Keeping Up with Cassandra
CASSANDRA: AN ONGOING TRAGEDY by Ruth Cantrell is full of mythological and historical references. While the historical scenes give us the time and place, we are dropped in media res (in the middle of things) into Greek mythology. If you are one who says, “It’s all Greek to me,” here’s a Cliff-Notes version, if you will, of the basic facts. A word of caution: once you start exploring the world of classical Greek mythology, it’s very difficult to stop. (You can find just about everything on Wikipedia.)
CASSANDRA: Princess of Troy. Given the gift of prophecy by Apollo, she is later cursed for rejecting his sexual advances. The curse? Her prophecies will be accurate, but no one will believe them. She begs the Trojans not to accept the Horse, the master plan of Odysseus. They ignore her – Troy is destroyed. A virgin priestess to the goddess Athena, Cassandra is raped in the temple by Ajax the Lesser. She is selected as a prize by Agamemnon, King of Mycenae. She accompanies him back to Greece, where she and Agamemnon are brutally slain by his wife, Clytemnestra, who has sworn vengeance for his sacrificing of their daughter Iphigenia to ensure smooth sailing to begin the war with Troy.
EXTRA CREDIT: The Orestia Trilogy by Aeschylus (Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides). For EXTRA EXTRA CREDIT, see how Eugene O’Neill treats the saga in Mourning Becomes Electra.
TALTHYBIUS and HECUBA. The Trojan War has ended and most of the men and boys have been slaughtered. Talthybius, King Agamemnon’s chief herald, brings the bad tidings to Hecuba, the widowed Queen of Troy, that her grandson Astyanax, son of slain Trojan hero Hector and his wife Andromache, and heir to the throne of Troy, has been thrown from the walls to the rocks below. And then he tells her of the sacrifice of her youngest daughter Polyxena, to appease the ghost of Achilles.
EXTRA CREDIT: The Trojan Women by Euripides. Hecuba, also by Euripides; The Trojan Women, a film by Michael Cacoyannis; The Iliad by Homer.
JASON and MEDEA: To secure the Golden Fleece, Jason enlists the help of Medea, the sorceress daughter of the King of Colchis. The task successful, Jason and Medea fall in love and flee to Corinth. Years later, Jason casts Medea aside for a politically advantageous marriage. Medea exacts horrific revenge by poisoning her rival, and killing her two sons.
EXTRA CREDIT: Medea by Euripides; Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes; Jason and the Argonauts, a film by Ray Harryhausen; Medea, the opera, by Luigi Cherubini with Maria Callas.
IOLAUS: After Hercules’ death, his nephew and boon companion Iolaus saved Hercules’ children from the tyrant King Eurystheus.
EXTRA CREDIT: The Children of Hercules by Euripides.
HADES and PERSEPHONE: Hades, god of the Underworld kidnaps young Persephone, daughter of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, grain and the harvest. Hades offers Persephone a pomegranate, of which she eats six seeds, unaware of the consequences. She is now wife and prisoner of Hades for six months of the year, during which time Demeter is in mourning, and earth is barren and cold. When Persephone returns for her six months above ground, the world blooms once again – a handy explanation of the change of seasons.
EXTRA CREDIT: Thegony by Hesiod; Metamorphoses by Ovid.
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