Ah, the Greek tragedy. By the end of a tragedy, the main characters are either dead or gone mad. Or went mad and then killed someone and that resulted in their death by their own hand or someone else. Plain fact. Death leads to more death. Hmm, opera anyone?
Blame it on the Trojan War. Hector, the great Trojan was killed by Achilles (think heel), who was killed by Paris, who stole Menelaus’s wife Helen (the most beautiful woman in the world). When the dust settles on Troy, Andromache, Hector’s widow and his son are captured by Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, and brought back to far off Epirus, which is on the edges of the land of the Greeks. Hoy barbaroi.
It’s complicated. Pyrrhus was planning to marry Hermione, the daughter of Helen (of Troy) and Menelaus. One day, Orestes arrives to plead the case for Andromache’s son Astyanax. It was typical for the victor in war to kill the male family members of the defeated. The women? A long story.
Background. Orestes is the son of Agamemnon, brother of Menelaus. His sister Electra killed their mother Clytemnestra, because their father sacrificed their sister Iphigenia, so the whole damn Greek fleet could sail to Troy. See the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.
Are you still following me?
Pyrrhus has his eyes on Andromache. She wants to save her son. Hermione thinks her marriage to Pyrrhus is a done deal but Orestes falls for Hermione. Helás, a love triangle! Even worse, how can Pyrrhus desire the wife of the enemy! A political mess. Greeks, Epirians and Trojans. Never! cry the Greeks.
Enter Jean Racine. Borrowing from the Euripides play Andromache and the third book of Virgil’s Aeneid, as pointed out in his two forwards in this book, the play was presented in the Louvre to Queen Marie Thérèse, wife of King Louis XIV on 17 November 1667. Jean was 27 years old and was establishing himself as a great French playwright.
Technical part. To make things very interesting, Racine wrote in Alexandrine verse - 12 syllables with a break or caesura that divides the line into two hemistichs half-lines) of six syllables each (Wikipedia).
For example,
Où sont ces deux amants? Pour couronner ma joie
Dans leur sang, dans le mien, il faut je me noie
Where are these two lovers? To cap off my joy
In their blood, in mine, it makes me drown
It’s better in the French. The rhythm along with the rhyming couplets made the play flow.
The characters are typical to tragedy charged with tension and at times, with a lot of lamenting. Missing is the Greek chorus to state the ethical dilemmas but the mess that these characters are in, we can see where things are going.
I wonder what the French aristocracy thought about this play?
A special thanks to Kalliope for pointing me to this play. If only to see it performed but I can rely of YouTube.