Ghosts in Euripides' Hecuba

Abstract

The prologue of Euripides' Hecuba is delivered by the ghost of Polydorus, one of the sons of Hecuba and Priam. Polydorus tells the spectators about his own fate and mentions the earlier apparition of the spirit of Achilles, who demanded that the Greeks sacrifice the captive Polyxena to him. The present article centres on the questions of why Euripides introduced the ghost of Polydorus on stage and what his spectre has in common with the dream related by Hecuba just after the prologue. It is argued that, by introducing the ghost scene, Euripides creates a link between his play and Sophocles' Polyxena