The play opens in the smoking ruins of Troy, where the defeated Trojan women are gathered among the tents of the Greek conquerors. Poseidon and Pallas Athena conspire to punish the victorious Greeks with a disastrous homecoming, turning their triumph into a bitter reckoning.
Hecuba, the fallen queen, laments her lost family and country as the herald Talthybius announces the grim distribution of the surviving women. Cassandra, her prophetic daughter, is claimed by Agamemnon, while Andromache is assigned to the son of Achilles. Cassandra embraces her dark fate, prophesying the doom that awaits her captors before she is led away to her death.
Andromache faces the agonizing loss of her infant son, Astyanax, whom the Greek council orders to be hurled from the walls of Troy to prevent any future vengeance. Despite her profound grief, she yields the child for burial, choosing endurance over despair.
Helen confronts Menelaus, offering a self-justifying defense for her desertion, while Hecuba counters her arguments by exposing the destructive nature of her vanity. Menelaus orders Helen taken to the ships to face execution in Sparta, though the audience knows reconciliation awaits them.
The tragedy deepens as the lifeless body of young Astyanax is returned to Hecuba, wrapped in Hector's shield for a meager funeral. Hecuba performs the final rites for her grandson, finding no comfort in the gods yet preserving her dignity amid utter desolation.
As the play draws to a close, Greek torches set fire to the remaining ruins of the city. The surviving women are marshaled toward the ships, forced to leave their homeland behind and embark on lives of endless servitude across the sea.
