HECUBA SUCCUMBS: WORDPLAY in SENECA'S TROADES

Seneca, Tro. 945-954 makes a semantically meaningful connection between Hecuba’s name and the description of her collapse (« succubuit », 950 ; « Hecubam », 953). The radical « cub- » in the former gestures towards the homophonic syllable « -cub- » in Hecuba’s name, providing an aural etymology from unrelated words. Seneca’s wordplay may have been prompted by Vergil, Aen. 2, 501-505 (« Hecubam », 501 ; « procubuere », 505), an accidental homophonic occurrence. Seneca’s Euripidean models, however, also associate the queen’s name and the verb κεῖμαι (e.g., Euripides, Tr. 37, Ἑκάβη κειμένη ; διάκειμαι, 113 ; and other passages). Hecuba succumbs in Seneca’s play as in his models, but now her succumbing is a moral and physical condition conveyed by her own name.