Chorus: Trojan Women
Louis de Silvestre, “Odysseus verlangt von Andromache den Knaben Astyanax” (1708)
Trojan Women Chorus: "O sea-breeze, wind that carries ships across the heaving waves, where are you now carrying me? In what home will I be slave? Will I be goods for Argos or Sparta? Phthia, maybe?—where they say the full Apidanus departs the fertile plains?"
(Hecuba by Euripides lines 440-448)
Trojan Women Chorus: "Alas for my children, alas for the fathers, and for our native land now leveled, slashed by Argive spears to ash-heaps and shreds of smoke, while I am taken far from Asia, to Europe, to be a slave. This is what I’ll call home now: the bed-chamber of Hades."Â
(Hecuba by Euripides, lines 476-484)
In both of these chorus's by the Women of Troy shows just how displaced we were. Most of us did not have children or father or a home. Many wanted to stop suffering, because their lives felt as if they were already in the underworld with Hades being tortured. These are the voices of women begging for the slightest bit of compassion or mercy. One women during this time of tragedy would not have been enough to prove a point in history. Women in this culture at this time were not seen as equals. We had the numbers to make a difference. With myself (Hecuba) being a fallen Queen, I was able to bring attention to these women to have a profound platform. Being a fallen queen we supported each other in the agony of being alive.
