* * * *

Notes on the Introduction

[1] See Theatre of the Greeks, p. 92. sqq.

[2] Bacch. 200.  This play was written during his sojourn with Archelaus.

[3] [Greek:  toioutoni ti parakekindeumenon].  Aristoph.  Ran. 99.

[4] Poet.  Sec. xviii.

[5] Hec. 905 sqq.

* * * * * *

Hecuba.

* * * *

Persons represented.

  Ghost of Polydore. 
  Hecuba. 
  Chorus of female captives. 
  Polyxena. 
  Ulysses. 
  Talthybius. 
  Female attendant. 
  Agamemnon. 
  Polymestor and his children.

The Scene lies before the Grecian tents, on the coast of the Thracian Chersonese.

* * * * *

The argument.

* * * *

After the capture of Troy, the Greeks put into the Chersonese over against Troas, But Achilles, having appeared by night, demanded one of the daughters of Priam to be slain.  The Greeks therefore, in honor to their hero, tore Polyxena from Hecuba, and offered her up in sacrifice.  Polymestor moreover, the king of the Thracians, murdered Polydore, a son of Priam’s.  Now Polymestor had received him from the hands of Priam as a charge to take care of, together with some money.  But when the city was taken, wishing to seize upon his wealth, he determined to dispatch him, and disregarded the ill-fated friendship that subsisted between them; but his body being cast out into the sea, the wave threw him up on the shore before the tents of the captive women.  Hecuba, on seeing the corse, recognized it; and having imparted her design to Agamemnon, sent for Polymestor to come to her with his sons, concealing what had happened, under pretense that she might discover to him some treasures hidden in Ilium.  But on his arrival she slew his sons, and put out his eyes; but pleading her cause before the Greeks, she gained it over her accuser (Polymestor).  For it was decided that she did not begin the cruelty, but only avenged herself on him who did begin it.

* * * * *

Hecuba.

* * * *

Ghost of Polydore.

I am present, having left the secret dwellings of the dead and the gates of darkness, where Pluto has his abode apart from the other Gods, Polydore the son of Hecuba the daughter of Cisseus,[1] and Priam my sire, who when the danger of falling by the spear of Greece was threatening the city of the Phrygians, in fear, privately sent me from the Trojan land to the house of Polymestor, his Thracian friend, who cultivates the most fruitful soil of the Chersonese, ruling a warlike people with his spear.[2] But my father