The opening of the monologue delivered by Moschion is missing from the play (along with other portions of Act 1 and 2, and some smaller sections elsewhere). The first scene takes place in Athens, outside the adjoining houses of Demeas and Nikeratos. Moschion explains that prior to the events in the play, Demeas (Moschion’s adopted father) had taken Chrysis (a Samian) as his mistress. When Chrysis becomes pregnant, Demeas orders that illegitimate child be chucked out. Around the same time Moschion seduced Plangon, the daughter of Nikeratos, their neighbour, and she’s also pregnant. Both babies end up being born at around the same time. However, Chrysis' baby died after being born, so instead she nurses Plangon's. Demeas and Nikeratos are away …show more content…
The end result of their encounter is that Parmenon admits the baby is Moschion's but doesn’t think to say that the mother is Plangon (and Chrysis is only nursing the baby). Demeas doesn’t want to blame Moschion off the bat so he accuses Chrysis of seducing him instead. When he confronts Chrysis there are more misunderstandings: Demeas doesn’t outright say that he thinks she seduced his son (because it’s scandalous and he doesn’t want everyone to know). So he kicks her from his house instead because she kept the baby (ostensibly their own baby). Nikeratos feels bad so he lets Chrysis stay at his house. Nikeratos starts to act as a mediator and asks Moschion about the situation. Misunderstandings still abound, however. Eventually Moschion admits that the baby is his and Plangon’s and the conflict between him and his father ends. However, the situation reverses when Nikeratos sees his daughter feeding the baby (he had come under the same impression as Demeas, so now believes his wife and Plangon are on Chrysis’ side (in an affair with Moschion) against Demeas. This enrages him and Moschion flees, while Nikeratos goes to kill his family in rage. Now Chrysis flees from Nikeratos’ house with the baby back into Demeas’ house. Demeas eventually convinces Nikeratos that everything is fine and the marriage resumes its
Hippolytus is secretly in love with his father’s political prisoner, Aricia, and is almost at the point of losing all of the unloving pride that he is so proud to have maintained all his life. At the same time, his step-mother, Phaedra, is almost at her breaking point of revealing her overwhelming love for her step-son. Just like any normal teenager, Hippolytus craves the relationship with the pretty young girl and is appalled at the thought of the relationship that his step-mother is attempting to pursue. Likewise, in Tartuffe there is a young man, Damise, who longs to marry the sister of his sister’s future husband. Damise’s father, Orgon, calls of the wedding between Damise’s sister and her fiancé, Voliere, and instead tells her she will marry his deceitful guest, Tartuffe. Thus, it becomes impossible for Damise to marry Voliere’s sister and Damise is appalled by the relationship of his sister and Tartuffe. Tartuffe, the hypocrite praised by Orgon, tries to warm up to Orgon’s wife when he is not around, making another forbidden relationship that Damise does not want to
As Telemakhos, who is ignorant of how real family life should be, travels in search of his father, he learns about family life. In Pylos, he meets Nestor, who asks his son, Peisistratus, to accompany him. This is important because it is the first time Telemakhos has a real friend. In Sparta, he meets King Menelaos and Helen, who are in the midst of the celebration of a double wedding. Here he is shown what a real family should be. Menelaos and Helen have had their troubles. But since they were reunited after the Trojan War, their lives together have been happy and their relationship is loving, honest, and healthy. By the same token, their kingdom thrives, because of this healthy family relationship.
While Clytemnestra’s crime would be violent and shocking to the Argive men and to the Greek audience, her motivations for murdering her husband are not completely incomprehensible and are not without some roots in justice. After stabbing the king, Clytemnestra draws the chorus’ attention back to the other murder witnessed earlier in the play: the...
Telemachus and Pisistratus arrive at Sparta. When they arrive Menelaus is hosting a double wedding feast for his son and daughter. Then, Menelaus serves Telemachus and Pisistratus food. Telemachus is amazed by Menelaus of how he takes care of the palace. Menelaus tells him a story that he has been wandering the sea for seven years and discovered that his brother Agamemnon was murdered. He also shared Telemachus that he lost a lot of friends during the Trojan war. He was deeply sudden with all these discoveries and realizes that it is better to stay home with his family and with his people by living honorably in Sparta. That is why the city of Sparta is well take care of because of his stay and ruling. Menelaus is satisfied with his city. Then, Menelaus talked about Odysseus and how he misses him so much and Telemachus cries. The room was quiet then Helen, Menelaus’s wife walks
Athena, however, offers a form of justice that considers the context of a person’s actions when restoring equity. In the case of Orestes, the context of his case is the guidance given to him by Apollo and the wrongs that he had suffered as a result of his mother, Clytaemestra. Athena’s understanding of human nature is that the ideas of compassion and empathy coexist with the concept of justice in the minds of most people. As a result, Athena establishes a jury comprised of the peers of Orestes so that they may judge him with an understanding of both the context of Orestes’s actions and the need for justice for the death of Clytaemestra.... ... middle of paper ...
The. " In disguise as an old friend of Odysseus', Athena travels to his manor in Ithaka, now overrun with noisy, lustful suitor's intent on marrying Odysseus' wife, Penelope. Odysseus' son, Telemakhos, unhappy among the suitors, greets Athena warmly as a stranger and invites her to their feast. As the suitors devour Odysseus' oxen, Telemakhos says he believes his father - whom he does not know at all - is dead. "(gradesaver.com/
Infatuation causes Helena to lose all sense of dignity, as can be seen when in the woods, she desperately pleads with Demetrius to ?but treat me as your spaniel?. Here, Helena also becomes irrational, obsessed with pursuing Demetrius, though it is obvious that Demetrius is fixated on winning Hermia?s hand in marriage. Helena?s infatuation also causes her to see things from a skewed perspective, for she falsely believes that when she divulges Hermia?s plans for eloping with Lysander, Demetrius? love for Helena will rekindle. As the audience, we know that the most probable course of action for Demetrius upon hearing such news is to pursue Lysander and Hermia, or to report them to Theseus or Egeus. Clearly, infatuation has clouded Helena?s ability to think clearly, and she sees things in her own idealistic way.
on the life of Electra. In Sophocles's version, the play opens with Orestes learning his fate. from the Pythian Oracle; he must revenge his father's death unarmed and. alone. He sends his pedagogue Pylades, as a spy, to learn about the situation in Mycenae. Electra mourns for her father's death. She is Unable to avenge her father's murders without the help of Orestes, her brother. She is also mad about how her mother and her lover waste her father's riches and desecrate his name. Her half-sister Chrysothemis is. no help to Electra and refuses to help in the murder of her mother and mother's love of the world.
Theseus and Oberon are both compassionate and understanding towards the young lovers, Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius. They are involved in a love triangle that encompasses matters of the law and love. Demetrius intends to marry Hermia, although, she shares a mutual love with Lysander; Helena loves Demetrius, although, he no longer loves her. Theseus, as the Duke of Athens, maintains the laws and standards of Athenian society. He acknowledges “the Ancient privilege of Athens” (I.1.41) that allows Egeus to “dispose of” (I.1.42) Hermia. This law permits Egeus to give his daughter to Demetrius or “to death, according to [the] law” (I.1.44). However, Theseus takes pity on Hermia and gives he...
The first step towards getting Odysseus home is when Athena disguises herself as Mentes, who motivates Telemakhos to find his father and aide in his return. It is Athena’s revelation of divinity to Telemakhos that spurs his courage and determination that help him realize his dream of revenge. For at first, Telemakhos feels ...
After that, during a terrible sand storm, Tanus and Lostris are finally able to be alone, but Lostris then got pregnant with Tanus’s son. Taita makes it so that the Pharaoh believes that it is his son, so when the child is born, he is named Memnon and no one ever knows who his true father is except for Taita, Lostris, and Tanus.
In Edith Hamilton’ book King Acrisius is desperate for a son. He goes to Delphi to ask if he will someday have a son but the priestess tells him no and also tell him that this daughter will have a son who will some day kill him. He did not want to kill his daughter because he loved her but also because he feared the anger of the gods. So he built an underground bronze house and imprisoned her there. It was there that Zeus visited her and made her pregnant. When the King found out about this he had his daughter placed in a chest and put out to sea. They were discovered by a fisherman who took care of the them as though they were members of his family.
In Sophocles' Antigone, the dilemma between nomos of the city and nomos of the home divides blood relatives and causes an inevitable conflict. Kreon, Thebes’ ruler, supports nomos of the states and honors polis before oikos. In contrast, Antigone promotes blood ties of oikos and divine laws that govern the dead. Kreon punishes Antigone for carrying out her duty to Polyneikes, and in doing so, he presents a different perspective and reversed order of priorities. In Antigone, polis and oikos depend on one another and share a symbiotic relationship. Since both are unstable, they cannot exist by themselves without problems. This, in turn with Kreon's stubbornness, leads to an untenable encounter.
Born to King Laius and Queen Jocasta in the city of Thebes, Oedipus is surrounded with controversy after a prophecy shows that Oedipus will be destined to murder his father and marry his mother. Fearing the potential consequences of the prophecy, Oedipus’ parents made the decision to abandon their baby at the top of a mountain to die using one of their servants. The servant’s consciousness, however, causes him to instead deliver the baby to a shepherd, who in turn sends him to King Polybius and Queen Merope of the kingdom Corinth. After raising the child as their own, Oedipus becomes suspicious that these weren’t his biological parents and leaves Corinth upon hearing the prophecy by the oracle Delphi. As he unknowingly travels to his birth city, Thebes, Oedipus murdered a man along with his servants after a dispute between them. Before entering Thebes, Oedipus is confronted by the guardian of the city’s Gates, the Sphinx who presents him with a riddle. If he solves the riddle, he will be able to pass. If he doesn’t, he’ll die. Oedipus’s superior intelligence and cleverness allows him to easily solve the riddle, however unbeknownst to him will be a foreshadowing of his tragic downfall. The citizens of Thebes praise Oedipus and Queen Jocasta offers to marry him since her husband was mysteriously murdered. Upon marry Jocasta and becoming the King of Thebes, a powerful plague decimates the citizens of
The egotistical solider, Pyrogopolinices, believes that he is irresistible to all women, having the ability to pick whatever woman he wanted as his own. This vanity is the exact thing that gets him beat at the end of the play. Pyrogopolinices abducts Philocomasium, the courtesan and lover of Pleusicles. Palaestrio, the slave of Pleusicles, goes to tell his master what has happened and in the end, is captured and put in the same house at Philocomasium. Keeping their friendship under the radar, the two find ways to reunite the lovers and to eventually free themselves from Pyrogopolinices.