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Domestic Disharmony in Euripides' Andromache

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Ian C. Storey  and
Norma P. Miller
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Extract

The Andromache of Euripides has not had a good press. Sandwiched between more immediately attractive plays such as Medea and Hippolytos and the more controversial dramas such as Elektra and Herakles, it has for the most part languished in obscurity with the other less appealing plays of the 420s (e.g. Herakleidai, Hekabe). More than one critic has been overtly hostile, and what interest has been shown has tended to focus on its odd tripartite structure, the elegiacs unique to tragedy in Andromache's lament (103–16), 1 the possibility of its production other than at Athens (Σ ad v. 445, evidence of a most doubtful kind), and the two well-known anti-Spartan diatribes (445–63, 595–604).

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , April 1989 , pp. 16 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1989

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References

NOTES

1. On which see page, D. L. in Greek Poetry and Life (Oxford, 1936), pp. 206–30Google Scholar.

2. See Page (ibid.), and the discussion in P. T. Stevens, Euripides Andromache (Oxford, 1971), pp. 15, 19–21 (hereafter ‘Stevens’).

3. The following discussions are cited by the author's name alone. Much of this survey of secondary opinion is based on the excellent summary by Stevens, pp. 5–15, and the notes in Conacher. Lucas, D. W., The Greek Tragic Poets (London, 1959), pp. 182–7Google Scholar; Grube, G. M. A., The Drama of Euripides (London, 1941), pp. 198–213Google Scholar; von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U., Hermes 60 (1925), 295Google Scholar; Schmid, W., Geschichte der griechischen Literatur, 1.3 (Munich, 1940), pp. 397ffGoogle Scholar.; Robertson, D. S., CR 37 (1923), 58–60Google Scholar; Goossens, R., Euripide et Athènes (Brussels, 1962), pp. 376–410Google Scholar; Garyza, A., Euripide Andromaca (Naples, 1963), pp. I–XXXVIIGoogle Scholar; Erbse, H., Hermes 94 (1966), 275–304Google Scholar; Golder, H., TAPhA 113 (1983), 123–33Google Scholar; Boulter, P. N., Phoenix 20 (1966), 51–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lee, K. H., Antichthon 9 (1975), 4–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kamerbeek, J. C., Mnemosyne 11 (1943), 47–67Google Scholar; Burnett, A. P., Catastrophe Survived (Oxford, 1971), pp. 130–56Google Scholar; Friedrich, W. H., Zetemata (Munich, 1953), pp. 47ff.Google Scholar; Kitto, H. D. F., Greek Tragedy (London, 1961), pp. 230–6Google Scholar; Conacher, D. J., Euripidean Drama: myth, theme, and structure (Toronto, 1967), pp. 166–80Google Scholar; Webster, T. B. L., The Tragedies of Euripides (London, 1967), pp. 118–21Google Scholar; Vellacott, P., Euripides, Orestes and other plays (Harmondsworth, 1972), pp. 26–43Google Scholar.

4. Similarly Grube, Wilamowitz, and Schmid are less than kind to the play. Most recently, Bond, G., Euripides Heracles, (Oxford, 1981), p. xixGoogle Scholar pursues a similar line of criticism (‘a play which may properly be termed “episodic”’).

5. Against her appearance in the third movement see the arguments of Burnett, p. 154 n. 20; Stevens, pp. 10f., 218f.; Kovacs, P. D., The Andromache of Euripides, American Classical Studies 6 (Chico, 1980), pp. 43–45Google Scholar(hereafter ‘Kovacs’); Conacher, D. J., CPh (1984), pp. 53–56Google Scholar.

6. Kovacs, pp. 9–20; see Conacher's rebuttal (n. 5), 54.

7. Andromache, originally from Asiatic Thebes, is completely won over to Troy, her husband's city; Hermione, on the other hand, never ceases to be a Spartan in a strange land.

8. On this decree and its relevance to Andromache, see Stevens, p. 151; for the historicity of the law see MacDowell, D. M., The Law in Classical Athens, (London, 1978), pp. 90, 266 n. 193Google Scholar, who sees ‘no reason for rejecting it’.

9. Grube, p. 212 and Burnett, pp. 153–6 insist on an essentially positive tone with no irony intended. Norwood (ap. Grube), Friedrich, and Vellacott, p. 43 argue strongly for an ironic tone throughout.

10. Pindar, Ol. 2. 78–80Google Scholar places Peleus with Kadmos and Achilles on the Islands of the Blessed. See Stevens, pp. 244f. here.

11. The role of Neoptolemos, although completely absent from the action, has occasioned some comment. He has both champions and critics. Stevens, p. 6 finds ‘no suggestion here of the ruthless Neoptolemos of epic tradition’. Erbse, however, regards Andromache as present during the lament over N.; her silence is a bitter condemnation of him. For Kamerbeek, p. 67 his body becomes a ‘symbole de la corruption dont la guerre de Troie est la cause’. Kamerbeek, however, does not go so far as Vellacott or Friedlander, P., Die Antike II (1926), 99–102Google Scholar who sees in N. the Absent Hero and unifying idea of the tragedy. For Kovacs, pp. 78ff. Neoptolemos, rather than Apollo, is Euripides' target; he is responsible for the woes of the characters in the play.

12. Later the same verb will be used of his abandonment of his daughter (854, 918).

13. The text is corrupt here. I translate its spirit rather than its letter. See Stevens, pp. 216f., Kovacs, pp. 38–41 for discussions.

14. Fantham, E. in Greek Tragedy and its Legacy: Essays presented to D. J. Conacher (Calgary, 1986), pp. 267–80Google Scholar, arrived after this paper was completed. Her stress on the figure of Andromache as mother fits well into the domestic theme as I have outlined it. In particular, I agree with her that ‘the child, not the possibility that Andromache is still sharing Neoptolemus’ bed, provokes Hermione's fury’. The mother–child relationship provides a vertical element which crosses the horizontal element of the marriage itself.

15. Another locus vexatus: σοι should, I think, refer to Hermione, although Stevens, p. 218 et al. argue strongly for Andromache. I agree with Kovacs, p. 44 that the antithesis is not you (Andromache), a Trojan, v. Greece, but rather you (Hermione), one Greek, v. all Hellas.

16. See Kovacs, pp. 75ff. and the apt comment of Conacher (n. 5), p. 54 – ‘the fairly obvious fact … that this play is not primarily about Andromache and her individual fate’.

17. On these see Garyza, A., GIF 5 (1952), 346–66Google Scholar. For the discussion of the dating as a whole see Stevens, pp. 15–19.

18. These figures are those of Webster, pp. 3–5.

19. See Stevens, pp. 15–18, 183; also Conacher, p. 170 n. 7, Kamerbeek, pp. 47–49, Kitto, p. 236 n. 2.

20. Collard, C., Euripides. Supplices I (Groningen, 1975), pp. 8–14, 23–31Google Scholar.

21. Cropp, M. and Fick, G., Resolutions and Chronology in Euripides, Institute of Classical Studies Bulletin Supplement 43, (London, 1985), pp. 23, 70Google Scholar.

22. In addition to the studies of Boulter and Lee, see also Conacher, pp. 26–53.

23. Available in Page, D. L., Select Papyri III: literary papyri (London and Cambridge, 1941), pp. 126–9Google Scholar.

24. The figures for Medea (431) and Herakleidai (430 or 429, in all likelihood) are 6.5%, and 5.9%. Cropp and Fick, p. 25 n. 22 argue that Hippolytos is anomalously low because of the inclusion of material from the earlier version.

25. This paper was first presented at the June 1986 meeting of the Classical Association of Canada at the University of Manitoba. I must thank my graduate student, Mr Stephen Cavan, whose reading of the play with me touched off this exploration of the domestic terms and themes.