• Hecuba, wife of Priam of Troy, and mother of Polyxena and Polydorus. Ovid, XIII , Stanyan’s Tr. :⁠— “When on the banks her son in ghastly hue Transfixed with Thracian arrows strikes her view, The matrons shrieked; her big swoln grief surpassed The power of utterance; she stood aghast; She had nor speech, nor tears to give relief: Excess of woe suppressed the rising grief. Lifeless as stone, on earth she fix’d her eyes; And then look’d up to Heav’n with wild surprise, Now she contemplates o’er with sad delight Her son’s pale visage; then her aking sight Dwells on his wounds: she varies thus by turns, Till with collected rage at length she burns, Wild as the mother-lion, when among The haunts of prey she seeks her ravished young: Swift flies the ravisher; she marks his trace, And by the print directs her anxious chase. So Hecuba with mingled grief and rage Pursues the king, regardless of her age. ⋮ Fastens her forky fingers in his eyes; Tears out the rooted balls; her rage pursues, And in the hollow orbs her hand imbrues. “The Thracians, fired at this inhuman scene, With darts and stones assail the frantic queen. She snarls and growls, nor in an human tone; Then bites impatient at the bounding stone; Extends her jaws, as she her voice would raise To keen invectives in her wonted phrase; But barks, and thence the yelping brute betrays.” ↩