wheel of fortune

wheel of fortune

In another tradition, Hecuba went insane upon seeing the corpses of her children Polydorus and Polyxena. Dante described this episode, which he derived from Italian sources:

E quando la fortuna volse in basso
l'altezza de' Troian che tutto ardiva,
sì che 'nsieme col regno il re fu casso,
Ecuba trista, misera e cattiva,
poscia che vide Polissena morta,
e del suo Polidoro in su la riva
del mar si fu la dolorosa accorta,
forsennata latrò sì come cane... And when fortune overturned the pride
of the Trojans, who dared everything, so that
both the king and his kingdom were destroyed,
Poor wretched captured Hecuba,
after she saw her Polyxena dead
and found her Polydorus on the beach,
was driven mad by sorrow
and began barking like a dog...

~ Inferno XXX: 13-20

A third story says that she was given to Odysseus as a slave, but as she snarled and cursed at him, the gods turned her into a dog, allowing her to escape.