Hecabe (or Hecuba) by Euripides

1/ Written ca 424 BC, it’s set around the same time as The Trojan Women, which was performed in 415 BC. Is it not interesting that Euripides, after about 10 years, returned to the character of Hecabe (also known as Hecuba)? 

Anyway, now that I know the story, that scene in Hamlet is going to carry more meaning (even if the Hecuba Shakespeare knew was not Euripides’s):  

“What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,    

That he should weep for her?” 

2/ The play begins with the ghost of Polydorus. 

“HECABE […] O dazzling light of day, O murk of night,

Why am I roused and raptured

With haunting fears and phantoms?

O holy Earth, mother of dark-winged dreams,

Take back this frightful vision I have seen!” 

(translated by Philip Vellacott) 

The ghost of the son appears before the mother and tells her about his murder—what does that make you think of?—I think of the ghost of the father telling the son about his murder and calling for revenge—Hamlet! 

3/ At first sight, it seems to be a messy play. Roughly, the first half is Hecabe learning the fate awaiting her daughter Polyxena and trying to save her, in vain; the second half is her discovering the death of her son Polydorus and taking revenge on the murderer, King Polymestor of Thrace. However, it is as though Hecabe takes out on Polymestor all her despair, all her hatred, all her anger at the Greeks. 

“HECABE I saved you, did I not? – and sent you back from Troy.

ODYSSEUS You did indeed; and here I am alive today.

HECABE Yet now you scheme these cowardly plots against me – you

Who by your own confession owe me your own life –

Repaying good with the worst evil in your power!

You are a low and loathsome breed, all you who grasp

At popular honours! who without a thought betray

Your friends, for one phrase that will gratify a mob!

Let me not know you!”

Owing his life to Hecabe, Odysseus now has her daughter sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles. He betrays her. It’s not that different from what Polymestor does to her: 

“HECABE […] help me take revenge

On this most false and perjured friend, who without fear

Of powers below or powers above, has done a deed

Of blackest treachery! Many times he was my guest,

Sat at my table, was among my closest friends,

Was treated with all honour. Then he lays a plot,

And murders. Then, on top of murder, he denies

Even a grave, and throws my son into the sea!” 

That is also treachery. That is also betrayal. But Hecabe is powerless to do anything against Odysseus, to take revenge on the Greeks, so she destroys Polymestor in a brutal, horrific way. At least that’s how I read it. 

4/ Look at this line: 

“POLYMESTOR […] No monster like a woman breeds in land or sea;

And those who have most to do with women know it best.” 

That must be the bit Aristophanes references a few times in different plays. However, it would be absurd to call Euripides a misogynist when we can see his sympathy with women in plays such as Hecabe or The Trojan Women. He also gives Hecabe many great passages.  

“HECABE […] The strong ought not to use their strength

To do what is not right; when they are fortunate

They should not think Fortune will always favour them.

I once was fortunate, and now I am so no more;

One day has taken happiness, wealth, everything.

Then be my friend. Let awe, and pity, move your heart.” 

Reminds me of Measure for Measure. 

“HECABE […] How strange, that bad soil, if the gods send rain and sun,

Bears a rich crop, while good soil, starved of what it needs,

Is barren; but man’s nature is ingrained – the bad

Is never anything but bad, and the good man

Is good: misfortune cannot warp his character,

His goodness will endure.

Where lies the difference?

In heredity, or upbringing?” 

Hecabe is not simply a suffering woman, a woman to be pitied. Euripides gives her interesting lines, thought-provoking lines. 

“HECABE A free man? – There is no such thing! All men are slaves;

Some, slaves of money; some, of chance; others are forced,

Either by mass opinion, or the threatening law,

To act against their nature.” 

5/ I also like this: 

“CHORUS Strange how in human life opposites coincide;

How love and hate change with the laws men recognize,

Which can turn bitter foes to friends, old friends to foes.”

Perhaps I’m now more familiar with Euripides, but I would say I like Hecabe more than The Trojan Women.