WOLVES IN DREAMS… (To Euripides, Hecuba, 68-97) VANYA LOZANOVA-STANTCHEVA (Sofia, Bulgaria) Key-words: Euripides, Hecabe, dreams, Dionysian characters. Abstract: The paper proposes a new analysis and interpretation of Hecuba’s dream in Euripides’ tragedy Hecabe (Euripid, Hecabe, 68-97), produced in 425 BC. The play begins with an introduction by the ghost of the dead Polydorus – Priam and Hecabe's youngest son, who was sent away with treasures to stay with a family friend, Polymestor, in Thrace for safekeeping. The motive of the dream is an integral part of Polydorus’ monologue in the prologos (1-58); it is embedded in a specific manner throughout the development of the entire tragic action. The analysis offers a new interpretation of Hecabe’s dream vision in a purely Dionysian context. It finds exact matches in vase-painting plots and allows the identification of the vision images with specific Dionysian characters and ritual situations. Prophetic dreams in the works of Euripides have specific dramaturgical functions. Dreams like an element of the poetic language sometimes serve the tragic narrative to visualise events outside the scene when the action takes place in the darkness of the night. It often programmes and predetermines the series of subsequent actions in the evolution of the theme. This approach, which Euripides applies remarkably well in his tragedies Hecuba (68- 97), Rhesus (780-788) and Iphigenia in Tauris (cf. also Eurip., Bacch; HF, Hipp, IA), distinguishes him to a certain extent from Aeschylus (Pers. 176 ff.; PV 645 ff.; Ch. 521 ff; Eu. 116 ff., Ag. 1258 ff.) and Sophocles (El. 417 ff.), who laid the foundations of that approach in art (Vaschide, Piéron 1901, p. 161-194; Messer 1918; Kessels 1978; Harris 2009; and others). The dream of Hecuba (Euripid, Hecuba, 68-97) is an intricately combined integral part of the monologue of the ghost of Polydorus in the prologue of the tragedy (1-58), developed further and intertwined in a specific manner in the overall action of the tragedy. In the early morning, before dawn, Hecuba woke up from a sinister prophetic dream: “black-winged” (30- 35; 70-95; see especially μελανοπτερύγων … ὀνείρων 71; ϕάσμα μελανόπτερον: 705), which filled her with ill forebodings. It becomes clear from the monologue of the spirit of Polydorus (and later from the verses of Hecuba herself – 70-90, 705) that he first appeared in her sleep, generating her fears, and later (?) he appeared on the stage, prophesying (before the audience) about the forthcoming sinister events (verse 54: ϕάντασμα δειμαίνουσ ἐμόν 73-74; 81-82): on that day, the Trojan Queen was to bury both her children: her daughter Polyxena, and himself: δυοῖν δὲ παίδοιν δύο νεκρ κατόψεται 45 μήτηρ, ἐμο τε τῆς τε δυστήνου κόρης. So will my mother see two children dead at once,