sary connection with, each other. There might have been two plays made out of this single one—the first concluding with the death of the daughter, the second with the vengeance taken for the son. It may be so; but was that the view of the story taken by Euripides? May he not have said to objectors, the continuity of my play lies not where you look for it, but in the character of the person from whom it is named? The double murder of her children is a mere incident in the action; the unity is to be found in her strong will. Old, feeble, and helpless as she is, the mind of the ex-queen of Troy is never clouded. Suffering even lends her new force to act; the deeper her woe the more clearly she perceives that all help is vain if it come not from her own dauntless spirit. It is the tragedy of Hecuba, not of Polyxena or Polydorus.
English readers may find an excuse, if one be needed, of which ancient objectors could not avail themselves. For is not the Hecuba of Euripides near of kin, as a dramatic character, to the Queen Margaret of Shakespeare? Her also accumulated woes strengthen even when they seem to crush. She also is made childless; she, like her Greek prototype, is a widow and discrowned. Yet with what vigour and what disdain does she to the last look down upon her Ulysses, the crafty Duke of Gloucester, and her Agamemnon, the voluptuous Edward! The description of Polyxena's sacrifice is among the most beautiful and pathetic pictures in the Athenian drama. The herald reports to Hecuba how bravely her daughter has met her doom:—
