The Trojan Women (1971)

Vanessa Redgrave: Andromache

Quotes 

• Talthybius : [rides up and dismounts; he walks slowly forward and stops some distance from Andromache]  Wife of the noblest man that was in Troy... O wife of Hector, do not hate me. Against my will I come to tell you...

  [Andromache looks at him; he continues haltingly] 

  Talthybius : The people and the kings have all resolved -...

  Andromache : What is it? Evil follows words like those.

  Talthybius : This child they order - -

  [he can't finish the phrase - he looks away, then through clenched teeth] 

  Talthybius : Oh, how can I say it...

  Andromache : [presses her son against her]  Not that he does not go with me to the same master -...

  Talthybius : No man in Greece shall ever be his master.

  Andromache : [stares at Talthybius, perplexed]  But - - leave him here - - all that is left of Troy?

  Talthybius : I don't know how to tell you. What is bad words can't make better -...

  Andromache : [hoping against hope]  I feel you kind. But you have not good news.

  Talthybius : [long pause, then he screams out]  Your child must die! There, now you know the whole, bad as it is!

  Andromache : [silence. Then slowly, as if from the marrow of her bones, the scream comes - - wild, scaringly, rising from the dark roots of sound beyond words] 

• Andromache : [to Hecuba]  Your dead Polyxena you weep for? What does she know of pain like mine? The living must have hope. Not I, not any more.

• Andromache : [on learning of Astyanax's fate]  O Greeks, you have found ways to torture that are not Greek!