Hecuba (1127b-1160)

By the gods I entreat you, let me vent on her the fury of my arm.

Hold! banish that savage spirit from your heart

and plead your cause, so that after hearing you and her in turn I may fairly decide what reason there is for your present sufferings.

I will tell my tale. There was a son of Priam, Polydorus, the youngest, a child by Hecuba, whom his father Priam sent to me from Troy to bring up in my halls,

suspecting no doubt the fall of Troy. I killed him; but hear my reason for killing him, how cleverly and wisely I had thought it out. My fear was that if that child were left to be your enemy, he would repeople Troy and settle it afresh;

and the Achaeans, knowing that a son of Priam survived, might bring another expedition against the Phrygian land, and then harry and lay waste these plains of Thrace, for the neighbours of Troy to experience the very troubles we were lately suffering, O king.

Now Hecuba, having discovered the death of her son, brought me here on the following pretext, saying she would tell me of hidden treasure stored up in Ilium by the race of Priam; and she led me apart with my children into the tent, that no other might hear her news.

So I sat down on a couch in their midst to rest; for there were many of the Trojan maidens seated there, some on my right hand, some on my left, as if beside a friend; and they were praising the weaving of our Edonian handiwork, looking at this robe as they held it up to the light;

while others examined my Thracian spear and so stripped me of two-fold protection. And those that were young mothers were dandling my children in their arms, with loud admiration, as they passed them on from hand to hand to remove them far from their father;

and then after their smooth speeches—would you believe it?—in an instant snatching daggers from somewhere in their dress they stab my children; while others, like foes, seized me hand and foot;