Hecuba

Suffering is central to Euripides’s Hecuba, whose plot follows the misfortunes experienced by Hecuba after the sack of Troy, misfortunes that demonstrate the ups and downs of fate that no person can stand against. Hecuba especially is presented in the play as an exemplar of suffering. Hecuba has seen her city fall, her wealth destroyed, her husband killed, and her freedom taken away: It is not for nothing that she characterizes herself as “the queen of sorrow” (423). Hecuba’s downfall is so hard precisely because Hecuba was previously so privileged, having been a queen and a happy mother. Hecuba illustrates how sharply one’s life can take a turn for the worse, and how unbearable it is for the mighty to fall. Hence, for instance, the exclamation uttered by Talthybius when he sees Hecuba lying in the dust: “Oh horror! I am old, / But I would rather die than sink as low / As this poor woman has fallen now” (497-99).

Hecuba, her daughter Polyxena, and the Chorus of captive Trojan women also exemplify the sufferings experienced by female survivors of war. Cast as passive victims, they have lost their husbands and children, are torn from their devastated homelands, and are enslaved by their conquerors.