Page 16 - GALIET EURIPIDES´MACARIA´S GIFTS: The Angel IV

Galiet & Galiet
Euripides has endowed her with the airs of male discourse: she speaks heroically, rousing the spirit like the kings and leaders of men 3⁄4 Pericles, King Menelaus, King Agamemnon, Achilles, Hector 3⁄4 as if she were ready to go into battle. Macaria exudes self-assurance, courage, strength and determination, even more notoriously so, when she, insolently, exclaims: “Where can you find this sort of conduct among men of honour?” (510-511). Macaria’s reaction is memorable, unforgettable: she reacts neither with shock, nor anguish nor the typical indecision seen in Deianeira9, for example. Euripides’ characterization of Macaira as ‘hero’, in this clever role reversal, does not cease to surprise the classical audience and fill it with a renewed sense of hope, perhaps relief, or wander, a stance not too common and seen to some degree in Sophocles’ Antigone (she stands for burial rights) and in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (she stands for ending the Peloponnesian War). To modern audiences, it is empowering.
My Sacrifice. There comes a time to act, to sacrifice, the gravity of which can be felt or perceived fully, in its large scale, grasped after the action takes place, my sacrifice will endure time, will endure reality. Because Macaira is the first and final cause of sacrifice: the act (sacrifice), the action (inherent result), the actor (act acting), the acted (result of act), she becomes a flawless and perfect heroine. When Macaria volunteers to become the sacrificial creature (502), the lamb, so to speak, she shares in the noble, the sacred. Through this selfless act, self-giving act, whether motivated by honour or desperation, she participates in the cosmic, in the divine, and thus, her altar, where gods and human beings meet, unite, come together, is the altar of the world, the entire world seeking to preserve and be preserved, seeking to open and be opened, to appease or to give to the infinite, the unknown, from the beginning of time, from Vedic time to classical times to Inca and Aztec time. This lying on the sacrificial altar, to save others, is to cry, to be moved to tears and tears, to suffer, endlessly so. Macaria is willing to die for
9 Deianeira relies on the Chorus when she is uncertain as what she ought to do. Women of Trachis (385). Sophocles II. The Complete Greek Tragedies. Women of Trachis. Ed. David Grene & Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1969.
• 16 •