Alcestis was the fluff play at the end of a series of serious plays presented together at a festival. The proper presentation of plays back then was to give a play in three parts (like the Oresteia) and then a fluffy satyre to end the event on a fun note.

Like all Greek plays thus far, Alcestis starts with a bizarre tragedy. Perfect Queen Alcestis is dying in place of her husband on the day he was fated to cross the river Styx. The god Appollo tricked the Fates into making a trade so the King could live (Apollo got them drunk in what can only be described as THE party of the ages.

The King had to ask other people to die in his place. He has asked everyone he knew (super awkward conversation much?) but shockingly no one makes the trade – except his beloved wife.

Yup, this story BOTH ends on a happy note and is less tragic than everything else on the list thus far.

Can’t you just imagine Madea giving Alcestis some advice about her decision?

GRIT BALL!!!

Paul Roche‘s intro was a bit tortuous and dealt mainly with how best to translate from the ancient Greek to modern English. ::YAWN::

Iambic whatevers and syllable counting were tiresome in high school English class too. Oh sure it matters if you are actually doing the translating, but if you’re joe-reader looking for a bit of escapism in ancient history, you want your scholarly introspection of the times and the play!

Fair warning: If the name Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog doesn’t ring any recognition bells, sneakily watch it on youtube here and THEN read this post. Hehehe

Friends, Captain Hammer and Odysseus are jarringly similar characters. Hubbard over at FederalistPaupers (mmm mmm good reading) has posited that Captain Hammer is more of an Achilles than an Odysseus. I disagree completely but with much love.

The central shared character trait of Odysseus and Captain Hammer is a raging belief in self-awesomeness. It makes them smarmy.

smarmy -adj, informal (Brit) meaning unpleasantly suave

Achilles had some self doubt and angst that made him more human than these two unpleasantly suave knuckleheads.

Take a good look at Odysseus for a second. He thinks his wits are SO wily. Remember the time he marooned a cripple on an island only to come back years later to steal from the miserable sap? Yeah he chided someone for wanting to help the cripple.

Odysseus: Do not look at him. Your generosity may spoil our future.

And lets face it, EVERY TIME HE DOES SOMETHING REMOTELY AWESOME IT ISN’T REALLY HIM DOING IT. Athena does all his real dirty work.

Achilles did his own fighting! He didn’t get a god to help him swing his sword.

What is more, Athena did a lot of Odysseus’s great thinking for him too! Like in the Odyssey when he returns to his home dressed as a beggar, who suggested that garb? Athena!

Captain Hammer is much the same. In the opening of the Dr.Horrible’s Singalong blog, he attempts to save the day by punching a remote device on the top of a van. Because he broke the driving mechanism, the van rampages towards the central love interest, Penny. Dr. Horrible manages to stop the van in time, but Captain Hammer takes ALL the credit, and the girl. And he does so in the smarmiest manner possible. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN3eBvZvUXk

This has amused me greatly! Hope you liked it too

"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

 Whether we are talking about the world debt crisis or entitlement programs, the Western world is engaged in an epic debate about fairness. On one side, we hear the general argument that it is government’s role to make life more fair. On the other side, there are cries that if the world economy collapses our governments won’t be able to pay for anything…and that will be much less fair.

The thing is that no matter what, life has an element of suffering and very little in life is fair. Understood correctly, this breeds a healthy sense of mortality, duty, and (one would hope)graciousness if not even empathy for our fellow-men. Plato summed it up perfectly in his famous line, “Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” 

Since we are stuck with it, does suffering have any redeeming qualities? Sophocles and Aeschylus both overtly take on this question and create plays that portray what suffering produces.

Aeschylus’s Oresteia is a straightforward answer; Suffering produces truth. Remember how we followed Orestes’s excruciating enlightenment away from revenge and toward true justice?

Sophocles makes a different and much simpler point, that life exists at the cost of suffering. It isn’t so much that you will find anything, but to live is to suffer. Violation of natural law has consequences but by being noble and virtuous there can be redemption, but not necessarily truth.

So if you are a fan of Aeschylus, you can hope for truth in the midst of the troubles life throws your way. If you are a fan of Sophocles, hope for redemption by being your most noble self is your path.

Bringing this back around to the current political debate, I think the belief that government can make things fair is dangerous. Hyping government intervention as the way to “level all playing fields” can breed (and IS breeding) the corollary that “It is unfair for me to struggle in this life because it is the government’s job to alleviate my pain.” (Of course certain types of mental illness clearly preclude this argument.)

And that is life. Even if you have a government that will make life more fair, while also bankrupting the country, you are going to suffer. Period.

Might as well face those storms head on like Philoctetes learns to do. 

Imagine you are on a deserted island. You have nothing to do but shoot birds or sleep. All day your leg oozes because a random holy snake bit you for walking by a tree. After years of this “staycation” you are given the option of companionship, food, warmth, and snake bite balm. What would you say?

“All aboard the Chattanooga Choo Choo!” while hobbling as fast as you can to the nearest exit?

Maybe not.

Consider that Philoctetes, in the play named for him by Sophocles, turns down those perks. In obvious shock, his would-be deliverer asks how he could be so dense. P-man replies:

“It is not the sting of wrongs past but what I must look for in wrongs to come.”

::SKID TO A STOP::

Philoctetes was used to the torture on his island and knew he was strong enough to face it. The unknown horrors he would face when once again mingling with the men who had abandoned him there? In such a weary and heartbroken state as Philoctetes must have been in at that time, it could look more inviting to stay with the familiar pain.

We are all to some extent stuck with P-man’s dilemma. Whether a familiar job we hate, using Middle Eastern oil, or procrastinating on our dreams, we are all scared to fight the hell we are comfortable with.

Sophocles allegedly once said, “I write men as they ought to be, Euripides wrote them as they are.”

That Philoctetes eventually is reasoned with and embarks on a fulfilling adventure (not so wonderful for the Trojans who end up dead but this story isn’t told from their perspective) is a testament to our deepest desire – actual change.

Michael Lutch photographer

The retelling of Ajax at the American Repertory Theater was stunning. Instead of being in traditional Greek military garb, the actors were dressed as US soldiers. It was unexpected and completely jarred me out of my “ho hum seen it all” attitude. (Trying to watch Greek tragedy via youtube snippets is a bad idea and will leave you feeling “ho hum”.)

The greek plays lose their nuance when read alone. I have felt more enriched by the introductions to some of the readings than I have by the plays themselves. Watching this play was a whole different animal and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

The modernized Ajax becomes a story about PTSD and its shame; how it destroys a good soldier’s mind, his family, and his standing in the community. The embarrassment of killing sheep instead of his intended human targets eventually pushes Ajax to commit suicide. 

This smacks of the crazy embarrassing things modern people who start out good do when under too much stress (politicians and their dalliances, cops and too much brutality, an astronaut and her diaper drive,  etc.). In a world becoming increasingly stressful, Ajax can be viewed as a reminder that meltdowns happen and what to do afterwards.

A good review of the play was written by Alexander Stevens at wickedlocal.com. Check it out for some more details.

2011 begins with Sophocles’ play Philoctetes (pronounced fil-ahk-tee-teez). This play has a HAPPY ENDING!! (WOOHOO!!) I was giving up hope of getting to read anything but murdering moms and mutilated animals.

Greek tragedians liked to awkwardly comment at family gatherings

Overview:

The character Philoctetes is a decent but unlucky Greek aristocrat that is bitten by a holy snake after bumbling into a sacred grove.

Chorus: But I know of no other, by hearsay, much less by sight, of all mankind whose destiny was more his enemy when he met it than Philoctetes’, who wronged no one, nor killed but lived, just among the just, and fell in trouble past his deserts. (680)

Not only was he pitiable, he showed enormous humanity by mourning for others. His long life of suffering was highlighted by a latent empathy for others.

Sidenote: Sacred groves were easy to bumble into because they were often unmarked.

One of these trees is holy and guarded by a snake ::SURPRISE::

The snake’s holy superpower? Leaving a venomous bite that neither healed nor killed its victim. Philoctetes was condemned to live out his life with a smelly, puss dripping and useless leg that gave him fits of agony and fainting spells.

::I PROMISE this ends well::

In fact he was so repugnant that his fellow Greeks, spearheaded by Odysseus, stranded him on the desert island of Lemnos with nothing but his magical bow and arrows.

Chorus: With no one to care for him…but bewildered and distraught at each need. God pity him, how has he kept a grip on life? pp. 202

Oedipus of the lily-white conscience continues with the plan to destroy Troy until the seer Helenus announces that Troy will only fall to Philoctetes and the magic bow in his possession. Oedipus hightails it back to Lemnos and hatches a plan to steal the bow and leave the stranded man to certain starvation.

The only thing I hate more than snakes is Odysseus!

Even in ancient Greece it was rare to possess a magical bow and arrows. Philoctetes received them from a dying Heracles (the Greek Hercules) for the favor of lighting his funeral pyre. (All explained in my previous blog post)

But how to steal a magic weapon? Odysseus calls on Achilles’ son Neoptolemus (pronounced nee-op-TALL-uh-mus) to trick the stranded man into an unguarded friendship and snatch it. Neoptolemus, being an honorable aristocrat, is scandalized by the tricky plan but eventually is talked into it.

Achilles does not approve

Philoctetes is overjoyed to see another human, loved Achilles, and finds a seemingly common ground with the youth in their mutual hatred of Odysseus.

Neoptolemus: They needed brazen faces for their answer: “Son of Achilles, all that your father had, all else, is yours to take, but not his arms. Another man now owns them, Laertes’ son (Odysseus).”

Neoptolemus promises to remove the exile from Lemnos and give safe passage back to Greece . Philoctetes’ joy turns to a fearful seizure that ends in a faint. He gives Neoptolemus the bow for safe-keeping. Odysseus takes the bow and Philoctetes wakes to become distraught over the turn of events.

Odysseus taunts the poor exile. Neoptolemus is disgusted and gives the bow back. Philoctetes in turn reluctantly agrees to sail to Troy but is understandably hurt and mistrusting. The spirit of Heracles appears and tells them that Zeus’s will is for Philoctetes to be healed so he can raze Troy.

All ends well, unless you are a Trojan, and the play ends in a rousing “onward to a new adventure”.

Hurrah!

There are two weighty themes that will be explored more. The first is the difficulty of releasing the old pain of our current state for the new and unpredictable pain that may occur from attempting to make a better life. The second is the difference in Sophocles and Aeschylus’s disagreement about what suffering produces.

A final post will lay out my burgeoning (and grounded) dislike of Odysseus, a man who resembles Captain Hammer.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Quick recap of Sophocles’ “Women of Trachis” because it has been so long:

Prophecy swirls around Deianara, the wife of Heracles (think Hercules), as she waits to find out if the gods will let her husband happily retire or kill him.  Hark! A messenger arrives with spoils of war and glad tidings of Heracles’ success. The new slaves are welcomed and the obvious nobility of one, a young lady of superb beauty who refuses to speak, is noted. A trusted servant tells Deianara the silent maidservant was a princess and that Heracles razed her father’s city in order to have her. Deianara takes the news in stride, noting that men will be men. She sends words of welcome and a robe to her husband who is gratefully sacrificing to the gods. On the robe is a love potion Deianara prays will win her husband’s affections back. When the servants leave, Deianara expresses a fear to the chorus that the secret love charm will harm Heracles. Suddenly, Hyllus (Deianara and Heracles’ son) rages home accusing her of attempting to kill Heracles with the robe. In her distress, she commits suicide. Hyllus realizes that she did not intend murder and remorsefully tries to explain all to the dying Heracles. When Heracles hears the tale he realizes that his imminent death was prophesied when he was a child. Heracles requests to be burned alive and forces Hyllus to build the fire and marry the princess slave.

At first this seems like a twisted cosmic joke and leaves a bit of a stomach ache. A loving wife waits for return of husband only to be thwarted by a dead perverted centaur? A valiant man thanks the gods for a happy retirement only to be murdered mid-sacrifice by the gods’ will? A happy and dutiful son witnesses the disturbing deaths of his parents and is forced to marry his dad’s mistress? Even by South Park’s standards, Sophocles has a sick sense of humor.

For the second glance on the treatment of women, please see my last post.

During a frustrated third reading, something much deeper emerged. I would not have seen it without this section of the intro.

“the events leading up to Heracles’ defeat are part of the external, inevitable pattern against which the suffering and the actions of the characters must be seen. What happens when Heracles understands this pattern, being in accord with it and yet beyond it, may be the most important part of the play. As far as the characters, or we, can see, the Gods do not care. The meaning and worth of men’s actions are what we make of them.”

A light bulb turned on; this play is about the exercise of free will on the static backdrop of decisions made by gods! Greece was wrestling with the question of the existence of their pantheon of gods and the validity of the oracles and prophecies that constantly issued from supposed prophets. In this play the gods are real and their prophecies really destroy the mythic hero Heracles and his family.

The question of how to behave in the face of a god’s will has been rising in importance in the last 2-3 years thanks in no small part to the awful programming about Nostradamus constantly played on the History Channel. Like it or not, the question of whether we are in the Christian apocalypse, about to meet our Mayan 2012 expiration date, or heading into the Islamic End Time is being asked with increasing frequency.

 Sometimes more and sometimes less elegantly expressed, the main questions seem to be: Is there an inevitable pattern working itself out through the cosmos, which pattern is it, and what should a person do based on that information?

The anxiety that surrounds these issues seems to be sapping entrepreneurial gusto. “Things are preordained to fall apart so why try?” once well expressed as “Who is John Galt?” is the disturbingly lethargic question on the rise in our turbulent times.

Sophocles was a firm believer in prophecy and spent “The Women of Trachis” focusing on the actions of people before and after they realize they are caught in a preordained web by their capricious gods.  Deianara hopes for her husband’s safe return, tries to allure him with a love charm, and is trapped into fulfilling the prophecy of his demise. In her realization that her choices were the instrument of the gods to destroy what she wanted, she makes the decision to end her life instead of existing in a world pre-destined to not include her beloved husband. Heracles fights the poisoned robe until he realizes this death is the fulfillment of prophecy and then hastily picks the manner and speed of death.

There is something equally relieving and disturbing that humans have been eloquently grappling with the ideas of free will and static background for at least 3000 years. There seems to be no simple answer save one: In America we have something good so lets fight for it whether it is the end of time or not!

Deianira was not a notably stupid person. Her good sense seems to be emphasized for most of the play. She chastely awaits the return of her husband, reacts graciously when presented with her husband’s mistress, and cares for her family. In terms of the competence expected of women during that time period, nothing seems to be lacking.  So why is her mistake taken in stride?

The play begins at the end of a patient wait for her husband Heracles (think Greek Hercules) to return home. This particular year of waiting – she had many – was critical to their future because a prophecy predicted that EITHER Heracles would come home and enjoy a peaceful life OR he would die. Deianira is deeply in love with her penultimate mythic hero hubby and fervently hopes for a long peaceful life together with their children.

Heracles sends the spoils of war ahead of him as he intends to give sacrifices to the gods. Included in the spoils are maidservants from the newly sacked city of Oechalia.  Deianara welcomes the women honorably, promises fair treatment, and is struck by the radiant beauty of one girl of obviously noble birth.

A servant takes Deianara aside and explains that the fetching maidservant is the princess of Oechalia and was Heracles motive for destroying the city. He is hopelessly besotted and plans to frolic with her in the house he shares with his wife.

All things considered, Deianira handles this news like a champion of sense:

“Speak, and you will find that I am not a spiteful woman           

Nor one who does not know how it is with man—                                                                                                                                            

We cannot always enjoy a constant happiness.”

 Further emphasizing her tact and grace, she sends a robe to Heracles that she lovingly created for his return and offers heartfelt words of welcome. It is with the execution of this gift that she makes her mistake. A long time ago, a centaur was helping her ford a river when he got a little…”handsy”. Heracles shot him with a special arrow tipped with the eternal poison of the Hydra.

In the words of Deianara:

“I have had hidden in a copper urn                                                                                                                                                                          

For many years the gift of a centaur, long ago

While I was still a child, I took it from the wounds

Of the hairy-chested Nessus as he lay dying

He used to ferry people, for a fee, across

the deep flood of the Evenus, in his arms

with no oars to drive him over nor ships’ sails.

I too was carried on his shoulders when my father

sent me to follow Heracles for the first time

as his wife. When I was halfway across

his hands touched me lustfully. I cried out and at once

the son of Zeus turned around, raised his hands,

and shot a feathered arrow through his chest; into

his lungs it hissed. The beast spoke his last words to me

as he died, “Daughter of old Oeneus,

if you listen to me, you shall have great profit

from my ferrying, since you are the last I have brought across.

If you take in your hands this blood, clotted in

my wounds, wherever it is black with the bile

of the Hydra, the monstrous serpent of Lerna, in which

he dipped his arrows, you will have a charm over

the heart of Heracles, so he will never look

at another woman and love her more than you.”…

I followed all the instructions he gave me while he still lived

And dipped this robe in the charm. Now it is done.”

 Who accepts a present from a foiled rapist?

Because this is a Greek tragedy, someone had to commit an earth shattering mistake. Up until this play,  the egregious error has been talked over and lamented by the chorus. Oedipus’s marriage, Agamemnon’s hubris, Ajax’s pride, etc.

No one points out that accepting Hydra poisoned blood as a love charm was stupid. The closest the chorus gets to censuring such an obviously foolish decision:

“She, poor woman, knew nothing of this                                                                                                                                                           

but, seeing great injury for her home                                                                                                                                                                       

from a new marriage swiftly approaching,                                                                                                                                                  

Applied her remedy.”

Wow. Why didn’t they expect better of her? Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon and the Chorus goes on for pages! Antigone dares to ceremonially bury her brother and is sentenced to death for disobedience! Why was it not shocking for a woman to take a love charm from an assailant?

Senator Al Franken has the last word today on Sophocles, “Mistakes are part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.” Her mistake was fatal – her suicide will be discussed in next post. The lesson we should take is to never trust a centaur or a woman’s good sense.

On a side note, the philandering and perpetually absent Heracles wasn’t such a bad deal for this girl…she almost got raped by a creepy bullheaded river god.

“for my suitor was the river Achelous,

Who used to come to ask my father for my hand,

Taking three forms – first clearly a bull, and then

A serpent with shimmering coils, then a man’s body

But a bull’s face, and from his clump of beard

Whole torrents of water splashed like a fountain…

In my unhappiness I constantly prayed for death

Before I should ever come to HIS marriage bed.”

 ::shiver::

Happy Friday!