Summary

In Chapter 9, "The Trojan Women", Hecabe leads the Trojan women to collect fresh water. She realises that she doesn’t have anything to carry it in, and so a younger woman offers her her own cup because "she remained their queen" (61). Hecabe demands food from the Greeks. At first they laugh at her, but soon they bring some grain and the women go about making a broth. Hecabe reflects that this is the last time she will be together with her own people, these women, the remnants of her kingdom. Soon they would all be separated, "allotted to the leaders of the different Greek tribes" (62). Hecabe wonders, if she could choose, which of the women she would stay with if she could choose. Andromache is "not her blood"; Cassandra, cursed by the gods with insanity, was a "torment" (62). And so, "Hecabe knew that...