Euripides Was a Keen Observer of Life in the Trump Regime

Euripides (480-406 BCE)

Curmie has been thinking about Euripides of late.  He’s spent an entire career as a theatre historian; forgive him, please.  This page attracts a pretty intelligent and well-educated readership, if Curmie does say so himself.  Still, the chances are that few readers of this piece know much about Euripides except that he was the fifth-century BCE Athenian tragedian who wrote Medea.  A handful of you will know The Trojan Women or The Bacchae.  Beyond those three plays, however, if you’re not someone specifically interested in classics or theatre history, you’re likely to be a little out of your element.

That, of course, is fine.  There are plenty of topics about which Curmie has a superficial understanding but you, Gentle Reader, are an authority.  That’s the way complex cultures and economies work.  So please allow Curmie to discuss three of Euripides’ lesser-known plays—Electra, Orestes, and Iphigenia in Aulis—and attempt to relate them to current events. 

All three of these tragedies are about the story of the House of Atreus.  Here are the basics of the story.  Helen (subsequently “of Troy”) was the most beautiful woman in all of Greece, and she attracted more suitors than you could shake the proverbial stick at.  Her father, Tyndareos, the king of Sparta, made the radical determination that rather than arrange a marriage of political convenience for his daughter, he would allow her to choose her own husband.  All of the suitors were required to swear on their honor that should Helen be abducted, they would immediately join forces to return her to the husband she chose.  She chooses Menelaus, from the royal family of Mycenae, over his older brother Agamemnon, the great warrior Achilles, and others.  Agamemnon subsequently marries Helen’s sister, Clytemnestra.  

And we jump ahead a few years, at which time the Trojan prince Paris shows up on the scene and takes Helen back to his homeland; sources differ as to whether Helen was abducted or whether she went voluntarily.  In any case, Agamemnon leads the military operation designed to bring Helen back to Greece and to Menelaus.

On their way to Troy, the expedition stops at the port town of Aulis.  Unfortunately, one of Agamemnon’s men kills a deer that was sacred to the goddess Artemis.  Goddesses don’t take such affronts lightly, and it soon becomes clear that the expedition will be unable to leave Aulis unless Agamemnon sacrifices his own daughter, Iphigenia.  But, Gentle Reader, you’ve already figured out that one way or another Iphigenia is going to end up in Aulis for there to be a play title like that.

After considerable soul-searching and a couple of changes of direction, Agamemnon sends a message to Clytemnestra to bring Iphigenia to Aulis, where she will supposedly marry the heroic Achilles.  When the mother and daughter arrive, they are made aware of the real reason they were summoned, and it isn’t for a wedding.  And then there’s a scene with Achilles.  He’s outraged, of course, but not for any kind of noble or even empathetic reason.  He’s mad because he wasn’t consulted!  He might have gone along with the ruse, you see, but now he is “nothing and nobody in the eyes of the army chiefs.” 

A couple minutes later, he’s afraid of “foolish scandal,” but, perhaps realizing he’s coming as a colossal dickhead (whatever the Greek word for that might be), he produces a bit of braggadocio: “Oh may I die if I mock you in this / And only live if I shall save the girl.”  Needless to say, he’s alive at the end of the play, having capitulated to the demands of the rest of the army.  Iphigenia, of course, is sent to the sacrificial altar.  (There’s a version of the ending by which Iphigenia is miraculously swept away by the gods and replaced by a deer, but that’s likely a later emendation, and even if she indeed saved, it has nothing to do with Achilles.)

Perhaps, Gentle Reader, you might know of, say, a political leader who thinks of nothing but himself while pretending to be a caring and heroic leader, who makes tough guy promises he cannot or will not keep, and who has a tendency to back down when someone calls his bluff.  Hypothetically speaking, of course.  But, as they say in the late-night infomercials, “Wait, that’s not all!”  Between Achilles’ promise to defend Iphigenia and his craven betrayal of her, there’s a choral ode.

The chorus, young women of nearby Calchis, who have been fan-girling over the Greek fleet, especially the hunky Achilles (well, I gotta admit that’s one way the parallel gets more than a little strained) through the earlier parts of the play, have just heard Achilles’ claim that he will defend Iphigenia and “be on watch—like a sentinel.” And their ode?  Well, here’s a sampling: “But you, Iphigenia, upon your head / And on your lovely hair / Will the Argives wreathe a crown / For sacrifice. / You will be brought down from the caves / Like a heifer, red, white, unblemished, / And like a bloody victim / They will slash your throat.” 

Iphigenia is going to die.  Those chorus lasses aren’t buying Achilles’ bullshit.  Sort of like the most recent polling data from Quinnipiac suggests about that other guy, who is underwater in literally every area.  The only difference is that the chorus figured out in minutes what it took middle-of-the-road voters months to realize.  Oh, of course there are the true believers, who, like Iphigenia herself, make excuses for the cowardly pseudo-hero.  Iphigenia willingly sacrifices her life to defeat her nation’s enemies.  Today’s pale imitations are willing to endure financial hardship and loss of liberties because their blustering idol hates the same people they do.

Let’s jump ahead in the story line.  The Greeks do indeed go to Troy, and after a decade of combat, they win through the stratagem of the Trojan horse.  Clytemnestra, meanwhile, has never forgiven Agamemnon for the sacrifice of Iphigenia.  She starts shacking up with Agamemnon’s cousin (and mortal enemy… long story), Aegisthus.  When Agamemnon returns home from Troy, they kill him within minutes of his arrival.

And now we jump ahead again.  Orestes, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra’s young son, has been smuggled out of the palace by a loyal tutor and raised in the household of the king of Phocis.  Electra, Orestes’s sister, was married off to a peasant farmer in Euripides’ Electra (she was held captive in the palace in other versions), presumably so any offspring would be less than noble.  The play is set outside her humble abode.

This turns out to be extremely important.  This is the only story line for which we have complete or nearly complete versions by all three of the great Athenian tragedians.  All three, of course, tell the tale of Orestes and Electra exacting vengeance on Clytemnestra and Aegisthus in their father’s name.  There are differences in detail: which sibling is the protagonist, which of the victims dies first, and so on.  But the setting seems to be the most important difference in Euripides’ play. 

The opening speech is given to the peasant, who assures the audience that he recognizes Electra’s nobility and has therefore not had sex with her despite their marriage.  But Clytemnestra is summoned to attend her daughter while Electra gives birth.  Clytemnestra has hardly been an admirable parent, but tradition demands that she attend the birth of her grandchild.  In other words, she unknowingly places herself in danger by doing the right thing. 

If, Gentle Reader, you’re seeing a parallel to what’s happening today, you’re not alone.  Immigrants are showing up to routine hearings about routine renewals of work permits, or asylum hearings, or even meetings for what they believed would be a final step towards citizenship, only to be arrested by ICE, or DHS, or the SS, or whatever other craven assholes with assault rifles happened to be handy.  They’re doing the right thing, and that is what leads to their detainment.  True, their fate isn’t quite as bad as Clytemnestra’s—not immediately, at least.  But their crimes are a lot less severe, too, and many are getting precisely the same amount of due process that she got: none.

Sure, some of those folks are probably not the best of human beings, but if that “man or bear” meme from last year were re-formulated as “ICE agent or ‘illegal alien,’” Curmie is trusting the latter ten times out of ten.  Be it noted: recent protests against ICE-induced violence, agents’ anonymity, and denial of due process isn’t “in favor of illegal aliens” or some other bullshit, any more than sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza is anti-Semitic, or supporting our most vulnerable populations is communistic (in fact, it’s a helluva lot more Christian than literally anyone in the MAGA crowd).

But revenons à nos moutons: however righteous they might believe their cause to be, Electra and Orestes are, in Euripides’ play, pretty horrible people.  And Clytemnestra, for all her faults, is still the victim here. 

And so we move on through the story line.  In the best-known version of the aftermath of the killings of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, Aeschylus’s Eumenides, Orestes is hounded by the Furies, who view matricide as the worst of all possible crimes.  Ultimately, he is tried in Athens with Apollo as what amounts to his defense attorney.  The vote of the Areopagus is even, but the goddess Athena casts the deciding vote for mercy, while also showing respect for the Furies and urging them to bless the city.

Euripides takes us in a totally different direction in Orestes.  Orestes, his comrade Pylades, and Electra have captured Hermione, Helen’s daughter, and are holding her a sword-point atop a building.  (There’s a lot of other stuff happening, too, but this is the relevant part.)  All three of the captors are pretty well deranged at this point.  Tyndareos and Menelaus threaten the trio, and there’s no way everyone gets out of this alive… until Apollo shows up to make everything all right (including having Orestes marry his cousin Hermione) in the most deus ex machina ending in the history of deus ex machina endings.

Curmie has written about this one before.  Here’s what he said a couple of years ago:

... the deus ex machina (literally!) ending to Euripides’ Orestes has been decried by many critics as faulty dramaturgy because it is so utterly implausible. But was one of the great classical tragedians really that sloppy? Or is it just possible that we’re supposed to notice the awkwardness, that the most famous atheist of his era might just be suggesting that it’s unreasonable to expect the gods to fix our problems, that the best way out of a difficult situation is not to get into it in the first place?

And now we’re at the “I didn’t vote for this” wails of “Latinos for Trump” and similar folks who thought he only hated the people they hated, too.  Actually, you did vote for this.  You voted for a convicted felon, an adjudicated sexual predator, a narcissist who sought to overthrow an election because he didn’t like the result.  He ran on a platform of white male supremacy and Christian nationalism.  These are simply facts.

And let’s dispense with the quibbles: “those prosecutions were politically motivated” (perhaps, but the verdicts weren’t); “there shouldn’t have been 34 different counts” (so being guilty of fewer felonies is OK?); “he wasn’t convicted of rape; it was a civil trial” (seriously, that’s your argument?); “he didn’t incite the January 6 hooligans” (well, he did, but that’s an interpretation; what is objectively true is that he could have prevented it or at least lessened the damage but did nothing).  Yawn.

Unfortunately, too many voters stayed home, or were (justifiably) mad at the Democrats for covering up Biden’s mental infirmity and installing about as bad a candidate as one could imagine, all without the rank and file, or even convention delegates, having any choice in the matter.  Curmie doesn’t completely discount the idea that Elon Musk or his minions hacked voting machines, but it seems unlikely.  In other words, currently disillusioned Trump voters could have stopped this if they’d bothered to pay attention.  On the one hand, they should be applauded for figuring things out, even if it too long.  But it’s difficult to work up too much empathy for the willfully ignorant.

So: TACO could also be an acronym for Today Achilles Chickens Out, and the women of Calchis catch on a lot sooner than today’s ex-MAGAs did.  Clytemnestra would have lived a lot longer had she not—this once, at least—played by the rules.  Apollo isn’t going to show up and solve all our problems; we’ve got to make good decisions early on to prevent disaster.

Euripides nailed it.

Note: Curmie spent over an hour formatting this piece because Blogger kept screwing up.  Getting thr text to justify never really happened without causing a different problem.  If he missed something else, he apologizes.