Brian Blessed credited as playing...
Talthybius
- Talthybius: [to Hecuba about the ordered death of Astyanax] A herald who must bring such orders should be a man who feels no pity and no shame either... not like me.
- 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]
- Talthybius: [he's told Hecuba that Cassandra is to be Agamemnon's prize and concubine] A king's bed is not so bad.