Hekabe (Hecuba)

She was once queen of Troy, wife of King Priam, mother of the hero Hector. Now she is “caught like an animal,” a prisoner of war, a slave to the Greeks, a parent who has experienced the slaughter of all but two of her children. Now she is queen only to a tattered band of Trojan women. Now she must face the ultimate injustice, and wield what little power she can from the tent of a slave. Her plight is timeless. She is Hecuba, or “Hekabe” as poet Anne Carson has called her in a searing new translation of Euripides’ great play about sorrows of war and wrongs done for the sake of politics.