The Helen Episode in the Troiades

Abstract

There is hardly any scene in Euripidean tragedy which is as baffling as the debate between Hecabe and Helen in the Troiades. So far, I have found no really satisfactory explanation of this scene. Of those who have dealt with it, Kitto recognises that ‘it interrupts the plot’. The reason for the interruption, according to him, is that it illuminates part of Euripides' thought, namely that ‘this war too was misconceived — its basis the worthlessness of a woman’. I doubt whether I could agree that the scene proves the worthlessness of Helen. But let that pass. There is a more important point to be raised. Would Euripides have interrupted his plot to illuminate part of his thought unless the part illuminated had some bearing on the theme of his play? Admittedly Euripides does love a debate and does sometimes wander from the point to make a point that is not very relevant. But that he has done so in this scene I find it very hard to believe. The scene is altogether too important to be brushed aside in that way. It is, in the first place, the longest scene in the play. In the second place, it interrupts the plot at a point when the interruption is most distracting because it occurs at the very climax of the tale of horrors inflicted by the Greeks upon the Trojans — the decision to kill Astyanax. Talthybius has just announced the decision to Hecabe and Andromache and has come to take Astyanax away.