Helena (Euripides)

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Helena ( Ἑλένη f1 / Heléne) is a tragedy by the Greek tragedian Euripides , which took place in Dionysia in 412 BC. Was performed in a trilogy in which the no longer preserved Andromeda was performed. The central character of the plot is Helena , daughter of Zeus and Leda and wife of Menelaus .

people

Enter Helena (wife of Menelaus and Queen of Sparta kidnapped by the gods to Pharos in Egypt), Teukros (a Greek Troy fighter from Salamis ), Menelaus (King of Sparta, shipwrecked on the way back from the victory over Troy ), Theoklymenos (King of Egypt, host of Helena and one of her suitors), Theonoe (sister of Theoklymenos, a seeress), an ancient Egyptian slave, a sailor from Menelaus' ship, a messenger, a servant Theonoes, the Dioscuri and a choir of Greek women who live as slaves in Egypt.

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In contrast to the Homeric version, Helena is not to blame for the war for Troy. She had never been to Troy. Paris , who had the Spartan king's daughter to his Troy who kidnapped, got from Hera a " Eidolon ", a "living structures of etheric matter," foisted. In this way, the goddess repaid Paris for having awarded her rival Aphrodite's beauty prize with his judgment . Helena herself was raptured to Egypt, where the ruler Proteus received her hospitably and let her live in his palace on Pharos.

The drama sets in after the death of King Proteus. His son and successor Theoclymenus wants to make Helena his wife. She fled to the tomb of Proteus. There she meets Teukros, who had fought on the side of the Greeks against the Trojans, but was rejected by his father Telamon on his return to Salamis . Teukros wants to visit Proteus' daughter Theonoe, who is a seer . With the help of her prophecy, Teukros hopes to found a new Salamis on the island of Cyprus . Helena, who does not reveal herself because of her undeserved "bad reputation", learns from Teukros what has happened in the meantime: from the end of the ten-year Trojan War , from the death of her mother and that of her brothers, the Dioskurs Kastor and Polydeukes. Teukros has nothing to report about Menelaus.

Helena goes to Theonoe herself, who prophesies that Menelaus is still alive. By chance Menelaus, who has just been shipwrecked on the island's beach, turns up in front of the palace. He meets Helena and the two recognize each other. Another sailor from Menelaus' crew reports that the woman, who everyone on the ship thought was the real Helena, revealed herself as a mirage and vanished into thin air. The heroine's reputation is restored.

Now, however, it is still necessary to manage the escape. Menelaus, who pretends to be a simple Troy fighter to King Theoclymenus, who is stranded here, announces his own demise. Confident that she has won over Helena, Theoklymenus provides her with a ship on which she can perform the funeral rites for her husband.

The second standing song that the choir sings at this turning point is about the kidnapping of the Kore and the desperate grief of her mother. As one of the earliest textual testimonies to the myth of the rape of Persephone , it is also of religious historical interest.

Once on the ship, the found couple sails back to their Spartan homeland. When Theoclymenus wants to punish his sister with death because she had withheld the identity of Menelaus from him, the Dioscuri appear and announce that all this has happened according to the will of the gods, and Theoklymenus complies.

Lore

In modern times, the piece was already included in the first edition of Euripides, the so-called Editio princeps Aldina published by Aldus Manutius in Venice in 1503 , as one of two additions to the older Euripides edited by Ianos Laskaris in Florence in 1494.

reception

According to Bolko Hagen, the tragedy presupposes the traditional image of Helena, "which dominated post-Homeric poetry of the 6th and 5th centuries in general and in the other dramas by Euripides in particular: the image of the most beautiful and desirable of all women as the fascinating- scandalous epitome of frivolity and depravity. ”In contrast, Euripides brings an“ Anti-Helena ”on stage, still beautiful and coveted, but not guilty of the war and not faithless or adulterous. Even the deceived Theoclymenus praised her for her nobleness. However, the traditional picture comes e.g. B. through Teukros' lust for murder when he sees Helena, "the murderous image of the all-hated, who murdered me and all Greeks". Euripides' portrayal follows a variant of the myth that goes back to the poet Stesichoros .

According to Kindler's literary dictionary, tragedy lacks what is actually tragic. This is typical of the dramas of Euripides around 412. "It is Tyche , the goddess of chance, who sometimes plays hard, but happily-ending games with people." In this, Euripides is a "forerunner of the Hellenistic attitude towards life". Accordingly, the motif of Helena finds "its continuation in the comedy and in the novel of Hellenism ."

Aristophanes , who in the following year 411 BC Chr. In the comedy Die Thesmophoriazusen satirized the tragic art of Euripides as misogynist, mentioned the drama as "the new Helena" (v. 850).

The opera Die ägyptische Helena by Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal (premiered in Dresden 1928 / Salzburg 1933) is based on the tragedy of Euripides.

In Peter Handke's translation, Helena des Euripides was given a modern staging by Luc Bondy . The premiere took place as a co-production by Burgtheater and Wiener Festwochen on June 9, 2010 with Birgit Minichmayr in the title role. The book edition of the translation was published by Insel Verlag on June 21st .

Editions and translations

Text output

Translations

literature

  • Anne Pippin Burnett : Euripides' "Helena" - a comedy of ideas. In: Ernst-Richard Schwinge (Ed.): Euripides (= ways of research. Volume 89). Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1968. pp. 392–415
  • Bernhard Gallistl: Mothers' pain and joy. For the 2nd stasimon of the Euripidean Helena. In: Würzburg Yearbooks for Classical Studies. New episode Volume 41, 2017, pp. 145–180.
  • Richard Kannicht : Euripides Helena. Volumes 1-2. Winter, Heidelberg 1969.
  • Kjeld Matthiessen : On the theono scene of the Euripidean Helena. In: Hermes . Volume 96, 1968-69, pp. 685-704.

Web links

Remarks

  1. Martin Hose : Studies on the choir with Euripides, part 2 (= contributions to antiquity. Volume 20). Teubner, Stuttgart 1991, pp. 29-33.
  2. ^ Martin Securel: The Editio princeps Aldina des Euripides and their templates. In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie . NF Volume 118, 1975. pp. 205-225, here: p. 206.
  3. Euripides: The Complete Tragedies . tape 1 . Alfred Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-520-28402-2 (Commentary by Bolko Hagen, page 244).
  4. Hans W. Schmidt: Helené . In: Walter Jens (Hrsg.): Kindlers Literature Lexicon . 5 (Ea-Fz). Komet, 1998, p. 310 .
  5. ^ The Helena of Euripides. Edited by Alfred Chilton Pearson . Cambridge 1903. S. IX.
  6. Thomas Askan Vierich: Seventeen years of loneliness. In: nachtkritik.de. June 9, 2010, accessed January 22, 2017 .