Monologue

Hecuba Monologue from The Trojan Women

From The Trojan Women by Euripides

female · anguished · 1:24 min

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Lo, I have seen the open hand of God; And in it nothing, nothing, save the rod Of mine affliction, and the eternal hate, Beyond all lands, chosen and lifted great For Troy! Vain, vain were prayer and incense-swell And bulls' blood on the altars! . . . All is well. Had He not turned us in His hand, and thrust Our high things low and shook our hills as dust, We had not been this splendour, and our wrong An everlasting music for the song Of earth and heaven! Go, women: lay our dead In his low sepulchre. He hath his meed Of robing. And, methinks, but little care Toucheth the tomb, if they that moulder there Have rich encerement. 'Tis we, 'tis we, That dream, we living and our vanity! [The Women bear out the dead Child upon the shield, singing, when presently flames of fire and dim forms are seen among the ruins of the City.

About this piece

Hecuba reflects on the devastation of Troy and the futility of prayer in the face of divine wrath, urging the women to honor their dead as the city burns around them.

50s · despair · death · fate · suffering · loss

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