I Achilles

A) Euripides, Hecuba 108-140: It is said that the Achaeans in full assembly have determined to offer your daughter in sacrifice to Achilles; for you know how one day he appeared standing on his tomb in golden armor, and stayed the sea-borne ships, though they had their sails already hoisted, with this pealing cry, "Where, Danaans, do you sail so fast, leaving my tomb without its prize?" Thereon arose a violent dispute with stormy altercation, and opinion was divided in the warrior host of Hellas, some being in favour of offering the sacrifice at the tomb, others dissenting. There was Agamemnon, all eagerness in your interest, because of his love for the frenzied prophetess; but the two sons of Theseus, scions of Athens, though supporting different proposals, yet agreed on the same decision, which was to crown Achilles' tomb with fresh-spilt blood; for they said they never would set Cassandra's love before Achilles' valour. Now the zeal of the rival disputants was almost equal, until that shifty, smooth-mouthed slicer of words, the son of Laertes, whose tongue is ever at the service of the mob, persuaded the army not to put aside the best of all the Danai for want of a slave-woman's sacrifice, nor have it said by any of the dead who stand beside Persephone that without one thought of gratitude the Danaans have left the plains of Troy and deserted their brethren who died for Hellas.

B) Euripides, Hecuba 254-266: A thankless [without kharis] race! all you who covet honour [timê] from the mob for your oratory. Would that you were unknown to me, you who harm your friends and think no more of it, if you can but say a word to win the mob. But tell me, what kind of cleverness did they think it, when against this child they passed their murderous vote? Was it duty led them to slay a human victim at the tomb, where sacrifice of oxen more befits? Or does Achilles, claiming the lives of those who slew him as his recompense, show his justice [dikê] by marking her out for death? No! she at least never committed any injury against him. He should have demanded Helen as a victim at his tomb, for she it was that proved his ruin, bringing him to Troy.

C) Euripides, Hecuba 309-320
Now Achilles, lady, deserves honour [timê] at our hands, since for Hellas he died as beautifully as a mortal can. Is not this a foul reproach to treat a man as a friend [philos] in life, but, when he is gone from us, to treat him so no more? Well? what will they say, if once more there comes a gathering of the army and a contest [agôn] with the foe? "Shall we fight or be lovers our lives seeing the dead have no honours [timê]?" For myself, indeed, even if in life my daily store were scant, yet it would be all-sufficient, but as touching a tomb I should wish mine to be an object of respect, for this gratitude [kharis] endures.

D) Euripides, Hecuba 528-542
Then did Achilles' son take in his hands a brimming cup of gold and poured an offering to his dead sire, making a sign to me to proclaim silence throughout the Achaean host. So I stood at his side and in their midst proclaimed, "Silence, Achaeans! All people be hushed! Peace! Be still!" Therewith I calmed the host. Then he spoke, "Son of Peleus, my father, accept the offering I pour you to appease your spirit, strong to raise the dead; and come to drink the black blood of a virgin pure, which I and the host are offering you; oh! be propitious to us; grant that we may loose our prows and the cables of our ships, and, meeting with prosperous voyage from Ilium, all come to our country and achieve a homecoming [nostos]." So he spoke; and all the army echoed his prayer.

E) Euripides, Hecuba 1287-92
Go you, unhappy Hecuba, and bury your two corpses; and you, Trojan women, go to your masters' tents, for I perceive a breeze just rising to waft us home. God grant we reach our country and find all well at home, released from troubles here!

II Polyxena

F) Euripides, Hecuba 205-210
For just as a lion's whelp of the hills is torn from its mother,
you, alas! hapless will see <..................>
your hapless young shoot
torn from your arms,
and sent beneath the darkness of the earth
with severed throat for Hades,
where with the dead shall I be laid, ah me!

G) Euripides, Hecuba 342-368: Odysseus, I see you hiding your right hand beneath your robe and turning away your face, so that I may not touch your beard. Take heart; you are safe from the suppliant's god in my case, for I will follow you, alike because I must and because it is my wish to die; for were I not willing, a coward should I show myself, a woman too fond of her life [psukhê]. Why should I prolong my days? I whose sire was king of all the Phrygians? This was the most important thing in life for me. Then was I nursed on fair fond hopes to be a bride for kings, the center of fierce jealousy among suitors, to see whose home I would make my own; and over each woman of Ida I was queen; ah me! a maiden marked amid women and girls, equal to a goddess, save for death alone. But now I am a slave. That name first makes me long for death, so strange it sounds; and then maybe my lot might give me to some savage master, one that would buy me for money - me the sister of Hector and many another chief - who would make me knead him bread within his halls, or sweep his house or set me working at the loom, leading a life of misery; while some slave, bought I know not whence, will taint my maiden charms, once deemed worthy of royalty [turannos]. No, never! Here I close my eyes upon the light, free as yet, and dedicate myself to Hades.

H) Euripides, Hecuba 444-483
CHORUS O breeze from out the deep arising, that escorts swift, sea-faring ships to harbors across the surging sea! Where will you bear me, the child of sorrow? To whose house shall I be brought, to be his slave and chattel? To some haven in the Dorian land, or in Phthia, where men say the Apidanus river, father of fairest streams, makes the land fat and rich?

or to an island home, sent on a voyage of misery by oars that sweep the brine, leading a wretched existence in halls where the first-created palm and the bay-tree put forth their sacred shoots for dear Latona, as a memorial of her divine child-birth? And there with the maids of Delos shall I hymn the golden head-band and bow of Artemis their goddess?

Or in the city of Pallas, the home of Athena of the beauteous chariot, shall I upon her saffron robe yoke horses to the car, embroidering them on my web in brilliant varied shades, or [shall I embroider] the race of Titans, whom Zeus the son of Cronos lays to their unending sleep with his bolt of flashing flame?

Woe is me for my children! Woe for my ancestors, and my country which is falling in smouldering ruin amid the smoke, sacked by the Argive spear! While I upon a foreign shore am called a slave, leaving Asia, Europe's handmaid, and receiving in its place the chambers of Hades.

I) Euripides, Hecuba 521-582: All Achaea's host was gathered there in full array before the tomb to see your daughter offered; and the son of Achilles took Polyxena by the hand and set her on the top of the mound, while I stood near; and a chosen band of young Achaeans followed to hold your child and prevent her struggling... [Neoptolemus prays to Achilles] Then seizing his golden sword by the hilt he drew it from its scabbard, making a sign to the picked young Argive warriors to hold the maid. But she, when she became aware of this, uttered [sêmainô] a speech: "O Argives, who have sacked my city! Of my free will I die; let none lay hand on me; for bravely will I yield my neck. I beseech you by the gods, leave me free when you kill me, so I may die free, for to be called a slave among the dead fills my royal heart with shame." At that the people shouted their applause, and king Agamemnon bade the young men to release the maiden. [So they set her free, as soon as they heard this last command from him whose might was over all.] And she, hearing her captors' words took her robe and tore it open from the shoulder to the waist, displaying a breast and bosom fair as a statue's; then sinking on her knee, one word she spoke more piteous than all the rest, "Young prince, if it is my breast you desire to strike, stike, or if at my neck you wish to aim your sword, behold! that neck is bared." Then he, both unwilling and willing in his pity for the girl, cut with the steel the channels of her breath, and streams of blood gushed forth; but she, even as she was dying, took care to fall with dignity, hiding what must be hidden from the gaze of man. As soon as she had breathed her last through the fatal gash, each Argive set his hand to different tasks, some strewing leaves over the corpse in handfuls, others bringing pine-logs and heaping up a pyre; and he, who brought nothing, would hear from him who did such taunts as these, "You stand still, ignoble wretch, with no robe or ornament to bring for the maiden? Will you give nothing to her that showed such peerless bravery and spirit [aristos + psukhê]?" Such is the tale I tell about your daughter's death, and I regard you as blessed beyond all mothers in your noble child, yet crossed in fortune more than all.

J) Euripides, Hecuba 609-613: My aged handmaid, take a pitcher and dip it in the salt sea and bring it here, that I for the last time may wash my child, a bride but not a bride, a virgin and not a virgin, and lay her out - as she deserves.

III Hecuba

K) Euripides, Hecuba 783-785, 809-811
AGAMEMNON Woe is you for your measureless troubles [ponos, plural]!

HECUBA I am ruined; no evil [kakos] now is left, O Agamemnon.

AGAMEMNON Look you! what woman was ever born to such misfortune?

... I was once queen, but now I am your slave; a happy mother once, but now childless and old alike, without a city, utterly forlorn, the most wretched [adjective from athlos] woman living.

L) Euripides, Hecuba 905-951
No more, my native Ilium, shall you be counted among the towns never sacked; so thick a cloud of Hellene troops is settling all around, wasting you with the spear; you have been shorn of your crown of towers, and you have been blackened most piteously with filthy soot; no more, ah me! shall tread your streets.

It was in the middle of the night my ruin came, in the hour when sleep steals sweetly over the eyes after the feast is done. My husband, the music over, and the sacrifice that sets the dance afoot now ended, was lying in our bridal-chamber, his spear hung on a peg; with never a thought of the sailor-throng encamped upon the Trojan shores;

and I was braiding my tresses in a headband that bound up the hair before my golden mirror's countless rays, that I might lay me down to rest in my bed; when through the city rose a din, and a cry went ringing down the streets of Troy, "O sons of Hellas, when, oh! when will ye sack the citadel of Ilium, and seek your homes?"

Up sprang I from my bed, with only a tunic about me, like a Dorian girl, and sought in vain, ah me! to station myself at the holy hearth of Artemis; for, after seeing my husband slain, I was hurried away over the broad sea; with many a backward look at my city, when the ship began her homeward voyage and parted me from Ilium's shore; until alas! I gave way to grief [algos]

M) Euripides, Hecuba 1258-1282
HECUBA I am avenged on you; have I not cause for joy?

POLYMESTOR The joy will soon cease, in the day when ocean's flood...

HECUBA Shall convey me to the shores of Hellas?

POLYMESTOR No, but close over you when you fall from the masthead.

HECUBA Who will force me to take the leap?

POLYMESTOR Of your own accord you will climb the ship's mast.

HECUBA With wings upon my back, or by what means?

POLYMESTOR You will become a dog with bloodshot eyes.

HECUBA How do you know of my transformation?

POLYMESTOR Dionysus, our Thracian prophet, told me so.

HECUBA And did he tell you nothing of your present trouble?

POLYMESTOR No; else you would never have caught me thus by guile.

HECUBA Shall I die or live, and so complete my life on earth?

POLYMESTOR You shall die; and to your tomb shall be given a name -

HECUBA Recalling my form, or what will you tell me?

POLYMESTOR "The hapless hound's grave [sêma]," a mark for mariners."

HECUBA It is nothing to me, now that you have paid me penalty [dikê].

POLYMESTOR Further, your daughter Cassandra must die.

HECUBA I scorn the prophecy! I give it to you to keep for yourself.

POLYMESTOR Her shall the wife of Agamemnon, grim keeper of his palace, slay.

HECUBA Never may the daughter of Tyndareus do such a frantic deed!

POLYMESTOR And she shall slay this king as well, lifting high the axe.

AGAMEMNON Are you mad? Are you so eager to find sorrow?

POLYMESTOR Kill me, for in Argos there awaits you a murderous bath.

AGAMEMNON Servants, take him from my sight.

N) Thucydides, Peloponnesian Wars 3.82-83
The sufferings which revolution entailed upon the cities were many and terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur, as long as the nature of mankind remains the same; though in a severer or milder form, and varying in their symptoms, according to the variety of the particular cases. In peace and prosperity states and individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough master, that brings most men's characters to a level with their fortunes…in their acts of vengeance they went to even greater lengths… Thus religion was in honor with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation. … Thus every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries by reason of the troubles. The ancient simplicity into which honor so largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow.

O) Odyssey 20.14-15
[Odysseus'] heart barked within him, just as a dog standing over her feeble puppies barks at strangers and is eager to fight.

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More Resources

The Sacrifice of Polyxena