"The Kingdom of Heaven within Us": Inner (World) Peace in Gilbert Murray's Trojan Women

Abstract

I. Prolegomena Pity is a passion, claims Gilbert Murray. Its hand is against strong, against organised force of society, against conventional sanctions accepted Gods. It is Kingdom of Heaven within fighting against brute powers of world; it is apt to have those of of contempt for counting of costs balancing of sacrifices, of recklessness, even, in last resort, of ruthlessness, which so often marks paths of doings of of It not peace, but a sword. (1) Thus reads introduction to Murray's 1905 translation of Euripides' Trojan Women, a passage in which, through hints, clues, pithy pronouncements, Murray interpreter directs a reading of Murray translator. (2) (Not that two are quite so distinguishable.) Observe bewildering array of ideas, packaged in author's trademark authoritative-yet-accessible style. First, compassion is supreme virtue, although implies that patronizing regard for one's social inferiors that historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) described as Murray's aristocratic liberalism. (3) Second, radical compassion (rebel passion) opposes conservative--Conservative?--indifference. Third, Murray celebrates specific Liberal endeavors: championing underdogs (against strong), controlling executive power (against organised force of society), supporting individual liberty (against brute powers of world). (4) Liberal pity resists organized strength. Fourth, note Kingdom of Heaven within us Compassion is an internal, quasi-religious response concerning heavenly things children of light. This Kingdom, with its qualities of unreason, encompasses irrational; one's soul dictates one's moral action, even at expense of reason. Finally, pity brings not peace, but a sword. Compassion at any cost does not mean peace at any price. The Kingdom of Heaven, however, contains yet more. Live according to Nature, wrote Murray in introduction to his 1902 Bacchae translation, and Life itself is happiness. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you--here now. You have but to accept it live with it--not obscure it by striving hating looking in wrong place. (5) First, then, acceptance of human(ist) nature happiness. Second, ill-judged speculation hides man's essential goodness. (Contrast Socrates' dictum that unexamined life is not worth living.) (6) Finally, Kingdom allows no hate, even though it may allow violence. Overall, rebel passion motivates compassionate-radical-Liberal-spiritual-humanist-tough-love. As inaugural chairman of League of Nations Union, Murray was never far from international politics; as Hellenist, he was never far from Euripides. In keeping with scope of present volume, then, I would like to discuss treatment of, potential relationship between, war, peace, internationalism in Murray's Trojan Women--its interpretation, performance, translation. How might Murray's optimism contend with a play about prisoners of war, with sordid death of Astyanax, infant son of dead Trojan hero Hector, hurled from walls of Troy by Greeks? If Kingdom of Heaven belongs in soul, which earthly institutions best promote its establishment? The Church of England? The League of Nations Union? The Classical Association? In Murray's hands, Trojan Women may well offer an answer of sorts: it undertakes an autopsy of war, induces pity, performs a metapoetic interrogation of tragic poetry; above all, it Liberal secular humanism to stage. II. Pacifist Performance Let first consider specter--spectacle?--of war. The play certainly lends itself to antiwar readings, (7) with Murray's translation in particular becoming a pacifist touchstone. Murray was first scholar to associate Trojan Women with poet's supposed revulsion for sack of Melos; this became standard antiwar interpretation, Trojan Women has since been dubbed the greatest anti-war literature there is in world. …