Hecuba

After Troy fell, Hecuba grieved as an exile, separated from the tombs of her family. She speaks of a daughter whose death has left her only one son as a reason to keep living. Polydorus, the youngest of her sons, had been entrusted to the Ismarian king. Hecuba goes to the shore to wash the body of her daughter. There she sees Polydorus cast upon the shore, his body pierced by weapons. Grief stops her voice and holds back her tears. She looks down at the ground, then towards the sky, then fixes her eyes upon her son's wounds. Rage overcomes her mourning. She rises with her grey hair dishevelled and asks the Trojan women for an urn to carry water. She then resolves to punish the king who killed her son. Hecuba tells him that she will reveal a hidden treasure left for Polydorus, and he believes her promise and comes to the secluded meeting place.

The king swears that the treasure already given and anything still to come will belong to the boy. Hecuba sees his false oath and springs at him with the captive Trojan women. She drives her fingers into his eyes and blinds him. The Thracians, enraged by their king's injury, attack her with darts and stones. Hecuba bites at the stones and makes a hoarse sound. When she tries to speak, she barks instead. Her howling carries across the Sithonian plain, and even the wife and sister of Jupiter deny that she deserves such a fate.