The Flaming Torch

By entering the scene carrying a flaming torch, Cassandra is not only heralded as being different from the other noble women but also as a vestibule of foresight. Although Cassandra claims the torch is an offering to Hymen, the god of marriage and consummation, Hecabe believes her daughter has had ‘the prophetic inspiration’ (Part 4) fall upon her and from this, the women hush to hear what she will say. With her arrival, she brings a sliver of hope to the women, quickly ordering them to ‘raise the torch and fling the flame… flood the walls with holy light’ (Part 4), her take on the current situation being so much more optimistic.

In Ancient Greece, the mother of a bride would carry a torch at the wedding to ward off evil spirits and cleanse the unification; the irony of Cassandra’s match to the dreaded enemy King Agamemnon is not lost on Hecabe – ‘God of fire! I used to look forward to the time when you would be of age to be given to a man: how little I thought it would be like this – a slave taken in war by the Greeks!’ (Part 4)

Paradoxically, the flaming torch also symbolises destruction; Cassandra’s arrival in Greece will signal destruction for Agamemnon, just as the torch signifies the destruction of Troy at the end of the play – ‘Let those officers appointed to fire the city now bring out their torches and use them well! Up with the flames!’ (Talthybius) Part 8

The Walls of Troy

One of the very first lines uttered in the play are from Poseidon, god of the sea as he exclaims the sorrow he feels as the great city of Troy and its magnificent walls crumble – ‘Troy and its people were my city. That ring of walls and towers I and Apollo built – squared every stone in it…’ (Part 1) The significance of the high walls of Troy are two-fold, not only are their metaphoric of the fall of a great city, a great people and a great royal line but they also remind audiences of the fallibility of the gods and the things they cherish. They serve to symbolise that which the gods have built high, have now been brought low, much like the citizens of Troy.

Subsequently, the last line of the Trojan royal family, the young heir Astaynax, is thrown from the very walls that would have protected him as he reigned; and as Talthybius observes, it is a nasty end to a prince – ‘You muse climb to the topmost fringe of your father’s towers, where the sentence says you must leave your life behind’ (Part 6). Built high by the gods Poseidon and Apollo, at the end the walls go up in flames with the rest of Troy. In addition, once the body of the small boy has been returned to his grandmother Hecabe, she reminds audiences how oxymoronic the situation was that the child was ‘roughly…parted by your [his] own city’s bastions…mocking…’ (Part 6)

Hector’s Shield

The great shield of the Trojan prince Hector, ‘the bravest of the Trojans’ (Part 1) holds a special memory to those who loved him most – his wife Andromache and his beloved mother Hecabe. Hector’s death precedes the raid of the Greeks, and indeed the play, instead taking place during a personal duel with Achilles, half god and half mortal. When Achilles slays Hector, the rage of the warrior compels him to defile the corpse of the Trojan prince and take it back the Greek encampment on the shores of the sea. It is then rumoured that King Priam ventured into the enemy camp and ransomed his son home in order to bury him with honour.

The shield makes its first appearance when Andromache enters the stage, drawn in a chariot by Greeks with her son on her lap and her husband’s armour and shield by her side. Her captor, Neoptolemus has seized her and her husband’s armour as his own property, and intends to ‘dedicate [them] in the distant temples of Thessaly’ (Part 5), as an offering of thanks for their victory in Troy.

The shield bookends the chapter of Andromache and Astaynax when the body of the small boy, broken and bloodied is carried atop it, toted by Talthybius and some Greek soldiers. At this stage, Andromache has been hastened away on a ship with her captor and Talthybius, in an act of kindness has bathed the boy in the river Scamander and returned him, carried on his father’s shield, to his grandmother Hecabe for a proper burial. He tells of how Andromache begged him to give the child a proper burial, asking especially that ‘this bronze-ribbed shield… which used to protect his father’s body in battle, should serve him instead of a coffin…she could not bear that it should go to the palace…’ (Part 8), to which Talthybius obeyed. The shield has failed to protect the boy and his father, and will now be burnt with the bodies of the Trojan people.

Therefore, the shield of Hector which protected him through many battles was not only powerless to protect him from inevitable death but also his son and family. It symbolises the dying line of the Trojan royal family and punctuates the tragedy of Euripides’ play.

Hector’s Shield Quote

‘Well, you though you lose your father’s throne and lands, you shall have his bronze-fronted shield for your bed below the earth. Dear shield! You guarded Hector’s splendid arm faithfully, as he kept you; and you have lost him. Here on your handgrip is the print of his palm; here, where his beard pressed your smooth rounded rim, ran the sweat which daily in the heat of battle flowed from Hector’s brow.’ (Hecabe reflecting of Astaynax’s death) Part 8

Waves/Ocean

As they wait shackled on the shore, the Aegean sea serves as a constant reminder to the women that their fate is inevitable and soon they will be parted from one another’s company and will sail to their allotted locations. Much like the tempestuous ocean, their future is unpredictable but for the most part, promises to be fierce and lonely.

Although Hecabe has never travelled on the sea, she refers to the waves of the ocean as being like fortune – they may be calm or stormy and the sailor riding them is helpless to do anything but submit and roll with them until they calm once more –

‘The tide has turned at length:
Ebb with the tide, drift helpless down.
Useless to struggle on,
Breasting the storm when Fate prevails.’ (Hecabe) Part 2

‘My sick head beats and burns,
Till passion pleads to ease its pain
In restless rocking, like a boat that sways and turns,
Keeping sad time to my funereal song.’ (Hecabe) Part 2

Even Talthybius comments on the unease and ‘ill-luck [being invited]…the very moment he [Agamemnon] sets sail’ (Part 4); reminding audiences that the gods still hold control over the seas and therefore their journey home is undetermined. Poseidon reminds us at the beginning of the play that he is king of ‘the salt-depth of the Aegean Sea’ (Part 1) and that the sea is his realm. It comes as no surprise to see that Athene, who has shifted her favour to the Trojans is asking him to wreck revenge on them as they sail home – ‘I am disposed to favour the Trojans, whom I hated; And to make this homeward voyage disastrous for the Greeks…I look to you [Poseidon] to make them suffer’ (Part 1). Poseidon agrees, cementing the Aegean as a watery grave for the Greeks once they set sail –

‘When they are under sail from Troy, nearing their homes!
Zeus will himself send rain in floods with incessant hail
And black tornadoes – give me his lightning-fire to blast
And burn the Achaean ships. Then do your [Poseidon’s] part: infuriate
The Aegean waves and whirlpools; let floating corpses jostle…’ (Athene) Part 1

Helen’s Clothing

In direct contrast to the haggard appearance of the other prisoners, Helen’s rich robes symbolise her difference from the other Trojan women and hint to the audience that she will once again live on the side of victory, with Menelaus. That she is not dressed as they are, creates a divide and marks her as the enemy among them, inciting their wrath upon her for being the ‘hated Helen…curse wife of Menelaus, Sparta’s shame…’ (Part 7).

Helen’s defiance in the latter half of the play, expose her to be far more manipulative then the other women and even though she is condemned by Menelaus, who promises to behead her when they return to Sparta together, the audience have their doubts as to whether she will bewitch him into forgiving her once more.

In addition, Hecabe argues that Helen’s lust for finery and riches was what caused her to abandon her husband and come to Troy, citing ‘your [her] appetite’ (Part 7) for extravagance and accusing her of being a ‘practised follower of fortune; duty and loyalty did not concern you [her]’ (Part 7), exposing her superficiality and greed. Hecabe believes the very fact that Helen is ‘beautifully dressed and groomed’ (Part 7) shows ‘loathsome impudence’ (Part 7) and indicates that she feels no guilt of her past crimes, instead suggesting that if she were a woman in mourning for her love and city she would be garbed in ‘rags’ with her ‘hair clipped to the scalp’ (Part 7), similar to Hecabe and the other Trojan women. Instead of remorse, Helen begs her husband to let her live, he relents for the time being and departs for the ships, leaving audiences unsure as to whether her ploy will work.