Hecuba by Marina Carr
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What happens to Hecuba after Troy falls and her family is slaughtered?
Drama on one.
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Tonight on Drama On One, another chance to hear Hecuba written by Marina Carr and starring Derv La Crotty and Declan Conlan. Troy has fallen, and the humiliated and bereaved Hecuba, Trojan queen, wipes the blood of her slaughtered sons and grandsons off her body. as more sacrifices are demanded, how much more can one woman be asked to bear? Listeners are advised that the play contains strong adult language that some may find offensive. This is Hecuba by Marina Carr,
So I'm in the throne room. Surrounded by the limbs, torsos, heads, corpses of my sons. My women trying to dress me. Blood between my toes. My son's blood. Six of them. Seven of them. Eight of them. I've lost count. Not that you can count anyway, they're not complete. More an assortment of legs, arms, chests, some with the armor still on, some stripped, hands in a pile. Whose hands are they? Ears missing, eyes hanging out of sockets, and then Andromache comes in screaming, holding this bloody bundle. My grandson. Intact except for his head. Smashed off a wall like an eggshell. They're through the south gate, she says. They've breached the citadel. They're here. I say, put him with the rest. Put him beside Hector, his father's mangled body.
She won't stop screaming. Shut up, I say. You'll draw them on us. I tell the women to cover her mouth. We have no soldiers to protect us, all dead or still fighting, trying to save their own women, children. And I don't know where Priam is. He went out a while ago. When was it? Last night? Yesterday? My women are putting perfume on me. I swapped them away. The smell of blood wading in it, the tang of rotting bodies everywhere. Bodies that came out of this body. And I want to vomit, but there's nothing in my stomach they've cut off our food supplies. And Cassandra standing at the throne, that smirk on her face. I told you so. Did I not tell you so? And I could kill her right now. And Polixna looking at me, petulant.
Willing me to turn this around, make it all right, make sense of it. And I'm glad at least my little Polydorus is safe. We've sent him to Thrace. Away from all this. And then a soldier comes reeling in the door. Priam's head in his hands. My husband's head. They've beheaded him in the great sky god's temple. I say Where's the rest of him? What good is ahead? We can't bury his head without the rest of him and the soldier says I don't know they've burned the temple. Burned the temple? The whole city's in flames, he says, and he puts Priam's head into my hands. I sit on the throne, holding it like a baby. His tongue's hanging out. His eyes are terrifying. A ferocious death. I tried to close his eyes. They're caked with blood, crossed dust.
I can't close them. The soldier is weeping on his knees, holding my ankles, all the men castrated, he says. Not enough to kill them, must desecrate them too. And I say The women. What about the women? The children? The women too. They're killing the women, he says, all the old ones, the ugly ones, the ones past childbearing, past work. And the children, I say. Priam's head is oozing onto my dress. The children, he says. All the boys. And all girls under ten. I say. Though I know it's a stupid question. Not enough room on the ships, he says. They're rounding them up. Have them in the cattle pens. And I think. This is not war. Інварс, лас, код. This is genocide. They're wiping us out. And then there's shouting, clashing of swords, more screams, and Agamemnon is in the throne room.
Fabled Queen. I say. She hears the mockery in my voice, though it's not complete mockery. I've been wanting to get a good look at her for a while. And there she is. Perched on her husband's throne, holding what, his head? The blood flowing down her arms. And what arms they are. Long and powerful. What's that? I say. She doesn't answer, just looks at me as if I'm a goat herd. The snout cocked, the straight back, three thousand years of breeding in that pose.
They told me many things about him. This terror of the Aegean, this monster from Mycenae.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What happens to Hecuba after Troy falls and her family is slaughtered?
0:01–6:16
2
How does Hecuba challenge Agamemnon over Troy, Helen, and her son Polydorus?
6:16–13:38
3
What happens to Hecuba and the Trojan princesses in captivity at Thrace?
13:38–17:53
4
Why does Agamemnon agree to sacrifice Polyxena to appease the Greek army?
17:53–22:47
5
Why does Agamemnon condemn the young Trojan prince Polydorus?
22:47–28:10
6
How does Polyxena face the Greek army’s demand for a human sacrifice?
28:10–36:38
7
Can Hecuba and Agamemnon find comfort amid grief after Troy’s destruction?
36:38–49:47
8
How does Hecuba discover Polydorus’s death and reclaim her story?
49:47–55:29