(NOTE: Refreshed English is used in this post.)
Monologue Title: “You Have Daughters, Agamemnon”
From the Play: No More Trojan Wennen
Genre: Drama
Author: Justy DeForest
Character: Hecuba, Queen of Troy
Setting: Before the ruined Palace of Ancient Troy
Background: Just hours before having to reveal whether to make one last stand against the Greek Army, Hecuba must process Agamemnon’s own revelation of how he plans to leave her as Troy’s sole survivor.
NOTE: In presenting this monologue, no actor other than the one playing HECUBA need be present on stage.
HECUBA
So that is your plan now, Agamemnon, if I refuse to surrender?
It isn’t enough for you to kill me along with every remaining
Trojan? You would leave me alive amidst a city of corpses? –
To watch as the wild beasts who love feast on humin flesh take
over from where you and your Greeks – so ravenous for victory –
left off?!
I’ll never have time to pay them all due honor. The souls of
those whose bodies are desecrated without burial shall never
be at rest. This is our most solemn belief – as it is yours!…
That is why you mean to do it! – You’d deny eternal peace
to hundreds in order to punish one?! Do I frighten you so?
Once I held hopes for a reasonable resolution to our conflict.
But it was never resolution you sought, was it?
Tell me, Agamemnon. Did your heart ever hold compassion? –
Back in Greece? — Before the war?
When you were alone with your family? – Just yourselves?
Was there ever a time when you did not believe
you had something to prove?
(pause)
No matter now! After a decade of decadence and Troy’s destruction,
I realize there is no atrocity that you are not capable of.
Oh, great achievement, Civilized Greek!
In my time, I gave birth to nineteen children.
And in doing that, one bronzy barbarian femele accomplished
more good in this world than an army of Greek soldiers!
My sons are all dead now, and I cannot forget that it is you,
Agamemnon, who nightly rapes my daughter.
Sometimes, I wonder how I can stand here and talk to you,
except that I am ruler of my people, and for their sake,
I must try to reason with a monster beyond all reasoning.
And I have one motive more: The longer I detain you here,
the longer I keep you from my poor Cassandra.
Yes, Agamemnon, these are tears you see on my cheeks.
Rejoice! The Great Draught is over! — The Great Dam is broken!
I prove a “coward” after all!
(Pause)
I will consider your latest threat in my making my final decision.
If my answer is the one you crave, we will place a torch at either end
of the rampart. When you see it, return and accept our surrender.
One thing more, Agamemnon, before you go…
I hear you have daughters.
I once said I’d spit in your face, but I’d not beg you for my life!
How reckless our valor can be with things we no longer value!
(With great difficulty, the elderly HECUBA gets down on her knees before AGAMEMNON.)
If there be any part of you that is humin and not beast,
leave my daughter alone this night…I beg you.
© Justy DeForest 1987, 2008, 2022
Greetings from Justicea 