Hecuba

Polymestor, led by the handmaid, enters with his young sons and some attendants. He addresses Hecuba as a friend, saying he pities her suffering. In the ensuing exchange, Hecuba tells Polymestor that she has some business to discuss with him in private. Polymestor tells his attendants to leave. When Hecuba asks about Polydorus, Polymestor lies that he is well and that his gold is safe. Hecuba, concealing that she has already found Polydorus’s body, entices Polymestor with the promise of more riches. She promises to reveal to him the location of Priam’s hidden vaults so that he can pass on the information to her son. She also adds that she has smuggled some treasure from Troy that she wishes to give him in her tent. Polymestor and his sons follow her into her tent.

As Hecuba, Polymestor, and his sons exit the stage, the Chorus remains outside. In a brief interlude, they sing of the retributive justice exacted by the gods upon those who do wrong. As they sing, Polymestor’s cries are heard off-stage. Hecuba reenters, mocking Polymestor and declaring that she has blinded him and killed his sons. Polymestor emerges after her. In a lyric passage, he rages against the Trojan women and Hecuba, who have torn his sons apart and gouged out his eyes, and calls for help.

Agamemnon, hearing the commotion, enters with his soldiers. Addressing Agamemnon as his friend, Polymestor asks him to punish Hecuba for what she has done. Agamemnon restrains Polymestor and agrees to hear both parties out before giving judgment. Polymestor speaks first, admitting that he killed Polydorus but presenting his actions as being in the best interests of Greece as well as his own subjects. He then describes how Hecuba lured him and his sons into her tent, pounced on them with the help of the other Trojan women, drew hidden weapons, killed his sons, and blinded him. He concludes with a brief tirade against women in general. Hecuba responds with a speech justifying her actions, categorizing Polymestor’s arguments as specious and identifying his true motives as greed and self-interest. She concludes by telling Agamemnon that to assist Polymestor would be to “prove yourself unjust” (1233).

Agamemnon rules in favor of Hecuba, telling Polymestor that he has been rightly punished for murdering his guest. Polymestor, furious, foretells the fates of both Hecuba and Agamemnon, claiming to have learned them from Dionysus: Hecuba, he says, will be transformed into a dog and leap into the sea, while Agamemnon and Cassandra will be murdered by Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra upon their arrival in Greece. Agamemnon dismisses Polymestor as unbelievable and gives orders that he be left on a desert island. As Polymestor is dragged away, Agamemnon observes that the wind has picked up. He orders his ships to prepare to put to sea. As everybody exits, the Chorus sings the concluding lines of the play, lamenting the harsh fate that leads them now to their lives as enslaved people in Greece.