Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord
Romans 12:19
Revenge triumphs over death
Francis Bacon, “Of Death”
Literature and law have often been at odds over the concept of revenge. Indeed, revenge is a crux within the field of law, too. Often families feel that the idea of punishment only as a deterrent does not bring justice, while law usually holds that punishment belongs to the state. Recently, a father in Texas beat a rapist to death on the spot for attacking his nine-year-old daughter. He was not even charged, for no jury would convict him. In ancient Greece, revenge was still more acceptable, sometimes even a duty (Mossman, Wild Justice, 169). Literature has frequently presented, and sometimes satisfied, this thirst for blood vengeance, from Achilles’ revenge against his Greek allies and Odysseus’ slaughter of the suitors, to Hamlet and to films like Taxi Driver. While Aeschylus’ Oresteia commemorated a shift from heroic revenge to law, breaking the circle of vengeance, Euripides, in his Medea and Hecuba, continued to dramatize and complicate the act of revenge. These and other Greek revenge plays influenced Shakespeare and many others. Often, as in Euripides, it is women who turn to blood law (McHardy, Revenge, 37–42). Even today.
As victim, Hecuba is the mater dolorosa of classical literature, but, in this play, she turns into la mère sauvage of unmitigated violence in a subtle and forceful tragedy that examines deeply the roots of hatred and revenge. Hecuba’s city was destroyed after her son, Paris, carried off Helen from Sparta to Troy. Ten years of war led to Odysseus’ ruse of the wooden horse, the slaughter of the Trojan men, and the enslavement of the women and children. Hecuba survives the deaths of her husband, children, and city, to suffer on the Greek stage in this play that bears her name and in Trojan Women. The two plays represent the passive and active sides of her ordeal. In Hecuba, she loses her daughter Polyxena, and discovers her dead son Polydorus. The army kills Polyxena, but a tyrant, Polymestor, kills her son, and Hecuba plots revenge. Her passive suffering in the play drives her active revenge in the second half and perhaps her degeneration into the mad dog she becomes in legend (cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, 3.63.13).The story is set in Homeric times but is viewed by Greeks of the later city-state. Her revenge presents a dilemma to the audience: Is her revenge justified? Does she go too far? Euripidean characters often go too far (e.g., Dionysos in the Bacchae and Medea). Euripides stirs up in his audience the desire for revenge at the same time that he questions its validity from a more modern point of view. Ultimately, the viewer must decide—or not.
For some critics, the diptych structure of the play is problematic, showing the degeneration of the Hecuba from the first half of the play. (For various reactions and references, see the Gregory edition, xxxii–xxxiiii.) We must keep in mind that excessive revenge is part of literary legend, as well as ancient and modern psychology and of the victim/avenger plot itself. As in the Hecuba, the violent myth of Philomela, the nightingale, also takes place in Thrace, a similarity that perhaps suggests to Hecuba her comparison of her daughter’s pending atrocity to Philomela’s (338). In the myth, Tereus, King of Thrace, rapes his sister-in-law, Philomela, cuts out her tongue, and walls her up in a castle in the wilderness. She weaves a tapestry, exposing Tereus’ crime, and sends it to her sister, Procne. Procne, Tereus’ wife, kills her and Tereus’ child, Itys, and feeds him to her husband and reveals to him her revenge. Tereus pursues the two women, but the gods transform them into birds: Tereus into the first hawk, Procne into the first swallow, and Philomela into the first nightingale (the species varies a little in different versions). The myth has the archetypal pattern of victim (or victims) and excessive revenge, as in this play, as in Medea’s revenge on Jason, Atreus’ revenge on Thyestes, and Dionysos’ revenge on Pentheus. Later renditions of the betrayal of Polydorus occur in Vergil, Aeneid (3.22–68), and Ovid, Metamorphoses (13.439–575).
Hecuba was perhaps performed in 424 BC. Athens’ reestablishment of the Delian festivals in 426 may be referred to in the play (458–465) and helps to date the Hecuba. The Polyxena story may have come from a lost Polyxena by Sophocles, as an ancient scholiast tells us in his commentary on the first line. The tale also appears in Sack of Troy in the Epic Cycle, and in poems by Ibycus, Simonides, and Stesichorus. In these sources, Achilles’ ghost demands the sacrifice of Polyxena. The second part of the play, Hecuba’s revenge and “trial,” could have its source in Thracian legend or be the creation of Euripides himself.
The drama occurs in Thrace, near the Hellespont, for Greeks a barbarian and barbarous land at a time when there was no law court, and random murder, rape, and outrage were the inevitable outcome of the long Trojan War. The setting and situation challenge Greek and human values. Achilles’ ghost demands the sacrifice of Polyxena for what he has done in battle for the Greeks. Hecuba asks Odysseus to save her because he owes her a favor for saving his life during the war. Odysseus refuses. Polyxena replies that death is better than the slavery she faces. Polymestor violates the sacred bond of host and guest when he kills the young Polydorus for the gold he carries. Priam had sent his son away to save him from the war and carry on his line. Agamemnon must judge the case between Hecuba and Polymestor and admits its difficulty. What are valid bonds and claims? A desperate mother turns to excessive revenge. What values are just and what values remain when society is destroyed? The play ends with Agamemnon’s sigh of understated relief at leaving this vexed case to return to the ease of Greek civilization:
Already I see the winds leading home.
May we have good sailing and see happily
Our homes, setting aside this trouble. (1290–1292)
Do the favoring winds suggest the approval of the gods for Hecuba’s actions (Gregory edition, xxi)?
A series of images of falling reinforces the action. Falling is hardly an unusual image in Greek literature, but here falling is extended in more complex, consistent, and climactic ways. The ghost of Polydorus speaks of “falling” (50) into his mother’s arms when she discovers the body. When Hecuba enters, she is visibly on the verge of toppling like her city, queen of a fallen kingdom. She says of herself:
Bring the old lady, my friends, out front.
Bring and prop up your fellow slave,
Trojan women, before you—a queen!
Grasp, carry, send, raise,
Grab my old hand, too.
Leaning on the curved staff
Of your arm, I shall speed my slow steps
Setting one foot before the other. (60–67)
She does not collapse but falls deliberately at Odysseus’ knees in supplication and asks her daughter Polyxena to do the same (339), but she refuses. Odysseus threatens to drag Polyxena off, and Polyxena pleads with her aged mother not to let herself be thrown down (405–406). Hecuba finally falls in a faint (439–443). In contrast, Talthybius, who comes and raises up Hecuba, relates that the dying Polyxena threw herself on Achilles’ tomb, chastely covering herself (569–570).
The chorus sings that Paris cut down the pine (made into a ship to carry off Helen and bring down Troy) (631–632). Then the fallen body of Polydorus is brought in. Hecuba exclaims:
Disaster falls upon disaster. (690)
She then contemplates falling again as a suppliant, this time at the feet of Agamemnon (737–738). She finally resolves to do it (752–753). Unlike in the former scene with Odysseus, she asks not for mercy but for revenge. The chorus sings a song of the fall of Troy (901–951). Then Hecuba, the personification of the fallen city, tells Polymestor that she is ashamed to be seen “fallen in this misfortune” (971). The chorus assures Polymestor:
Like someone falling into a harborless sea,
You shall fall far short of your heart’s desire. (1025–1026)
These images culminate in the ruined Polymestor’s entrance like an animal, thrown down from human status, to all fours. It is not Hecuba who totters now. She has grown strong with the satisfactions of her revenge. But Polymestor is in extremis:
What torture! Where go? Where stand? Where put in?
Shall I take the way of a four-foot beast
Of the mountains, on my hands tracking some quarry,
This way, turning that way,
Longing to take the man-murdering Trojan women. (1057–1061)
Polymestor counters that Hecuba will fall, too, in the form of a dog from a ships’ mast to her death (1261, 1265). But for Hecuba, revenge means more to her than her fall to death, as she replies in matter-of-fact, blunt, but steadfast, words:
No matter, since you paid me back. (1274)
Note on the Greek Text
Primarily, I have followed the Oxford Classical Text of James Diggle, Euripidis Fabulae, I (1984). (Line numbering corresponds to Diggle’s text, not to my translation.) I have also used the following editions:
G. Murray, Euripides, Euripidis Fabulae, I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1902).
W. S. Hadley, Euripides, The Hecuba of Euripides (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1894), with commentary.
M. Tierney, Euripides, Hecuba (Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1979), with commentary.
C. Collard, Euripides, Hecuba (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1991), with commentary.
D. Kovacs, Euripides, II, Children of Heracles, Hippolytus, Andromache, Hecuba (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).
J. Gregory, Euripides, Hecuba (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), with commentary.
List of Characters
GHOST OF POLYDORUS, son of Hecuba
HECUBA, Queen of Troy
CHORUS of Captive Trojan Women
POLYXENA, daughter of Hecuba
TALTHYBIUS, a herald
FEMALE SERVANT to Hecuba
AGAMEMNON, King of Mycenae
POLYMESTOR, King of Thrace
TWO SONS of Polymestor (silent parts)
(The play takes place in northern Greece in Thrace across the Hellespont from Troy. The stage building is the tent of Agamemnon. One side entrance leads to the sea; the other to the rest of the Greek camp. The GHOST OF POLYDORUS appears on the roof of the stage building.)
GHOST OF POLYDORUS:
Leaving the depths of the dead and the gates
Of shadow, where Hades settled, far from the gods,
I, Polydorus, come, child of Hecuba, Cisseus’ daughter.
My father Priam, when our Phrygian city
| Was in danger of falling to the Greek spear, | 5 |
Feared for my life and smuggled me out of Troy
To Polymestor’s house in foreign Thrace
Where he cultivates the fertile Chersonean plateau
And forces his horse-loving people to rejoice in his power.
| My father sent with me a cache of gold | 10 |
So, if the walls of Troy fell,
His living children would not starve.
Because I was Priam’s youngest, he transported me
Out of the country, neither to bear a shield
| Nor a spear, for my arm was young. | 15 |
While the boundary stones stayed upright
And the Trojan towers unbroken
And brother Hector triumphed with his spear,
I grew strong under my Thracian father’s
| Nurturing, like some young shoot—all for misery! | 20 |
When Troy and Hector’s soul were destroyed,
The family hearth uprooted, and father
Fallen before the god-built altar,
Jugular split by the bloody child of Achilles,
| Then my father’s friend murdered me for gold | 25 |
And plunged me into the swell of the sea,
So he might keep the gold in his house.
I lay on the beaches and in the roiling sea,
Back and forth in the running track of the waves,
| Unwept, unburied. Now I dart above Hecuba, | 30 |
My dear mother, abandoning my body,
Floating now for the third day,
The same three days my ruined mother
Is here in the Chersonese from Troy.
| In spite of their ships, the Greeks | 35 |
Idle on the Thracian shore. Peleus’ son,
Achilles, appeared above his tomb
And held back the whole army
Even those piloting the ships home.
| He asked for my sister Polyxena, | 40 |
as his own victim to honor his tomb.
And it shall be done. Nor shall he
Be without gifts from his friends. Fate
Leads my sister to death this day.
| My mother shall look upon two children’s | 45 |
Corpses, mine and my wretched sister’s.
To bury me and my suffering, I shall appear
Before the feet of a slave girl in the waves.
I have prayed to the powers below for a tomb
| And to fall into my mother’s hands. | 50 |
The very thing that will happen.
Now I shall get out of Hecuba’s way.
She walks out from Agamemnon’s tent,
Fearing her dream vision of me.
—What misery!—
| O mother, you who see a slave’s day | 55 |
After a king’s house, how horribly you fare
As you once fared well. Some god
Wrecks you, balancing former fortune.
(GHOST OF POLYDORUS exits.)
(HECUBA enters.)
HECUBA:
| Bring the old lady, my friends, out front. | 60 |
Bring and prop up your fellow slave,
Trojan women, before you—a queen!
Grasp, carry, send, raise,
Grab my old hand, too.
| Leaning on the curved staff | 65 |
Of your arm, I shall speed my slow steps
Setting one foot before the other.
O lightning of Zeus, darkness of night,
Why am I shaken in the dark
| By fearful phantoms? O revered Earth, | 70 |
Mother of black-winged dreams,
I drive off a fearful apparition of the night
In which I learned in a dream about my child
Who was saved in Thrace
| And my dear daughter Polyxena. | 75 |
O deities of earth, save my child
| Who, lone anchor of our house, | 80 |
Lives in snowy Thrace
Under the guardianship of a fatherly friend.
Something new shall come to pass,
Some mournful song for those in mourning.
| Never has my heart so relentlessly | 85 |
Shivered, so feared.
Where may I see the divine soul of Helenus,
My women, and see Cassandra,
So they may interpret my dreams?
| I saw in the bloody maw of a wolf a spotted deer | 90 |
Slaughtered, snatched from my knees.
And this further terror:
Above the top of his tomb came
The ghost of the head of Achilles. He asked
| For some present from the suffering Trojans. | 95 |
Gods, send this ghost away, far far away
From my child, I beg you.
(CHORUS enters.)
CHORUS:
Hecuba, I have slipped out to you quickly
Leaving my master’s tent,
| Forced there as a slave | 100 |
Driven far from the Trojan
City at spear point,
Hunted down by the Achaean spear.
I bring no relief for your sorrow,
| Distraught by the weight of bad news, | 105 |
A herald, grieving for you, lady.
It is said to be decreed in the full assembly
Of the Achaeans that your daughter
Be made a victim to Achilles. As you know
| He appeared above his tomb with golden weapons | 110 |
And held back the seafaring ships
That billowed their sails to the forestays.
He shouted out: “Where, Danaans,
Are you going without setting a gift of honor
| On my tomb?” | 115 |
Waves of great strife clashed:
Opinion split the warrior force
Of the Greeks in two: whether it seemed best
To give the tomb a victim, or not.
| Urging what’s right for you, | 120 |
Agamemnon was faithful to the bed
Of your bacchic daughter Cassandra.
But the sons of Theseus, the double branches
Of Athens, both orators, spoke
| And held one opinion: | 125 |
To crown Achilles’ tomb
With fresh blood, and not, they said,
To value the bed of Cassandra
Above the spear of Achilles.
| Strained words held equal weight | 130 |
On both sides, until the wily liar,
The sweet crowd-pleaser,
Son of Laertes, persuaded the army
Not to insult the best of all the Danaans
| Over the mere sacrificing of a slave. | 135 |
Nor should anyone of the wasted dead
Standing in Persephone’s house say
The Danaans left the plains of Troy
Without thanking those Danaans
| Who died for Greece. | 140 |
Odysseus comes right now
To drag your child from your breasts,
To rip her from your old hands.
But go to the temples, go to the altars,
| Sit suppliant at Agamemnon’s knees. | 145 |
Summon the gods both of heaven and hell.
Either your prayers will keep
You from losing your unhappy child.
Or you must look on the girl
| Falling before the tomb, | 150 |
Her throat decked in gold
And pouring out a scarlet flood.
HECUBA:
Wretched, what shall I say?
| What lament, what lament can I make, | 155 |
Rotten from rotten old age,
Unbearable slavery
Unendurable? How I’m ruined.
Who defends me? What family,
| What city? My husband gone. | 160 |
My children gone.
Do I go this way or that?
Where shall I feel safe?
Where is the god or divinity to help me?
| O my Trojan women, bringers of pain, | 165 |
Bringers of pain,
You have devastated, devastated me.
For me, life in the daylight
Holds no more pleasure.
| Worn-out feet, lead, lead | 170 |
This old woman
To this tent. O child, O daughter
Of a most unhappy mother, come,
Come out of the tent. Hear
| Your mother’s voice, child, so you may know | 175 |
What, what I hear reported about your life.
(POLYXENA enters.)
POLYXENA:
Mother, mother, what are you shouting? What news
Do you bring, scaring me from the tent
Like a frighted bird?
HECUBA:
| Ah, my child! | 180 |
POLYXENA:
Why that cry? An evil omen for me.
HECUBA:
It’s for your life!
POLYXENA:
Speak out. Don’t keep it from me longer.
Your lament, mother,
| Terrifies me. | 185 |
HECUBA:
Child, a miserable mother’s child!
POLYXENA:
What news do you bring?
HECUBA:
By common consent, the Argives
Are determined to sacrifice you at the tomb
| For Peleus’ son. | 190 |
What do you mean, mother?
Explain such sad horrors,
Mother, explain it to me!
HECUBA:
I speak cursed words, child.
| By vote of the Argives, a decree | 195 |
goes out upon your life.
POLYXENA:
Suffering all, my wretched
Mother with a star-crossed life,
What more hateful
| And unspeakable outrage | 200 |
Has some deity brought you?
I’m your child no longer,
No longer the sad sharer of your hard age,
Your fellow slave.
| Like a cub reared in the mountains | 205 |
Or calf—O, poor us—
You shall see me carried off from your hands,
My throat cut, sent down to the darkness of earth
To hell. There with the dead
| I shall bed down, wretched. | 210 |
Mother, I weep for miserable you,
In all-out lament.
I don’t weep for my life,
An outrage and a ruin.
| My death is the better fortune. | 215 |
CHORUS:
Odysseus comes here in haste, Hecuba,
Signaling some news for you.
ODYSSEUS:
Woman, I think you know the army’s verdict
And the vote cast. However, I shall tell you:
| It was decreed by the Achaeans to sacrifice your daughter, | 220 |
Polyxena, at the tall mound of Achilles’ tomb.
They appointed me her guide and conductor.
The son of Achilles shall preside as performer
Of the sacrifice and as priest. You know
| What’s to be done. Don’t let her be dragged by force, | 225 |
Or you fight hand-to-hand with me.
Know your strength and how bad off you are.
You need to think wisely, even in disaster.
HECUBA:
My god! A great struggle appears here,
| Full of groans and not empty of tears. | 230 |
I did not die when I should have.
Zeus didn’t destroy me but nourishes
Poor me to see greater evils still.
If a slave may question a free man,
| Without insult or torturing the heart, | 235 |
I have the right to ask,
And you to listen to my questions.
ODYSSEUS:
You may. Ask. I’ll give you time.
HECUBA:
You know when you came as a spy to Troy,
| A wreck in rags, and drops of blood | 240 |
Trickled from your eyes?
Yes, it touched my heart deeply.
HECUBA:
Did Helen know you and tell me alone?
ODYSSEUS:
I remember I was in great danger.
HECUBA:
| Humbly did you grasp my knees? | 245 |
ODYSSEUS:
So much my hand went numb on your robe.
HECUBA:
What did you say, being my slave?
ODYSSEUS:
Many reasons not to die.
HECUBA:
Did I not save you and send you out of the land?
ODYSSEUS:
| So I might see this sunlight. | 250 |
HECUBA:
Have you not turned bad with this edict,
You who got from me what you say?
You do nothing good for us but all the evil you can.
Yours is a thankless generation, seeking
| A demagogue’s honors. Be far from me, | 255 |
You who don’t care about ruining your friends,
If you say something pleasing to the mob.
But with what wisdom did your leaders
Vote to murder this child?
| The need to bring human sacrifice to the tomb | 260 |
Where it is more fitting to kill oxen?
Or does Achilles, wishing to kill his killers,
Justly demand her death for his?
But she did him no wrong.
| It is Helen he must demand for a tomb-sacrifice, | 265 |
That woman destroyed him, brought him to Troy.
If a captive must be picked out to die
And be of superior beauty, that is not our lot.
Tydareus’ daughter is the most extraordinary beauty,
| A doer of evil second to none of us. | 270 |
I challenge the justice of this case.
But hear what you must pay me back.
You say you touched my hand
And this old cheek as a suppliant.
| I, in return, touch yours. | 275 |
So I demand this favor, and I supplicate you:
Don’t tear my child from my hands!
Don’t kill her! Enough of killing.
I rejoice in her and forget my troubles.
She is my soul’s image, making up for many things:
| My city, my nurse, my cane, my leader of the way. | 280 |
The powerful should not prevail when wrong.
Nor the lucky think they will do well always.
I was lucky once, but am no longer.
| One day took all my prosperity from me. | 285 |
I beg you by your beard, feel for me.
Go counsel the Achaean army
Women you didn’t kill at first,
| But took from altars in pity. | 290 |
Your law about bloodletting
Is the same for free men and for slaves.
Your honor will persuade them, even if you speak poorly.
The speech of dishonorable men
| And honorable men does not have equal force. | 295 |
CHORUS:
No nature is so hard that, hearing your cries
And the dirge of your great laments,
Would not drop a tear.
ODYSSEUS:
Hecuba, be instructed and in your anger don’t make
| One speaking well an enemy in your heart. | 300 |
I was fortunate then, and I am ready
To save your life. I won’t say otherwise.
But what I said in front of all, I won’t deny:
Troy being taken, give the army’s
| First man your child, the sacrifice he demands. | 305 |
Many cities suffer for this reason:
When someone is noble and aggressive,
He gets no more than the cowards.
To us, Achilles is worthy of honor, lady,
| A man who died for Greece in the most beautiful way. | 310 |
Is it not a disgrace if we treat him as a friend
When alive and mistreat him when he is dead?
So. What will someone say if the army
Gathers again and renews the struggles
| Of war? Will we fight, or hold back, | 315 |
When we see the dead unhonored?
When I am alive, if I have little
Day to day, all would be well.
I wish to know that my tomb
| Will be honored. Gratitude at last. | 320 |
If you say you suffer miserably, listen:
We have old women and men
Far more pitiable than you,
Brides deprived of the best bridegrooms.
| Mount Ida’s dust covers their bodies. | 325 |
Endure it! If we think wrongly to honor
The worthy, we deserve to be called stupid.
You barbarians don’t believe friends are friends
Or admire those who died heroically.
| In this, Greece is fortunate, and you get | 330 |
What you deserve for your ideas.
CHORUS:
Oh me! Slavery, always evil by nature,
Endures what is wrong, conquered by force.
HECUBA:
O daughter, my argument about your murder
| Is thrown useless to the winds. | 335 |
And you, if you have more power at all
Than your mother, hurry and hurl all your voice
Like the nightingale’s, that they take not your life.
Pitiably fall before Odysseus’ knees
| And persuade him. You have your plea: | 340 |
For he has children and so may pity your fate.
POLYXENA:
I see you hiding your right hand
Under your cloak, Odysseus, and turning
Your face away so I won’t touch your beard.
| Be at ease. You’re free from my Zeus of the Suppliants. | 345 |
I accept the favor of necessity
And the need to die. If I wish otherwise,
I appear a coward too in love with life.
Why should I live? My father was lord
| Of all Phrygia. This was my birth. | 350 |
Then I was raised with great hopes
To be a bride for a king, to cause no small competition
In marriage for him whose house and hearth I should come to.
Unfortunate, I was the mistress among the Idaean
| Virgins and women, gazed upon by all, | 355 |
Equal to gods, except in death.
First I’m a slave now. The unaccustomed
Name makes me want to die.
Then, I’ll get the brute heart
| Of a master buying me for silver, | 360 |
Me, the sister of Hector and many others,
Making me grind corn in their homes,
Forcing me to live wretched days,
Sweep the house, be set to weaving.
| A slave bought somewhere will pollute | 365 |
My bed, once worthy of kings.
No! I take the sunlight from my free eyes
And give my dead body to Hades.
Come, Odysseus, lead me to my end,
| As for me I see no reason to hope | 370 |
Or believe that I should ever fare well.
Mother, don’t block my way
In word or deed. Encourage me to die
Before disgraceful things, unworthy of me, happen.
| Who is not accustomed to experience evil, | 375 |
Endures it, but sets his neck in the yoke with pain.
Not to live nobly is to suffer greatly.
CHORUS:
Wonderful is the stamped coin of those
| Born noble, and the fame of high birth | 380 |
Increases in those who are worthy.
HECUBA:
You spoke nobly, but in that nobility
Lies the outrage. If it is necessary
To honor Peleus’ son to keep free
| Of blame, Odysseus, don’t kill her. | 385 |
Take me and stab me before Achilles’ mound.
Don’t spare me. I gave birth to Paris
Who killed Thetis’ son with his bowstring.
ODYSSEUS:
Not you, old woman, Achilles’ ghost
| Asked the Achaeans to kill her. | 390 |
HECUBA:
But kill me with her.
There will be twice the drink of blood
For earth and corpse that he demanded.
ODYSSEUS:
Your daughter’s death is enough. No more
| In addition. Would we didn’t have to do this. | 395 |
HECUBA:
I must die with my daughter!
ODYSSEUS:
What? I didn’t know I had a master.
I’ll cling to her like the ivy to the oak.
ODYSSEUS:
No, if you will be persuaded by the wiser.
HECUBA:
| I won’t willingly give up this child. | 400 |
ODYSSEUS:
But I won’t leave here without taking her.
POLYXENA:
Mother, listen. You, son of Laertes,
Indulge an angry parent a little.
And you, poor woman, don’t fight the strong.
| Do you want them to throw you on the ground | 405 |
And drag your old flesh by force,
Be shamed and torn by young arms?
You shall suffer these things. Don’t! You are above it.
Dearest mother, give me your sweet hand
| And lay your cheek on mine. | 410 |
For never again, now for the last time,
I look upon the light of the sun.
You have the end of my speeches.
Mother, my source of life, I’m dying.
HECUBA:
| O daughter, in the light of life, I shall slave. | 415 |
POLYXENA:
No marriage, no marriage song: I must die.
HECUBA:
Wretched you, child, and miserable me.
I shall lie in hell without you.
HECUBA:
O, what shall I do? How end my life?
POLYXENA:
| I shall die a slave from a free father. | 420 |
HECUBA:
And I, fifty children gone!
POLYXENA:
What shall I say to Hector and your aged husband?
HECUBA:
Say I’m the most miserable of all.
POLYXENA:
O breasts, breasts that nourished me sweetly!
HECUBA:
| O miserable daughter of untimely death! | 425 |
POLYXENA:
Farewell, mother, farewell, Cassandra.
HECUBA:
Others fare well, not me.
POLYXENA:
And to my brother, Polydorus, in horse-loving Thrace.
HECUBA:
If he lives. I doubt it. I’m doomed in everything.
| He lives, and shall close your dead eyes. | 430 |
HECUBA:
I am dead from disasters, before I die.
POLYXENA:
Odysseus, come wrap my head in my cloak.
Before I perish, my heart has melted
In my mother’s laments, and I dissolve in tears.
| O sunlight, I can speak your name only | 435 |
For the time I walk from here to
The sword and Achilles’ funeral pyre.
(POLYXENA and ODYSSEUS exit.)
HECUBA:
I’m fainting. My limbs give way. My daughter,
Touch and take your mother’s hand.
| Don’t leave me childless. I am destroyed, my friends. | 440 |
May I see Spartan Helen, sister of the Dioscuri,
Led off like that, for with her beautiful eyes
She most shamefully captivated prosperous Troy.
CHORUS:
Breeze, ocean breeze,
| Sending swift sails | 445 |
On the swell of stagnant water, where
Will you carry wretched me?
To slave in what man’s house,
A bought possession?
| To the haven of a Doric land? | 450 |
Or, to the Phthian land
Where the Apidanos, father
Of beautiful waters, makes sweet the plains?
| Or island place, | 455 |
Sending poor me
By the sweeping oars to painful rooms
Where the firstborn date palm rose
And laurel, sacred shoot,
| So dear to Leto, | 460 |
The glory of the son of Zeus?
Or with the Delian girls,
Will I praise the golden headband
| And bow of the goddess Artemis? | 465 |
Or in Athens
Embroider a saffron
robe, yoked colts,
Athena’s great chariot,
| In skillful weave | 470 |
On my flowery loom,
Or, how Zeus, the son
Of Kronos put to sleep
The Titan race with double lightning?
| O my children, | 475 |
My fathers and land
Destroyed by smoke,
A smoldering spear-prize
Of the Achaeans.
| I am called a slave | 480 |
In a foreign land,
Exchange my home for Europe,
And have a bed in hell with Hades.
(TALTHYBIUS enters.)
Where would I find Hecuba, once
| Queen of Ilium, Trojan women? | 485 |
CHORUS:
This is she close by, her back to the ground,
Talthybius. She lies wrapped in her robe.
TALTHYBIUS:
O, Zeus, shall I say you watch over man,
Or possess this reputation for nothing,
| Falsely seeming to be a race of gods, | 490 |
While chance rules all in mortal affairs?
Was this not the queen of Phrygians rich in gold?
Not the wife of most prosperous Priam?
The whole city now depopulated by the spear,
| And this old slave woman, childless, lies | 495 |
Dirtying her cursed head with dust.
What sorrow! I’m an old man, like to die
Before some shameful fate trips me up.
Rise, miserable woman. From the ground
| Lift your body, your all-white head. | 500 |
HECUBA:
Leave off. Who won’t allow my body
To lie here? Who are you to move me grieving?
TALTHYBIUS:
I’ve come, Talthybius, officer of the Danaans.
Agamemnon sent me after you, my lady.
HECUBA:
| O how I love you! You come to sacrifice | 505 |
Me on the tomb by decree of the Achaeans?
How sweet your words! Take me quickly, old man.
TALTHYBIUS:
That you may bury your dead daughter
I have come to find you. The two sons of Atreus
| And the Achaean people sent me. | 510 |
HECUBA:
What will you say? You did not come
For my death but to declare bad news?
You are destroyed, child, snatched from your mother.
To you I am childless, poor me!
| How did you end her life? Decently? | 515 |
Or did you kill her outrageously, like an enemy,
Old man? Speak those hateful words.
TALTHYBIUS:
You want me to cry twice, lady,
Out of pity for your daughter. Telling the horror,
| I shall drop tears, as when she was wrecked | 520 |
At the tomb. The whole Achaean army was there
In full by the tomb for your child’s slaughter.
Achilles’ son took Polyxena by the hand,
Setting her on top of the mound. I was near.
| Chosen young men followed to hold down | 525 |
With their hands the leaping of your calf.
Taking a full, solid-gold cup in his hand,
Achilles’ son raised a libation
To his dead father. He signaled me
| To proclaim silence to the whole Achaean army. | 530 |
Standing beside them, I said,
“Be silent, Achaeans. Let the whole army
Be still.” I calmed the multitude.
He said, “O child of Peleus, my father,
| Receive my soothing libations that bring | 535 |
Up the dead. Come and drink
The pure, dark blood of a girl, which I
And the army give you. Favor us:
Let us loosen the sterns and ships’ cables
| And all favorably return from Ilium | 540 |
To come to our native land.”
So he spoke, and every soldier prayed.
Then grabbing the gold-chased sword by the handle,
He drew it from the sheath and nodded
| To the chosen young men to take the virgin. | 545 |
When she saw this, she gave out these words:
“O Argives, sackers of my city, I die
Willingly. Let no one hold my body.
I shall give my throat with all my heart.
| Kill me free before the gods, | 550 |
As I die, a free woman. Being a princess,
I am ashamed to be called a slave among the dead.”
The people roared approval, and Lord Agamemnon
Told the young men to let the virgin go.
| [As soon as they heard his last word | 555 |
Who held the highest power, they let her go.]
And when she heard the general’s words,
She took the robe at the top of the shoulder
And ripped it below the ribs by the navel,
| Exposing her breasts and chest as gorgeous | 560 |
As a statue. Setting her knees on the ground
She spoke the bravest words of all.
“There, strike this, young man, if you are eager
To strike my breast. If you need to strike
| Below my neck, my throat is ready.” | 565 |
And he, wishing, and unwishing, out of pity for the girl,
Cut her windpipe with the iron.
A spring gushed forth. Dying, she had, nevertheless,
The great foresight to fall chastely,
| Hiding what should be hid from men’s eyes. | 570 |
When the breath had left the deadly sacrifice,
The Argives had different tasks.
Some sprinkled leaves with their hands
On the dead girl. Others brought pine logs
| And heaped up the pyre. Anyone not bringing | 575 |
Something heard reproaches from a carrier,
“Are you standing there, you sluggard, not having a robe
Or ornament in your hands for the young woman?
Why are you not giving to this great heart
| And exceptional soul.” I say such things about your dead child | 580 |
And see that you are most blest with children
And the most cursed of women.
CHORUS:
Some horrible disaster of fate and the gods
Roils over Priam’s children and my city.
HECUBA:
| O daughter, I don’t know what trouble to look at | 585 |
Among so many. If I attend to one,
Another won’t let me, and some other grief
Calls me, a chain of evil after evil.
And now I can’t not grieve
| Your calamity, wiping it from my heart. | 590 |
But you take away much of my grief,
Proclaiming your high birth.
How strange,
If, by luck from the gods, bad earth bears
Good grain, and good, missing what it needs,
| Yields bad fruit. But ever with men: | 595 |
The bad are nothing other than bad,
And the noble noble, nor in misfortune
Do they corrupt their natures, but are good always.
Does birth or raising prevail?
| Nevertheless, goodness can be nurtured | 600 |
And learned well. If someone learns well, he knows
What is disgraceful by learning the standard of goodness.
The mind, of course, aims at these heights in vain.
Come tell this to the Argives:
| Don’t touch my daughter, but keep the mob | 605 |
From her. You know the crowd of soldiers
Is unruly and sailors more anarchy
Than fire: he is a coward who does nothing evil.
(TALTHYBIUS exits.)
(To a FEMALE SERVANT.)
You, old woman, take a basin,
| Dip it and bring seawater here, | 610 |
So I shall wash her with her final bath,
Virginal and married in death, married
And not, and lay her out, as is right. But how?
As well as I can—What can I do?—
| Collecting ornaments from the war captives | 615 |
Who sit with me in these soldiers’ quarters,
If anyone without their masters’ noticing,
Has something stolen from her own home.
(FEMALE SERVANT exits.)
O glorious house! O once fortunate home!
| O Priam, most wonderfully endowed | 620 |
With children, and I this old mother of children,
How we came to nothing, robbed of our pride!
Do we ride high indeed then,
One of us acclaimed for wealthy estates,
| Another honored among the citizens? | 625 |
These are nothings. Mere structures of thought
And brags of speech. That man fares best
To whom nothing evil happens day by day.
(HECUBA exits.)
CHORUS:
Disaster had to come to me,
| Misery was in store, | 630 |
When Alexandros first cut down
Idaean pine to sail
The ocean’s surge to Helen’s bed.
| The golden light of the sun | 635 |
Lighted up
The most beautiful of women.
The pain and necessity, greater
than the pain, surround me.
| A widespread evil from one man’s folly | 640 |
On the Simoin land,
Destruction and disaster came
From others. Strife was the shepherd’s
| Judgment | 645 |
On three goddesses on Ida
And war and murder, my home in ruins.
| Some Spartan girl at home laments | 650 |
With many tears beside the fine-flowing Eurotas,
And a mother of dead children
| Sets her hands to her gray hair and rakes her cheeks, | 655 |
Bloodying her nails with her tearing.
(FEMALE SERVANT enters with attendants carrying a body on a bier.)
FEMALE SERVANT:
Where is Hecuba, cursed in everything,
Conqueror of every race of man and woman
| In sorrow? No one will dispute that crown. | 660 |
CHORUS:
What is it, wretched woman with a wretched voice?
How announcements of my sorrows never sleep!
FEMALE SERVANT:
I bring Hecuba this sorrow. It is not easy
For mortal tongues to speak well in misery.
(HECUBA enters.)
| She happens to be leaving her tent, | 665 |
Appearing in time for your news.
FEMALE SERVANT:
Lady, suffering more than I can say.
Dead, you still see the light,
Childless, man-less, city-less, a ruin.
HECUBA:
| You say nothing new but taunt one who knows. | 670 |
But why do you bring me Polyxena’s corpse,
Her tomb was decreed to be
The business of every Achaean hand?
FEMALE SERVANT (to herself):
She sees nothing, but laments Polyxena
| To me and does not notice fresh disasters. | 675 |
HECUBA:
Oh me! You are not bringing here
The bacchic body of the prophetess Cassandra?
FEMALE SERVANT:
She you cry for lives. You don’t lament
This dead man. Look on the body stripped.
| See if this marvel is beyond belief! | 680 |
HECUBA:
O sorrow! I see my dead child, Polydorus.
The Thracian saved him for me in his home.
I am wrecked by misfortune. I am no more.
O child, O child
| I start the bacchic rite. | 685 |
Just now learned
From a demon of destruction.
FEMALE SERVANT:
You perceive your child’s death, poor woman?
HECUBA:
I suffer the unbelievable, the unbelievable, the new and the new.
| Disaster falls upon disaster. | 690 |
No day shall ever pass
Without a tear, without a groan.
CHORUS:
We suffer, sad woman, terrible, terrible pain.
HECUBA:
O child, O child of a sad mother,
| By what fate did you perish? By what destiny do you lie dead? | 695 |
By what hand?
CHORUS:
I don’t know. I found him on the beach.
HECUBA:
A castaway, or victim of a bloody spear
| Upon the sandy shore? | 700 |
A sea wave took him from the water.
HECUBA:
O god, my god, I understand
That dream before my eyes
—The black-winged phantom
| Did not delude me—That | 705 |
I saw about you, child,
No longer in the light of Zeus.
CHORUS:
Who killed him? Can you read the dream?
HECUBA:
| My host, my host, a Thracian knight, | 710 |
Where his old father sent him secretly.
CHORUS:
What do you mean? He killed him for gold?
HECUBA:
Unspeakable, unnamable, beyond belief,
| Unholy and unbearable! Where is the justice for the guest? | 715 |
O most abominable of men. How you have torn
His flesh and with a sword of iron
| Have slashed his limbs and had no pity on my child. | 720 |
CHORUS:
Miserable lady, some god sets hard
Upon you, suffering everything.
But I see the figure of Lord Agamemnon.
| So let us be silent, my friends. | 725 |
AGAMEMNON:
Hecuba, why do you delay to bury
Your child in the tomb? Talthybius told me
You said no Greek should touch your daughter.
We agreed and did not touch her.
| You waste time, which amazes me. | 730 |
I came to take you away. Everything is done
Well there—if such a thing can be done well.
Wait! What dead Trojan do I see
By the tent? The clothes he wears
| Tell me he’s no Greek. | 735 |
HECUBA (to herself):
Wretched you—I mean myself—
Hecuba, what shall I do? Fall
At Agamemnon’s knees, or bear trouble in silence?
AGAMEMNON:
Why do you cry and turn your back to my face,
| And not say what happened? Who is this? | 740 |
HECUBA:
But if he thinks I’m a slave and enemy
And shoves me away, I’ll suffer.
AGAMEMNON:
I was not born a prophet, who, not
Hearing, shall divine your ways.
HECUBA:
| Do I calculate more hostility | 745 |
In this man’s mind than there is?
If you want me to know nothing
Of this, good. I want to hear nothing.
HECUBA:
I can’t avenge my children without him.
| Why am I debating this? | 750 |
I must risk it, whether I succeed, or not.
Agamemnon, I supplicate your knees
And beard and fortunate right hand.
AGAMEMNON:
What do you need? Is it not to set
| Free your life? That’s easily done. | 755 |
HECUBA:
Not at all. Avenging myself on evil men,
I would gladly slave my whole life.
AGAMEMNON:
What help do you want?
HECUBA:
Nothing that you imagine, my lord.
| You see this corpse I cry for? | 760 |
AGAMEMNON:
I do. But what it means I can’t tell.
HECUBA:
I bore him once, carried him in my womb.
Which child is it, poor woman?
HECUBA:
Not one of Priam’s sons who died at Troy.
AGAMEMNON:
| You bore another son, my lady? | 765 |
HECUBA:
For nothing, it seems. You see him.
AGAMEMNON:
Where was he when the city was destroyed?
HECUBA:
His father sent him away, dreading his death.
AGAMEMNON:
Where did he go, that single child of yours?
HECUBA:
| To this country, where he was found dead. | 770 |
AGAMEMNON:
To the man who rules this country, Polymestor?
HECUBA:
He was sent here, guardian of the cruelest gold.
AGAMEMNON:
Who, what evil fate brought his death?
Who else? His Thracian host killed him.
AGAMEMNON:
| The bastard, was he so in love with gold? | 775 |
HECUBA:
Of course. When he knew the misfortune of the Trojans.
AGAMEMNON:
Where did you find him? Who brought the body?
HECUBA:
This woman, happening to be on the beach.
AGAMEMNON:
Searching for him, or laboring on her own?
HECUBA:
| She went to get bathwater from the sea for Polyxena. | 780 |
AGAMEMNON:
His host killed him, it seems, and threw him into the sea.
HECUBA:
Beaten by the sea, hacked by the sword.
AGAMEMNON:
Poor woman of immeasurable sorrow!
HECUBA:
Devastation, Agamemnon, and no misery not mine.
AGAMEMNON:
| What agony! What woman born so luckless! | 785 |
None. Except Misfortune herself.
But for the reason I fall at your knees,
Listen. If I appear to suffer by divine law,
I am content. If not, be my avenger
| On this most sacrilegious man and host, | 790 |
Who, fearing no gods below or above,
Committed a most sacrilegious crime.
Often we shared a table, him first
In rank for hospitality among my guests.
| So many obligations, such honor—and he kills my boy! | 795 |
Beyond planning and killing him, he thought him
Unworthy of a grave and flung him into the sea.
I am a slave, and perhaps weak, but the gods
Are strong, and their laws stronger still.
| Because of laws, we believe in gods, | 800 |
And we live determining right and wrong.
It’s up to you, if the law will be corrupted,
And they go unpunished who murder guests
Or dare to plunder temples of the gods,
| Then, there is no justice for men. | 805 |
Believing such crimes a disgrace, avenge me.
Pity me. Stand back
Like a painter and view my sufferings,
A queen once, but now your slave;
| Fortunate in children once, now old, and childless, too; | 810 |
City-less, deserted, most miserable of mortals.
No, no, where are you turning your step?
You’ll do nothing, it seems. O my misery!
Why do we mortals labor for other knowledge
| And search everything as we should, | 815 |
But Persuasion, the queen of the arts,
We don’t struggle at all to learn well.
By paying a Sophist a fee, we could learn
How to get whatever we happen to want.
| Why then should anyone hope to succeed? | 820 |
I no longer have children, a ruin myself,
A spear-captive for dirty chores.
I see the smoke of my city leap up.
(Perhaps this part of my argument will prove useless:
| Bringing in Aphrodite. Nevertheless, it must be said.) | 825 |
My mantic daughter lies by your side,
Whom the Phrygians call Cassandra.
Where will you show your happy love, my lord?
What thanks for the dearest embraces in bed
| Will my child get, or I, too? | 830 |
In the darkness and charm of the night,
Mortals have their greatest pleasure.
Listen: You see this dead man?
Doing right by our family connection,
| You do right by him. My argument misses | 835 |
One thing: if my voice were in my arms
Or hands or hair or bottom of my feet
By Daedalus’ skills or some god’s,
How everything would hold your knees,
| Crying out every word there is. | 840 |
My master, O great light of Greece,
Do this! Put forth your avenging hand
For an old woman, although she’s nothing—still!
The good man serves justice,
| And punishes the bad—always. | 845 |
CHORUS:
A mystery how all things fall out for mortals,
And the laws of necessity draw the line,
Turning the worst enemies into friends,
Making those once gentle into enemies.
AGAMEMNON:
| I pity you and your child and your misfortunes, | 850 |
Hecuba, and your suppliant hand.
For the sake of gods and men, I want to bring
This unholy man to justice for you,
If it seems right to do well by you
| And not appear to the army to favor Cassandra | 855 |
To plot this death on a Thracian lord.
One thing bothers me:
The army sees this man a friend
And the dead man an enemy. If he’s my friend,
| That’s no business of the army. | 860 |
Think of this: You have me
Sympathetic, eager to help you,
But reluctant to challenge the Achaeans.
HECUBA:
Good god!
There is no mortal who is free.
| Either one is a slave for money or for fate. | 865 |
Or a city mob or written laws
Keep him from using his resolution.
Since you fear—and care—so much for the mob,
I shall set you free—from fear.
| Join me if I plot a crime | 870 |
In killing this man, but don’t do it.
If there’s any outburst from the Achaeans
Or aid for the Thracian suffering what he will,
Stop it, without seeming to do it for me.
| Have no fear. I shall set the rest right. | 875 |
How then? What will you do? Taking a sword
In your old hand kill a barbarian man?
By poison? With what help?
Whose hand is with you? Where are your friends?
HECUBA:
| This roof conceals a mob of women. | 880 |
AGAMEMNON:
You mean these captives, hunted down by Greeks?
HECUBA:
With them I shall avenge myself on my murderer.
AGAMEMNON:
How shall women have power over men?
HECUBA:
Numbers are terrifying, unconquerable with a plot.
AGAMEMNON:
| Terrifying, but I have doubts about the women. | 885 |
HECUBA:
Why? Did women not kill Aegyptus’ sons,
Not depopulate Lemnos of men completely?
Let it be so here. Enough talk.
(Pointing to a SERVANT.)
Send that woman safely through the army
| For me. Go say to my Thracian host, | 890 |
“Hecuba, once queen of Troy, summons you—
Your business no less than hers—and your sons.
Your children must hear her words.”
Agamemnon, hold back the funeral rites
| For the newly killed Polyxena, so brother | 895 |
And sister will be one fire, a double care
For a mother, and covered with earth.
AGAMEMNON:
So it shall be. If the army could sail,
I could not give you this favor.
| But now no god sends favoring winds. | 900 |
We must calmly wait a chance to sail.
May it turn out well. All agree:
For each one and his city: That evil
Shall suffer some evil, and the good prosper.
(AGAMEMNON and attendants with bier exit.)
CHORUS:
| O fatherland of Ilium, | 905 |
No longer will you be called unsacked,
Such a cloud of Greeks covers you,
Wastes you, spear by spear,
| Your crown of towers | 910 |
Cut down, most pitifully stained,
Defiled by ash.
O ruined town I shall no longer haunt you.
I was destroyed at midnight,
| When after my dinner, sleep spread sweetly | 915 |
On my eyes, and song, dance were done,
Sacrifices, too,
| His spear was hung upon its peg. | 920 |
He could not see
The many sailors stepping on Troy’s shore.
I was arranging in the net
My curls to bind my hair,
| Gazing into the boundless gleam of a golden mirror, | 925 |
Upon the sheets about to fall in bed.
A cry rose to the citadel.
This call went through Troy city:
| “Children of the Greeks, when, | 930 |
When will you wreck Troy’s acropolis
—And go to your home!”
I left my loving bed, half-nude
Just like a Spartan girl.
| Praying before blest Artemis. Wretched me got nothing. | 935 |
I saw my husband killed, and I was taken
Out on the bitter sea. I turned
And looked upon the city
| As the ship sped homeward, | 940 |
Cutting me off from the Trojan land
—I fainted in sorrow.
A curse on Helen, sister of the Dioscuri, and the Idaean shepherd,
| Monstrous Paris, | 945 |
Since he tore me from my native land.
Their marriage, that was not a marriage, forced me
From my home, some revenge from hell.
| May the sea not take her back, | 950 |
May she never find her fatherland!
(POLYMESTOR enters with his TWO SONS.)
POLYMESTOR:
O Priam, most beloved of men, and you
Beloved Hecuba, I weep seeing you
| And your city and your daughter just killed. | 955 |
What misery!
Nothing can be trusted: Not good reputation.
Not doing right, for that ends badly.
The gods mix things back and forth,
Adding in an uproar so we might honor them
| In ignorance. But why lament things | 960 |
That get us nowhere in the face of evil?
But if you blame my absence, hold off.
I was away in the interior mountains of Thrace
When you came here. As I arrived,
| Your servant met me hurrying | 965 |
Here already from my home.
She spoke your words, and I came to hear.
HECUBA:
I am ashamed to look on you directly,
Polymestor. I am in such trouble.
| Before one who saw me prosperous, I’m ashamed | 970 |
To be seen fallen in this misfortune I’m in now,
And I can’t look at you with steady eyes.
Don’t consider it ill will,
Polymestor. Besides, custom blames
| Women who look directly at men. | 975 |
POLYMESTOR:
No wonder. But what do you want of me?
Why have you called me from the house?
HECUBA:
I want to say something personal
To you and to your sons. Order
| Your attendants to stand away from the tent. | 980 |
POLYMESTOR:
You may go! This place is safe unattended.
You are a friend, and the Achaean army
Is my friend. But you must tell me
What a fortunate man can do to help
An unfortunate friend. I am at your service. 985
HECUBA:
First tell me of my son, Polydorus, whom you have
At home from my hand and his father’s:
If he lives. I shall ask other things after.
POLYMESTOR:
Most certainly he does. He is fortunate.
HECUBA:
| Dearest friend, your words are worthy of you. | 990 |
POLYMESTOR:
What else do you wish to know?
HECUBA:
If he remembers anything about his mother?
POLYMESTOR:
Secretly, he wants to come here to you.
HECUBA:
Is the gold he came with from Troy safe?
POLYMESTOR:
| Safe. Under guard in my house. | 995 |
HECUBA:
Save it now. Don’t desire what is your neighbors.’
POLYMESTOR:
Never. Let me enjoy my own, lady.
HECUBA:
Do you know what I shall say to your children?
POLYMESTOR:
I don’t. You will reveal it in your speech.
HECUBA:
| My dear friend, how I love you now! There are . . . | 1000 |
POLYMESTOR:
What do I and my sons need to know?
HECUBA:
. . . Ancient caves of Priam’s gold.
POLYMESTOR:
You wish me to tell your son this?
HECUBA:
Indeed, if you are a religious man.
POLYMESTOR:
| Why must my children be here? | 1005 |
HECUBA:
It’s better, if you die, that they know.
POLYMESTOR:
Well said. Wiser, too.
HECUBA:
Do you know the House of Trojan Athena?
POLYMESTOR:
The gold is there? What’s the landmark?
HECUBA:
| A black rock rising above the ground. | 1010 |
POLYMESTOR:
You want to tell me anything else?
HECUBA:
I want you to save the gold I brought.
POLYMESTOR:
Where? Hidden in your robe?
HECUBA:
It is stored in the tent among the war spoils.
POLYMESTOR:
| Where? These are Achaean fortifications for the ships. | 1015 |
HECUBA:
The tents of the Trojan women are separate.
POLYMESTOR:
Is it safe inside? Empty of men?
HECUBA:
No Achaeans. Just us alone.
But come in the tent. The Argives yearn
| To loosen the sail ropes homeward from Troy. | 1020 |
After you do all you must, you can go back
With your children to where you house my son.
(HECUBA, POLYMESTOR, and his TWO SONS exit.)
CHORUS:
You haven’t yet paid the penalty—but you will, justly.
| Like someone falling into a harborless sea, | 1025 |
You shall fall far short of your heart’s desire,
Wrecking your life. Where a violation
| To human and divine justice meet, | 1030 |
The outcome is deadly, deadly.
Greed’s path will cheat you and has sent you
Condemned by death to hell, you wretch,
Leaving life by an unsoldierly hand.
(Within.)
POLYMESTOR:
| Horrible! I’m blinded, my poor eyes gone! | 1035 |
CHORUS:
Did you hear the Thracian’s lament, my friends?
POLYMESTOR:
And worse horror: my children, your terrible slaughter!
CHORUS:
O friends, more crimes are worked in the house.
But you won’t run off and escape.
| Bashing, I shall break the inside of the tent. | 1040 |
See—my strong hand pounds like a weapon
CHORUS:
Shall we go after him? It’s time to help
As allies Hecuba and the Trojan women.
(HECUBA enters.)
HECUBA:
Strike, spare nothing, bash down the house,
| You won’t bring light to your eyes, | 1045 |
Nor will you see your children I have murdered.
CHORUS:
Have you really brought down the Thracian,
Overpowered the host, done what you say?
HECUBA:
You will see him now in front of the tent,
| A blind man going blindly on crazy feet, | 1050 |
See the bodies of the two children I killed
With the help of the best Trojan women. He paid
My price. He comes, you see, from the tent.
But I’m going out of the way, keeping back
| From the great, unconquerable, raging-mad Thracian! | 1055 |
(POLYMESTOR enters on all fours.)
POLYMESTOR:
What torture! Where go? Where stand? Where put in?
Shall I take the way of a four-foot beast
Of the mountains, on my hands tracking some quarry,
| This way, turning that way, | 1060 |
Longing to take the man-murdering Trojan women
Who ruined me?
An outrage, an outrage, these Trojan women,
Most hideous,
| In what corner do they shiver in fear? | 1065 |
God of the Sun, if you would heal, heal
The bleeding lids of my eyes
And free my blind sight.
Ah! Ah!
Quiet! I hear that silent step of women.
| Where shall I strike | 1070 |
And eat their meat and bones,
A banquet for wild beasts,
Winning payback,
For my brutal mutilation?
| Poor me. Where shall I drift, leaving my wasted children | 1075 |
To be torn apart by these bacchantes from hell,
Slaughter for dogs, a wild dinner of blood,
Mountain exposure?
Where stand? Where go? Where turn,
| Gathering my linen robe, like a ship | 1080 |
With its cables furls its sail,
Guardian of my children, rushing to their bed of death?
CHORUS:
| Wretched man, terrible misfortune is yours | 1085 |
For your horrible and abysmal crimes.
A god has dealt heavily with you.
POLYMESTOR:
O, help, men of Thrace
| Famous for horses, the lance-bearing people, | 1090 |
Ares’ own.
Help, Achaeans! Help, Sons of Atreus!
I cry, cry, cry out!
O come, come for the gods’ sake.
Does anyone hear, no one help? What are you doing?
| Women have destroyed me, | 1095 |
Captive women!
I have suffered horribly, horribly—
What disgrace!
Where shall I turn? Where shall I go?
| Where flying high over heaven’s roof | 1100 |
Orion or Sirius throws out
| The burning light of his eyes, or miserable | 1105 |
Shall I be driven into the strait of black hell?
CHORUS:
It is excusable, when one suffers or endures so much
Horror, to free oneself from a wretched life.
(AGAMEMNON enters.)
AGAMEMNON:
Hearing a cry, I came. It was not calm Echo,
| Child of the mountain rock, ringing | 1110 |
Through the army. If we didn’t know
The Trojan towers had fallen to the Greek spear,
This uproar would have terrified us completely.
POLYMESTOR:
O my beloved Agamemnon, I know you, hearing
| Your voice. You see my suffering? | 1115 |
AGAMEMNON:
Ugh!
Polymestor, poor man, who ruined you?
Who blinded your eyes, gouged the sockets,
And killed these children? Whoever it was
Had great hate for you and your sons.
POLYMESTOR:
| Hecuba with the captive women | 1120 |
Destroyed me, no, more than destroyed.
AGAMEMNON:
What? You did this, as he says?
You, Hecuba, dared this bold act?
POLYMESTOR:
What do you mean? Is she nearby?
| Speak, tell me where she is, so I can | 1125 |
Grab her, tear her apart, rip her flesh.
AGAMEMNON:
You, what is wrong?
POLYMESTOR:
By the gods, I beg you,
Let me set my raging hand upon her.
AGAMEMNON:
Wait. Put aside the barbarian from your heart.
| Speak, so hearing you and her in turn, | 1130 |
I may judge justly your tragedy.
POLYMESTOR:
I will. There was a Polydorus, youngest son
Of Priam and Hecuba, whom his father, Priam,
Gave me to raise in my house,
| Surely suspecting Troy’s fall. | 1135 |
I killed him. Why did I kill him?
Listen, how it was wise foresight.
I was afraid the child would remain your enemy.
Regather the Trojans and reunite the city.
| The Achaeans, knowing a son of Priam alive, | 1140 |
Would raise an army again against Troy,
Then ravage and plunder my Thracian plains.
Troy’s neighbors would fare badly,
Right where we suffer now, my lord.
| Hecuba, knowing the deadly fate of her son, | 1145 |
Led me on with a story that she would tell me
Of chests of Priam’s gold in Troy.
She brought me alone into the tent with my children,
So no one would know what she did.
| I sat in the middle of a couch, knees bent. | 1150 |
Many Trojan women sat on both sides
Of me, as if I were a friend,
And examined my robe in the light
And praised the Edonian weaving. Others,
| Seeing my two Thracian spears, stripped | 1155 |
Me naked, both of arms and clothes.
All the mothers, marveling at the children,
Rocked them in their arms away
From their father, passing them on.
| After what seemed a calm greeting—suddenly | 1160 |
Some took swords somewhere out of their robes
And stabbed my children. Others, taking
Enemy revenge, held down my hands
And legs. Wanting to help my children,
| If I raised my face, they held | 1165 |
Down my hair. If I moved my hands,
Wretched me could do nothing in the mob of women.
At last, an outrage beyond outrage,
They committed an atrocity: taking their brooches,
| They stabbed, gutted my poor eyes. | 1170 |
Then they fled throughout the tent,
And I attacked them, like a beast
Who harassed murdering dogs,
Searching every hole, like a hunter,
Hurtling, thrashing.
| I did you this favor | 1175 |
And suffered because I killed your enemy,
Agamemnon. To be brief:
If anyone spoke badly of women before,
Or speaks now or will speak,
| I shall sum up their speech: | 1180 |
Neither earth nor ocean nourishes such a race.
So everyone knows who has met one.
CHORUS:
Don’t be rash! Don’t censure like this
The whole female race by your experience.
| [We are many. Some are hated. | 1185 |
Some born to the order of evil.]
HECUBA:
Agamemnon, men’s tongues should
Not be stronger than their acts.
But he who does well should speak well.
| Or if he does wrong, his words ought to be hollow, | 1190 |
And he unable to gloss over injustice.
Some wise men are perfect at this,
But they can’t last to the end
And they wreck themselves. No one ever escaped.
| My introduction was for you. Now | 1195 |
I turn to him and answer his words.
You who say you freed the Achaeans from more pain
And killed my son for Agamemnon’s sake!
But, O most cowardly of men,
| The barbarians never were friends of Greeks, | 1200 |
Nor could be. What favor were you eager
To do? To contract some marriage?
Are you a kinsman, or would get some advantage?
The Greeks would ravage your land, sailing back?
| You think to persuade someone of this? | 1205 |
The gold, if you want to speak truth,
Killed my son and your greed.
If not, why, when Troy prospered,
And the towers stood about the citadel,
| And Priam lived and Hector’s spear flourished, | 1210 |
Why not then, if you really wished to do
This favor, raising the child in your own house,
Kill him, or bring him living to the Argives?
But when our light had failed, and with smoke
| The city signaled its fall to the enemy, | 1215 |
You killed a guest who came to your hearth.
Hear now how you are revealed a coward.
If you really are a friend of the Achaeans,
You should have given the gold, which you claim
| Was not yours, but his, and brought it | 1220 |
To those who needed it so far from home.
Even now you don’t let it out of your hands,
Hoarding it still in your house.
If you raised my son as you should
| And saved him, you would have a great reputation. | 1225 |
Good friends show themselves best in times
Of trouble, while luck always has friends.
If you needed money and my son was well-off,
My son’s treasury would have been yours.
| Now you don’t have him for a friend, | 1230 |
The gold is useless, your children gone,
And you like this!
I tell you, Agamemnon,
If you help him, you show yourself a coward.
He was neither pious nor trustworthy, where he should
| Have been, not holy nor just, treating well a guest. | 1235 |
We’ll say you favor the wicked, being so yourself.
But I rebuke my master no more.
CHORUS:
Yes! Yes! For mortal men, good deeds
Create speeches of good words.
AGAMEMNON:
| It is hard for me to judge another’s wrongdoing, | 1240 |
But I must. For he bears the shame
Who takes this matter up and casts it off.
So you may know: I don’t think you did me,
Or even the Achaeans, a favor killing a guest,
| But to possess the gold in your house. | 1245 |
You say what you need to, being in trouble.
Perhaps to you killing a stranger is trivial.
But this is horrible to us Greeks.
How can I judge you not guilty?
| I can’t. Since you dare to do what | 1250 |
Is horrible, endure what is ugly.
POLYMESTOR:
What! It seems I’m less than a slave woman
And held to account by the contemptible.
HECUBA:
Is it not just, since you did wrong?
POLYMESTOR:
| My children and my eyes—for the gods’ sake! | 1255 |
HECUBA:
You suffer? And me? I don’t suffer for a child?
POLYMESTOR:
You rejoice proudly over me, you bitch?
HECUBA:
Should I not rejoice in my vengeance?
POLYMESTOR:
Soon you won’t, when sea water . . .
HECUBA:
| . . . Carries me to the coast of Greece? | 1260 |
POLYMESTOR:
. . . Covers you, fallen from the masthead.
HECUBA:
Who will force me to jump?
POLYMESTOR:
You yourself will climb the mast.
HECUBA:
With wings on my back or what?
POLYMESTOR:
| You’ll become a dog with flaming eyes. | 1265 |
HECUBA:
How do you know my changed form?
POLYMESTOR:
The Thracians’ prophet, Dionysos, said so.
HECUBA:
He told you nothing of your sad fate?
POLYMESTOR:
No, or you would never have snared me with your treachery.
HECUBA:
| Shall I die or live here? | 1270 |
POLYMESTOR:
Die. The name on your tomb shall be . . .
HECUBA:
Will you say a verse on my new shape?
POLYMESTOR:
. . . The Sign of the Bitch, a sailor’s landmark.
HECUBA:
No matter, since you paid me back.
POLYMESTOR:
| And your daughter, Cassandra, must die. | 1275 |
HECUBA:
I spit that prophecy back on you.
POLYMESTOR (pointing to AGAMEMNON):
His wife will kill her, a bitter housekeeper.
HECUBA:
May Tyndareus’ daughter not go so mad!
POLYMESTOR:
This man himself she shall take down, raising her ax.
AGAMEMNON:
| You, are you mad, and love trouble? | 1280 |
POLYMESTOR:
Kill me! A painful bath in Argos awaits you.
AGAMEMNON:
My men, won’t you drag him away?
Does it hurt you to hear it?
AGAMEMNON:
Will you stop his mouth?
POLYMESTOR:
Stop it. It is said.
AGAMEMNON:
Right now
| Won’t you cast him away on some desert island, | 1285 |
Since he is so bold-mouthed?
Hecuba, poor woman, go bury
Your two corpses. Trojan women,
You must go to your masters’ tents.
| Already I see the winds leading home. | 1290 |
May we have good sailing and see happily
Our homes, setting aside this trouble.
CHORUS:
Go to harbors and tents, my dear friends.
Endure your slave-work.
| It is iron necessity. | 1295 |
(All exit.)
Notes
1–97. Prologue (what precedes the introduction of the chorus. Aristotle, Poetics, 1452b19–20).
3. Polydorus. Son of Hecuba and Priam, killed in the Chersonese by King Polymestor. The Greeks dreaded the unburied corpse; until it was buried, the soul (ghost) could not enter the Land of the Dead. (Cf. Iliad, 1.4–5, and Sophocles, Antigone.)
4. Phrygian. Trojan.
7–8. Thrace. Chersonesean plateau. The Hellespont in northern Greece. The Modern Dardanelles at the entrance to the Black Sea in Turkey. The Chersonese, the “dry island” (peninsula), forms the western shore of the Hellespont strait, where, in World War I, the Battle of the Dardanelles (1915) was fought. A strategic area and Greek meeting ground for a clash of civilized and barbarian values.
24. child of Achilles. Neoptolemos killed Priam at the altar where Priam had gone for sanctuary. The altar had been built by Apollo and Poseidon so the atrocity was double. The play is based on atrocities.
25–27. A sacred bond protected guest and host, presided over by Zeus Xenios (“Protector of Hospitality”). Polymestor’s crime of killing his guest Polydorus out of greed, and casting the body into the sea, rather than burying it, would be triply heinous in Greek eyes. Philoxenía is the sacred law of hospitality. Cf. line 715. Polymestor ironically means “man of many counsels or plots.” Cf. Odysseus as “man of many counsels” in the Odyssey 2.173, etc.
36. Peleus’ son. Achilles. In the Sack of Troy, the Greeks sacrifice Polyxena on the tomb of Achilles. The introduction of the ghost of Polydorus at the beginning of the play helps us accept the ghost of Achilles here and his request for the sacrifice of Polyxena, which is essential for the unity of the plot.
53. Agamemnon is the leader of the Greek army.
59–97. Hecuba’s first solo song (monody). Greek anapests. Usually, Greek poets use dialogue in iambic trimeters (six iambics) at this point in the play, but Euripides, “the Irrationalist” (Dodds), often makes extensive use of songs, indicative of his highly emotional plays. The music is lost.
68–75. The ancients believed that dreams were prophetic.
87–88. Helenus. Cassandra. Hecuba’s son and daughter, both prophets. Cassandra has become the mistress of Agamemnon.
98–152. Parodos (entrance of the chorus). Choral ode.
103. Achaean. Greek.
113. Danaans. Greeks.
123. Sons of Theseus. Acamas and Demophon, sons of the legendary king of Athens, Theseus.
133. Son of Laertes. Odysseus.
137. Persephone was a goddess of the underworld.
145. To balance the heroic code, suppliancy functioned as a way for the weaker to have protection against the stronger. The suppliant was supported by Zeus Heketesios (“Of the Suppliants”) (Adkins, Merit, 65, 80.). Cf. line 345.
154–176. Hecuba’s second solo song.
176–196. Lyric duet. Note how the alternating passages, especially the single-line alternations (stichomythia), raise the tension of the scene, here and later in the play.
188. Argives. Greeks.
197–215. Polyxena’s song.
216–443. First Episode.
239–241. In the Odyssey (4.240–264), Helen, demonstrating her innocence during the Trojan War, claims, probably falsely, that Odysseus visited her and she abetted his escape. Hecuba’s involvement is not mentioned and may be an invention of Euripides.
254–257. During the fifth century, the controversial Sophists (“wise men”) taught rhetoric, the art of persuasive speech. Euripides, though associated with them, has Hecuba criticize their methods here, as does Plato (e.g., in the Gorgias and Protagoras). Later (814–820), Hecuba will praise rhetoric. Indeed, her successes and failures will depend heavily upon the art of persuasive speech in the rest of the play. The same can be said of Odysseus, who sways the assembly, and Polymestor (“of many counsels”) in the final scene. Many connections exist between tragedy and oratory. (Cf. lines 1189–1194.)
269. Tyndareus’ daughter. Helen.
292. In democratic Athens, but not in Homeric times, laws were equal for all (principle of isonomía).
325. Mount Ida is a range of mountains near Troy.
338. Nightingale. See the introduction.
361. Hector. Trojan hero and brother of Polyxena.
388. Thetis’ Son. Achilles.
441. the Dioscuri. Castor and Polydeuces, brothers of Helen, later deified and protectors of sailors.
444–483. First Stasimon (Choral Ode). 444–454: Strophe A. 455–465: Antistrophe A. 466–474: Strophe B. 475–483: Antistrophe B. The chorus often changes the perspective from that of the characters. Unlike Hecuba and Polyxena, who lament their conditions of death and slavery, the chorus speculates on where they are going and what Greek festivals they might participate in, though they conclude by reiterating Polyxena’s metaphor of marrying Hades, Death himself. Euripides’ choruses often invoke a far place by longing to escape present pain (cf. Bacchae, 402–416). Here the transmigration is more complex, invoking the beautiful ceremonies of Greece but participating as a slave.
450. Doric. Peloponnesian, in the south of Greece.
451. Phythian. Phythia, the land of Achilles, was in northern Greece.
455–465. Delos is a Greek island and was the center for the worship of Apollo and his twin sister, Artemis. Leto, mother of the twins, was said to have held on to a certain palm tree at their birth. That tree became an object of worship. Euripides joins it with the laurel, sacred to Apollo. In 426 BC, Athens controlled Delos and reestablished the festival that occurred every four years, a year that may help date the play.
466–474. At the Panathenaia, a celebration of Athena, after whom Athens was named, a robe was carried to her wooden statue in the Erectheum on the acropolis in Athens. The garment represented Zeus’ victory over the Titans. Here it includes Athena’s chariot and horses. The procession appears on the Parthenon Frieze.
484–628. Second Episode. The description of Polyxena’s death (518–582) to appease the ghost of Achilles and hence bring the Greek army prosperous winds to journey back to Greece recalls Iphigeneia’s, her sister’s, sacrifice at Aulis by her father, Agamemnon, to stir the winds that brought the Greek army first to Greece. Cf. Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis. Female heroism is common in Euripides. So is questioning the gods.
485. Ilium. Troy.
509. The two sons of Atreus. Agamemnon and Menelaus, husband of Helen.
555–556. Editors agree that the needless repetition indicates that these lines are spurious.
629–656. Second Stasimon. 629–637: Strophe. 638–646: Antistrophe. 647–656: Epode. Shifting perspective again to add variety to the tale, the chorus recalls the ironically simple causes of the great tragedy of the Trojan War and the horrors of its aftermath, even sympathizing with Greek victims.
631. Alexandros. Paris.
641. The river Simois flowed by Troy.
651. Eurotas. The main river in Sparta.
657–904. Third Episode.
684–725. A kommós, a lament between the chorus and Hecuba, with the chorus keeping to the iambic trimeters of the dialogue, while Hecuba by contrast sings lyrically in Greek dochmiacs (˘ — —˘ —) to indicate her erratic emotions.
685. bacchic. Dionysian, belonging to Dionysos. Here, wild with grief. Hence the dochmiacs.
715. Philoxenía. Cf. note to 25–27.
808. An old tradition claims that Euripides was a painter once. (Barlow, The Imagery of Euripides, 15).
816–820. On the use and theory of rhetoric in this play, cf. note to 254–257.
886–887. The fifty daughters of Danaus stabbed to death all but one of the fifty sons of Aegyptus, his brother, who, after being rejected as suitors, pursued them from Egypt to Greece. Cf. Aeschylus, The Suppliants. The women of Lemnos killed all but one of the men, who had turned to concubines (the Lemnian Horror). Cf. Euripides’ Hypsipyle (fragments). A foreshadowing of events to happen in the play, the bonding of the women is key here.
905–951. Third Stasimon. 905–913: Strophe A. 914–922: Antistrophe A. 923–932: Strophe B. 933–942: Antistrophe B. 944–951: Epode. The chorus now takes a more personal view and domesticates the tragedy.
952–1055. Fourth Episode.
1056–1108. A kommós, lyric lament between actor and chorus. Polymestor’s song in the ecstasy of dochmiacs (˘ — — ˘ —). Chorus responds in calmer iambic trimeters. Cf. note to 684–725.
1076. bacchantes. Followers of Dionysos.
1091. Ares. The god of war.
1100–1103. Orion. A giant hunter, blinded by Oenopion and Dionysos, for trying to assault Oenopion’s daughter, Merope, he went to Lemnos, where he was cured by the beams of the rising sun. Hence Polymestor’s earlier appeal to the sun to cure his blindness (1066–1068). His great dog is Sirius, the Dog-Star, the brightest star in the sky, which is in the constellation Canis Major (“greater dog”), southeast of Orion’s constellation. Sirius brings on the scorching “dog days” of late summer (cf. Iliad, 22.29). Images of dogs and hunting permeate the play, as in Polymestor’s prophecy for Hecuba (1265–1273).
1109–1295. Exodos. The “trial” of Hecuba. Note the oratory of the law courts. We also find here the agon (debate) and rhesis (the set, reasoned, speech). One of the questions that arises here is what is a legitimate claim and legitimate bond between human beings. Note the discussion between Odysseus and Hecuba earlier in the play (234–302) and the themes of suppliancy and the guest/host obligations.
1127. Dropped lines like this are called antilabé in Greek. They promote intensity.
1154. Edonian. The Edoni were a Thracian tribe. Thrace was famous for its weaving.
1185–1186. Spurious lines.
1200. barbarians. Ancient Greeks saw themselves as superior to other races, like the Medes and Persians, who were considered “barbarians,” “speaking gibberish” (“bar”-“bar”-ians). Being Trojan, Hecuba herself would be considered a barbarian.
1259–1279. Polymestor prophesies the violent death of Hecuba and Agamemnon. Hecuba will go mad in the shape of a dog and drown at sea, while Agamemnon, along with his concubine, Hecuba’s mantic daughter, Cassandra, will be murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, the sister of Helen of Troy. The course of destruction begun by Paris’ abduction of Helen continued into the action of this play and beyond.
1273. The Sign of the Bitch. Cynossema, a headland near Thrace. Euripides might have made up this story of Hecuba’s death and associated her with this landmark. Mossman thinks not (Wild Justice, 35–36).
1278. Tydareus’ daughter. Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon and sister of Helen.
1281. Argos. In the southern Peloponnesus, here the land of Agamemnon.
1290. The favorable winds may echo the favorable winds after the sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis.