Andromache

“ For readers who admire exclusively the Sophoclean type of play, the Andromache is a painful experience to be forgotten as soon as possible. For any who find interest in the behaviour of ordinary beings at a great testing moment, this work is an endless delight. ”

“ And to Andromache, his wife, who that day was very fearful, he said "Dear one, do not be over sorrowful. You urge me not to go every day into the battle, but some days to stay behind the walls. But my own spirit forbids me to stay away from battle, for always I have taught myself to be valiant and to fight in the forefront."'
'So he said and he put on his helmet again and went to order his men. ”

“ In the heart of man alone can the dramatic fact take place; the event which is its occasion does not constitute it. The death of the lover is rendered dramatic by the grief of his mistress—the danger of the son by the terror of his mother; and however horrible may be the idea of the murder of a child, Andromache inspires us with greater solicitude than Astyanax. ”

“ It may sound strange to say so, but in all probability we to-day understand Andromache better than did the Greeks for whom she was created; better, too, perhaps than did her creator himself.
In the Odyssey, well nigh the entire action is in the hands of women. What with Athene and Leucothea, Circe and Calypso, Nausicaa and Penelope, Odysseus himself hardly comes to the fore at all; and yet it [11] cannot be said that anywhere from beginning to end is there so much as a suggestion of a love-motive. ”

“ Thus the Andromache lacks both internal and external unity, the unity of subject and form. Of material it has plenty, whether we regard the resolutions of fortune effected for the chief actors, or the variety of incidents, or the richness of reflective sentences, or the introduction of new "business" to sustain the flagging interest of the spectators. As a drama, it is second-rate. As a machine for the exhibition of specifically Euripidean qualities, it must rank high among the extant tragedies. ”

“ The conjugal tenderness of Hector and Andromache; the unwearied fidelity of Penelope, awaiting through the long revolving years the return of her storm-tossed husband, who looked forward to her as to the crown of all his labours; the heroic love of Alcestis, voluntarily dying that her husband might live; the filial piety of Antigone ”

“ After the death of Helenus, who left his kingdom to Molossus, Andromache followed her son Pergamus to Asia. She was supposed to have died at Pergamus, where in after times a heroum was erected to her memory. (Paus. i. 11. §2; comp. Dictys Cret. vi. 7, &c.; Eurip. Andromache.) Andromache and her son Scamandrius were painted in the Lesche at Delphi by Polygnotus. ”

“ Thus she will be thrown into the arms of Orestes, and whatever blame there is will be laid upon Delphi. [538]
This view should in its essentials be adopted. Every dramatist commits faults; but these apparent faults in the Andromache prove too much. They tend to show not that Euripides is here inferior in construction and psychology to Sophocles, but that he is insane. Few readers could compose a speech like that of Andromache beginning ὦ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποισιν ἔχθιστοι βροτῶν, or like the messenger’s narrative. But we could all manage the exit of Menelaus better. ”

“ By this treachery Andromache is goaded into the most bitter invective to be found in Euripides. The chorus dwell upon the folly of domestic irregularities such as those of Neoptolemus. Next Menelaus leads forth Andromache and Molottus for death, when Peleus hurries in and releases them. After a violent quarrel Menelaus throws up his daughter’s cause and departs. Peleus leads the captives away while the chorus sing his youthful exploits. From the palace comes Hermione’s nurse: deserted by her father and dreading her husband’s vengeance the princess is seeking to destroy herself. ”

“ It did, and now that her boy has grown to be a man he comes to her in his officer's uniform to say . . . Ah, these partings! They are really the death- hours of their dear ones, and the women know it, although, like Andromache, they go on "smiling through their tears." ”

“ Andromache and Molossus are kneeling before Menelaus praying for their lives, when Peleus, the aged grandfather of Neoptolemus, appears and stays the execution. Euripides has drawn the character of Peleus with something of the heat and fury of the Sophoclean Teiresias. The old king does not spare Menelaus, but makes his tongue a scourge to flay him with invective. The end of the struggle is that Peleus conveys Andromache and the boy safely away; and during the rest of the drama we hear nothing of them. ”

“ Thus the political and social theorist overlays the artist proper in this play; and yet the language is so brilliant, the pathos is so telling, and the lyrical episodes are so musical that we understand its popularity among the ancients. At the opening of the drama, Andromache, who has taken sanctuary at Phthia in the shrine of Thetis, describes the misery of her situation as bondwoman and concubine to Neoptolemus. Though warmly attached to herself and the father of her son Molossus, he has recently married Hermione, the Spartan princess. ”

“ Maître Félix Decori, the celebrated counsel, ought by reason of his position to be able to obtain a clear view of the art of Racine. There is not a theme in Racine's plays which does not appear on some page of the Gazette des Tribunaux. And the theme of Andromaque in particular is no other than a crime of passion. The adventure of Orestes and of Pyrrhus, of Hermione and Andromache, is simply this: a woman takes revenge on a man who refuses to love her, but is in love with another woman. She incites the man who loves her to kill the first. ”

“ Domestick Virtues concern all the World, and there is no one living who is not interested that Andromache should be an imitable Character. The generous Affection to the Memory of her deceased Husband, that tender Care for her Son, which is ever heightned with the Consideration of his Father, and these Regards preserved in spite of being tempted with the Possession of the highest Greatness, are what cannot but be venerable even to such an Audience as at present frequents the English Theatre. ”

“ There should be something of remorseful pity in the very youthful features; the form ought to be heroically treated, that is, undraped, and he should hold the arrows in his hand.
Neoptolemus, as the savage avenger of his father’s death, slaying the grey-haired Priam at the foot of the altar, and carrying off Andromache, is, of course, quite a different version of the character. He then figures as Pyrrhus—
The fine moral story of Neoptolemus and Philoctetes is figured on the Etruscan vases. Of the young, truth-telling, Greek hero I find no single statue. ”

“ The picture of an orphan's misery among cold friends and hard oppressors is wrought with the pathos of exquisite simplicity. And to the same theme Andromache returns in the vocero which she pours forth over the body of Hector. "I shall be a widow and a slave, and Astyanax will either be slaughtered by Greek soldiers or set to base service in like bondage." Then the sight of the corpse reminds her that the last words of her sorrow must be paid to Hector himself. ”

“ The play is an accumulation of sorrow upon sorrow, but the climax is the murder of the little child Astyanax, a political crime, not inspired by any of the human feelings of hatred and revenge, but coldly [107] calculated by men for the sake of future advantage. It is the women, the mother and grandmother of the child, who have to suffer, that men may sleep in safety. As Andromache bitterly says, she has always followed out the whole duty of woman. ”

“ He comes when the two women, Andromache and Hecuba, are talking together and the child playing somewhere near. Andromache has been allotted as slave to Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, and is consulting with Hecuba about the horror she has to face. Shall she simply resist to the end, in the hope that Pyrrhus may hate and kill her, or shall she try, as she always has tried, to make the best of things? Hecuba advises: "Think of the boy and think of your own gentle nature. You are made to love and not to hate; when things were happy you made them happier ”

“ Whether at church they shine, or sparkle at the play."
The great night of this season was that in which Philips' version of Racine's "Andromaque" was played,—the 17th of March, 1712. Of the "Distressed Mother," the following was the original cast:—Orestes, Powell; Pyrrhus, Booth; Pylades, Mills; Andromache, Mrs. Oldfield; Hermione, Mrs. Porter. The English piece is even duller than the French one; but there is great scope in it for good declamatory actors, and Booth especially led the town on this night to see in him the undoubted successor of Betterton. ”

“ As for the Olympian gods, they are scarcely attacked; there is little more than a jaded recognition that belief in them is no help or inspiration. [613] To this plaintive agnosticism there is here no alternative but fierce pessimism, as when in the frightful eloquence of Hecuba we are told that Fate is “a capering idiot”. [614]
Most mournful of all Greek tragedies, this is yet beautiful, and full of splendid spectacular effects: Cassandra bounding wildly forth with her bridal torches; the entry of Andromache seated in the waggon among the spoils of Troy ”

“ He became Fellow of All-Souls afterwards. Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, by John Warren, Fellow of Catherine Hall, Cambridge. The following notes may be added : — Life of Agesilaus, page 17. — The two verses are those of the old trans- lation, and express Plutarch's meaning. But in the original passage, O Greeks, that have found out barbarian ills, or, crimes such as only barbarians could be guilty of, is what Andromache says, when the herald, Talthybius, has announced to her, that her child, Astyanax, is to be put to death. — (Eurip., Troades, 759.) ”

“ I used to act as foster-mother to Hector’s illegitimate children.
καὶ ταῦτα δρῶσα τἀρετῇ προσηγόμην
πόσιν.
“But you, you are afraid to let a drop of rain fall on your husband’s head.
μὴ τὴν τεκοῦσαν τῇ φιλανδρίᾳ, γύναι,
ζήτει παρελθεῖν.” φιλανδρία! [98]
This is not irony; it is just sober earnest, the [56] sober earnest morality of respectable Athens. The view is by no means confined to Andromache. It is deliberately propounded by Electra to her mother, [99] and Jason twice taunts Medea with her failure to live up to its level. ”

“ I shall die in the night and go to hell. You’re a sorcerer: you’ve put death into my mind. Oh, curse you, curse you! (He tries to seize Androcles by the throat) .
FERROVIUS.
(holding him in a grip of iron) What’s this, brother? Anger! Violence! Raising your hand to a brother Christian!
SPINTHO.
It’s easy for you. You’re strong. Your nerves are all right. But I’m full of disease. (Ferrovius takes his hand from him with instinctive disgust) . I’ve drunk all my nerves away. I shall have the horrors all night.
ANDROCLES.
(sympathetic) Oh, don’t take on so, brother. We’re all sinners. ”

“ Like Raphael in the art of painting, he could accept a well-known theme and renew it by the finest processes of genius. He did not need an extraordinary action, or personages of giant proportions; the simpler the intrigue, the better could he concentrate the interest on the states of a soul; the more truly and deeply human the characters, the more apt were they for betraying the history of a passion. In its purity of outline, its harmony of proportions, Andromaque was Greek; in its sentiment, it gained something from Christian culture ”

“ I give this sorcerer to be a slave to the first man who lays hands on him. (The menagerie keepers and the gladiators rush for Androcles. The lion starts up and faces them. They surge back) . You see how magnanimous we Romans are, Androcles. We suffer you to go in peace. ”

“ Andrugio, the venerable and heroic victim of his craft and cruelty, is a figure not less living and actual than stately and impressive: the changes of mood from meditation to passion, from resignation to revolt, from tenderness to resolution, which mark the development of the character with the process of the action, though painted rather broadly than subtly and with more of vigour than of care, show just such power of hand and sincerity of instinct as we fail to find in the hot and glaring colours of his rival's monotonous ruffianism. ”

“ CALLIMACHUS. A curse on me! And on you, Fortunatus, who led me on and urged me to this infamy. Wretch, may you die from the serpent's bite! Terror and remorse are killing me.
SCENE VIII
JOHN. Come, Andronicus, let us go to Drusiana's tomb, and commend her soul to Christ in prayer.
ANDRONICUS. It is like your holiness not to forget one who trusted in you.
JOHN. Behold! The invisible God appears to us, made visible in the form of a beautiful youth. ”

“ If he is the same as the Andronicus mentioned by Photius (Cod. 279, p. 536, a. Bekk.) as the author of dramas and various other poems, he was a native of Hermopolis in Egypt, of which town he was decurio. Themistius (Orat. xxix. p. 418, &c.) , who speaks of a young poet in Egypt as the author of a tragedy, epic poems, and dithyrambs, appears likewise to allude to Andronicus. In A.D. 359, Andronicus, with several other persons in the east and in Egypt, incurred the suspicion of indulging in pagan practices. ”