Legitimized Suffering: A Precis of the Third Agon of Hecuba

In the third agon of Hecuba by Euripides, Polymestor and Hecuba face each other in debate, each attempting to prove an evildoing of the other to Agamemnon. This discursive contestation is preceded by a material contestation in which Hecuba, with the assistance of Trojan maidens, blinds Polymestor and kills his children. Armed with a set of claims, evidence, and warrants, explicitly addressing both the one she accuses and the current master of her fate, Hecuba makes her claim that the “sorry plight” of Polymestor’s situation of suffering is legitimate.

Hecuba opens her argument with a prophetic narrative of fate rather than a direct accusation geared towards producing a particular fate. The prophetic warning that Hecuba precedes her argumentative claims with is summarized as follows: Those men who use words to frame unjust action as good will suffer a “miserable end”. Hecuba’s statements regarding the relationship between words and deeds are predicated on “ought” and “should” statements.  For example, “If a man’s deeds had been good, so should his words have been”. These verbs reveal Hecuba’s assumption of the existence of an overarching principle or custom. This principle frames an understanding of that which is “good” and that which is “evil” and enables her fatalistic warning. According to Hecuba, it should not be possible to obfuscate the unjust intentions of action in word. Yet, in reality there are individuals who make a science out of doing this exact thing. Because these individuals fail to meet the moral obligation imposed on them as humans governed by an overarching principle, they will suffer a miserable fate. This warning allows Hecuba to: 1. Relate Polymestor’s lack of good faith (unkept promise and lies) with immorality in addition to injustice.  2. Abnegate the possibility of being outweighed by words. The clever words of Polymestor may allow him to sway Agamemnon’s judgement but ultimately, he will suffer a “miserable end” due to his failure to meet the moral obligation imposed on him by custom.

Following this prophetic warning, Hecuba responds to Polymestor’s rhetorical move toward innocence. She argues that his claim to have only killed her son Polydorus because he sought to befriend the Achaeans is entirely untrue. Hecuba refutes his claim by stating that it is impossible for the barbarian race to ever be friends with Hellas (the Achaeans). For this very reason, the claim of Polymestor to being motivated to murder by the desire to befriend the Achaeans or procure safety to his country’s crops is unbelievable. According to Hecuba, Polymestor was motivated to kill her son by greed alone; he wished to procure the gold that belonged to Polydorus. She supports this claim with the following facts: 1) Polymestor did not either kill or capture alive Polydorus while Troy was victorious which would have been a great service to Agamemnon at the time. Rather, Polymestor killed Polydorus after the fact of the Achaeans victory which was inessential to their future success and safety. 2) Polymestor did not offer the gold of Polydorus to the Achaeans in their greatest time of need. Rather, he still insists on keeping the gold in his own palace. Supporting her claim with these two facts, Hecuba dismantles Polymestor’s claim to Achaean loyalty. Following this, she reiterates that the agreed upon duty of Polymestor had been to keep her son safe. She claims that his current misfortunate is due to his failure to keep faithful to his given word. This claim is supported by Hecuba’s earlier warning that those individuals who seek to give a fair complexion to their deeds of injustice will suffer a “miserable end”. The prophetic warning of Hecuba given earlier, supported by the assumption of a governing principle, serves to show that the suffering of Polymestor is unavoidable and inescapable.

In the last few sentences of Hecuba’s argument, she explicitly directs her comments toward Agamemnon in order to gather judicial support of her argument. In an ethos move, Hecuba ties the question of Agamemnon’s authoritative worth to his support of Polymestor. She claims that if Agamemnon helps Polymestor (an immoral person), he will show himself as worthless to his subjects. If he chooses to serve Polymestor, Hecuba will also be able to claim that Agamemnon delights in evil-doers because he is one himself. 
    Hecuba uses the rhetorical strategies, warrants, and reasons as laid out above,to both refute Polymestor's claims and support her ultimate claim that Polymestor's situation of suffering is  legitimate.