Andromache (Euripides)

Andromache ( ancient Greek Ἀνδρομάχη ) is a tragedy by the Greek playwright Euripides , which occurred in the first years of the Peloponnesian War , probably between 430 and 424 BC. BC, was written. The main character of the play is Andromache , the wife of the Trojan hero Hector , the plot of the play takes place after the Trojan War , after both her husband was killed in the Battle of Troy and her son was killed after the fight between Neoptolemus and Odysseus .

content

The widow Andromache seeks refuge at the altar of Thetis after the Trojan War , as she is persecuted by the jealous wife of the neoptolemus Hermione . Andromache tells the story of her escape: She was kidnapped by Neoptolemus in his homeland and gives birth to a son, while Hermione remains childless. Hermione and her father Menelaus , who came from Sparta , now try to kill Andromache and her child. Menelaus seizes the child and threatens to kill either Andromache or the child, whereupon Andromache leaves her refuge. Peleus , the grandfather of Neoptolemus, joins the argument and pressures Menelaus, whereupon the latter abandons the child, leaves his daughter Hermione alone and leaves again. In the second part of the play Hermione is afraid of the return of Neoptolemus until Orestes appears to pick her up, as she had once been promised him as a bride. Her husband Neoptolemus has meanwhile been murdered in Delphi at the behest of Orestes , so that he can have Hermione as his wife. With the death of Neoptolemus, with the help of the Atrids and Orestes, the Peleiden family was extinguished. At the end of the play, Thetis declares that Peleus will go into bliss with her and that Andromache will be happy with her child in another country.

background

According to Albin Lesky , the depiction of Menelaus shows a tendency of the piece directed against Sparta, which is appropriate to the time of its creation. Menelaus is "a theatrical villain whose pathetic qualities make the poet very blatantly anti-spartan propaganda"

expenditure

• James Diggle. Euripidis fabulae , Volume 1. Oxford 1984. ISBN 0-19-814594-2 .
• G. Murray: Euripidis fabulae . Volume 1. Oxford 1902.
• Philip Theodore Stevens: Andromache . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1971 (with comment).
• Ernst Buschor : Euripides. Complete Tragedies and Fragments , Volume 2. Tusculum Collection, Heimeran, Munich 1972.

literature

• Édouard Delebecque: Euripide et la guerre du Péloponnèse . C. Klincksieck, Paris 1951.
• Rainer Nickel : Lexicon of ancient literature . Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf / Zurich 1999. ( Online )

proof

1. ↑ Albin Lesky : History of Greek Literature . Francke, Bern 1957. p. 425.