In the old Greek stories, Hecuba is the queen of Troy: wife of King Priam, and mother of many children, including the fighter Hector and Paris, the man who took Helen. When the long war comes, her city falls, her husband dies, and her children are killed or taken away. Writers keep bringing her back as the picture of a mother whose luck has run out — grief piled on grief, with almost nothing left. You will meet her in Homer, and later in plays; Euripides even named a tragedy after her. She is not a word for daily life. Though actually, a few very bookish writers still use “a Hecuba” for an unlucky older woman who has lost her family, but that is rare, and it can sound cruel if you are not in a literature class. For most English, she is a person in the story, not a type you point at in the street.

赫卡柏（特洛伊王后；悲劇裡典型的苦命母親）