|
"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." [Hecabe 1 to
Agamemnon. Euripides,
Hecabe
864]
"It is deplorable,
Agamemnon, that men's words should ever seem
to speak more loudly than their deeds. Good deeds
alone should make the doer eloquent, and bad deeds
dress themselves in rotten arguments ... There are
men who make this practice a fine art. Their
so-called cleverness cannot last long; they all,
without exception, come to a bad end."
[Hecabe 1 to
Agamemnon. Euripides,
Hecabe
1189]
"Gone is the old
prosperity,
Troy is no more!
Gone are the hero-sons that I bore." [Hecabe
1. Euripides,
Daughters
of Troy 582]
"I see the gods' work, who
exalt on high that which was naught, and bring the
proud names low." [Hecabe 1. Euripides,
Daughters
of Troy 611]
|
|
Hecabe 1 was queen of
Troy at the time when the
Trojan War was fought.
She lost most of her relatives, avenged one of
them, and left this world turned into a bitch, or
so they say. Hecabe 1, who was first queen and then
slave, gained immortal
Fame for having suffered
utter defeat, and having seen her whole mighty
world turned into ashes.
|
|
Silly questions
|
The parentage of Hecabe 1 seems to have always
been a matter of dispute, in particular concerning
her mother. This is why the question
"Who is the mother
of Hecabe?"
has been one great favourite among the many
questions loved by those who, like Emperor
Tiberius, give themselves to pedantry, carrying the
myths to laughable extremes. And other silly
questions may concern the song of the
SIRENS, the colour of
someone's eyes, the number of ships in some fleet,
and many other similar things, which are believed,
by those able to make a quiz of anything, to be far
reaching in regard to the knowledge of the myths.
|
|
The Dream of Hecabe 1
|
Anyway, Hecabe 1 became queen of
Troy when King
Priam 1 married her,
having handed over his first wife Arisbe, daughter
of the seer Merops 1, to Hyrtacus. Hecabe 1's first
son was Hector 1, but
when her second son Paris
was about to be born, she dreamt that she had
brought forth a firebrand which spread over the
whole city, and burned it. This is why
Paris was exposed when he
was born; for Aesacus 1, son of
Priam 1 and his first
wife Arisbe, having learned the art of interpreting
dreams from his maternal grandfather Merops 1,
declared that Paris was to
become the ruin of the country, and advised to
expose the babe. And also the seeress
Cassandra, daughter of
Hecabe 1, wished to have the ill-omened child
destroyed; for she shrieked:
"Kill him!
Kill the destroyer of Priam's city! Kill that child!"
[Cassandra. Euripides,
Andromache
293]
|
|
Paris had no hard
feelings
|
These were the consequences of the dream of
Hecabe 1. Yet Paris
survived, living as a shepherd, and when he later
turned into a prince, he never reproached the
outrageous treatment which he suffered as a child.
And when Paris, after
having fetched Helen in
Sparta, came on his
homeward way to Sidon (a coastal city in
Phoenicia), he bought there rich robes with which
he presented the same mother that had let him be
exposed. But fate arranged that she who had been
willing to reject one child, should unwillingly
lose many.
|
|
Losing children
|
It is a great thing to be the queen of a
powerful realm as that of
Priam 1, who ruled the
whole of Phrygia, and
thereby live in the midst of riches, honours, and
splendid hopes, being revered by all citizens.
This, in fact, is almost like being a god, except
that Death cannot be
bribed. Yet, even though immortality is still
lacking, the numerous offspring may be thought to
mitigate that unavoidable deficiency. For many
parents feel that they will live on in their
children, who will close their eyes; and that is
why they may feel that they have themselves died
when a son or a daughter dies, not being able to
find any consolation:
"All my
children, all are taken away ... Sorrow and
suffering have destroyed me. I am dead."
[Hecabe 1. Euripides,
Hecabe
421, 431]
|
|
Lost in battle
|
And Hecabe 1 lost, not one, but many of her
children in the war. Above all
Hector 1, who was the
pillar of Troy, and as she
herself confessed, the dearest to her heart of all
her children. And besides him, her other sons:
Antiphus 5, whom
Agamemnon killed, and
Deiphobus 1, whom
Menelaus slew, and
Hipponous 2, and Pammon 1, and Polites 1, and
Troilus, and also
Paris, who in spite of
being called the plague of
Troy, was the man who
avenged Hector 1,
putting an end to
Achilles' life with a
poisoned arrow, before he himself was slain by
Philoctetes.
|
|
Postwar losses
|
However, as war does not limit itself to
exterminate warriors, but instead spreads misery to
many others as well, Hecabe 1 lost her grandson,
little Astyanax 2, whom the Achaeans murdered;
Laodice 3, who was swallowed up by a chasm in the
earth in the sight of all when
Troy had fallen;
Polyxena 1, who was
slaughtered on the grave of
Achilles by the
Achaeans, and also Polydorus 3, who was supposed to
be safe in a foreign land. Hecabe 1's daughter
Cassandra survived the
massacre at Troy, but
instead she was humiliated by
Ajax 2, who in a fit of
cowardice, raped her. And before
Cassandra left for
Mycenae, as slave and
concubine of
Agamemnon, Hecabe 1
learned that it had been prophesied that her
daughter should be murdered by
Agamemnon's wife
Clytaemnestra.
|
|
Turns of Fortune
|
These are the losses of Hecabe 1 regarding her
children. But she also lost her husband King
Priam 1, who was famed as
father, and for his boundless treasures, and whom
she saw butchered on an altar-stone, although she,
knowing that weapons would not rescue them, had
tried to save him. For when
Troy was being sacked, and
Hecabe 1 and her daughters were huddled together
round the shrines hoping for the protection of the
gods, she, seeing King Priam
1 harnessed in the armour of his youth, prayed
him to take refuge with herself and her daughters
as a suppliant at the altar, saying:
"My poor, poor
husband ... what thought so mad drove you to gird
on these weapons? ... Not such the aid nor these
the defenders the hour craves ... Come here,
please; this altar will guard us all, or else we
will die together." [Hecabe 1 to
Priam 1. Virgil,
Aeneid
2.519]
But in vain, for when
Neoptolemus
appeared, Priam 1 opposed
him with his harmless spear, and then
Achilles' son, winding
the left hand in his hair, buried with the right
his sword to the hilt in the old man's side.
And Hecabe 1 lost her home and city, the royal
palace at Troy,
experiencing in her own flesh how
Wealth, luxury, and
Fame, which make mortals
swell with arrogance, mean nothing. That is why she
says:
"The man who
day by day lives on, escaping misery—he is
happiest." [Hecabe 1. Euripides,
Hecabe
629]
And there are some, who seeing that those who
once were renowned for wealth and power are
humiliated and perish, while huge empires suffer
sudden death, may come to think that their belief
in gods is itself a 'myth', and that blind hazard
rules the world. For such turns of
Fortune are difficult to
follow, and it is hard to believe, when prosperity
shows its lovely face, that ruin could be at hand.
|
|
Pre-emptive measures
|
Now, one of the best ways to invite ruin is to
engage in war; for war might even destroy the
victors in addition to the defeated. But despite
these well known facts, it is not before war has
begun, that its seriousness is fully perceived, and
its consequences truly feared. For the various
outcomes of war are difficult to foresee, once the
folly and fury of men is unleashed. That is why
pre-emptive measures are taken during the course of
war, to avoid complete disaster, if luck were
missing. And so Priam 1,
who before the war could have restored
Helen and the stolen
property to the Achaean envoys—thus avoiding
an armed conflict—, fearing defeat and
extermination once the war had started, sent his
youngest son Polydorus 3 away from
Troy to Thrace, to the
palace of his old friend Polymestor 1, king of the
Bistonians.
|
|
The forethought of Priam
1 came to nothing
|
Along with Polydorus 3,
Priam 1 sent to Thrace a
secret store of gold, which, if ever
Troy should fall, could
help to rescue the remains of his house. While
Troy stood firm and was
still strong, Polydorus 3 lived a happy life in
King Polymestor 1's palace. But when
Hector 1 and King
Priam 1 himself were
killed and Troy was sacked,
Polymestor 1, in order to get the Trojan gold,
murdered his guest, throwing his body into the sea.
|
|
Hecabe 1 plans revenge
|
The corpse of Polydorus 3 appeared in the shore,
close to the place where the Achaean army was
encamped, and delivered to his mother, the former
queen of Troy, who was now
a prisoner. Warned by a dream, Hecabe 1 understood
who the murderer was, and which his motive. And
wishing to avenge his son, she planned the ruin of
this false and perjured friend, who had committed
such a black treachery without fearing the powers
below nor those above.
|
|
Agamemnon aware of
her plans
|
For this purpose, she sent a messenger to
Polymestor 1, begging him to come and bring his
sons, so that all would listen to something she had
to tell them.
Agamemnon was fully
informed by Hecabe 1 of the crime perpetrated by
Polymestor 1, and having at the moment the queen's
daughter Cassandra
lying by his side in bed, was inclined to put
things aright, even though he was reluctant to
invite criticism from the Achaeans, who regarded
Polymestor 1 as an ally. This is why
Agamemnon, not
opposing her in any way, provided the messenger
with a safe-conduct through the camp, declaring
also that:
"It is
important both for individuals and for the State in
general, that the wrongdoer should suffer, and the
honest man reap his reward."
[Agamemnon to Hecabe
1. Euripides, Hecabe 901].
|
|
What Hecabe 1 obtained from
Agamemnon
|
Hecabe 1 obtained such solemn words, the
safe-conduct for the messenger, and the leave to
carry out her revenge, after having reminded
Agamemnon that it is a
good man's duty to uphold the right, and punish
wickedness always and everywhere. And as Hecabe 1
guaranteed that she and the Trojan women with her
were able to carry out the revenge with their own
resources, the king gave his consent; for if he
kept himself apart,
Agamemnon reasoned,
the army could not think that he had connived at
killing Polymestor 1, an ally, for the love of
Cassandra, a Trojan.
|
|
Agamemnon do not
trust women
|
Yet Agamemnon
doubted that women could overpower a man; for even
if they were many, he thought, they would lack
cunning, or strength, or some other splendid
quality possessed only by males. That is why Hecabe
1 refreshed his memory:
"Did not women
kill Aegyptus' fifty sons? Was it not women who
stripped Lemnos clear of males?" [Hecabe 1
to Agamemnon.
Euripides,
Hecabe
886]
|
|
Polymestor 1 arrives
|
This is how the former foes came to an
agreement, and Polymestor 1, having received Hecabe
1's message, appeared before her accompanied with
his sons. After having dismissed the bodyguard,
Hecabe 1 asked for his son and the gold, and
treacherous Polymestor 1 reassured her, saying that
her son was alive, and the gold safe at his palace.
Then Hecabe 1 fabricated a story about a store of
gold buried long ago in the place in
Troy where once
Athena's temple stood,
asking Polymestor 1 to take charge of some items,
belonging to that treasure, which she had brought
with her when leaving Troy,
and that now were hidden in her tent.
|
|
Polymestor 1 ruled and lured by his lust of gain
|
Lured by her tales of gold treasured by
Priam 1's family, the
Thracian king and his two sons were brought alone
into the tent. There Polymnestor 1 sat in the
middle of a couch with Trojan women sitting on both
sides of him, first admiring the texture of his
cloak, and then looking at his spears and passing
them on from one to another, so that at the end he
was disarmed and the weapons far away.
|
|
Polymestor 1 ambushed
|
And as men seldom can resist the loving glances
of women, their proofs of admiration, their gentle
talk, or their soft proximity, Polymestor 1 was
taken by surprise when they, all of a sudden,
whipped out daggers from their clothes, and stabbed
his sons. And as coming out from dreams is not done
in a twinkling, he could not react fast enough when
the twenty women in the tent fell on his arms and
legs, and holding him down by the hair, stabbed and
tore his eyes with their brooches.
|
|
Opinion confirmed
|
No wonder this instructive experience confirmed
Polymestor 1's opinion about women, which this
traitor, coming out of the tent, and complaining in
front of Agamemnon,
put in this manner:
"No monster
like a woman breeds in land or sea; and those who
have most to do with women know it best."
[Polymestor 1 to
Agamemnon. Euripides,
Hecabe
1180]
|
|
Polymestor 1 explains himself
|
Now Polymestor 1, unable to curb his bold
tongue, and likewise unable to forget he was a
barbarian (for only such could conceive the idea of
murdering a guest for gold), would have loved to
rip Hecabe 1 into rags. But being blind he had to
control himself, and state his case in front of
King Agamemnon. And so
he tried to win the king's good will, arguing that
Polydorus 3 was the enemy of the Achaeans, and that
if left alive, he might gather Trojan survivors and
re-found the city. However, not being able to
explain why he had not killed Polydorus 3 when
Troy was still strong, or
handed him alive to the Achaeans during the war,
Polymestor 1 could not persuade him.
|
|
Agamemnon's
decision
|
It is difficult for a ruler to openly help an
impious, perjured, and polluted traitor; and as
killing a guest is a wicked crime in any civilized
country, nobody wishes to soil himself through
leniency or omission. And that is why, before
ordering his guards to throw Polymestor 1 on some
desert island,
Agamemnon said:
"If I
pronounced you innocent, I should be myself
guilty."
[Agamemnon to
Polymestor 1. Euripides,
Hecabe
1249]
|
|
Others say differently
|
Yet others have said that this is not what
happened. Instead they affirm that when Polydorus 3
was born, his father Priam
1 gave him to his daughter Iliona, who was
married to King Polymestor 1. Iliona, who was
Polydorus 3's sister, brought him up as her own
son; and the son Deipylus 1 that she had by
Polymestor 1, she brought as if he were her
brother, thinking that if anything happened to
either of them, she could give the other to her
parents at Troy. Now, when
Troy was sacked, the
Achaeans purposed to destroy the house of
Priam 1, and that is why
they murdered little Astyanax 2, the son of
Hector 1. With regard to
Polydorus 3, the Achaeans sent messengers to King
Polymestor 1, promising him
Electra 2, daughter of
Agamemnon, in
marriage, together with a large amount of gold, if
he would kill Polydorus 3.
|
|
Polymestor 1, still a gold-lover, killed by his
guest
|
Polymnestor 1 found the offer attractive, and
slew his own son Deipylus 1 unwittingly, thinking
he had killed Polydorus 3. In the meantime, this
young man had gone to the Oracle at
Delphi, and having
inquired about his parents, he learned that his
city was burned, his father dead, and his mother
held in servitude. When Polydorus 3 returned home
to Thrace, not knowing that he came originally from
Troy, and believing
Polymestor 1 and Iliona to be his parents, he
thought that the Oracle had spoken falsely.
However, his sister Iliona, who later committed
suicide on account of her family's misfortunes,
revealed the truth, and following her advice,
Polydorus 3 blinded Polymestor 1 and killed him.
|
|
Polyxena 1
|
In any case, the time Hecabe 1 spent in the
Achaean camp after the war was a painful one. The
women of Troy had been
taken captive and were given as prizes to the
Achaean warriors, and just as
Hector 1's wife
Andromache was
assigned to
Neoptolemus, and
Cassandra to
Agamemnon, Hecabe 1
was assigned to
Odysseus, who also was
the man that came to her demanding the surrender of
her daughter Polyxena
1, who was to be sacrificed on
Achilles' tomb. For
that was, the Achaeans said, the wish of
Achilles' ghost, that
having appeared above his tomb, delayed the return
of the army, and demanded that bloody gift of
honour for his tomb.
|
|
Odysseus in Hecabe
1's debt
|
Some have said that the reason for sacrificing
this beautiful girl was that, during the war,
Achilles had sought her
in marriage, but when he came for an interview he
was killed by Paris and
Deiphobus 1. When
Odysseus appeared
before Hecabe 1 in order to fetch
Polyxena 1, the former
queen of Troy reminded him
that he was in her debt. For he, during the war,
having once come as a spy to
Troy disguised in filthy
wrappings, was recognized by
Helen, who told no one
except Queen Hecabe 1. And being then in great
danger, Odysseus
clasped the queen's knees, touched her cheek, and
invented a legion of reasons to save his life,
finally persuading Hecabe 1 to let him go, which
shows that all pains to learn and study all other
skills are of no avail if Persuasion, which is the
queen of human arts, has not been mastered.
|
|
What counted for
Odysseus
|
This debt Odysseus
was willing to pay, but in the person of Hecabe 1,
and not in that of
Polyxena 1, no matter
how much the queen implored:
"Do not tear
my child from me, do not kill her ... In her lies
my joy, in her I forget troubles, and find comfort
for all I have lost. She is my city now; my nurse,
my staff, my guide." [Hecabe 1 to
Odysseus. Euripides,
Hecabe
276]
These words and many others did not move
Odysseus' heart, who
thought that gratitude to the dead who had fought
for their country should come first. For, he
reasoned, if once more they would have to mobilize
and fight their enemies, many could hesitate to
join up and fight, if they saw that those who were
killed did not receive any special honour.
|
|
The mind of Polyxena
1
|
This is how Polyxena
1 was lost. Her mother shed many tears, but
herself she did not care, and showed no intention
of touching someone's beard to try to save her
life. For as she said, the mere name of 'slave'
made her in love with death. And in fact, having
lived all her life as a princess, she had no desire
of finding herself under a harsh-minded master, or
being sent to a kitchen, or sweep a house, or stand
in bitterness weaving at the loom, or having her
bed claimed by some bought slave. This is why she
declared:
"One
unaccustomed to the taste of misery bears it, but
suffers as his neck accepts the yoke. For such a
one there is more happiness in dying than living.
For life bereft of honor is toil and
trouble." [Polyxena
1 to Hecabe 1. Euripides,
Hecabe
375]
|
|
Andromache thinks
likewise
|
And other prisoners, as
Hector 1's wife
Andromache, who
survived the war and the Achaean camp, thought
likewise; for she said:
"To have been
unborn I count as one with death;
But better death than life in bitterness.
No pain feels death, which has no sense of
ills:
But who has prospered, and has fallen on woe,
Forlorn of soul strays far from olden
bliss."
[Andromache to Hecabe
1. Euripides,
Daughters
of Troy 636]
|
|
Death of Polyxena 1
|
So having prepared her mind in such a way,
Polyxena 1 died
willingly on the tomb of
Achilles, being there
stabbed to death by
Neoptolemus. And
they say that the whole Achaean army, having
watched her gestures and heard her last words,
considered her to have the most courageous and
noble heart of all.
|
|
End of Hecabe 1
|
When all postwar businesses had been settled,
Hecabe 1 sailed away with
Odysseus, to whom she
had been assigned in servitude, and when they were
passing the Hellespont, she threw herself into the
sea, and according to some, she was turned into a
bitch. Others have said that this happened when the
Achaeans had made the ships ready for home-return.
Still others assert that when Hecabe 1 had gouged
Polymestor 1's eyeballs from their sockets, the
Thracians attacked her with shafts and stones, but
she bit the stones they threw and started barking
when she tried to speak, turning finally into a
dog. The place where this happened was called ever
since Cynossema—the Dog's Tomb—, and
reminds of the woman who earned
Fame worldwide for having
lost everything, and confronted a most complete
defeat.
|
|
Comment by Menelaus
|
All this things happened, some say, because of
the will of the gods. But some have called
Paris, the plague of
Troy; for he, having
seduced Helen, caused
destruction to his own country. And some affirm
that Helen is to blame;
for, they reason, women are not abducted if they do
not want it themselves.
As it is well known, the
ACHAEAN LEADERS
were bound by treaty, or by what is known as The
Oath of Tyndareus, to
join the alliance that sailed to
Troy in order to demand the
restoration of Helen to
his husband Menelaus.
Someone may think that one important cause behind
the Achaean expedition must have been
Menelaus' boundless
love for Helen. Yet he has
boldly declared:
"Not so much
came I, as men deem, to
Troy for her, but to avenge me on the
man, the traitor guest who stole my wife from
me." [Menelaus.
Euripides,
Daughters
of Troy 865]
|
|
Another with identical name
|
Hecabe 2 is one of the
DANAIDS.
|
|