Four Tragedies and Octavia

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.