Euripides: Hecuba

Aris & Phillips Classical Texts

Hecuba, in slavery after Troy's fall, fails to dissuade Odysseus, whose life she once saved, from sacrificing her daughter to honour his dead friend, Achilles; but the girl dies proudly, true to her royal blood in surmounting degradation. Then Hecuba learns of her sons' treacherous murder by a former ally; out of her terrible loss comes determination for revenge, which she claims as a right but how just is her horrific cruelty? How credible against her earlier characterisation? The play has striking effects: the ghost of the murdered son, and his murderer subsequently blinded; poignant lyricism; vivid narratives; above all, a careful pattern of scenes demonstrating the equivocal power of 'Persuasion, man's only sovereign' (v.816). Hecuba is both a study of resilience and weakness, and a typically Euripidean comment on the uncertain, even collapsing, values of his time. Text with facing translation, commentary and notes.

Hecuba, in slavery after Troy's fall, fails to dissuade Odysseus, whose life she once saved, from sacrificing her daughter to honour his dead friend, Achilles; but the girl dies proudly, true to her royal blood in surmounting degradation.