by Seneca
Of one more Cyclad? Now the rising waters
Covered the sacred reef of Epidaurus,
And the notorious Scironian rocks,
And all the Isthmus in between the seas.
Amazed we watched, and wondered, while the whole
Sea roared, and the surrounding cliffs roared back.
Each pinnacle was wet with driven spray
Blown out and sucked back by the swirling waters;
As when the huge spouting leviathan’s
Wide mouth blows out the water as he rides
Across the ocean. Then, a tremor shook
The mass of water and it burst apart
And threw on to the shore a thing – a thing
Of evil, far more foul than any fear
Of ours could have conceived; and after it
The sea rushed on towards us, in the wake
Of that abominable apparition.…
My fear still trembles on my lips.… How vast,
How horrible of shape the creature was!
A bull – dark blue about the rising neck,
Sea-green the shaggy forelock on its brow,
Hairy the ears, eyes shot with varied hues,
That of the leader of a mountain herd,
And that of some sea-creature – fiery red,
And lustrous with the purple of the sea.
Thick muscles rippled on its massive neck,
And through the gaping nostrils draughts of air
Hissed horribly. Its breast and dewlaps dripped
Green slimy moss, and all along its flanks
Red seaweed clung. The hinder parts were drawn
Into some nameless shape, a scaly length
Of tail enormous trailed behind the monster.
Of such a shape might be the deep-sea shark
Which crushes or devours the swiftest ships.
Earth shook, and every animal took flight
In terror from the fields, and every herdsman
Was too amazed to follow up his cattle.
Wild beasts broke from their coverts everywhere,
And everywhere the huntsman, frozen stiff
With fear, stood trembling. Only Hippolytus
Was unafraid; his horses took alarm,
But with the rein he held them hard and mastered
Their panic with the voice they knew so well.
The road that skirts the margin of the sea
Turns through a deep ravine between the hills
Towards the country. Here the monster paused
To whet its anger and prepare for battle.
Then, having practised to its satisfaction
And limbered up its powers, with wrath renewed
It charged ahead, so fast the flying feet
Scarce touched the ground beneath; and then it stopped,
Confronting with a scowl the quivering horses.
Your son stood boldly up and faced the beast
With fearless challenge and unaltered mien,
And in a voice as loud as thunder cried:
‘This bogey cannot frighten me! I know
How to fight bulls; it was my father’s trade.’
But suddenly his horses jumped the reins,
Swerved off the road, taking the chariot with them,
And raced across the rocks, this way and that,
Wherever their wild terror took them. Still,
Like a ship’s helmsman on a heaving sea
Holding his course head-on into the breakers,
Pitting his skill against their force – the youth
Guided his chariot. Tugging at the bit
With tightened reins, or flaying with the whip,
He kept control; while his competitor
Hung on to him – now drawing level, now
Wheeling around to face him, scaring him
From all directions; till at last, full tilt,
The horrible horned monster of the sea
Charged from the front, and there was no escaping.
At this, the maddened horses broke all bounds
And in their struggle to throw off the yoke
Reared up, hurling their driver to the ground.
Headlong he plunged and, in his fall caught up
In the entangling straps, the more he wrestled
The more he knotted up the gripping harness.
The horses knew what they had done; the chariot
Was lighter, and they had no master now;
Fear took control, and where it led they followed.
So was it when the horses in the sky,
Feeling an unknown rider at their back,
Hating to have the car of daylight lent
To a pretender Sun, flung Phaethon down
From his wild orbit in the upper air.
The ground was reddened with a trail of blood;
His head was dashed from rock to rock, his hair
Torn off by thorns, his handsome face despoiled
By flinty stones; wound after wound destroyed
For ever that ill-fated comeliness.
The speeding wheels trundled the dying body
Until it caught upon a half-burnt tree-stump,
Sharp as a stake, which pierced the groin and held him
Transfixed; and while the man hung there impaled,
The car stood still, the horses at a loss
Checked by the accident. Then they break loose,
Even though they break their master. Now half dead
His flesh is ripped by brambles, gored by spines
Of thorny thickets, broken into pieces
Hanging on every tree. And sadly now
His servants and companions search the ground
Wherever the long trail of blood marks out
The passage of the torn and dragged Hippolytus.
The dogs join in the melancholy chase
Tracking the fragments of their master’s body.
But still the efforts of the searching mourners
Have not recovered all the corpse. That beauty,
That form, to come to this! That youth, resplendent
Beside his royal father, star ascendant,
Heir to the throne – now they are gathering him
In scattered remnants to his resting-place
Upon a funeral pyre.
THESEUS: O potent nature,
How strong a bond of blood is thine to tie
A parent’s heart! Even against our will
We know and love thee. As my son was guilty,
I wished him dead; as he is lost, I mourn him.
MESSENGER: What he has willed, no man may rightly mourn.
THESEUS: This is the very summit of calamity,
When fate makes us demand what we must loathe.
MESSENGER: If you still harbour hate, why are you weeping?
THESEUS: I weep, not that I lost, but that I killed him.
CHORUS
What awful revolutions accident
Brings in the lives of men!
Truly the hand of Fate
Is kinder to the humble; punishment
From heaven falls less heavily
On those of less estate.
Peace and obscurity make most content,
In lowly homes old age sleeps easily.
The highest mountain-tops
Catch every wind that blows, from east, from south,
The wild assaults of Boreas,
And rains of Corus.
Green valleys seldom feel the stroke of thunder,1
But the high Caucasus
And Phrygian forests of the Mother Goddess
Quake at the voice of Jupiter
And fear his armoury.
For Jupiter is on his guard
And strikes whatever comes too near the sky.
The thunder rumbles round his throne,
But no great harm can come to common folk
Who dwell in modest homes.
The wings of time fly unp
redictably,
Fate hurries on, and keeps no promises.
Here was a man, returning thankfully
To look upon bright day and starry sky
After his sojourn in the dark; what sorrow
Greets his homecoming! In his father’s house
He has received a welcome far more woeful
Than in the pit of hell.
Pallas, whom all the Attic race adore:
Theseus thy son has come back from the dead
And lives to see the heaven above; but thou,
Pure goddess, owest no recompense for this
To thy stern uncle’s grasping hand; death’s king
Has still his victim, and the debt is paid.
ACT FIVE
Theseus, Phaedra
CHORUS: A voice crying from the high palace! What!
Phaedra comes, sword in hand, distraught. Ah, why?…
[Enter Phaedra]
THESEUS: What is this madness, woman, crazed with grief, Why come you with a sword and loud lament
Over a body which you hate?
PHAEDRA: On me,
On me let the deep ocean’s angry lord
Let fall his wrath! Let all the blue sea’s monsters,
All that were ever brought to birth afar
In the deep lap of Tethys, all that Ocean
Bears in the farthest tides of his wild waters,
Come against me. O Theseus, ever cruel!
Never a bringer of joy on your return
To those that waited for you; first a father,1
And now a son, have, died for your homecoming.
For love of one wife, hatred of another,
Guilty in both, you have destroyed your house.
[The remains of Hippolytus have been brought back]
Hippolytus! Is this how I must find you?
Is this what I have made of you? What creature –
Some Sinis, some Procrustes? – Cretan bull
Bellowing in a Daedalian labyrinth,
Horned hybrid – can have torn you into pieces?
Alas, where now is all your beauty gone,
And where those eyes that were my stars? Can I
Believe you dead? Come back a little while,
And hear me speak to you – I’ll speak no shame.
Then with this hand I’ll pay my debt to you;
Into this wicked heart I’ll thrust the sword
That shall set Phaedra free from life and sin.
So through the waters, through the Stygian stream
And the Tartarean lake, and burning rivers,1
I shall still follow you, mad for your love.
Here is my offering for the dead… this veil…
And from my wounded brow this lock of hair.…
Take them. Although we could not live as one,
We can still die together.…
Die then, Phaedra;
If thou art undefiled, die for thy husband;
If thou hast sinned, die for thy love. For how
Could I again approach my husband’s bed
Now that such evil has dishonoured it?
This would have been the crowning sin, to ask,
As if repentant, to be loved again.
O Death, sole remedy for errant love,
O Death, lost honour’s only ornament,
To thee I fly; receive me in thy mercy.
But hear this first, O Athens; hear this, father –
But more malevolent than any stepmother –
I told you lies, alleged untruthfully
The offence on which my own mad heart was set.
You, father, punished where there was no need.
The innocent boy, charged with inchastity,
Lies dead, untouched by sin, untouched by shame.
Hippolytus, be vindicated now!
My guilty breast awaits the avenging sword;
My blood is shed to pay the dues of death
For one who never sinned. Father, your son
Is taken from you; let his stepmother
Teach you your duty now: begone to Hades!
[She kills herself]
THESEUS: Hide me, O prison of pale Death! Hide me, ye caves
Of Taenarus, and Lethe’s river, for whose arms
The miserable yearn! Let your dank waters drown
My sins, sink my iniquity in endless pain!
Come, sea, come, savage monsters of the main, come all
The brood of Proteus from the ocean’s farthest deep.
For having triumphed in my evil victory
Let me be dragged down to the bottom of the sea!
Father, too ready hast thou been to lend thy ear
To my impetuous prayers; how can I now deserve
Merciful death, when I have sent my son to die
As none have died before, when I have torn his body
And scattered it afield, when I, making myself
The ruthless punisher of a fictitious crime,
Have thrown upon myself the veritable guilt?
Hell, heaven, and ocean I have sated with my sins;
Known in three worlds, there is no fourth estate for me.
Did I return for this? Was I allowed
A way back to this light, only to see
Death twice, two violent deaths, lose wife and son
And with one torch kindle the funeral pyres
Of one I loved and one whom I begot?
This light that is my darkness, Hercules,
You won for me. Let Dis take back his gift!
Let me rejoin the dead!… Blasphemous prayer –
And vain – to ask a second chance of death.
Devise your own fit sentence, man of blood!
You have a skill in murder, have invented
Wondrous devices of terrible destruction.
How should I do it?… a pine-branch bent to the ground,
Pegged down, then loosed, to fly into the air,
Ripping a body in half, like a sawn plank?
Or the steep drop from the Scironian cliffs?1
Or worse things, such as I myself have seen
Men suffer under Phlegethon, damned souls
Imprisoned in a sea of fire. I know
What punishment, what resting-place, awaits me.
Sinners in hell, resign your tasks to me!
The stone of aged Sisyphus shall rest
Upon these shoulders, these two hands shall toil
Under the weight of it. Elusive water,
Just out of reach, shall tantalize these lips.
The deadly vulture shall leave Tityos alone
And fly at me, mine shall those entrails be
That grow for ever to supply fresh food
For suffering. The father2 of my friend
Peirithous shall rest, and in his place
My body shall be carried round and round
Upon the ever-turning wheel. Be opened,
Earth! And receive me, awful emptiness!
This time my journey to the shadow world
Will have just cause: I go to seek my son.
King of the dead, have no more fear of me;
I come with pure intent. Make me a guest
In your eternal home, where I shall stay
For ever.… Ah, the gods are deaf to prayers –
Yet they would answer readily enough
If I were praying for some evil purpose.
CHORUS: Theseus, time without end is time enough
For your lament. Now let due rites be done
In your son’s honour; let us put away
This vilely ravaged and dismembered body.
THESEUS: Yes, bring your burden, bring me those remains
Of his beloved body, though the parts
Be heaped in no right order. Can this be
Hippolytus? Oh, what a sin was mine!
I murdered you; and more, as if one crime
Were not enough, nor I alone to blame,
I had
to ask my father for his aid
In plotting this vile act against my son.
Now I can thank him for his generosity!…
What sorrow can be greater than bereavement
At life’s dead end? Unhappy man,
Take in your arms these relics, all you have
That was your son! Kneel and embrace these limbs
And take them to your sorrow-laden breast.
CHORUS: You, sir, shall set in order these remains
Of your son’s broken body, and restore
The mingled fragments to their place. Put here
His strong right hand… and here the left,
Which used to hold the reins so skilfully.…
I recognize the shape of this left side.
Alas, how much of him is lost, and lies
Far from our weeping!
THESEUS: Trembling hands, be firm
For this sad service; cheeks, dry up your tears!
Here is a father building, limb by limb,
A body for his son.… Here is a piece,
Misshapen, horrible, each side of it
Injured and torn. What part of you it is
I cannot tell, but it is part of you.
So… put it there… not where it ought to be,
But where there is a place for it. Was this
The face that shone as brightly as a star,
The face that turned all enemies’ eyes aside?
Has so much beauty come to this? O cruelty
Of Fate! O kindness, ill-bestowed, of gods!
See how a father’s prayer brought back his son!…
Receive these last gifts from your father’s hand;
These, as each part of you is borne to burial,
Shall go into the fire.…
Open the doors
Of this polluted palace, fouled with blood!
Let there be lamentation loud and full
Through all this Attic land!… Let some prepare
The royal pyre; others, search the fields
For any portions of the corpse still lost.…
This one… let a deep pit of earth conceal,
And soil lie heavy on her cursed head.
Exeunt
THE TROJAN WOMEN
TROY has fallen. Outside the ruined and smouldering city, a group of Trojan women are waiting to be carried away on the Greek ships to the homes of their captors. Two acts of vengeance remain to be consummated: the destruction of Hector’s son Astyanax, the last heir to Troy’s defeated royal house; and the sacrifice of Polyxena, daughter of Priam, as an expiation due to the ghost of Achilles. Prominent among the captive women are Hecuba, the widow of Priam, and Andromache, the widow of Hector, the two mothers on whom the shock of these brutal blows most heavily falls.
