by Seneca
get tired and the memory grows dull.
* * *
oedipus
63
oedipus Well, could you recognize him if you saw him?
old man Perhaps I could. Frequently, even now,
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a trivial detail calls old memories back.
oedipus Let shepherds bring their whole flock to the altars.
Servants! Go, hurry up and fetch the man
who is in charge of all the royal herd.
jocasta* No! The truth was hidden — on purpose or by chance;
in either case, let ancient secrets stay concealed forever.
Truth often harms the one who digs it up.
oedipus What is there to be scared of ? What could be
worse than this?
jocasta You need to understand, this quest is something big:
the country’s health and that of the royal house
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are in the balance. Stop, do not go on:
you need not make the moves; fate will reveal itself.
oedipus In times of happiness, no point in shaking things up.
But in a time of crisis, the safest thing is change.
jocasta Do you want a grander father than a king?
Be careful not to find one you regret.
oedipus I need certainty, even if I regret
the family I find.--Look, here is Phorbas, the old shepherd man
who used to have control of the royal sheep.
Old man, do you remember his name or face?
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old man His face smiles to my mind… I am not sure.
His appearance seems familiar, but I do not know.
oedipus Did you serve Laius, when he was the king,
driving his rich flocks under Mount Cithaeron?
phorbas Yes, Mount Cithaeron always had good grazing.
In summertime our flocks fed in those meadows.
old man Do you know me?
phorbas
My memory hesitates.
oedipus Did you once give a baby to this man?
Speak! Do you hesitate? Why are you pale?
Why search about for words? Truth hates delay.
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phorbas These things are hidden by long lapse of time.
oedipus Speak! Or let torture force you to the truth.
phorbas I gave the child to him, a useless gift:
that baby could not live to enjoy the light.
old man Hush! He is alive and will, I hope, live long.
* * *
64
oedipus
oedipus Why do you say that baby must have died?
phorbas An iron pin had been driven through his feet
to bind his legs up, and the wound was swollen;
foul pus infected the child’s little body.
oedipus What more do you want? Now fate is drawing near — 860
Who was the baby?
phorbas Loyalty
forbids
—
oedipus Servants! Bring fire. Burning will change his mind.
phorbas Is truth discovered by the path of blood?
Master, have mercy.
oedipus
If you think me cruel
and violent, the cure is near at hand:
tell me the truth. Who was the baby? Who were
its parents?
phorbas
The mother of the child was your own wife.
oedipus Gape open, earth! Lord of the Underworld,
master of shadows, seize and return me to lowest Hell,
reverse my birth and let me be unborn.
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Thebans! Heap stones on my accursed head,
slaughter me; let fathers, sons, and wives,
and brothers take up arms against me,
let this sick people take fire-brands from funeral pyres,
and hurl the flames at me. The guilt of my times is mine:
I wander hateful to the gods, a blasphemy.
The day I first breathed unformed infant breath,
already I deserved to die. Now, match your sins,
dare an achievement worthy of your crimes.
Go on, make haste into the royal house:
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congratulate your mother on her children!
chorus If I had the power
to shape Fate to my will,
I would let the gentle breezes
guide my sails, and my yardarms
would never shudder under whirlwind blasts.
May soft and gentle winds
guide my fearless boat,
never turn it from its course.
May life carry me on
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down the middle path.
* * *
oedipus
65
Frightened of the Cretan king
the mad boy* sought the stars,
trusting new technology
competing with real birds
and hoping to control
wings all too false.
He robbed the sea of its name.
But the clever old man
Daedalus, kept a middle course,
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and stopped in the middle of the clouds,
waiting for his winged child
(as a bird flees from the threat
of the hawk, then gathers together
her brood, scattered by fear)
until the boy, in the sea,
waved his drowning arms
tangled by the ropes of his bold flight.
All excess hangs
in doubt.
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ACT FIVE
chorus But what is this? The gates are creaking;
look, a servant of the king
is beating his head in mourning.
Tell us the news you bring.
messenger When Oedipus understood the words of fate
and realized his awful heritage, he cursed himself:
‘Guilty!’ he cried, and thinking of death, he rushed
into his hated home, fast as he could.
Just as the Libyan lion rages in the fields,
shaking its yellow mane and threatening;
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his face is dark with anger, his eyes wild,
he roars and groans, cold sweat runs over his body,
he froths at the mouth and hurls out threats,
and his enormous buried pain spills out.
He was full of wild imaginings and plans
to fit his fate. ‘Why put off punishment?
* * *
66
oedipus
Bring swords and drive them through my guilty heart,
or burn me with hot fire, stone me to death.
Is there a tigress or a bird of prey
to tear my chest apart? Cithaeron, you contain
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such wickedness already: set against me
beasts from the forest or bloodthirsty hounds —
or send again Agave. My soul, why fear death?
Only death can save me from my guilt.’
He set his tainted hand upon the hilt
and drew his sword. ‘But no! Can you absolve
such evil with so short a punishment,
a single blow? Death can pay for your father —
But your mother? What about the children,
disgustingly conceived? How can you atone
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for your country, mourning and ruined by your crimes?
You cannot be redeemed! In Oedipus alone
the laws of Nature are perverted, even birth
is strange. Then let my punishment be novel too.
May I live and die, and live and die,
constantly reborn, to feel again
new punishments. Use your head, poor fool:
suffer for many years unprecedented pain.
Have a long death. I must think of a way
to w
ander, distant from the dead and from the living.
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I want to die, but must not meet my father.
Why do I hesitate?’ Look now, a sudden stream
gushes down his face, his cheeks are wet with tears.
‘But is it enough to weep? Do my eyes pour
only this thin liquid? Drive them from their homes,
to follow their own tears. Are you satisfied yet,
gods of marriage? Gouge them from their sockets!’
He raged, his cheeks showed a ferocious fire,
his eyes could scarcely stay inside his head;
his face was wild and full of feeling, angry, savage,
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as if he had gone mad. He lets out a terrible scream,
and plunges his hands at his face. But his goggling eyes
pop out, trying to meet his thrust of their own accord.
They want to meet the source of their destruction.
Greedily his nails dig into his eyeballs,
* * *
oedipus
67
ripping and tearing out the jelly from the roots.
His hands stay stuck in the empty spaces, glued there,
and buried deep inside, he scrabbles with his nails
at the deep empty caverns where his eyes once were.
He rages more and more, too much, achieving nothing.
970
There is no danger now of light; he lifts his head,
scanning the vault of heaven with empty sockets,
testing his new night. Fragments still hang
from his clumsily excavated eyes. He rips them off,
and cries in triumph to the gods: ‘Now spare my homeland,
I implore you! Now I have done right, I have accepted
my proper punishment. I found at last a night
appropriate for my marriage.’ A horrible dripping
covers his mangled face, bloody with ripped veins.
chorus Fate is driving us: give in to fate.
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No amount of worrying can change
the threads of fate’s fixed spindle.
All that human beings suffer,
all we do, comes from on high.
The decrees determined by the spindle
of Lachesis* will never be reversed.
The path of everything is always fixed,
our first day tells our last.
Even God cannot turn back
the things which rush by in the web of cause.
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No prayer can change the swift-revolving pattern
fixed for each life. Many people find
fear itself can harm; while they fear fate,
they find themselves encountering their fate.
EPILOGUE*
chorus Listen! The gates! He struggles to approach,
blind and with no guide to help him walk,
on his dark way.
oedipus Good! It is done. I have paid my debt to my father.
I am happy with the darkness. What god blesses me,
pouring this dark cloud upon my head?
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* * *
68
oedipus
Who forgave my sins? I escaped day’s knowing eyes.
Father-killer, you owe nothing to your hands.
The light ran from you. This face suits Oedipus.
chorus Look, Jocasta skitters out, leaping and wild,
a madwoman, like Agave, frenzied mother,
who grabbed her own son’s head, but then at last
realized what she had done. Seeing poor Oedipus
she hesitates: she wants him and she fears him.
Shame gives way to grief, but her words get stuck.
jocasta What can I call you? ‘Son’? No? But you are my son. 1010
Ashamed? Talk to me, son! No? Why do you turn away
hiding your empty eyes?
oedipus
Who wants to spoil my darkness?
Who gives back my eyes? It is my mother’s voice.
My work is wasted. Such monsters as we are
must never meet again. Let the seas divide us,
and lands far distant, and if under here
there hangs another earth, with other stars
and another, exiled sun—let one of us go there.
jocasta It is the fault of fate; fate cannot make one guilty.
oedipus Do not speak to me, I will not listen.
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I beg you, by the remnants of my body,
by the unlucky children of my blood,
by all the good and evil names we share.
jocasta Why are you numb, my soul? And why resist
sharing his punishment? You ruined woman,
through you all human laws are muddled and confused.
Die by the sword, release your wicked life.
Even if the father of the gods, shaking the world,
should hurl his curving thunderbolts at me,
I could never pay for all my sins.
1030
Evil mother! I want death. I need to find
a way to die. — Come, use your hands to help
your mother, if you killed your father; this is your last job.
No, I ought to grab his sword; my husband died
by this same blade. — Why not call him the right name?
He is my father-in-law. Should I use this weapon
to pierce my heart, or push it deep into my naked throat?
Where should I strike? How can I not know? Of course!
* * *
oedipus
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Strike my all-too-fertile womb, which bore a husband-child.
chorus She falls down dead. She died by her own hand,
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the sword is driven out by so much blood.
oedipus Prophet, guardian, god of truth, j’accuse.
I only owed the fates my father’s death;
now I am a double parent-killer, worse than I feared:
I killed my mother. She died for my crime.
Apollo, you lied! My sins outdid my fate.
Totter along your darkened path, and use
your hands to feel the way for your faltering feet,
the trembling kings of your nocturnal life.
Hurry! though your footsteps slip, go, rush away!
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But stop! Be careful, do not fall upon your mother.
People weary with disease, heavy with plague,
half-dead already, look, I am leaving you.
Lift up your heads. Now gentler skies are yours,
after I go. Those who are dying, whose lives
are wandering below, may now breathe in
the breath of life. Go on now, help the dying;
I take the deadly plague away with me.
Harmful Fate and dreadful spasms of Disease,
Black Plague, Wasting and Ravening Pain,
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come with me! Come! I am glad to have such guides.
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* * *
MEDEA
Pelias seized control of the throne of Thessaly, which rightly
belonged to Jason. He told Jason that he would only give up
the throne if he could bring back to Greece the Golden Fleece
from the barbarian land of Colchis. Jason assembled a group
of all the strongest and most talented men of Greece to sail
on the first-ever international sea voyage, in a ship called
the Argo, to steal the fleece, which hung from a tree in a
sacred grove and was guarded by a dragon. Only the young
princess Medea, who had magical powers, could help Jason.
The king of Colchis, Medea’s father Aeetes (son of the Sun),
set Jason three tasks before he could win the fleece: to yoke a
fire-breathing team of catt
le and use them to plough a field;
to sow a field with dragon’s teeth, which would sprout up
as armed warriors; and to lull the dragon to sleep. Medea
helped Jason achieve all the tasks and take the fleece home.
As they escaped in the Argo Aeetes tried to pursue them;
Medea distracted him by killing her brother Aspyrtus and
throwing his limbs one by one behind the ship.
As Seneca’s play opens, Jason and Medea have been mar-
ried for many years and have children. Jason is preparing to
divorce Medea and marry a new wife.
* * *
dramatis personae
medea
nurse
creon
jason
messenger
chorus
* * *
ACT ONE
medea O gods of marriage! Juno, childbirth goddess,
and you, Athena, who taught Tiphys how
to harness the first ship* that would subdue the waves,
and Neptune, cruel master of the ocean deep,
and Titan,* portioning the world’s bright day,
and you, whose moonlight sees all secret rites,
Hecate triple-formed* — all gods Jason invoked
when he swore to me; and gods who better suit
Medea’s prayers: Chaos of endless night,
kingdoms that hate the gods of heaven, blaspheming powers, 10
master of the melancholy realm, and queen* —
abducted, but he kept his word to you.* Now let me curse:
Come to me now, O vengeful Furies, punishers of sinners,
wild in your hair with serpents running free,
holding black torches in your bloody hands,
come to me, scowling as you did of old
when you stood round my marriage bed.* Kill his new wife,
kill her father, and all the royal family.
What is worse than death? What can I ask for Jason?
That he may live! — in poverty and fear.
20
Let him wander through strange towns, in exile,
hated and homeless, an infamous guest, begging a bed.
Let him want me as wife, and want — the worst I could pray for —
children who resemble both their parents.
Now it is born, my vengeance is delivered:
I mothered it. — But why this weaving of words,
this pointless whining? Will I not attack my enemies?
I will hurl the torches from their hands, the light from heaven.
O Sun, my grandfather,* do you see this? Are you still there?
Do you still ride your chariot, as usual, through the sky,
