Hecuba Queen of Troy

Former Queen of Troy to A Trojan Woman King Priam of Troy ❤️ RIP to my Lovely Children💀❤️💀 Creating Awareness for other Mother's Dealing with Loss of a Child

[hecubakween]

Queen of Troy

I was once a Queen to my people and a Mother to my children. Now there is no kingdom left and no children to nurture. #grief #myheartisinTroy #Amothersgreif #queenofTroy

[gegensmith]

To give voice to grief is a kind of pleasure.

Chorus, Women of Troy, by Euripides (line 609)

[theoptia]

Euripides, from The Trojan Women; tr. by Alan Shapiro

﹙ Text ID: I may be mad, God-seized, but I will stand outside my madness﹚

[hecubakween]

To my followers

Let me actions be lessons.

Let my grief inspire a happier path.

Let your people support you.

and don’t let the bad ones win

[hecubakween]

Why we should care about 'Hecuba'

"What's Hecuba to him?" Hamlet asks. "Or he to Hecuba that he should weep for her?"

[theclassicsreader]

Evils come pouring over evils. Never will a day without groaning, a day without tears reach me.

Euripides, Hekabe (trans. by Anne Carson)

[theclassicsreader]

CHORUS: Why? What now? Do announcements of grief never sleep?

Euripides, Hekabe (trans. by Anne Carson)

[theclassicsreader]

O sad one. Some heavy god has put more pain on you than any other human being.

Euripides, Hekabe (trans. by Anne Carson)

[theclassicsreader]

I am someone who did not die when I should have died.

Euripides, Hekabe (trans. by Anne Carson)

[hecubakween]

https://www.dreamstime.com/care-people-help-kindness-compassion-typography-care-people-help-kindness-compassion-typography-letterpress-live-love-treatment-image138942335 

[hecubakween]

Tragic Compassion

“Aristotle's definition of tragic compassion. Hecuba's plea, like Aristotle's definition, implies that we will not have compassion if we believe the per son fully deserves the suffering. There may be a measure of blame, but then in our compassion we typically register the thought that the suffering exceeds the measure of the fault.” (Nussbaum 15)

How could I be deserving of the suffering I have endured? Did I set out for my family to be destroyed? Did I want to be a widow? A grieving mother ? A Trojan women? My plea was for justice which Agamemnon granted me by exiling Polymestor. He will never suffer the pain I have endured my whole life. 

I learned granting compassion is solely in the observers hands. 

[hecubakween]

Classical Crowd Psychology

Throughout history, there have always been riots and crowds that may be seen as destructive or non peaceful. These people join together to prove a point whether it is a peaceful crowd or not. These riots are a crowd of people, who collectively have the same “fire”. By fire I mean ambition for change.

These crowds or riots form to create a message that correlates with their identify. The people beside me were also Trojan women, we had the same losses and the same message. We had nothing to loose because we have already lost everything we knew. 

The Trojan Women was a crowd that “(a crowd) that can only be adequately understood in terms of agency and meaningful social actions embedded in a series of struggles between groups emerging from and tied to a developing social and political context.” (Drury 6). There voices and actions were not just to help me avenge my son’s killer but also displayed a political stance of unhappiness among the Trojan Women. This ladies had families, they also wanted revenge against the new regime they were salves too. 

[hecubakween]

Chorus: Trojan Women

Louis de Silvestre, “Odysseus verlangt von Andromache den Knaben Astyanax” (1708)

Trojan Women Chorus: "O sea-breeze, wind that carries ships across the heaving waves, where are you now carrying me? In what home will I be slave? Will I be goods for Argos or Sparta? Phthia, maybe?—where they say the full Apidanus departs the fertile plains?"

(Hecuba by Euripides lines 440-448)

Trojan Women Chorus: "Alas for my children, alas for the fathers, and for our native land now leveled, slashed by Argive spears to ash-heaps and shreds of smoke, while I am taken far from Asia, to Europe, to be a slave. This is what I’ll call home now: the bed-chamber of Hades." 

(Hecuba by Euripides, lines 476-484)

In both of these chorus's by the Women of Troy shows just how displaced we were. Most of us did not have children or father or a home. Many wanted to stop suffering, because their lives felt as if they were already in the underworld with Hades being tortured. These are the voices of women begging for the slightest bit of compassion or mercy. One women during this time of tragedy would not have been enough to prove a point in history. Women in this culture at this time were not seen as equals. We had the numbers to make a difference. With myself (Hecuba) being a fallen Queen, I was able to bring attention to these women to have a profound platform. Being a fallen queen we supported each other in the agony of being alive.

[hecubakween]

Communal Suffering of The Trojan Women: The Victims of Circumstance

After Troy was conquered, many wives and mothers lost their families. I realized I was suffering among many. Us women complied our losses, understood our collective grief. We all wanted to have revenge on the murders of our family’s. The only way we could ever be effective was to work together to overcome those who have wronged us and try to get justice for our losses.

“Hecuba, of course, is not responsible for the relentless suffering inflicted upon her, and she approximates none of the hubris too often ascribed to Greek tragic heroes. As a victim of circumstances totally beyond her control, she is the central representative of the drama's communal suffering”(Anselment 411).

The video “The Trojan Women (1971) Tribute 

The video encloses visuals of the grief that these women endured but how they flocked as a community. The Trojan women symbolize the unity of what is left of Troy.

[hecubakween]

To Achilles

Achilles

“Please, I beg you. Don’t take my daughter from me. Let her live. Haven’t enough died already? All I’ve lost lives on in her. She is my solace.” ( “Hecuba” by Euripides 278-280)

Does it make you happy to have killed my Hector and Polyxena? Does it bring you joy to conquer our home? I cannot seek revenge on a dead man. What made you deserve my daughter’s blood? If you loved her enough, let her live.  

For the Record: “Polyxena has done no harm to Achilles”.

( “Hecuba” by Euripides 263-264.) 

Portriat: “Achilles” drawn by Diana Vardanyan

[hecubakween]

Justice for Polydorus

“Hecuba and The Trojan Women murdering Polymestor” by Antonio Tempesta

https://linguistics323.wordpress.com/2017/10/28/408-book-13/

[hecubakween]

Polymestor

To Polymestor

Do you remember these words of The Trojan Women:

--You haven’t yet paid the price, but you will. 

—Like a man stumbling into foul bilge-water. 

—Or swept from shore and drowning in the undertow. 

—As the waves cover your head, you’ll see how your life is just a loan that’s come due. 

—Death is the payment the gods demand. 

—Where justice and the gods converge, there’s a maelstrom.  

—Your greed for gold leads you down the road to hell. 

—Hands that never held a sword will cut your life away. 

(”Hecuba” by Euripides, lines 1023-1032)

You took my son’s life in a fit of greed. I needed to get justice that Agamemnon was not going to gift to me. You killed Polydorus a terrible occurrence after losing my daughter. Why must you live and make me suffer more. You need to suffer the death of my son and I knew people would underestimate the power of us, Trojan Women.