INTRODUCTORY NOTE


Judged by common standards, the Troädes is far from a perfect play; it
is scarcely even a good play. It is an intense study of one great
situation, with little plot, little construction, little or no relief or
variety. The only movement of the drama is a gradual extinguishing of
all the familiar lights of human life, with, perhaps, at the end, a
suggestion that in the utterness of night, when all fears of a possible
worse thing are passed, there is in some sense peace and even glory. But
the situation itself has at least this dramatic value, that it is
different from what it seems.

The consummation of a great conquest, a thing celebrated in paeans and
thanksgivings, the very height of the day-dreams of unregenerate man--it
seems to be a great joy, and it is in truth a great misery. It is
conquest seen when the thrill of battle is over, and nothing remains but
to wait and think. We feel in the background the presence of the
conquerors, sinister and disappointed phantoms; of the conquered men,
after long torment, now resting in death. But the living drama for
Euripides lay in the conquered women. It is from them that he has named
his play and built up his scheme of parts: four figures clearly lit and
heroic, the others in varying grades of characterisation, nameless and
barely articulate, mere half-heard voices of an eternal sorrow.

Indeed, the most usual condemnation of the play is not that it is dull,
but that it is too harrowing; that scene after scene passes beyond the
due limits of tragic art. There are points to be pleaded against this
criticism. The very beauty of the most fearful scenes, in spite of their
fearfulness, is one; the quick comfort of the lyrics is another, falling