''Andromeda'' (, ''Androméda'') is a lost tragedy written by

Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...

, based on the myth of Andromeda and first produced in 412 BC, in a trilogy that also included Euripides' '' Helen''. ''Andromeda'' may have been the first depiction on stage of a young man falling in love with a woman. The play has been lost; however, a number of fragments are extant. In addition, a number of ancient sources refer to the play, including several references in plays by

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving play ...

Plot

Several aspects of the plot of ''Andromeda'' can be inferred from the extant fragments and references. The play opened with Andromeda alone on stage, having been chained to a rock near the sea and near a cave by her father

Cepheus, King of Aethiopia In Greek mythology, Cepheus (; Ancient Greek: Κηφεύς ''Kepheús'') was the king of Aethiopia and the father of Andromeda, the princess who is saved by the hero Perseus. Family Cepheus was the son of either Belus, Agenor or Phoenix. Whe ...

, to be eaten by a sea monster. This was to mollify the sea god

Poseidon Poseidon (; ) is one of the twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and mythology, presiding over the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 He was the protector of seafarers and the guardian of many Hellenic cit ...

after either Cepheus or his wife

Cassiopeia Cassiopeia or Cassiopea may refer to: Greek mythology * Cassiopeia (mother of Andromeda), queen of Aethiopia and mother of Andromeda * Cassiopeia (wife of Phoenix), wife of Phoenix, king of Phoenicia * Cassiopeia, wife of Epaphus, king of Egy ...

had offended the god. Andromeda laments her fate alone, with only her

echo In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the lis ...

to respond. A chorus of virgins ('' parthenoi'') appears as Andromeda's lament continues. Then

Perseus In Greek mythology, Perseus (, ; Greek language, Greek: Περσεύς, Romanization of Greek, translit. Perseús) is the legendary founder of the Perseid dynasty. He was, alongside Cadmus and Bellerophon, the greatest Greek hero and slayer of ...

appears, using the crane to depict his flight on winged sandals, "planting my foot on high, cutting a path through the midst of the ether," having just defeated the

Gorgon The Gorgons ( ; ), in Greek mythology, are three monstrous sisters, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, said to be the daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. They lived near their sisters the Graeae, and were able to turn anyone who looked at them to sto ...

Medusa In Greek mythology, Medusa (; ), also called Gorgo () or the Gorgon, was one of the three Gorgons. Medusa is generally described as a woman with living snakes in place of hair; her appearance was so hideous that anyone who looked upon her wa ...

. Upon appearing, Perseus believes Andromeda is a statue and remarks "Hold—what

promontory A promontory is a raised mass of land that projects into a lowland or a body of water (in which case it is a peninsula). Most promontories either are formed from a hard ridge of rock that has resisted the erosive forces that have removed the s ...

do I see here, lapped by sea foam, and what maiden's likeness, a statue carved by an expert hand to her very form in stone?" When Perseus asks Andromeda if she will show his gratitude if he saves her, she responds "Take me, stranger, whether for servant, wife, or slave." During their dialogue, Perseus apparently moved from being struck by Andromeda's beauty to feeling pity for her to falling in love with her. This may have been the first depiction of a man falling in love with a woman on stage. In fragment 136, Perseus famously demands of

Eros Eros (, ; ) is the Greek god of love and sex. The Romans referred to him as Cupid or Amor. In the earliest account, he is a primordial god, while in later accounts he is the child of Aphrodite. He is usually presented as a handsome young ma ...

to "either don't teach us to see beauty in what is beautiful, or help those who are in love to succeed in their efforts as they suffer the toils that you yourself have crafted," stating further that if Eros does so he will "be honored by mortals" but if not those in love will no longer give Eros their gratitude. A messenger delivered the news that Perseus had successfully defeated the sea monster. The play also included scenes in which Perseus describes his adventure with Medusa and in which he insists on marrying Andromeda against Cepheus' wishes, but other scenes may have been included as well. Andromeda concurred that she wanted to live with Perseus rather than her parents, and some of the dialogue may have discussed the conflict between Andromeda's duty to her parents and her loyalty to Perseus, as well as the desirability of Perseus as a husband. The play most likely ended with the goddess

Athena Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretism, syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarde ...

appearing as a ''

deus ex machina ''Deus ex machina'' ( ; ; plural: ''dei ex machina''; 'God from the machine') is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly or abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence. Its function is general ...

'' to announce that Perseus and Andromeda would be married and that all the characters would become

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellati ...

s. Athena likely also prophesied that the descendants of Perseus and Andromeda would become the rulers of

Mycenae Mycenae ( ; ; or , ''Mykē̂nai'' or ''Mykḗnē'') is an archaeological site near Mykines, Greece, Mykines in Argolis, north-eastern Peloponnese, Greece. It is located about south-west of Athens; north of Argos, Peloponnese, Argos; and sou ...

Antecedents

Little is known of treatments of the Andromeda myth prior to Euripides. However,

Sophocles Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those ...

wrote a play entitled '' Andromeda'', which covered the same story and was believed to have been performed around 450 BC. Sophocles' ''Andromeda'' is now lost except for a few fragments. Euripides treated earlier aspects of the Perseus myth in his earlier plays '' Danae'' (between 455 and 425 BC), which covered Perseus' birth, and ''

Dictys Dictys (, ''Díktus'') was a name attributed to four men in Greek mythology. * Dictys, a fisherman and brother of King Polydectes of Seriphos, both being the sons of Magnes (mythology), Magnes and a Naiad, or of Peristhenes and Androthoe,Scholia ...

'' (431 BC), which covered his defeat of Medusa.

Later references to the play

Information about ''Andromeda'' is largely based on later sources, including the '' Bibliotheca'',

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

's treatment of the story in ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' (, , ) is a Latin Narrative poetry, narrative poem from 8 Common Era, CE by the Ancient Rome, Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''Masterpiece, magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its Cre ...

'' and references in

astrological Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions of celesti ...

handbooks to the

constellations A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellations were likely defin ...

Andromeda, Cepheus, and

, which refer to Euripides' play. There are also references to ''Andromeda'' in at least two plays by

. In 411, a year after Euripides' plays were first produced,

incorporated extended parodies of both ''Helen'' and ''Andromeda'' in his comedy ''

Thesmophoriazusae ''Thesmophoriazusae'' (; ''Thesmophoriazousai'', ), or ''Women at the Thesmophoria'' (sometimes also called ''The Poet and the Women''), is one of eleven surviving comedy plays by Aristophanes. It was first produced in 411 BC, probably at the Cit ...

''. Euripides, who is a character in Thesmophoriazusae, needs to save a kinsman who was captured dressed as a woman infiltrating an all-woman festival. Euripides first attempts to do this by a parody of the scene in which

Menelaus In Greek mythology, Menelaus (; ) was a Greek king of Mycenaean (pre- Dorian) Sparta. According to the ''Iliad'', the Trojan war began as a result of Menelaus's wife, Helen, fleeing to Troy with the Trojan prince Paris. Menelaus was a central ...

arrives dressed in rags. He then uses a parody of ''Andromeda'' in which the kinsman as Andromeda laments his fate to the response of his echo, Euripides as Perseus arrives via the crane, and falls quickly in love with her. In the parody, Perseus' love as depicted in ''Andromeda'' is transformed to lust. Aristophanes also referenced ''Andromeda'' in his 405 play ''

The Frogs ''The Frogs'' (; , often abbreviated ''Ran.'' or ''Ra.'') is a comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed at the Lenaia, one of the Festivals of Dionysus in Athens, in 405 BC and received first place. The pla ...

'', where the god

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ...

states that while reading ''Andromeda'' he was smitten with longing for Euripides. It has been reported from antiquity that

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

was able to perform a portion of ''Andromeda'' by heart. Classicist

Gilbert Murray George Gilbert Aimé Murray (2 January 1866 – 20 May 1957) was an Australian-born British classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres. He was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greec ...

commented that "Only a few fragments of the ''Andromeda'' remain, but they are curiously beautiful; and the play as a whole seems to have been the one unclouded love-romance that Euripides ever wrote. Murray also related a story told by

Lucian Lucian of Samosata (Λουκιανὸς ὁ Σαμοσατεύς, 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridi ...

(in "The Way to Write History") writing 500 years after ''Andromeda'' was first produced, that people in

Abdera, Thrace Abdera () is a municipality in the Xanthi regional unit of Thrace, Greece. In classical antiquity, it was a major Greek ''polis'' on the Thracian coast. The ancient polis is to be distinguished from the municipality, which was named in its hono ...

, were stricken by the play and walked around "as though in a dream" while mumbling to themselves a speech from the play which began "O love, high monarch over gods and men..."

References

{{Authority control Plays by Euripides Lost plays Plays based on classical mythology Andromeda (mythology) Plays set in ancient Greece