Catherine Aiello

Rhetoric 103A

Kwan Hua

8 October 2016

Hecuba by Euripides centers on the concept of engaging rhetoric as a power to ascertain agency to those who are in the position of no power. This central argument is most prevalent in the first agon, or contestation between Hecuba and Odysseus when conferring on what will happen to Hecuba’s daughter, Polyxena. Before when Hecuba had wealth and power she spared Odysseus and she is asking for the same treatment as before.  She is someone who begins with powerlessness and defeat, with an outcome heroic agency through her power of rhetoric.

            “For amongst you the self-same law holds good for bond and free alike respecting bloodshed; such influence as thine will persuade them even though thy words are weak; for the same argument, when proceeding from those of no account, has not the same force as when it is uttered by men of mark.”

This is essentially explicating Hecuba’s position as a powerless woman, she is acknowledging her position, justice can only come about between people of the same status. Persuasion, and the power of rhetorical discourse is more than just

Odysseus replies with:

            “O Hecuba! be schooled by me, nor in thy passion count him a foe who speaketh wisely. Thy life I am prepared to save, for the service I received; I say no otherwise. But what I said to all, I will not now deny, that after Troy's capture I would give thy daughter to the chiefest of our host because he asked a victim.”

What I take to be the thesis or the main point of the argument and central idea is the meta power of oratory. What is argumentatively operating in this passage is that Odysseus is saying that Polyxena has to die to give the men a purpose to fight. Without this action, he brings the collapse of the state as an outcome.

            “Endure these sorrows; for us, if we are wrong in resolving to honour the brave, we shall bring upon ourselves a charge of ignorance; but as for you barbarians, regard not your friends as such and pay no homage to your gallant dead, that Hellas may prosper and ye may reap the fruits of such policy.”

Honor not only compels men to fight but it is what the state is built off of. Without honor, the state falls apart.

The possibility through rhetoric, prevails through all of the tragic circumstances, and in the circumstance that Odysseus in his state of social and political power, can rely on his status instead of rhetoric.  Odysseus occupies a position of power, he hates the conventions of rhetoric. He is only in the position of male and political superiority in this instance.