Hecuba

Hecuba, the story of a noble spirit ravaged beyond redemption, is one of the first works of literature to look unsparingly at the aftermath of war. This was Euripides’ great theme: neither gods nor an
abstraction called fate, but we ourselves cause our own sorrows and we alone have the means to redeem our lives. In this play, there are no impersonal gods dealing the tragic strokes that lash Hecuba into madness; instead, she is brought low by politics, expediency, and greed.