Even more interesting is Calliope, who is our frame story. While much of this is a recapitulation of Odysseus’ ten year voyage home, it gives us Penelope’s perspective on Odysseus and his (mis)adventures, and has some rather pointed and choice words, and deserved ones at that. We get Penelope, both in the present and in the “future” (from the perspective of The Trojan Women( writing letters to Odysseus.

Thus, while we get the story of Andromache, Hecube, Cassandra and the other survivors (including, yes, Helen) and that is the core narrative, we get so much more that really reframes and reorients the events from their perspective. So while the fate of the women inexorably comes, we divert here and there to other perspectives and stories in the entire arc. As the Trojan Women await and are subjected to their various fates, the narrative breaks off to other female perspectives that fill in the story both past, present and forward. The book is laid out thusly: Starting with the sack of Troy, the main narrative follows the female survivors of the Horse being pulled into the city, and their ultimate fate as chattel to be parceled out among the victorious Greeks.

What Haynes, a classical scholar, brings here is telling of the fall of Troy and its aftermath entirely from female perspectives. And recent tellings and retellings of Greek Myth (such as the trilogy of Greek Myth books done by Stephen Fry) have done much better in bringing female perspectives to the myths than earlier writers and translators. One of the major source materials for these books is Eurpides’ play The Trojan Women (as well as another play by him, Hecuba) among other sources and perspectives. Looking at the Trojan War and its aftermath from the women’s perspective is. Sing O Muse, of this look at the women of the Trojan WAr by classicist Natalie Haynes. Sing, O Muse of the story of A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes, of the sorrow of Hecube, of the determination of Andromache, of the grief filled prophecies of Cassandra, of the patience of Penelope, of the tragedy of the Amazon Penthesilea, who sought death for the horrible accident she caused.

A thousand natalie haynes