Riley 1 Sarah Riley 11/18/16 To Believe or Not to Believe? Throughout history, the prominence of religion has varied from nation to nation. In some countries, religion controls the government of societies; in others, religion is seen as a force separate from law and reason. In some societies, like that of ancient Greece, the gods controlled citizens daily lives and were a source of explanation for everything that happened in the world. As time progressed, however, the ancient Greeks belief in their gods diminished with a relatively new philosophic way of thinking. Due to this contrast in ideology, the gods who were depicted in the ancient Greek tragedy The Women of Troy (written in 400s BCE Greece) differed from how they were depicted in the epic Iliad (written in 800-700 BCE Greece) in how the works characters viewed the gods, how the characters prayed to the deities, and the level of authority and power that the gods possessed. The two literary pieces differ in their portrayal of their characters perspective of the gods and how they talk about the deities. For example, in the Iliad, when soldiers met a warrior whom they had not previously seen in battle, they thought that he might be an immortal, which is shown by one saying, Who among mortal men are you, good friend? Since never / before have I seen you in fighting where men win glory, / [...] if you are some one of the immortals come down from the bright sky, / know that I will not fight against any god of the heaven, / since [...] he who tried to fight with the gods of the bright sky [...] did not / live long (Lines 123-124, 128-131). This belief shows that the people of 800-700 BCE Greece believed that the gods could physically exist anywhere around them. This in turn may have motivated them to do things that they
Riley 2 believed would please the gods because the deities were seen as almighty powers that controlled their mortal daily lives and activities. In The Women of Troy, however, the gods are viewed by people as less prominent components of life. For example, when Helen pleads to Hecabe and Menelaus about how the gods had forced her to leave Menelaus for Paris, Menelaus and Hecabe do not believe that her plea has much relevance to the harm that she has inflicted on the nation as a result: Helen:... No, no, I beg of you! The gods sent this on me; / Don t take my life for their misdoing, but forgive! / Hecabe:... Think of your fellow-soldiers whom this woman killed. /... Menelaus: Say no more, Hecabe; I pay no heed to her. / She shall sail back to Sparta (Page 141, Column 2). Their lack of interest in her deity-driven story shows that Hecabe and Menelaus are not taking such a tale as an excuse for everything that she has done and caused throughout the war, which implies that they lack some belief in the gods to begin with. Because this work was written around 400 BCE, the author, Euripides, likely would have had a then-popular philosophic view that would not be would be more logically rooted than mythology-based. Due to this mindset being relatively widespread during this time period, Euripides audience would be accustomed to his work s ethos and therefore be expecting the work to reflect their such views. Because of the disparities in popular mentalities during the two time periods in which these works were written, the works reflected the differences in how common people viewed the gods. Another difference between the two stories is in how the works characters pray to the gods. In the Iliad, the women are expected to pray to the gods while Troy s men are fighting at war as seen in Hektor s instruction to his mother: tell / your mother and mine to assemble the ladies of honour / at the temple of gray-eyed Athene high on the citadel; [...] yearlings, never broken, if only she will have pity on the town of Troy, and the Trojan wives, and their innocent children (Lines 86-88, 94-95).
Riley 3 The women pray to Athena in hope that she will assist in keeping Troy s innocent people safe, thinking that the matter is in the gods hands rather than their own. This dependence on deities shows that this work s original audience (the people of 800-700 BCE ancient Greece) were still tied to a mythology-based thinking system and would engage in similar exercises while they were at war, fighting in battle and praying to the gods for mercy. In The Women of Troy, however, while the Trojan women still appear to pray, Andromache thinks that her problems are a result of the gods ill will, as seen in the following passage: Chorus: [...] beside you Hector s sword and armour of bronze, [...] Achilles son / Shall dedicate in distant temples of Thessaly? / [...] O Zeus, have pity! / Andromache: That prayer is mine by right [...] The gods have hated us since the day when Paris / Was spared at his birth, to live and destroy his country / For the sake of the accursed Helen (Page 136, First Column). While the Trojan women in the Iliad wanted the gods to listen to their prayers but respectfully recognized that the deities did as they wanted, in The Women of Troy, Andromache (a Trojan woman) appears to be fine with blaming her problems on the gods. The disparities in the popular view of prayer between the two stories are largely due to the popular mindset of ancient Greeks during the different time periods during which each story was written. A final difference between the two works of literature is in the way that the stories present the gods authority. In the Iliad, when a woman of Troy (Theano) goes to pray to Athena in hopes that the deity would keep her husband, Antenor, safe at war, her plea was left unanswered, as Pallas Athene turned her head from her (Page 76, Line 311). By saying that the goddess had willingly decided against helping Antenor, it can be reasoned that the deity must have had the power to do so. In other words, Athena had the authority to control the situation,
Riley 4 and she chose to do so by neglecting to help Theano s husband. On the contrary, in The Women of Troy, the Greek god Poseidon is depicted as lacking total control over the Trojan war situation when talking about his love for Troy, saying, Troy and its people were my city. [...] my affection has not faded. Now Troy lies dead under the conquering Argive spear (Page 129, Column 1). Poseidon expresses that he wanted Troy to remain a stable city, and that he was unable to grant his own wishes true. This inability to control the situation shows that Poseidon lacked some of the power that Athena appeared to have in the Iliad, showing a difference in how powerful the deities were presented and how such authority was described within the two literary works. This difference in time periods also led to a contrast in how the stories depict the gods through the stories characters perspectives on the deities, how the characters believe in prayer to the gods, and the amount of societal control that the deities possessed. The general audience of the Iliad at the time that it was written earnestly believed in the ancient Greek gods, and so the dialogue of the characters in the epic portrayed such ideals. Contrastively, during the time period in which The Women of Troy was written (400s BCE), the ideas held by ancient Greeks were popularly of a philosophic nature, and therefore the play delivers a more practical perspective on the interactions between religion and people. What makes the stories so unique is not their similar topic, but how they display such topic- whether it is through portrayal of religion or lack thereof. As the world has progressed, religion has become even still a less prominent part of most of society, separating itself from many governments and becoming less overwhelmingly influential in most people s lives. While religion may be rooted in human society, it is becoming increasingly obscure as the years go on. This increase in obscurity may lead more people to go to
Riley 5 philosophy and reason as a source of unanswered thought, which will likely change how the world views life as we now know it.