The Rage of Athena at Troy

 by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted, with new material, from Euripides' The Trojan Women

NARRATOR/PRIEST

Athena is wise, is wisdom, but beware her wrath: her name,

her rites, her honor must always be defended, her temple
sacrosanct. Hear her at the fall of Troy, when suddenly

she begs Poseidon to punish the Greeks, her favorites:

POSEIDON

Welcome, Athena! (Ironically) Family love has a magic power. …

I suppose you bring some word from Zeus.

ATHENA

No. I come to entreat your power, aid and alliance

on behalf of Troy — yes, of this place!

POSEIDON

Have you renounced your hatred? Now that it stinks in ashes,

do you pity Troy?

ATHENA

Will you support me?

POSEIDON

Tell me your mind.
(Suspiciously). Is it Greece … or Troy … you are helping?

ATHENA

I am disposed to favor the Trojans, whom I once loathed.

The Greeks are leaving, laden with wealth and women —

make this homeward voyage disastrous for them.

POSEIDON

Why this leaping at random between love and hate?

ATHENA

You know of the insult offered my temple at Troy?

POSEIDON

(Places fingers to forehead, seeing a vision)

Ah! my eyes see it. Ajax athwart the door of your temple.

He is in! He drags a Trojan princess by the hair.

He has torn her from your altar, her offering

still fresh, a heifer unmurdered, a costly robe

upon the knees of your statue. It was —

ATHENA

Cassandra! The self-doomed Prophetess
who threw herself on the mercy of the gods.
He seized her from the sanctuary!

POSEIDON

The Greeks have spoils enough. Are they not shamed?

Must they not return her, that she complete

her sacrifice, her plea for safety beneath your wings?

ATHENA

They have done nothing. No punishment for Ajax,

not even a reprimand. The insult!

POSEIDON

And you, Athena, fought beside them. You rode

the war chariot with Diomedes, you felled

your brother Ares in a single blow!

ATHENA

Help me now to make them suffer.

POSEIDON

(Nods his head in assent, extends his hand).

My powers await your whim, Athena. What shall we do?

ATHENA

I mean to make their homeward journey a long one.

They will part from one another. The sea

will be their undoing, their misery.

Many will wish they had died at Troy.

POSEIDON

(Excitedly). The whole Aegean I'll stir for you; the shores

of Mykonos, Skyros, Lemnos, the reefs of Delos,

the Capherian capes I'll drape with drowned Greeks.

Go back to Olympus and get your father's thunderbolts.

You'll need them. No punishment is strong enough

for those who profane the temples of the high gods.

CHORUS

Athanaia! Athanaia! Xaira Theá!

This excerpt was included in the 2008 pageant-play, Who Is Athena? by Brett Rutherford, performed at The Providence Athenaeum on July 11, 2008. Revised March 2019.