right for thee. Nay, dear mother mine! give me thy hand beloved, and let me press thy cheek to mine; for never, nevermore, but now for the last time shall I behold the dazzling sun- god's orb. My last farewells now take! O mother, mother mine! beneath the earth I pass.

360A/B

Ag. … Reflect on this; for though thou find'st me ready to share thy toil and quick to lend mv aid, yet the risk of being reproached by the Achaeans makes me hesitate. He. Ah! there is not in the world a single man free; for he is either a slave to money or to fortune, or else the people in their thousands or the fear of public prosecution prevents him from following the dictates of his heart. …

360D

Ch. No more, my native Ilium, shalt thou be counted among the towns ne'er sacked; so thick a cloud of Hellene troops is settling all around, wast- ing thee with the spear; shorn art thou of thy coronal of towers, and fouled most piteously with filthy soot; no more, ah me! shall I tread thy streets. 'Twas in the middle of the night my ruin came, in the hour when sleep steals sweetly o'er the eyes after the feast is done. My husband, the music o'er, and the sacrifice that sets the dance afoot now ended, was lying in our bridal-chamber, his spear hung on a peg; with never a thought of the sailor-throng encamped upon the Trojan shores; and I was braiding up my tresses 'neath a tight-drawn snood before my golden mirror's countless rays, that I might lay me down to rest; when lo! through the city rose a din, and a cry went ringing down the streets of Troy, "Ye sons of Hellas, when, oh! when will ye sack the citadel of Ilium, and seek vour homes?" Up sprang I from my bed, with only a mantle about me, like a Dorian maid, and sought in vain, ah me! to station myself at the holy hearth of Artemis; for, after seeing my husband slain, I was hurried away o'er the broad sea; with many a backward look at my city, when the ship began her homeward voyage and parted me from Ilium's strand; till alas! for very grief I fainted, cursing Helen the sister of the Dioscuri, and Paris the baleful shepherd of Ida; for 'twas their marriage, which was no marriage but a curse by some demon sent, that robbed me of my country and drove me from my home. Oh! may the sea's salt flood ne'er carry her home again; and may she never set foot in her father's halls!

• It is crazy and sad how fast an individual life can be torn apart by the affairs of state.