Euripides as a Human Experience

By Lefcothea Maria Golgaki

Regressus ad uterum (return to the womb) –the voice of destiny arises from the most primal depths of human existence. This still dwells within us, even after all these centuries of “evolution.”

Among the many innovations Euripides introduced to Drama, this venerable “literary genre”, would be his decision to redefine the role of the chorus, which had a central place in the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles. What he actually did, was to empower his heroes to act and react in a way that allowed them the freedom to be and become. Euripides’ heroes choose their fate which in essence does not reflect the supernatural but instead something else, something which is grounded in human experience. Yet the primordial, protean dimension of the chorus remains, in attenuated form, a life force, marking it as the voice of conscience. 

What we perceive as life is the synthesis of various realities intertwined together in a constant struggle for supremacy within us. The unimportant things and the essential ones alternate in a constant struggle for dominance within us. And yet, the sense of reality each one of us has, the worlds we create, converge before the absolute truth: the inevitable end of our existence. In Euripides’ tragedy Andromache, when Peleus grieves the unjust death of Neoptolemus, son of Achilles and his own grandson, Thetis appears before him and encapsulates the futility of his mourning: “We all owe a death.” Indeed, we all bear this “debt,” but how can one rise above it? How can one find redemption, not only from the event itself, but by forging and shaping existence while facing life? Is this pause before the inevitable a driving force, or does it signify that we are mere pawns of fate? To meet the demands of life, not as finite beings but as figures confronted with difficult choices, we must face our existence and embrace the consequences of our will.  

We are not gods. We are but mere mortal ones, perpetually at odds with ourselves and instincts. Such is the case in the tragedies of Euripides; His heroes confront the relativity of values such as truth and justice, often defending these while other times decrying them. But above all, his heroes are humans who bleed as they are tested and tried and though they seem unbreakable, they aren’t. Creatures who deserve our pity and sympathy as their most heinous actions unfold before our eyes. 

The themes presented in the tragedies of Euripides are centered on human experiences, and in the end, all the characters determine their pathways, though painfully, as odd as it seems. Life is a chain of events leading to death. These characters act in a certain way, even when making mistakes (hamartia, missing the mark), not necessarily in pure white or black sights, but rather in shades of gray. Wrongdoing here arises neither from the sway of total good nor of total evil but from a kind of humanity-flawed judgment, flawed aim – for no one is born perfectly right. They take responsibility for their choices, they suffer the consequences, and they pay that price.

It is this that catches our hearts about them: our mutual interaction with their suffering. And though we may morally condemn them, it takes just one example from our own lives to realize that anything driven by passion cannot take root and flourish within a flawless person. Passion is fed by mortality and by the evils lurking within us.

Orestes, as matricide, in Electra is fully cognizant while he kills his mother, Clytemnestra, with his sword. His act isn’t careless, for he acknowledges the punishment that is coming for him and bears the burden of his blood-stained fate. He cannot escape his sacred mission-to avenge Agamemnon, his father, who was slain by Clytemnestra. And speaking even from his wrath, with heart writhing within him for what he must do, he introduces her to the chorus, calling her “unfortunate”. “Beloved yet hated” is Clytemnestra for Electra, who empowers her brother’s hand with her words. But even Clytemnestra herself gains our compassion the moment she explains to Electra the reasons that made her turn against Agamemnon. It was deceit that lured Iphigenia to Aulis, not to marry Achilles but to become Hades’ bride, to be sacrificed. It was the knife that cut her pale throat. Such horrors have driven Clytemnestra to her terrible acts. 

Characters are reshaped and maimed by the knowledge of the agony and grief of losing loved ones. Hecuba, the fallen queen of Troy, must live and suffer now in a very different, hated life: that of a slave. No surprise then that she turns into a hardened “she-wolf” when she takes her revenge upon Polymestor, who pretends to be a trustful protector of her son Polydorus. Her grief, a fire in her, corrosive and regenerative, propels her towards an all-consuming vengeance. She unravels in an elaborate framework the murder of the children of Polymestor to make him live in darkness-philly, just like her. Blood for blood.

Human beings are free, capable of transforming, of razing and reconstructing their value systems, and of temporarily adapting their sense of self to what is no longer stable or certain. Euripides, in turn, clarifies the connection he makes between stage and reality, showing us that within the tragedy of life, truth always lies in the balance between harmony and chaos.

Lefcothea-Maria was born in 1977 and lives in Athens, Greece. Her first poetry
collection was published by Adelaide Literary Magazine in 2019. Part of that
collection also appeared in Mediterranean Poetry, Aphelion webzine and Eskimo Pie.
One of her poems also appeared in Adelaide Literary Award Anthology. Her stories
have appeared in magazines like Bright Flash Review and Twin&Twain and Flash
Fiction North. In April 2022 Scars Publications released a collection book under the
name “The Ice that was” in which her poems were also included. In November 2022
Scars Publication published more of her poems in a collection book named “Τhe 2023
poetry review date book”. Finally, her article ‘Life of uncertainty’ has been published
by The Sentinel and Tri-town Tribune. In Greece, she is a published writer of
children’s books and many of her articles appear in magazines and newspapers.