Hecuba
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Hecuba (
Description
Hecuba was described by the chronicler Malalas in his account of the Chronography as "dark, good eyes, full grown, long nose, beautiful, generous, talkative, calm".[2] Meanwhile, in the account of Dares the Phrygian, she was illustrated as "... beautiful, her figure large, her complexion dark. She thought like a man and was pious and just."[3]
Family
Parentage
Ancient sources vary as to the parentage of Hecuba.
Some versions from non-extant works are summarized by a scholiast on Euripides' Hecuba:[10] according to those, she was a daughter of Dymas or Sangarius by the Naiad Euagora, or by Glaucippe the daughter of Xanthus (Scamander?); the possibility of her being a daughter of Cisseus is also discussed. A scholiast on Homer relates that Hecuba's parents were either Dymas and the nymph Eunoe or Cisseus and Telecleia;[11] the latter option would make her a full sister of Theano, which is also noted by the scholiast on Euripides cited above.
According to Suetonius in The Twelve Caesars, the emperor Tiberius pestered scholars with obscure questions about ancient mythology, with one of his favorites being "Who was Hecuba's mother?"[12]
Offspring
Hecuba had 19 children, some of which included major characters of
.Relation | Names | Sources | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hom. | Euripides | Diod. | Virgil | Ovid | Apollod. | Dictys | ||||
Iliad | TW | Hec. | Aen. | Met. | ||||||
Parents | Dymas | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||
Cisseus | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||
Sangarius and Metope | ✓ | |||||||||
Consort | Priam | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
Apollo | ✓ | |||||||||
Siblings | Asius | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||
Children | Hector | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||
Deiphobus | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||||
Polyxena | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||
Cassandra | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||
Polydorus | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||||||
Paris | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||||||
Creusa | ✓ | |||||||||
Laodice | ✓ | |||||||||
Helenus | ✓ | |||||||||
Pammon | ✓ | |||||||||
Polites | ✓ | |||||||||
Antiphus | ✓ | |||||||||
Troilus | ✓ | ✓ |
Myths
Hecuba in the Iliad
Hecuba appears six times in the Iliad. In Book 6.326–96, she meets Hector upon his return to the city and offers him the libation cup, instructing him to offer it to Zeus and to drink from it himself. Taking Hector's advice, she chooses a gown taken from Alexander's treasure to give as an offering to the goddess and leads the Trojan women to the temple of Athena to pray for help. In Book 22, she pleads with Hector not to fight Achilles, expressing her premonition of "never get[ting] to mourn you laid out on a bier."[15] In Book 24.201–16, she is stricken with anxiety upon hearing of Priam's plan to retrieve Hector's body from Achilles' hut. Further along in the same episode, at 24.287–98, she offers Priam the libation cup and instructs him to pray to Zeus so that he may receive a favourable omen upon setting out towards the Achaean camp. Unlike in the first episode in which Hector refuses her offer of the cup, Priam accepts and is rewarded with the requested omen. Finally, she laments Hector's death in a well-known speech at 24.748–59.
Hecuba in other classical works
Stesichorus states that after the sack of Troy, Apollo, Hecuba's former lover, took her to safety and placed her in Lycia.[16][17]
The
Hecuba is a main character in two plays by
Another story says that when she was given to Odysseus as a slave, she snarled and cursed at him, so the gods turned her into a dog, allowing her to escape.
In another tradition, Hecuba went mad upon seeing the corpses of her children Polydorus and
|
|
- —Inferno XXX: 13–20
Another legend has it that Hecuba threw herself into the sea
Gallery
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Hecuba Offering the Robe to Pallas by Antonio Canova
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Hecuba finds her son Polydorus by Virgil Solis
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Despair of Hecuba by Pierre Peyron
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Hecuba and the Trojan Women Murdering Polymestor by Antonio Tempesta
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Hecuba a Graecis by Vieira Lusitano
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Farewell of Hecuba and Polyxena by Michel Martin Drolling (1824)
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Hecuba Blinds Polymnestor by Giuseppe Maria Crespi
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Dream of Hecuba by Giulio Romano
In popular culture
Hecuba is frequently referenced in classical literature, and in many medieval, Renaissance, and modern works. Among the works which are about Hecuba are:
- Hecuba and The Trojan Women, plays by Euripides
- The Trojan War Will Not Take Place, play by Jean Giraudoux
- King Priam, novel by David Park
- All For Hecuba (1947) an autobiography of Micheál Mac Liammóir
- Cortege of Eagles (1967), ballet by Martha Graham
- Gilligan's Island (1967), TV series, Ep.72; to impress brash movie producer Harold Hecuba (Phil Silvers), who has crash landed on their island, the castaways perform their own musical parody version of Shakespeare's Hamlet.
- Passions (2000), soap opera featuring a character named Hecuba, played by Robin Strasser, who is a supernatural antagonist to the town’s resident witch
- Trojan Barbie (2006), play by Christine Evans
- Originally scripted for a Doctor Who script, Hecuba was intended to be The Celestial Toymaker's sister in the unmade Season 5 story The Queen of Time, this was turned to a Big Finish audio story.
- The House of Hades (2013), novel by Rick Riordan
- Troy: Fall of a City (2018) a miniseries in which Hecuba is portrayed by Frances O'Connor
- Hammerbarn", Hecuba features as Bingo's gnome husband
Hecuba is also referenced in other works:
- Shakespeare. In Act 2, scene 2, the character Hamlet marvels at the skill of an actor he has just watched perform a monologue about Hecuba witnessing Priam's death with convincing grief: "What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, / That he should weep for her?" Hamlet criticizes himself for grieving his father less authentically than the actor does on behalf of the imaginary Hecuba and Priam.[23]
- In Fortune Plango Vulnera (I Bemoan The Wounds Of Fortune), from the 13th C Latin and Goliardic poetry collection Carmina Burana, which was set to music in the movement Fate Imperatrix Mundi of Carmina Burana: Cantiones profanae cantoribus et choris cantandae comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis by Carl Orff, Hecuba is mentioned as an exemplar of those thrown down by fate and a warning: "Nam sub axe legimus, Hecubam reginam." (For beneath the axle is written, queen Hecuba)
• In Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country, she describes Mrs. Spragg as “gaz[ing]after [Undine and Mr. Spragg] with the pale stare of Hecuba.”
Notes
- ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition: "Hecuba" Archived 2012-03-23 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Malalas, Chronography 5.106
- ^ Dares Phrygius, History of the Fall of Troy 12
- Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, 3. 12. 5. In: Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.
- ^ Iliad, 16. 715
- ^ Euripides, Hecuba, 3
- ^ Virgil, Aeneid 7. 320; 10. 705,
- ^ Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, 3. 12. 5
- ^ Hyginus, Fabulae, 91, 111, 249
- ^ Scholia on Euripides, Hecuba 3
- ^ Scholia on Iliad, 16. 718, referring to Pherecydes and Athenion for the two versions respectively
- ^ Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Chapter 2 (Tiberius), paragraph 72
- all made Hector the son of Apollo
- ^ Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3. 12. 5 & E3. 32
- ^ Homer, The Iliad. Book 22, line 86
- ^ Stesichorus, Fr.109
- ^ Cecil Maurice Bowra, Greek Lyric Poetry from Alcman to Simonides, Volume 1
- ^ "Hecuba", Washington State University
- ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 243
- ISBN 978-0-19-537493-3
- ^ Koniaris, George Leonidas. "Alexander, Palamedes, Troades, Sisyphus - A Connected Tetralogy? A Connected Trilogy?". In: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology. Volume 78. Harvard University Press. 1973. pp. 120-121.
- ISBN 978-1-316-27829-1, retrieved 2022-10-17
- ^ "Hamlet: the play within the play". The British Library. Retrieved 2019-11-22.
References
Primary sources
- Virgil, Aeneid III.19–68
- Homer, Iliad XIV.717–718
- De vita CaesarumX.22
- Lactantius, Divinae institutions I.22
- Pomponius Mela, De chorographia II.26
- Ovid, Metamorphoses XIII.423–450, 481–571
- Trojan Women
- Euripides, Hecuba
Secondary sources
- Tsotakou-Karveli. Lexicon of Greek Mythology. Athens: Sokoli, 1990.
External links
- "Hecuba" . Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.