Hecuba by Euripides

Euripides’ Hecuba is a surviving Athenian tragedy set on the coast of the Thracian Chersonese in the days just after the fall of Troy. Hecuba, until recently Troy’s queen and now a Greek captive, loses her daughter Polyxena, whom the Greek army sacrifices at the tomb of Achilles, and then finds on the shore the body of her son Polydorus, murdered by his Thracian guardian Polymestor. The ghost of Achilles has stopped the Greek fleet (lines 37–41), and Polydorus’ ghost tells the story in the prologue (lines 1–58). After Talthybius reports Polyxena’s courageous death (lines 518–582), a maidservant brings in the corpse of Polydorus (lines 658–720). Hecuba obtains from Agamemnon a promise not to interfere (lines 749–904), lures Polymestor and his two sons into her tent, kills the boys and blinds him with the help of the Trojan women (lines 1044–1055), and Agamemnon, who hears both sides, finds against Polymestor (lines 1109–1251). Polymestor ends the play with prophecies of Hecuba’s transformation into a dog and of the deaths of Cassandra and Agamemnon (lines 1259–1281).

Date and Historical Background

No ancient source that survives records the year, the festival or the result of the first performance of Hecuba, and no ancient introduction to the play is preserved. The date of the first performance is therefore uncertain.

Family of Hecuba

Children: Cassandra, Hector, Helenus, Paris, Polyxena, Troilus

See the full family tree

Characters and Setting

Characters

• The Ghost of Polydorus, youngest son of Priam and Hecuba (lines 1–58)
• Hecuba, daughter of Cisseus and wife of Priam, Troy’s queen, the mother of Polydorus and Polyxena
• Polyxena, daughter of Priam and Hecuba
• Odysseus, King of Ithaca
• Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, commander of the Greeks under Troy
• Talthybius, herald of the Greeks
• Polymestor, King of the Thracians of the Chersonese, with his two sons (who do not speak)
• Maid-servant of Hecuba
• Chorus of captive Trojan women

Setting

The scene is before Agamemnon’s tent in the Greek camp on the shore of the Thracian Chersonese, the peninsula across the sea from Troy (lines 8, 33–36). Achilles’ tomb lies nearby (lines 37–41, 109–110).

Summary of Hecuba

Prologue

In the prologue (lines 1–58) the ghost of Polydorus, youngest of Priam’s sons, appears from the underworld and tells his story. When Troy was threatened, his father sent him secretly to Polymestor, his guest-friend in Thrace, together with much gold, so that if Troy should fall his surviving children might have the means to live (lines 3–12). He was too young to bear arms (lines 13–15). So long as Troy stood and Hector prospered, he grew up well in Polymestor’s court. But when Troy fell, Hector died and Priam was killed at the altar by the son of Achilles, Polymestor killed his helpless guest for the gold and threw him into the sea, where he drifts unwept and unburied (lines 16–30).

Polydorus has been hovering over his mother Hecuba for three days, ever since she came from Troy to the Chersonese (lines 30–34). The Greek army is idle in its ships, because Achilles appeared above his tomb as they were setting out for home and demanded that Polyxena be sacrificed to him as his prize (lines 35–41). “So will my mother see two children dead at once, me and that ill-fated maid,” he says (lines 44–45). He has begged from the powers below that his body may come ashore at the feet of his mother’s servant and find a tomb in her hands (lines 46–50). He departs as Hecuba emerges from Agamemnon’s tent, terrified at his spectre, and grieves, “how sad your lot, as sad as once it was blessed” (lines 55–57).

Hecuba, supported by her attendants (lines 59–68), says that she has been frightened by visions of the night about her son in Thrace and her daughter Polyxena (lines 69–76). She prays to the gods to save him (lines 77–82), and asks where Helenus or Cassandra can be found to read the dream (lines 87–89). She had seen a dappled deer torn from her knees by a wolf, and over Achilles’ tomb the phantom of Achilles demanding one of the Trojan maidens as his prize (lines 90–97). “Some fresh disaster is in store, a new strain of sorrow will be added to our woe,” she says (lines 82–83).

Parodos (Entrance Song)

The Chorus of captive Trojan women, who have left the tents of their new masters, tell Hecuba the news (lines 98–153). The Greeks decided in assembly to sacrifice her daughter to Achilles, whose ghost, standing on his tomb in golden armor, had stopped the ships when their sails were already hoisted (lines 107–115). The army was divided. Agamemnon, out of love for the frenzied prophetess Cassandra, spoke against the sacrifice. The two sons of Theseus, from Athens, made two speeches but were of one mind: Achilles’ tomb should be crowned with fresh blood, and they would never set Cassandra’s bed before Achilles’ spear (lines 120–129). The dispute was equal until Odysseus, “that shifty, smooth-mouthed liar, the son of Laertes, whose tongue is always at the service of the mob,” persuaded the army not to refuse the best of the Danaids a servant-maid’s sacrifice (lines 126–140). He will be here at once to tear the girl from her mother’s arms. The women tell Hecuba to go to the altars and sit as a suppliant at Agamemnon’s knees, for either her prayers will save her child, or she must see her fall before the tomb with the blood spurting from her throat (lines 141–152).

First Episode

“Ah, Trojan maids! bringers of evil tidings! messengers of woe!” cries Hecuba. “You have made an end, an utter end of me” (lines 154–168). She calls her daughter out of the tent and tells her that the Argives have voted for her sacrifice to the son of Peleus at his tomb (lines 170–196). Polyxena answers that she weeps for her mother’s unhappiness, but for her own life, its ruin and its outrage, she sheds not a tear, since death has become to her a happier lot than life (lines 197–215).

Odysseus arrives to take her (lines 216–228). He says that the Achaeans have decided to sacrifice her at the mound of Achilles, that he is to bring her, and that the son of Achilles has been chosen to preside over the sacrifice as priest. He tells Hecuba not to be torn from her by force and not to match her strength against his. Hecuba reminds him of a favor. When he came to spy on Troy in rags, with blood running down his cheek, Helen recognized him and told Hecuba alone; he embraced her knees and her hand, and she saved him and sent him away (lines 239–250). Now, she says, she does the same to him and claims the favor in return, begging him not to tear her child from her arms (lines 251–295).

Odysseus does not deny the debt. He says that he will save her own life, as she saved his, but that he told the army after Troy’s capture that he would give her daughter to the best man in the army, since he asked for a victim (lines 299–305). A state is weakened when a man of brave and noble soul receives no greater honor than his inferiors, and Achilles died most nobly for Hellas, so that to treat him as a friend in life but no longer when he is dead would be a foul reproach (lines 306–315). Before he answers, the Chorus Leader says that no one is so hard-hearted as not to weep at her tale (lines 296–298); after his speech the Chorus laments that slavery is always an evil, forced to endure what is wrong (lines 332–333).

Hecuba then tells Polyxena to throw herself at Odysseus’ knees and to say that he has children too (lines 334–341). Polyxena has seen Odysseus hide his right hand in his robe and turn away his face so that she cannot touch his beard (lines 342–344). She tells him that he need not fear the suppliant’s god in her case: she will follow him both because she must and because she wishes to die (lines 345–347). She was once admired among maidens, equal to a goddess save for death alone, and she cannot bear the thought of being a slave: a savage master might make her knead bread, sweep the house and work at the loom, while some slave will taint a bed once deemed worthy of royalty (lines 349–368). “Lead me away, Odysseus, and do your worst” (lines 368–369), she says, free and dedicated to Hades, and she asks her mother not to hinder her (lines 371–378).

Hecuba, still bargaining, offers to be killed instead; it was she who bore Paris, whose arrow laid low the son of Thetis (lines 382–388). Odysseus answers that Achilles’ ghost asked for her daughter, not for her (lines 389–390), and that the maiden’s death suffices (lines 394–395). Hecuba says she will cling to her daughter like ivy to an oak (line 398). Polyxena asks her mother to give way, and they take their farewells; Polyxena asks Odysseus to veil her head and lead her away (lines 402–437). Hecuba sinks fainting to the ground, cursing Helen, whose bright eyes have brought down Troy (lines 438–443).

In the first choral song (lines 444–483) the Trojan women ask where the winds of the sea will carry them, to be slaves in the Dorian land, in Phthia, in Delos, or in Athens, embroidering the saffron robe of Athena.

Second Episode

Talthybius, the Greek herald, comes to find Hecuba stretched on the ground (lines 484–500). He is shaken by the fall of the queen of Troy and wonders whether the gods exist at all, or whether chance rules mortal affairs (lines 488–490). Hecuba asks whether he has come to take her to be killed too, but he tells her that he has come to fetch her to bury her daughter (lines 505–510).

His report (lines 518–582) is the longest speech of the play. The whole army stood in array before the tomb. Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, took Polyxena by the hand and set her on top of the mound, and a chosen band of young Greeks stood by to hold her. He poured a golden cup of libations to his father, and prayed that Achilles would drink the dark blood of a pure girl and grant the Greeks a prosperous voyage home (lines 521–541). When he drew his sword and signed to the young men to hold her, Polyxena spoke: “of my free will I die; let no one lay hand on me”, she asked to be slain free, for it would shame her to be called a slave among the dead (lines 547–552). The army murmured assent, and Agamemnon ordered the young men to let her go (lines 553–555). She tore her robe from shoulder to waist, showed her breast, and said, “strike home”, or, if he preferred, her throat was ready (lines 558–565). Neoptolemus, half willing and half sorry, cut her throat, and as she fell she took care to fall with decency (lines 566–570). The Greeks strewed leaves over her body and brought pine logs for a pyre, and those who brought nothing were reproached by the others (lines 571–580). Talthybius ends by saying that Hecuba is blessed in a noble child, though crossed in fortune (lines 581–582).

Hecuba is grieved by the report, but finds a partial comfort in her daughter’s courage, and asks how good character comes about, whether by birth or by upbringing (lines 585–602). She tells Talthybius to proclaim to the Argives that they are not to touch her daughter’s body (lines 604–608), and sends her aged maid to dip a pitcher in the sea so that she may wash her child for the last time (lines 609–614). She goes into the tent after reflecting that the happiest man is the one who meets no sorrow day by day (lines 619–628).

In the second choral song (lines 629–656) the women recall how the troubles began when Paris cut his pine beams on Ida to sail for Helen, and how the judgment of the shepherd between the three goddesses brought war, with Spartan women also weeping by the Eurotas.

Third Episode

Hecuba’s maid returns with bearers carrying a covered corpse (lines 658–667). Hecuba at first supposes that it is Polyxena or Cassandra (lines 670–677), but the maid uncovers the body, and Hecuba recognizes her son Polydorus, whom the Thracian was keeping safe for her (lines 678–684). The maid found him on the shore (lines 698–701). Hecuba understands her dream, and knows at once that her “familiar friend, the knight of Thrace,” killed him for the gold (lines 702–713): “O dreadful crime! O deed without a name! beyond wonder! impious! intolerable! Where are the laws between guest and host?” (lines 714–716).

Agamemnon enters, having come to ask why she has delayed to bury her daughter, and sees the body (lines 726–735). Hecuba debates with herself whether to supplicate him (lines 736–751), and then asks him for vengeance on the wicked, in return for which she is willing to live as a slave forever (lines 752–757). She tells him the story of Polydorus and Polymestor, and points out that her cause is a matter of the laws between guest and host, which human life depends on (lines 758–811). She reproaches mortals for studying every science but not persuasion (lines 812–819), and reminds Agamemnon that his bedfellow is her daughter Cassandra, so that by helping her he serves a kinsman of his bride (lines 824–834).

Agamemnon is moved to compassion and would gladly see the impious host punished, but he fears that the army will think he plotted the death of the Thracian king for Cassandra’s sake; the army counts Polymestor a friend and the dead boy a foe (lines 850–863). Hecuba replies that no man is truly free, since each is a slave to money, fortune, the crowd or the fear of prosecution (lines 864–867). She asks only that he not take part in her plot and that he keep any uproar among the Achaeans from falling on her (lines 868–875). Her allies will be the Trojan women in the tents; Agamemnon says that he has a mean opinion of the female race, and she answers that women killed the sons of Aegyptus and cleared Lemnos of men (lines 876–887). He agrees, adding that if the army could sail he could not grant her this, but since no breeze blows the army must wait for a calm voyage (lines 898–902). Hecuba sends a servant to summon Polymestor and his children, and asks that Polyxena’s burial be delayed so that brother and sister may share a pyre (lines 888–897).

In the third choral song (lines 905–952) the women recall the night when Troy was taken: the cry through the city, the Chorus members leaving their beds, and the voyage away from Troy, with curses on Helen and Paris, whose marriage brought only misery.

Exodos (Exit Song)

Polymestor arrives with his two sons and guards (lines 953–975), says he is sorry for Priam and Hecuba, and explains that he was away in the heart of Thrace when she came. Hecuba, saying she is ashamed to meet his eyes, asks him to send his attendants away from the tent (lines 968–980). After asking about her son, whom Polymestor says is alive, and about the gold, which he says is safe in his halls (lines 986–997), she tells him that there are ancient vaults filled with gold by Priam’s ancestors, near the shrine of Trojan Athena marked by a black rock, and that she has also kept treasure brought from Troy among spoils in the tents (lines 1000–1017). She wants his sons to hear this too, in case of his death (lines 1005–1007). Hecuba leads Polymestor and his children into the tent (lines 1018–1022).

The Chorus sings that he has not yet paid the penalty, but perhaps will (lines 1024–1034). From within Polymestor cries that he is blinded and that his children are struck (lines 1035–1040). Hecuba comes out and tells the Chorus that she has killed his two sons, with the help of the Trojan women, and that he will come out blind (lines 1044–1055). Polymestor rushes out with blood streaming from his eyes, crawling like a wild beast and calling for the Thracians and the Atreidae to help him against the captive women (lines 1056–1106).

Agamemnon arrives, drawn by the noise (lines 1109–1113), and asks who has blinded Polymestor and killed his sons. Polymestor says that Hecuba, helped by the captive women, has destroyed him (lines 1114–1122). Agamemnon tells him to give up his rage and to plead his cause so that, after hearing both, he may fairly decide (lines 1129–1131). Polymestor says that he killed Polydorus for the good of the Greeks, since otherwise the boy might repopulate Troy and bring another expedition (lines 1132–1144). He describes how the women stripped him of his spear, took his children from him, stabbed the boys with daggers and put out his eyes with their brooches (lines 1145–1175), and ends with the claim that neither land nor sea produces a race like women (lines 1176–1182). The Chorus Leader objects to that sweeping charge (lines 1183–1186).

Hecuba answers (lines 1187–1237). The barbarian race, she says, could never be friends with Hellas. It was the gold that killed her son and Polymestor’s greed. If he had really wanted to serve Agamemnon, he should have killed the boy when Troy stood and Priam was alive, or brought him alive to the Argives; he should now give the Greeks the gold that he says he keeps for them; and he should have kept the boy safe. She tells Agamemnon that if he helps Polymestor he will show his own worthlessness.

Agamemnon says that being judge in a stranger’s troubles goes against the grain, but that he must (lines 1240–1241). He decides that Polymestor killed his guest not for the sake of the Achaeans or of himself but to keep the gold, and that killing a guest is a disgrace among the Greeks; since Polymestor dared to do what was shameful, he must now endure what is unwelcome (lines 1242–1251). Polymestor, who complains that he is worsted by a woman and a slave (lines 1252–1253), then prophesies to Hecuba in a rapid exchange (lines 1259–1273). She will be turned into “a dog with bloodshot gaze” after she climbs the ship’s mast and falls into the sea, and her tomb will be named “the hapless hound’s grave, a mark for mariners”. He learned this from Dionysus, the Thracian prophet. He adds that Cassandra will be killed by the wife of Agamemnon, and that Agamemnon himself will be killed by her, with an axe, in “a murderous bath” (lines 1275–1281). Hecuba spurns the prophecy about Cassandra and throws it back at him (line 1276).

Agamemnon orders his servants to drag Polymestor away and cast him on a desert island (lines 1282–1285). He tells Hecuba to bury her two corpses, and the Trojan women to go to their masters’ tents, for he perceives a breeze rising to waft them home: “May we reach our country well and find all well at home, released from troubles here!” (lines 1286–1291). The Chorus ends the play with a line of resignation: they go to the harbor and the tents to endure the toils of slavery, “for such is fate’s relentless hest” (lines 1293–1295).

A Brief Analysis

The plot of Hecuba falls into two parts: the sacrifice of Polyxena (lines 216–582) and Hecuba’s revenge on Polymestor (lines 658–1295). The main figure joins them. Hecuba begins as a suppliant who begs for her daughter’s life, and then, after the loss of her last son, becomes the agent of the revenge: the Trojan women who help her are the captives whom Agamemnon calls the Greeks’ prey and whose strength he doubts (lines 880–887).

Three confrontations between Hecuba and a Greek man shape the middle of the play. With Odysseus (lines 216–437) she appeals to the favor she once did him, and he admits the debt and says he will save her own life, but he refuses her daughter’s because the army’s honor to Achilles demands it (lines 299–315). With Agamemnon (lines 726–904) she appeals to the laws between guest and host and to his love for Cassandra; he is sympathetic but afraid of the army, and he lets her act on condition that she does it without him (lines 850–875, 898–902). With Polymestor (lines 953–1295) she has her revenge, and Agamemnon, who has refused to act for her, rules against Polymestor on the evidence of the gold (lines 1240–1251).

The text itself points to the role of persuasion and the conflict between custom and force. Hecuba asks why mortals study every science but not Persuasion, “the only real mistress of mankind” (lines 814–819); she argues that the laws between guest and host are among the laws by which men believe in the gods (lines 798–805); and she tells Agamemnon that no man is free (lines 864–867). Polymestor’s own defense, that he killed Polydorus to prevent another expedition against Thrace (lines 1136–1144), is answered by Hecuba point by point (lines 1195–1237). The blinding and the killing of the children are carried out inside the tent and are heard only through Polymestor’s cries (lines 1035–1040).

The ending is bitter. Hecuba’s revenge is complete, but Polymestor foretells her transformation, the death of Cassandra and the murder of Agamemnon (lines 1265–1281), and the Chorus goes to slavery (lines 1293–1295). No god intervenes in the play, and the ghosts of Achilles and Polydorus are its only supernatural figures.