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Hecuba (play)
Encyclopedia
Hecuba is a tragedy
by Euripides
written c. 424 BC
. It takes place after the Trojan War
, but before the Greeks have departed Troy
(roughly the same time as The Trojan Women
, another play by Euripides). The central figure is Hecuba
, wife of King Priam
, formerly Queen of the now-fallen city. It depicts Hecuba
's grief over the death of her daughter Polyxena
, and the revenge she takes for the murder of her youngest son Polydorus
.
of Thrace
for safekeeping, with gifts of gold and jewelry. But when Troy lost the war, Polymestor treacherously murdered Polydorus, and seized the treasure. Polydorus has foreknowledge of many of the play's events and haunted his mother's dreams the night before.
At dawn, Hecuba mourns her great losses and worries about the portents of her nightmare. The Chorus of young slave women enters, bearing fateful news. One of Hecuba's last remaining daughters, Polyxena, is to be killed on the tomb of Achilles
as a blood sacrifice to his honor (reflecting the sacrifice of Iphigenia at the start of the war).
Odysseus enters, to escort Polyxena to an altar where Neoptolemus
will shed her blood. Odysseus ignores Hecuba's impassioned pleas to spare Polyxena, and Polyxena herself admits she would rather die than live as a slave. In the first Choral interlude, the Chorus lament their own doomed fate, cursing the sea breeze that will carry them on ships to the foreign lands where they will live in slavery. The Greek messenger Talthybius arrives, tells a stirring account of Polyxena's strikingly heroic death, and delivers a message from Agamemnon to bury Polyxena. Hecuba sends a slave girl to fetch water from the sea to bathe her daughter's corpse.
After a second Choral interlude, the body of Polydorus is brought on stage, having washed up on shore. Hecuba at first glance thinks it is Polyxena, but upon recognizing her son whom she thought safe, reaches new heights of despair.
Hecuba rages inconsolably against the brutality of such an action, and resolves to take revenge. Agamemnon enters, and Hecuba, tentatively at first and then boldly requests that Agamemnon help her avenge her son's murder. Agamemnon reluctantly agrees, as the Greeks are still waiting for a favorable wind to sail home.
Polymestor arrives with his sons. He inquires about Hecuba's welfare, with a pretense of friendliness. Hecuba reciprocates, concealing her knowledge of the murder of Polydorus. Hecuba tells Polymestor she knows where the remaining treasures of Troy are hidden, and offers to tell him the secrets, to be passed on to Polydorus. With blind greed, Polymestor listens intently.
Hecuba convinces him and his sons to enter an offstage tent where she claims to have more personal treasures. Enlisting help from other slaves, Hecuba kills Polymestor's sons and stabs Polymestor's eyes. He re-enters blinded and savage, hunting as if a beast for the women who ruined him.
Agamemnon re-enters angry with the uproar and witnesses Hecuba's revenge. Polymestor argues that Hecuba's revenge was a vile act, whereas his murder was done to preserve the Greek victory and dispatch a young Trojan before he reached fighting age. The arguments take the form of a trial, and Hecuba delivers a rebuttal exposing Polymestor's speech as sophistry. Agamemnon decides justice has been served by Hecuba's revenge. Polymestor, again in a rage, foretells the deaths of Hecuba by drowning and Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra
. Soon after, the wind finally rises again, the Greeks will sail, and the Chorus goes to an unknown, dark fate.
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
by Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
written c. 424 BC
424 BC
Year 424 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Tribunate of Crassus, Fidenas, Rutilus and Iullus...
. It takes place after the Trojan War
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
, but before the Greeks have departed Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
(roughly the same time as The Trojan Women
The Trojan Women
The Trojan Women is a tragedy by the Greek playwright Euripides. Produced during the Peloponnesian War, it is often considered a commentary on the capture of the Aegean island of Melos and the subsequent slaughter and subjugation of its populace by the Athenians earlier in 415 BC , the same year...
, another play by Euripides). The central figure is Hecuba
Hecuba
Hecuba was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War, with whom she had 19 children. These children included several major characters of Homer's Iliad such as the warriors Hector and Paris, and the prophetess Cassandra...
, wife of King Priam
Priam
Priam was the king of Troy during the Trojan War and youngest son of Laomedon. Modern scholars derive his name from the Luwian compound Priimuua, which means "exceptionally courageous".- Marriage and issue :...
, formerly Queen of the now-fallen city. It depicts Hecuba
Hecuba
Hecuba was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War, with whom she had 19 children. These children included several major characters of Homer's Iliad such as the warriors Hector and Paris, and the prophetess Cassandra...
's grief over the death of her daughter Polyxena
Polyxena
In Greek mythology, Polyxena was the youngest daughter of King Priam of Troy and his queen, Hecuba. She is considered the Trojan version of Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Polyxena is not in Homer's Iliad, appearing in works by later poets, perhaps to add romance to Homer's...
, and the revenge she takes for the murder of her youngest son Polydorus
Polydorus
In Greek mythology, Polydorus referred to several different people.*An Argive, son of Hippomedon...
.
Plot
In the play's unconventional opening, the ghost of Polydorus tells how when the war threatened Troy, he was sent to King PolymestorPolymestor
In Greek mythology, Polymestor was a King of Thrace. His wife was Ilione, the eldest daughter of King Priam. Polymestor appears in Euripides' play, Hecuba and in the Ovidian myth "Hecuba, Polyxena and Polydorus"...
of Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
for safekeeping, with gifts of gold and jewelry. But when Troy lost the war, Polymestor treacherously murdered Polydorus, and seized the treasure. Polydorus has foreknowledge of many of the play's events and haunted his mother's dreams the night before.
At dawn, Hecuba mourns her great losses and worries about the portents of her nightmare. The Chorus of young slave women enters, bearing fateful news. One of Hecuba's last remaining daughters, Polyxena, is to be killed on the tomb of Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....
as a blood sacrifice to his honor (reflecting the sacrifice of Iphigenia at the start of the war).
Odysseus enters, to escort Polyxena to an altar where Neoptolemus
Neoptolemus
Neoptolemus was the son of the warrior Achilles and the princess Deidamia in Greek mythology. Achilles' mother foretold many years before Achilles' birth that there would be a great war. She saw that her only son was to die if he fought in the war...
will shed her blood. Odysseus ignores Hecuba's impassioned pleas to spare Polyxena, and Polyxena herself admits she would rather die than live as a slave. In the first Choral interlude, the Chorus lament their own doomed fate, cursing the sea breeze that will carry them on ships to the foreign lands where they will live in slavery. The Greek messenger Talthybius arrives, tells a stirring account of Polyxena's strikingly heroic death, and delivers a message from Agamemnon to bury Polyxena. Hecuba sends a slave girl to fetch water from the sea to bathe her daughter's corpse.
After a second Choral interlude, the body of Polydorus is brought on stage, having washed up on shore. Hecuba at first glance thinks it is Polyxena, but upon recognizing her son whom she thought safe, reaches new heights of despair.
Hecuba rages inconsolably against the brutality of such an action, and resolves to take revenge. Agamemnon enters, and Hecuba, tentatively at first and then boldly requests that Agamemnon help her avenge her son's murder. Agamemnon reluctantly agrees, as the Greeks are still waiting for a favorable wind to sail home.
Polymestor arrives with his sons. He inquires about Hecuba's welfare, with a pretense of friendliness. Hecuba reciprocates, concealing her knowledge of the murder of Polydorus. Hecuba tells Polymestor she knows where the remaining treasures of Troy are hidden, and offers to tell him the secrets, to be passed on to Polydorus. With blind greed, Polymestor listens intently.
Hecuba convinces him and his sons to enter an offstage tent where she claims to have more personal treasures. Enlisting help from other slaves, Hecuba kills Polymestor's sons and stabs Polymestor's eyes. He re-enters blinded and savage, hunting as if a beast for the women who ruined him.
Agamemnon re-enters angry with the uproar and witnesses Hecuba's revenge. Polymestor argues that Hecuba's revenge was a vile act, whereas his murder was done to preserve the Greek victory and dispatch a young Trojan before he reached fighting age. The arguments take the form of a trial, and Hecuba delivers a rebuttal exposing Polymestor's speech as sophistry. Agamemnon decides justice has been served by Hecuba's revenge. Polymestor, again in a rage, foretells the deaths of Hecuba by drowning and Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra or Clytaemnestra , in ancient Greek legend, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess...
. Soon after, the wind finally rises again, the Greeks will sail, and the Chorus goes to an unknown, dark fate.
Translations
- Edward P. Coleridge, 1891 - prose: full text
- Arthur S. Way, 1912 - verse
- J. T. Sheppard, 1927 - verse
- Hugh O. Meredith, 1937 - verse
- William ArrowsmithWilliam ArrowsmithWilliam Ayres Arrowsmith was an American classicist, academic, and translator.-Life:Born in Orange, New Jersey, the son of Walter Weed Arrowsmith and Dorothy Arrowsmith, William grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts...
, 1958 - verse - Philip Vellacott, 1963 - verse
- Timberlake WertenbakerTimberlake Wertenbaker- Biography :Wertenbaker grew up in the Basque Country of France near Saint-Jean-de-Luz. She attended schools in Europe and the US before settling permanently in London...
, 1995 - verse - Frank McGuinnessFrank McGuinnessProfessor Frank McGuinness is an award-winning Irish playwright and poet. As well as his own works, which include Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, he is recognised for a "strong record of adapting literary classics, having translated the plays of Racine, Sophocles, Ibsen and...
, 2004 - verse - Anne CarsonAnne CarsonAnne Carson is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator and professor of Classics. Carson lived in Montreal for several years and taught at McGill University, the University of Michigan, and at Princeton University from 1980-1987....
, 2006 - prose