#hecabe

[fullyconsumedbywhatlovesme]

Here’s some Greek Myth moms with their babies.

Helen & Hermione

Penelope & Telemachus

Hecabe & Cassandra (cause she’s the only one of Priam’s kids I have a design for)

Clytemnestra & Electra

Do I want a baby? No. Are they adorable? Yes. @post-troy-stress-disorder @tied-to-the-mast @dilutedh2so4 Here’s your requests. The rest are on the way, don’t worry. Feel free to request more!

[katerinaaqu]

Agamemnon being so tender to Hecuba and genuinely feeling her pain!!!! Oh my gosh! 😭😭😭😭😭😭mentioning the death of her last son in such a terrible way without proper burial!!!

Also what do you mean Hecuba recognizing the genuine feelings of Agamemnon for Cassandra and using that to induce even more his sympathy so that she can have her revenge? 😭😭😭

[dilutedh2so4]

And they bewailed the chaste Polyxena and you, her mother, only lately called a royal mother and a royal wife, — the soul of Asia's fair prosperity; now lowest fallen in all the wreck of Troy. The conquering Ulysses only claimed her his because she had brought Hector forth: and Hector hardly found a master for his mother. She continued to embrace the body of a soul so brave, and shed her tears, as she had shed them often before for country lost, for sons, for royal mate. She bathed her daughter's wounds with tears and kissed them with her lips and once more beat her breast. Her white hair streamed down in the clotting blood, she tore her breast, and this and more she said: 'My daughter, what further sorrow can be mine? My daughter you lie dead, I see your wounds — they are indeed my own.'

Ovid's Metamorphoses, bk 13 (trans. More)

[lemedstudent2021]

Hecabe With The Corpses Of Her Children Polyxena And Polydoros At The Tomb Of Achilles (1809) Karl Russ

WHY MUST U HURT ME LIKE THIS. ITS TOO EARLY TO BE CRYING

[burner-of-ships]

to be a god's beloved

"Would you like a true gift, Helenus?" Apollo asked me as though he had read my mind, and perhaps he had. "Would you like to see the future? Not mere omens crouching in the intestines of a dying animal, but clear sight, true visions?"

"I could wish for nothing more, my lord."

"That's what I like to hear." Apollo drew closer, his hand slipping from my cheek to the back of my neck, holding me in place.

And then he kissed me, and all at once, a moment too late, I understood Cassandra's warning.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

for @erostober day 9, admittedly a little late, using the prompts divine attention, gifts, and intercrural sex.

honestly this is less smut and more a character study for Helenus and his relationships with Cassandra, Hecuba, and Apollo. but still, a big warning for csa.

[secretceremonials]

It’s Mother’s Day! (In the uk) so here are some things about Kassandra and Hecuba (written whilst miles away from my mum and newly back from the pub)

- Hecuba has no idea what to do with Cassandra. She has this child who is upset by something she cannot understand, and therefore absolutely cannot fix. She just wants to make everything better, but she can’t, and other responsibilities call

- Cassandra wants to go back. Back to when she was this little girl in her mother’s arms, before this curse separated them. She would give her eyes to spend a night in her mothers arms

- Hecuba needs to be useful. Her children are grown. They don’t need her. Her country is her child now

- Cassandra needs her mother. Needs to be held, needs to be looked after. She just doesn’t j know how to ask

- Hecuba misses Cassandra. Wants to hold her, looks after her, love her. She just doesn’t know how

-ultimately things will never be the same, and yet they weep. Hecuba has failed: she can’t protect her children. Cassandra has failed: she can’t make things better for her mother

[soracities]

CHORUS: Oh, my children, my children! My poor father! My country! Every house a smouldering ruin, Every soul a prisoner, Spoils of war for the men of Argos! And I, in a foreign country, Bearing the name of slave, Transplanted far from Asia Into a European home, Shall live the life of the dead in Hades.

Euripides, from ‘Hecabe’, Medea and Other Plays (trans. Philip Vellacott)

[death-before-ilion]

Priam's prolific family

I now have a definite timeline for the life of Paris (aka Alexander), prince of Troy: born 1231, died 1184 aged 46/47. I'll publish the full timeline separately, but wanted to bring up that I've been looking into his parents and siblings, trying to give each of them a few dates here and there.

Priam had many children. Relying on Homer, Apollodorus, Hyginus and Virgil, I've been able to identify 84 children: 16 daughters and 68 sons. I'll have to check again, as I might have missed a couple. He had two wives (Arisbe and Hecabe), and a number of "palace women" (i.e. concubines). By Arisbe, he had at least one son, and soon enough divorced her to marry Hecabe (or Hecuba), the well known queen of Troy. Hector was their first born and Troilus was the last born son. He was still a young teenager when he was ambushed and killed by Achilles (an event that I date to 1191, quite early in the Second Trojan War). As a result, I place his birth in 1205. Apollodorus tells us Paris was their second born. Hyginus says Paris was born much later, but I choose to reject the latter claim, as I consider Apollodorus more authoritative and it agrees better with my timeline.

Indeed, if Paris is the second born, I would place Hector's birth to 1233, which means Hecabe has been birthing children for at least 28 years (!!). If Paris is one of the later children, that birthing period is much longer. If Hecabe gave birth to her first child in her late teens, she would have given birth to Troilus in her mid-forties, which works nicely.

I have therefore set Hecabe's birth to 1251, which makes her 66/67 at the fall of Troy. Priam's birth is more tricky, because he was a boy when the First Trojan War occured, which I have not dated yet (it ties in with the timeline of Heracles and either his capturing of the girdle of the Amazons or his participation in the expedition of the Argo), but I expect Priam to be born around 1270/1265.

Now "all" I have to do is date Paris's brothers and sisters, and given their number, it'll be a labor of its own.