Four Tragedies and Octavia

by Seneca

  In all these ten years past, behold a crime

  So horrible, so barbarous? Whose loss

  Must I first weep, with what I have to tell –

  Yours, aged mother? Or yours?

  HECUBA: Choose as you will –

  In all you weep for mine. While each of these

  Has her one grief to bear, the grief of all

  Lies on my heart. Their deaths are all my deaths;

  All weeping women are Hecuba’s sorrowing daughters.

  MESSENGER: The girl is slain; the boy thrown from the walls.

  Each suffered bravely.

  ANDROMACHE: Tell us how they died.

  Tell all the circumstances of this act

  Of double evil. Sorrow loves to dwell

  On every detail of its woe. Tell all –

  Leave nothing out.

  MESSENGER: All that is left of Troy

  Is one great tower, at whose high battlements

  Priam was wont to sit, watching his troops

  And ordering the conduct of the war.

  Here on this tower’s top he would embrace

  His little grandson in his gentle arms,

  And, when great Hector’s fire and sword sent Greeks

  Flying in panic-stricken rout, would draw

  The child’s attention to his father’s prowess.

  This once so famous tower, the masterpiece

  Of our defences, now, a dangerous crag,

  Stands out alone. Hither from every side

  Crowds had assembled; leaders and lower ranks,

  The whole Greek multitude had left their ships

  And gathered here. Some were on higher ground

  Near by, which overlooked the open space;

  Some on a spur of rock, pressed close together

  And balanced tiptoe on its edge. Tall trees –

  Laurel and pine and beech – provided perches,

  Till the whole forest swayed with clinging bodies.

  One chose a vantage-point on some high hill,

  Another on a charred roof-top, or stood

  Poised on the leaning cornice of a ruin.

  One heartless onlooker was bold enough

  To take his seat on Hector’s monument.1

  At length, across the space between the crowds

  The Ithacan advanced, with solemn steps,

  Leading the old king’s grandson by the hand.

  The little boy marched boldly to the tower,

  Climbed to its summit, and there stood, his eyes

  Glancing this way and that, quite unafraid.

  There, in the grip of hostile hands, the boy

  Stood, as defiant as a lion’s cub

  Which, yet unarmed with formidable teeth,

  Small and defenceless though it be, shows fight,

  Snapping with rage and ineffectual jaws.

  The crowd was touched with pity; even the leaders,

  Even Ulysses. Tears were in the eyes

  Of all, except the one for whom they wept.

  Ulysses called on the avenging gods

  To accept the sacrifice, but while he prayed

  And spoke again the sentence of the prophet,

  The boy himself leapt from the tower’s height

  To fall, there in the heart of Priam’s city.

  ANDROMACHE: Ah, when was ever such a sin committed

  By any Colchian, any wandering Scythian?

  What barbarous people of the Caspian sea

  Would dare such wickedness? The fierce Busiris

  Would not shed children’s blood upon his altars,

  Nor Diomede feed his beasts on infants’ flesh.1

  Who will take up my dear son’s broken body

  And lay it in a tomb?

  MESSENGER: From that sheer fall

  What body can remain? The bones were smashed

  And scattered by the impact; every trace

  Of his fair person, every lineament,

  The princely likeness of his father, crushed

  To nothing by the body’s plunge to ground.

  His neck was broken as it struck the rock,

  The brains spilled from the shattered skull. He lies

  A shapeless corpse.

  ANDROMACHE: His father’s likeness still!

  MESSENGER: The boy had fallen from the tower, and now

  The assembled Greeks, when they had wept their full

  For their own sin, turned to the second outrage

  And to Achilles’ tomb. Its farther edge

  Touches the gentle waters of Rhoeteum;

  Its inland side confronts an open space

  Encircled by a gently rising slope,

  A theatre, to which the crowd converged

  Till every place was filled. The thoughts of some

  Were with their shore-bound fleet, to be released

  By this last execution; some rejoiced

  At the destruction of the enemy stock;

  Most of the careless multitude remained

  Watching, while loathing, the outrageous act.

  And Trojans too were gathered here, to mourn

  At this, their own last funeral, to tremble

  At this last moment of the fall of Troy.

  Then suddenly the marriage train appeared,

  With torches at the head, Helen herself

  Attending on the bride, but bowed with grief.

  ‘Give such a wedding to Hermione!’

  The Trojans cry. ‘Let Helen for her sins

  Be reunited with her husband thus!’

  Trojan and Greek alike were held amazed.

  The girl came on with humbly lowered face;

  But in that face a radiant beauty shone

  Even more brightly in its hour of death –

  A sun more splendid in its dying fall

  Before the stars take up their offices

  And night treads on the heels of weakening day.

  The multitude was rapt; none could forbear

  To admire a sight soon to be lost for ever.

  Some marked her beauty, some her innocent youth,

  Some thought upon the strange vicissitudes

  Of human fate. Not one remained unmoved

  By such staunch courage in the face of death.

  Behind her Pyrrhus walked. Now every heart

  Was struck with terror, wonderment, and pity.

  The young man reached the summit of the mound

  And stood on the high platform of the tomb

  In which his father lay. The girl, unflinching,

  Never withdrew a step, but faced the sword

  With grim defiance. Such great courage shocked

  Every spectator; and, beyond belief,

  Even Pyrrhus paused before the stroke of death.

  At last his hand went to his sword and thrust

  The blade in to the hilt. Her death was swift;

  Blood spurted from the mortal wound; and still,

  In the act of death, her courage never left her.

  She seemed to fling herself with angry force

  Upon the ground, as if to pound the earth

  Over Achilles’ head. Then, friend or foe,

  The people wept; but the lament of Troy

  Was timid, while the victors cried aloud.

  The sacrifice was done. The pool of blood

  Neither stood still nor flowed over the ground;

  It quickly sank, drunk by the thirsty soil

  Of that inexorable tomb.

  HECUBA: Go now,

  Go, Greeks! Go home, now all is safe for you.

  You have no more to fear. Now let your fleet

  Hoist sail and cross the waters that you long for.

  A young child and an innocent girl have died;

  The war is over. Where shall I now weep?

  Where will they let my aged mouth spit out

  This lingering taste of death? Daughter, or grandson,

  Husband, or country – which desires my tears?


  Must I still weep for all, or for myself?

  O death, for which alone I pray, can you

  So swiftly come to children, and to maidens

  So sharply, when you will, yet hold your hand

  From me alone? Have I not looked for you

  ’Mid swords and spears and firebrands in the night?

  I have desired you and you have not come.

  Enemy, fire, and fall, have not destroyed me;

  Was it for this I stood at Priam’s side?

  MESSENGER: Now, prisoners, you must hurry to the sea.

  Sails are unfurled on every ship, the fleet

  Is ready to depart.

  Exeunt

  OEDIPUS

  WHEN Oedipus, supposedly the son of King Polybus of Corinth, came as a voluntary fugitive from his own country to Thebes, he found that her king Laius had just died in an unpremeditated fight with a traveller on a lonely road. The city was also under the domination of the half-human half-bestial creature, the Sphinx, whose threats were couched in the form of a riddle. Oedipus answered the riddle, destroyed the Sphinx, and was made king in the place of Laius and, as custom required, husband to the widowed queen Jocasta.

  Some years later, at the point at which the play begins, the city is in the grip of a pestilence for which neither cause nor remedy can be found. Oedipus determines to use all means to rid the city of this plague, and in so doing uncovers the ugly secrets of his own identity and the acts to which he has been driven by the malignity of fate.

  Seneca’s drama follows very closely the line of its far superior prototype, the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles, though digressing into circumstantial details of the occult rituals conducted by Tiresias, and by compression weakening the suspense and impact of the king’s discovery of his past.

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  OEDIPUS, King of Thebes

  JOCASTA, his wife

  CREON, brother to Jocasta

  TIRESIAS, a blind prophet

  MANTO, his daughter

  AN OLD MAN, messenger from Corinth

  PHORBAS, an old shepherd

  MESSENGER

  CHORUS of Theban elders

  *

  Scene: the palace at Thebes

  ACT ONE

  Oedipus, Jocasta

  OEDIPUS: The night is at an end; but dimly yet

  The Lord Sun shows his face – a dull glow rising

  Out of a dusky cloud. It is a torch

  Of evil omen, this pale fire he brings

  With which to scan our plague-polluted homes.

  Day will reveal the havoc of the night.

  What king is happy on his throne? False joy,1

  How many ills thy smiling face conceals!

  As the high peak takes all the winds’ assault

  And sharp cliffs jutting upon open seas

  Are pounded even by the lightest waves,

  So are the heights of royalty exposed

  To Fortune’s blast. How happy was the day

  On which I came, escaped from the domain

  Of Polybus my father, free in exile,

  A fearless vagabond – so help me, gods! –

  To stumble upon a kingdom. Now I fear

  A fate unspeakable: to kill my father.

  This is the warning of the oracle

  In Delphi’s laurel grove. And worse, another,

  A greater crime is put into my hand.

  O filial love, doomed love! I am ashamed

  To utter what has been foretold of me.

  Apollo bids me fear… my mother’s bed

  (This to her son!), a marriage bed of shame,

  Unlawful and incestuous matrimony!

  This terror drove me from my father’s kingdom;

  Not by compulsion banished from the hearth,

  But fearful of myself, I sought to put

  The law of nature safe beyond the chance

  Of violation. He that goes in dread

  Of some great evil, cannot choose but fear

  Even what seems impossible. I see

  Disaster everywhere. I doubt myself.

  Fate is preparing, even while I speak,

  Some blow for me. Why else, when all my people

  Suffer this pestilence, when havoc walks

  Through all this land, am I alone unscathed?

  For what worse punishment am I preserved?

  Amid the city’s ruin, lamentations

  Ever renewed, unceasing funerals,

  A massacre of men – I stand untouched…

  To answer at Apollo’s judgement seat;

  Why else? Who could expect a sinful man

  To be rewarded with a healthy kingdom?

  The air of heaven is tainted by my presence.

  There is no gentle breeze to cool the breasts

  Of fevered sufferers; no kind winds blow here.

  The Dog-Star scorches and the Lord Sun’s fire

  Blows hot upon the Lion’s heels. No water

  Runs in the rivers, fields are colourless.

  Dirce is dry, Ismenus thinly creeps,

  A shrunk stream barely moistening the sand.

  Apollo’s sister, Moon, drifts hardly seen

  Across the sky; day, overcast with clouds,

  Reveals a pale dull world; the silent night

  Is dark, without a star; fog, dense and black,

  Broods over all the land; the murk of hell

  Has swallowed up the heavenly citadels,

  The mansions of the gods on high. The corn,

  That should be ripe for harvest, bears no fruit;

  The golden ears that sway on springing stalks

  Soon wither and the barren crop falls dead.

  No section of the people has escaped

  The killing plague; death pays no heed to age

  Or sex; young men and old, fathers and sons –

  The mortal pestilence makes no distinction.

  Husband and wife await one funeral pyre,

  And there are no more tears to mourn the dead,

  None left to weep; the very magnitude

  Of our ordeal has dried up every eye;

  As ever in the extreme of misery,

  Tears perish at their source. Here you will see

  An anguished father bear his burden out

  To the consuming fire; a stricken mother there;

  And back she hurries for the second victim

  Which she must carry to the same death-pyre.

  One grief is stricken by a second grief;

  Mourners around the dead fall to be mourned.

  Some have been known to steal each others’ fire,

  Fling their own dead upon another’s ashes;

  Misery knows no shame. There are no tombs

  For hallowed bones to rest in; to be burnt

  Is boon enough – and few are those that have it.

  Now there is no more earth for burial mounds,

  No wood for pyres. And for the stricken ones

  No art or prayer can find a remedy.

  Healers fall sick; the plague defeats all aid.

  Here at the altar bowed, with suppliant hands

  I pray, that Fate will quickly come to me,

  That I may not outlive my country’s death,

  Not be the last to fall, not be the last,

  Of all the people whom I rule, to die.

  O gods too pitiless, O heavy fate!

  Can death still be denied, although so near,

  To me alone? Then I must turn my back

  On this doomed kingdom, which my touch of death

  Has blighted – leave these wakes and funerals,

  This air polluted with the pestilence,

  The curse my own unhappy coming brought –

  Leave all behind, begone without delay…

  Even to my parents’ home.

  JOCASTA: Why do you choose,

  Dear husband, thus to make your misery worse

  By lamentation? I believe a king

  Should g
rasp misfortune with a steady hand;

  The more unsure his state, more imminent

  His fall from sovereignty, so much the more

  Should he be resolute to stand upright.

  He is no man who turns his back on fate.

  OEDIPUS: No man can brand me with the name of coward.

  My heart is innocent of craven fears.

  Against drawn swords, against the might of Giants,

  Against the fiercest rage of Mars himself

  I would march boldly forward. Did I run

  From the enchantment of the riddling Sphinx?

  I faced the damned witch, though her jaws dripped blood

  And all the ground beneath was white with bones.

  There, as she sat upon her rocky seat,

  Waiting to seize her prey, with wings outspread

  And lashing tail, a lion in her wrath,

  I asked ‘What is your riddle?’ She replied,

  Shrieking above me with a voice of doom,

  Snapping her jaws and clawing at the stones,

  Impatient to tear out my living heart.

  Then came the cryptic words, the baited trap;

  The monstrous bird had asked her fatal riddle,

  And I had answered it!… Fool that I am,

  Why should I now be praying for my death?…

  You could have had it then! And here you have

  This crown for your reward; you are well paid

  For the destruction of the Sphinx – whose dust,

  That subtle creature’s dust, now rises up

  To fight against you. She, the accursed pest

  Whom I destroyed, is now destroying Thebes!…

  None other but Apollo now can show

  If there be any way to our salvation.

  CHORUS

  Fallen is the noble race of Cadmus, his city utterly fallen.

  Alas for Thebes, her lands bereft of workers!

  Death takes toll of the men of Bacchus,1 whom he led to the farthest Indies;

  The men who boldly scoured the eastern plains,

  And planted his banners where the world begins.

  They saw the Arabs in their lush cinnamon groves,

  And the Parthian riders in retreat –

  Treacherous retreat, for there was danger in their backs.2

  They marched to the shores of the ruby sea, the gate

  Whence Phoebus rises to bring back the day,

  Scorching the naked Indians on whom his fire first falls.

  Now the heirs of the undefeated are dying,

  Caught in the clutch of a relentless fate.

  Hour by hour the procession of death is renewed;

  The train of mourners troops to the place of burial,