Hi Hello, this is Let's Talk About Midsbaby

and I am your host, Liv, that woman who everyone seems to think hates men when she really just hates men who assault people

and with that intro of intros, I am back with another women's history month episode

Part 2 of Euripides, the Phoenician women, the play that reimagines Sophocles' more famous play,

Idipus Taranos, and his entegany Andy, skulls is seven against Thebes and says,

Hey, what if Jocasta actually had a role to play in her own tragedy?

Last week we began our story in the City of Thebes, at the beginning of what is often called the Seven Against Thebes, for the E-Schoolist play by that name.

Euripides' Phoenician women tells, in essence, the story of that E-Schoolist play and Sophocles' antegany.

Euripides just concerns himself with other aspects, like Jocasta.

Jocasta in this telling is very much alive and very much still a powerful and respected royal figure in the City of Thebes.

Idipus, meanwhile, is locked away, hidden from the City so that they might, I don't know, forget that he killed their king, cursed their town and inadvertently married his own mother.

Pallinike's one of Jocasta's two sons has been in self-imposed exile in Argos, intending to return to Thebes to take his turn on the throne, but his brother at Yokeles has backed out of their deal and refuses to give up his place on the throne.

Thus, Pallinike's has returned with an army from Argos to wage war on his brother and on his own city.

The City of Thebes, quite famously, has seven gates in the walls surrounding the City and Pallinike's has general stationed at each one.

Jocasta has done her utmost to stop her sons from going to battle against one another, but their stubborn, they both want power and neither of them wants to admit defeat.

Thus, Pallinike's left the meeting with his mother and brother and headed back to his Argyve army, and Idipus has left to prepare his own to defend the City, with the guidance of Jocasta's brother, Crayon.

This is Episode 117, The Heroines of Thebes, Jocasta and Antigone, The Phoenician Women Part 2.

With war between brothers, between Thebes and Argos, imminent, the chorus of Phoenician women stuck in Thebes by that very inevitable battle, lament the mess they're all in.

Aries, why do you love blood and battle as much as you do, they ask, why can't you distract yourself with dancing, with drinking wine? Why instead are you urging the Argyves against us?

Oh, they go on, oh, what might have been if Idipus had never been brought to that mountain, if he'd never been brought up in Corinth and returned to Thebes? Oh, what might have been if the Sphinx had never plagued the town with her riddles?

Tyrecyus then arrives, the famed blind prophet of Thebes. He's brought in by his daughter and by Crayon's son, Manicius. Crayon, who remained on stage when Atiacli's left and the Phoenician women began their lament, greets Tyrecyus, grateful for his help.

At Crayon's urging, Tyrecyus begins to tell him and the others what exactly is going so wrong in Thebes. There's a curse for one, something no one should be surprised by.

...