Four Tragedies and Octavia

by Seneca

  Of Phlegethon stir up the scorching sands!…

  Dost thou lie idle, Earth, unmoved, inert?

  The gods are fled.

  ATREUS: But here are your dear sons,

  Whom you have asked to see. Receive them gladly.

  Kiss them, make much of them, embrace them all.

  Your brother will not stop you.

  THYESTES: Treachery!

  Was this our pact? Is this your brotherly love

  And reconciliation? Is this peace?

  What can I ask for now? Not as a father

  To have my children given back to me

  Alive; but as a brother I will beg

  This from my brother, which can be no loss

  To his most infamous revenge: to give

  A funeral to my sons. Can you not give me

  Something which you will see immediately

  Thrown on the fire? A gift, not to be kept,

  But to be lost, is all this father asks.

  ATREUS: You have them – all that now remains of them;

  And all that is not here – is with you too.

  THYESTES: What, are they lying out for birds of prey

  To make a meal of? Are they set aside

  For savage beasts or creatures of the field?

  ATREUS: You, you yourself have dined on your sons’ flesh!

  You have consumed this monstrous banquet!

  THYESTES: Gods!

  This was the sight you could not bear to see!

  This was the sin that drove the daylight back

  To where it came from. O what words can tell,

  What grieving can assuage my agony?

  There are not words enough to speak of it.

  Here are their severed heads, I see, their hands

  Chopped off, the feet left from their broken legs,

  The leavings of their father’s gluttony.

  My stomach moves; the sin within me strives

  To find escape – cannot escape its prison.

  Lend me your sword, brother, lend me that sword

  Already glutted with my blood; its blade

  Shall set my children free. You will not? Hands,

  Beat on this breast until it break in pieces!…

  No! Strike not, wretch! We must respect the dead.

  When was such horror seen – when, in the days

  Of Heniochus upon the awful crags

  Of barren Caucasus, or in Procrustes’ den,

  The terror of the land of Attica?

  I press my sons to death – they press their father.

  Is sin illimitable?

  ATREUS: There are bounds

  To limit wilful sin; but sin’s requital

  Acknowledges no limits. I have done

  Too little yet. I should have drained their blood

  Warm from their wounds into your open mouth;

  You should have drunk it from their living bodies.

  I was too hasty, I rebuffed my rage;

  I did it all myself – drove in the sword

  To slay them at the altar, washed my hearth

  With sacrificial blood, cut off the limbs

  From the dead bodies, chopped them into pieces,

  And threw the pieces into boiling cauldrons

  Or had them slowly roasted on the fire;

  Sinews and limbs I severed, warm with life;

  I saw the meat impaled on slender spits

  And heard it squealing; I heaped up the fires.

  I should have made the father do all this!

  His torture came too late; he never knew

  What he was doing when his cursed teeth

  Gnawed at those bones! His children never knew it!

  THYESTES: Hear him, all seas that wash the winding shores!

  Gods, wheresoe’er ye be, now fled from us,

  Hear all this wickedness! Hear, powers below,

  Hear, Earth! And thou, deep night of Tartarus,

  Give ear to these my prayers; to thee alone

  I come; thy starless dark, like this black day,

  Alone can look upon my misery.

  I will not pray for any evil thing;

  I will ask nothing for myself – what good

  Could ever now be mine? For you I pray:

  Almighty ruler of the sky, great king

  Of heaven’s realm – wrap all the universe

  In awful darkness, let the winds make war,

  From every quarter of the sky let thunder

  Loudly resound; not with thy gentler hand

  That tempers its assault upon the homes

  Of innocent men, but with that hand of wrath

  Which overthrew the triple-mountained pile,

  Ay, and the mountain-topping Giants too,

  Prepare thy weapons and discharge thy fires.

  Avenge the darkness of this stolen day,

  Send thunderbolts and lightnings to supply

  The place of this lost sun. Thou hast no need

  To weigh the issue; count us guilty, both;

  Or else on me alone pronounce thy sentence.

  Strike at this head, let triple forks of fire

  Impale this breast – how else should I expect

  To give my sons a burial, or commit

  Their bodies to the final flames, if not

  To be burnt up myself?… Ah, will the gods not hear?

  Have they no weapon to destroy the sinner?

  Then may eternal night endure, may darkness

  Cover these vast immeasurable sins

  For evermore. Sun, never move again,

  And I shall be content.

  ATREUS: Well done, my hands!

  This is my true reward. My wicked work

  Would have been wasted, if I had not heard

  Those cries of agony. Now I am sure

  My sons are mine again, reborn to me;

  The slur upon my fatherhood is lifted.

  THYESTES: What cause could you have had to hate the children?1

  ATRBUS: That they2 were yours.

  THYESTES: Their father’s sons…?

  ATREUS: I know

  They were their father’s,1 and I am content.

  THYESTES: Now, by the gods that make us love our own –

  ATREUS: Why not the gods of marriage?

  THYESTES: Is a fault

  To be requited with more wickedness?

  ATREUS: I know why you are angry; ’tis your grief

  That you were cheated of the crime you purposed.

  You weep, not that you ate this loathsome meal,

  But that you had not cooked it! Your intent,

  I know, was to prepare a like repast

  And serve it to your unsuspecting brother;

  To seize my children, with their mother’s aid,

  And make an end of them, as I of yours –

  And would have done it, but for one thing only:

  You thought you were their father.

  THYESTES: My revenge

  The gods will give. I have no other wish

  But to entrust to them your punishment.

  ATREUS: As I do yours, into your children’s hands.

  Exeunt

  PHAEDRA

  (or Hippolytus)

  BY his marriage with Antiope (Hippolyta), the queen of the Amazons, Theseus had one son Hippolytus. Preferring the goddess Diana to Venus, this young man devoted himself to athletic and rural exercises, and despised the love of women. Having murdered his wife Antiope and married Phaedra, daughter of the Cretan king Minos, Theseus absented himself on an expedition to the underworld to help his friend Peirithous abduct Persephone. Phaedra became enamoured of her handsome stepson and resolved to tempt him, though much tormented by her consciousness of sin and by the taint of evil tradition in her family. Her mother, Pasiphae, was also the mother, by a bestial union, of the bull-man Minotaur; this monster had been confined in the labyrinth of Knossos until sought out and killed by Theseus – whom Phaedra’s sister Ariadne aided with her clue o
f thread.

  The mass of legend associated with Theseus has many variations; its main course is charted by Plutarch in his Life of Theseus. Ovid’s Heroides IV (Phaedra to Hippolytus), is a source from which Seneca’s picture of Phaedra’s passion may have derived some of its typically Roman colour. The Hippolytus of Euripides is the prototype (and only surviving version) in Greek tragedy.

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  THESEUS, King of Athens

  PHAEDRA, second wife of Theseus

  HIPPOLYTUS, son of Theseus and Antiope

  NURSE

  MESSENGER

  CHORUS of Athenian citizens

  Companions of Hippolytus

  *

  Scene: Athens, at the palace of Theseus

  PRELUDE

  Hippolytus and Companions

  HIPPOLYTUS: Men of the land of Cecrops, come

  Range round the leafy woods! Away

  To the mountain tops! Swiftly afoot

  Spread wide your ways, to the glades that lie

  In the shadow of Parnes’ height, to the river

  That thrashes its rapid course along

  The vale of Thria; climb to the hills

  White-topped with never-melting snow

  From northern skies.

  For some, another way, where groves

  Of alder weave a shade, where meadows

  Kissed by the dewy breath of Zephyr

  Lie, where the spring grass hears his call;

  Or where Ilissos’ stripling stream

  Idles beside starved fields, bare sands

  Scored into niggard channels.

  Others, away by the western road

  To the open pass of Marathon,

  Where the suckling dams at evening graze

  With their young behind them. Some, go down

  Where the warm south breezes thaw the frost

  Of the hard Acharnian plain.

  Who will climb to sweet Hymettus,

  Who to Aphidnae’s little hill?

  The arc of Sunium that swings

  Into the sea; there is a place

  Long undespoiled, that asks for hunting.

  Lovers of woods in all their glory,

  Phlya awaits you, where the wild boar

  Lurks, to the farmers’ terror, a fighter

  With many a victim to his credit.

  Come, loose the hounds, the quiet ones;

  But keep those wild Molossians leashed,

  And the Cretan fighters, their tough necks

  Can tug the collar. Those Spartans too

  Are a lively breed, thirsting for blood;

  Be sure to keep them well reined in.

  Their time will come; we shall hear their voices

  Raising the echoes in the mountains.

  First you must let them get their heads down

  Sniffing the air with their shrewd noses,

  To pick up the scent around the coverts

  Before the sun comes up, while footprints

  Pattern the dewy grass.

  Up with the heavy nets, the coarse ones

  Will need a hefty shoulder; and here

  Are the finer snares. And take a line

  Of coloured feathers, to intercept

  And trap the silly creatures.

  You can be our javelin-thrower –

  You, take the heavy broad-head spear,

  It needs both hands at once – you, beater,

  Stalk the game and cry him out

  Full speed from his lair – and when we’ve caught him,

  You shall knife the innards from him.

  And come Thou to thy servant’s side,

  Huntress Divine, whose sovereign will

  The secret heart of earth obeys;

  Whose arrows fly swift to their mark

  In any beast that stoops to drink

  At cold Araxes’ side, or paws

  The ice of Ister. Thine the arm

  That slays Gaetulian lions, thine

  That hunts the Cretan stag; thine too

  The lighter hand that pricks the deer.

  Thou meet’st the tiger’s mottled breast,

  The shaggy bison’s back, the span

  Of the wild auroch’s spreading horns.

  No creature feeds in fields so far –

  Under the rich Arabian trees,

  On arid Garamantian plains,

  Where the Sarmatian nomad roams,

  Upon the high rough Pyrenees,

  Or in Hyrcanian ravines –

  But it must fear Diana’s bow.

  Fortune attends the worshipper

  Who has found favour at thy shrine;

  Thy power goes with him to the fields,

  His nets hold fast their captured prey,

  No creature’s feet break down his snares,

  A laden wain brings back his spoils,

  His hounds return with blooded mouths,

  And all the country fellows join

  Rejoicing in the long march home.

  Hark, the dogs are baying; that is the sign

  That thou art with me, Goddess. Now to the woods;

  This way will take me quickly to the long road

  That lies ahead.

  ACT ONE

  Phaedra, Nurse

  PHAEDRA: O Crete, great land, great mistress of wide seas,

  Whose ships in countless numbers reach all shores,

  Faring across the ocean – to Assyria,

  To every coast, wherever the Sea God

  Permits a prow to cleave its way to land:

  Why have you banished me, a hostage bound

  To a hostile house, wife to an alien lord,

  To spend my days in tears and wretchedness?

  Where is my lord? Away – that is how Theseus

  Observes his marriage vows – on a bold venture

  Through the deep darkness of the underworld

  From which no man returns, comrade in arms

  To an audacious suitor who will steal

  And carry off a bride straight from the throne

  Of the King of Death. So Theseus follows him,

  Partner in his mad escapade; no fear,

  No shame, deters him. Lust and lawless marriage

  In hell Hippolytus’s father seeks.

  But I have other, greater pain to bear;

  No rest at night, no balm of sleep relieves

  My troubled soul. It thrives and grows – my pain

  Burns in me like the burning heart of Etna.

  My loom stands still, the wool drops from my hands;

  I have no heart to make my offerings

  At the gods’ temples, or to take my place

  Among the dances of the Attic women

  Torch-bearing in dark rites around their altars.

  I cannot make pure prayers or honest vows

  To their presiding goddess, to whose care

  This land was given. I take pleasure now

  In following the hunt, starting wild game,

  A strong spear in this tender hand. Why, why,

  My soul? What does it mean? What is this passion

  For woods and fields? Is this the evil spell

  That bound my mother, my unhappy mother?…

  Our love has gone astray in the woods…. O mother,

  I feel for you. I know how you were forced

  By monstrous doom into audacious love

  For that brute beast, bull of a roaming herd;

  An angry beast, untamed and lecherous,

  His wild mates all obeyed him – yet he loved.

  What god will pity me? Where is a Daedalus

  To find a cure for my complaint? That craftsman,

  Master of Attic arts, who built a prison

  To hold our Cretan monster in seclusion,

  Could not, if he were here, do anything

  To lighten my distress. This comes from Venus;

  She hates all children of her enemy

  The Sun,1 and now through us she takes revenge
/>   For what was done to her – the chains that bound her

  In the arms of Mars; on all the tribe of Phoebus

  She lays a load of shame. Love lies not lightly

  On any daughter of the house of Minos;

  We know no love that is not bound to sin.

  NURSE: Nay, noble wife of Theseus, child of Jove,

  Cleanse your pure heart at once of such vile thoughts;

  Smother the flame and give no countenance

  To evil hopes. Stand up to Love and rout him

  At the first assault, that is the surest way

  To win without a fall; once humour him,

  Cherish the pleasant bane – ’twill be too late

  Then to refuse the yoke you have accepted.

  I am not blind, I know how royal pride,

  Stubborn, and deaf to truth, abhors correction.

  I am ready for my end, whate’er it be;

  The old have courage, freedom is near for them.

  To choose the good is the first rule of life,

  And not to falter on the way; next best

  Is to have shame and know where sin must stop.

  Why, my poor mistress, why are you resolved

  To heap fresh infamy upon your house,

  With sin worse than your mother’s? Wilful sin

  Is a worse evil than unnatural passion;

  That comes by fate, but sin comes from our nature.

  You think, because your husband’s eyes are closed

  To all this upper world, that you are free

  To sin without fear? No, you are mistaken;

  Though Theseus may be safely out of sight

  In Lethe’s depths, walking the shores of Styx,

  Perhaps for ever – what of him who rules

  The hundred cities and the wide sea roads,

  Your father? Will he let such sin be hidden?

  Parents are watchful, and their care is wise.

  And even if we do conceal your crime,

  By our devices, from all human eyes,

  There is your mother’s father, He above

  Who sheds his light upon the earth; and He,

  Father of all the gods, who shakes the world

  With hail of fiery bolts from his bright hand.

  Will you believe that you can do this thing

  Out of the sight of your all-seeing grandsires?

  Again, let us suppose the good gods choose

  To hide forbidden love; let us suppose

  They lend to lawless intercourse protection