Role Change, Violence, and Literary Traditions in Ovid’s Story of Hecuba

(Metamorphoses 13.404–575)

Abstract

This article examines the story of Hecuba in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (13.404–575), focusing on the shifting roles that structure the episode and on the interplay of literary traditions woven into its narrative. The passage traces Hecuba’s transition from Trojan queen to captive woman and finally to an animal, showing how successive traumas gradually strip her of her humanity. The analysis demonstrates how the episode engages with the traditions of lament, epic, and tragedy, while foregrounding a female perspective and establishing the duality of sound and sight as a poetic organising principle. Hecuba’s physical transformation may thus be understood as part of the series of role changes that shape the narrative and ultimately amount to the destruction of her identity. At the same time, the article highlights the central role of speech: speech functions as a vehicle of agency, whereas its loss becomes the linguistic manifestation of physical transformation.