9 - When Mothers Turn Bad

Summary

In Sophocles’Eurypylus, known to us from extensive but lacunose papyrus fragments, the Mysian queen Astyoche receives news of the death at the hands of Neoptolemus of her son Eurypylus, whom she had sent to fight at Troy. Extant tragedy provides us with examples of ‘bad’ mothers, whose actions with regard to their children range from neglect to the extreme of murder. This chapter reads Astyoche through the intersection of maternal and patriotic values in what Cowan terms the ‘martial mother ideal’, whereby women send the sons whom they have nurtured off to battle for the sake of the city. In Eurypylus the mother’s motivation is perverted – she sends her son not out of civic duty, but as the result of a bribe – and the outcome is inverted, as Eurypylus’ resulting death does nothing to avert the fall of Troy. In drawing out the complex portrayal of Astyoche in relation to her role as mother, her manipulation of the categories of natal and marital family, and her violent self-condemnation, this chapter sheds new light on what must have been one of Sophocles’ most compelling female characters.