Four Tragedies and Octavia

by Seneca

  Out of the dark of hate. The infernal powers,

  Whose den you saw, promise the permanence

  Of your new marriage, and to this your house

  Eternal life. The blade buried in blood

  By Nero’s hand shows he will not unleash

  New war, but sheathe the sword in lasting peace.

  Take courage then, be comforted, my child;

  Have no more fear, and go back to your bed.

  POPPAEA: It was my purpose to approach the altars

  And holy shrines, and with a sacrifice

  Beseech the powers of heaven to avert

  The menace of these visions of the night

  And turn my fears upon my enemies’ heads.

  Pray you for me, too, and entreat the gods

  That all this present dread may pass away.

  *

  CHORUS: If all the tales are true

  That history so eloquently tells

  Of the clandestine loves

  Of Jove the Thunderer –

  How he became a winged and feathered bird

  To lie upon the breast of Leda;

  And in the likeness of a savage bull

  Carried Europa through the sea –

  Once more, for you, Poppaea,

  He will desert his kingdom of the stars,

  To seek embraces which he must prefer

  To those of Leda, or of Danae

  Before whose wondering eyes

  He fell as a bright shower of gold.

  Let Sparta praise her daughter’s beauty,

  And the young Phrygian shepherd

  Boast of his prize;1

  We have one here, a face

  More lovely than the Tyndarid –

  That face that launched a lamentable war

  And brought the throne of Phrygia to the ground.

  But who comes here?

  Breathless his haste, and stumbling steps…

  What news?

  MESSENGER:2 Let every soldier of the royal guard

  Defend the safety of the emperor’s house

  Against the angry mob that threatens it!

  Look, where the officers in desperate haste

  Are hurrying troops to man the city walls.

  This insurrection, born of headstrong folly,

  Will not be checked by fear, but grows the stronger.

  CHORUS: What stroke of madness has bemused these people?

  MESSENGER: Kindled with zeal upon Octavia’s part,

  The fury of the mob is bent on mischief.

  CHORUS: What is their plan? What have they dared to do?

  MESSENGER: They mean to win back for Octavia

  Her place, her right to be her brother’s consort

  And partner of his throne.

  CHORUS: Although Poppaea

  Is now his lawful and accepted wife?

  MESSENGER: That is their desperate policy, which now

  Fills them with fire and urges on their haste

  To acts of madness. Every graven image,

  Each polished bronze or gleaming marble statue

  Bearing the features of Poppaea, lies

  Demolished by the mob or overturned

  By iron weapons; the dismembered limbs

  Are being dragged away with knotted ropes,

  Kicked, trampled under foot, and fouled with dirt,

  With insults added to these injuries

  In words such as I dare not here repeat.

  They are about to ring the emperor’s house

  With fire, unless he will forthwith surrender

  His new wife to the angry populace

  And own defeat, leaving Octavia

  Safe in possession of her house and home.

  My orders from the prefect are to bring

  These tidings of the popular revolt

  To the emperor in person; and this charge

  I must with haste deliver.…

  CHORUS: But what avails the violence of war?

  Love’s weapons are invincible;

  His fires will stifle yours,

  His fires have quenched the lightning

  And brought Jove captive out of heaven.

  You will pay dearly with your blood for this.

  Love has no mercy; roused to anger

  He is not patient of restraint.

  Under his orders bold Achilles

  Became a minstrel; to his power

  The Greeks and Agamemnon fell.

  He broke great Priam’s kingdom, overthrew

  Many a splendid city; and today

  What harm this ruthless god’s fierce rage

  Will do to us, I dare not guess.…

  NERO: Too slow, too soft my soldiers’ hands! Too weak

  My anger at such outrages! Not yet

  Drowned in the people’s blood those people’s torches

  Fired to destroy me? Not yet soaked in slaughter

  Those cursed streets of Rome, where such men breed?

  No! death is far too small a punishment

  For such offences; this mob’s sacrilege

  Deserves far worse. As for that dangerous wife

  And sister, whom I long suspect of guilt,

  Whom these crazed citizens would have to rule me,

  She shall no longer live, but render up

  Her spirit to my wrath, and quench my rage

  In her own blood. Then, let this city’s roofs

  Sink in the fires that I shall send upon her!

  Let burning ruin, squalor, poverty,

  Starvation and bereavement fall upon

  Her sinful people’s heads. Now in its pride

  The monstrous mob, ungrateful, and corrupted

  By the good gifts of these beneficent times,

  Cannot abide our gentle rule, hates peace,

  And ever discontented, now defiant,

  Now reckless, rushes onward to its doom.

  It must be tamed by suffering, must be held

  At all times under an oppressive yoke;

  No other way will teach it to beware

  Of making any other such attempt,

  Nor dare to lift up its rebellious eyes

  Against the saintly face of my loved spouse.

  The spirit of the people shall be broken

  By punishment and fear, that they may learn

  To obey their emperor’s lightest nod.…

  Here comes

  The captain of my guard, whose loyalty

  Well proved, and signal virtue, make him fit

  To hold command over my garrison.

  PREFECT: I come to tell you, sir, the people’s outbreak

  Has, with the death of some few desperate men

  Who made the most resistance, been put down.

  NERO: And is that all? Is that a soldier’s way

  Of carrying out his lord’s commands? Put down?

  Is that to be my only satisfaction?

  PREFECT: The guilty ringleaders have lost their lives.

  NERO: What of the mob that had the hardihood

  To attack my house with fire, to lay down laws

  For emperors to obey, steal from my bed

  My innocent wife, to desecrate her name

  So far as their foul hands and voices could –

  Are they still wanting their due punishment?

  PREFECT: You cry for punishment of your countrymen?

  NERO: Of such a kind that time shall ne’er forget.

  PREFECT: Your wrath, and not my fears, shall be my law.

  NERO: She that first earned it shall first feel my wrath.

  PREFECT: Whom does your wrath demand? My hand is ready.

  NERO: My sister’s life – and her detested head.

  PREFECT: I am stunned, insensible with fear and horror!

  NERO: You hesitate?

  PREFECT: You doubt my loyalty?

  NERO: If you would spare my foe.

  PREFECT: Woman– a foe?

  NERO: If charged with crime.

 
PREFECT: Whose evidence convicts her?

  NERO: The mob’s revolt.

  PREFECT: Hotheads; whose power can rule them?

  NERO: His who could stir them up.

  PREFECT: Not even he.

  NERO: A woman can, by nature taught deceit

  And armed with every artifice of evil,

  But not with strength – so, not invincible,

  Not proof against the breaking power of fear

  Or punishment; and punishment, though late,

  Shall overtake this too long guilty woman

  Whose crime stands plainly proven. Plead no more;

  Give me no more advice; obey your orders.

  Have her deported to a distant shore

  By sea, and executed instantly;

  So that the tumult of my wrath may rest.

  *

  CHORUS: O fatal wind of popularity,

  That has destroyed so many!

  How propitiously

  It breathes to fill the traveller’s sails,

  And waft him on his way, but all too soon

  Drops, and deserts him on the angry sea.

  Why was the mother of the Gracchi doomed

  To mourn her sons? Because they were destroyed

  By too much popularity, too much

  Of common love; for they were noble,

  Eloquent, upright and true,

  Shrewd statesmen, men of courage firm.

  And by the same fate fell

  Livius, not to be saved

  By public rank or sanctity of home.1

  To tell of more

  Our present griefs forbid.

  With their own eyes our people now may see

  One whom but yesterday they had preferred

  To be her brother’s consort, queen

  Of her late father’s court,

  A weeping captive dragged away

  To punishment and death.

  Happy lies poverty, content, unseen

  Under her humble roof.

  The high house shakes

  More often to the winds of heaven

  Or falls to Fortune’s stroke.

  *

  OCTAVIA:1 Where? To what place of banishment

  Am I condemned? What is the emperor’s will,

  Or hers, his queen – if her hard heart

  Can soften and be won

  By pity for my suffering;

  If she will let me live?

  Or if she means to crown my misery

  With death, is it too little vengeance

  To let me die on my own country’s soil?

  Ah, but I have no hope of life.…

  I am lost… the ship, I see, the ship

  My brother has prepared… the same

  On which his mother sailed… for me, his sister,

  His banished wife!

  Where is the power of piety?

  Where are the gods? They are no more.

  Fell Fury rules the world.

  What eyes have tears enough to weep

  For all my ills?

  What nightingale can sing

  My song of sorrow?

  Ah, would that Fate had given me her wings!

  Swift wings would take me far from all my griefs,

  Far from the cruel world of man

  And his destroying hand.

  In some wild wood, alone, I’d sit

  Upon a slender branch, to cry

  My sorrows in a voice of lamentation.

  CHORUS: Fate rules all mortal men; not one of us

  Can count his footing firm and permanent

  Amid the many accidents that Time,

  Our enemy, lays in our way.

  Take courage, then,

  From the example of the many griefs

  Already suffered by the women of your name.

  Yours is no harder fate.

  Let us remember first

  Agrippa’s daughter,1 of Augustus’ house,

  A Caesar’s wife, and mother of nine children.

  Her fame was a bright star to all the world;

  And though her womb had laboured to bring forth

  So many pledges of a peaceful union,

  She was to suffer whips,

  Chains, banishment, bereavement,

  Tortures, and lingering death.

  Livia,1 wife of Drusus, fortunate

  In marriage, fortunate in motherhood,

  Fell to a crime and to her punishment.

  By the same way went Julia,2 her daughter;

  But not till after many years,

  Her guilt unproven, was she slain.

  Then your own mother; what a power was hers

  When she was mistress of the emperor’s house,

  Loved by her husband, and in children blest.

  She fell to her own servant’s mastery,

  To die upon a ruthless soldier’s sword.

  And that great lady, who could once have hoped

  To be a queen in heaven, Nero’s mother:

  Was not she too assaulted

  First by a ruffian sailor’s hand,

  Then mutilated with a sword, condemned

  To a slow death by her inhuman son?

  OCTAVIA: As that cold-hearted lord is sending me

  To outer darkness and the ghostly shades.

  What can I hope for from delay?

  Take me away to die,

  You whom the lot of life

  Has made my masters. Gods in heaven!…

  O fool! What use to pray

  To powers that hate you?… Gods of hell,

  To you I pray,

  To goddesses of Erebus, whose wrath

  Can punish sin. I pray to you, my father,

  Who worthily endured such death and pain:1

  A death I do not shrink from.

  Come, hoist sail!

  Let us away to sea!

  Spread all your canvas to the winds

  And, helmsman, steer for Pandataria.

  CHORUS: And may the gentle Zephyr’s kindly breath

  That bore Iphigenia tenderly,

  Wrapped in a cloak of cloud, unto her death

  At the dread Virgin’s altar, carry thee

  To Dian’s shrine, beyond all suffering.

  Kinder than ours are those barbarian lands,

  Aulis and Tauris; to their gods they bring

  Tribute of strangers’ lives; Rome loves to see

  The blood of her own children on her hands.

  Exeunt

  APPENDIX I

  (a) PASSAGES PROM THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS

  The dates are those of the first publication of each translation, prior to their collection in The Tenne Tragedies edited by Thomas Newton in 1581.

  1 TROAS, by Jasper Heywood (1559), 203–18, with much rearrange ment and interpolation:

  What tyme our sayles we should have spread, uppon Sygeon seas,

  With swift returne from long delay, to seeke our homeward ways.

  Achilles rose whose only hand hath geven Greekes the spoyle

  Of Troia sore annoyde by him, and leveld with the soyle,

  With speede requiting his abode and former long delay,

  At Scyros yle, and Lesbos both amid the Aegean sea.

  Til he came here in doubt it stoode of fall or sure estate,

  Then though ye hast to graunt his wil ye shall it geve to late.

  Now have the other captaynes all the pryce of their manhood

  What els reward for his prowesse then her al onely blood?

  Are his desertes think you but light, that when he might have fled,

  And passing Pelyus yeares in peace, a quiet life have led,

  Detected yet his mother’s craftes, forsooke his woman’s weede,

  And with his weapons prov’d himselfe a manly man indeed:

  The King of Mysia, Telephos what woulde the Greekes with-stand,

  Comming to Troy, forbidding us the passage of his land:

  To late repenting to have felt Achilles heavy stroke,

&nb
sp; Was glad to crave his health agayne where he his hurt had toke:

  For when his sore might not be salv’d as told Apollo playne,

  Except the speare that gave the hurte, restoared help agayne.

  Achilles plasters cur’d his cuttes, and sav’d the King alive:

  His hand both might and mercy knew to slay and then revive.

  2 Id. 229–33:

  What bootes to blase the brute of him whom trumpe of fame doth show,

  Through all the coastes where Caicus floud with swelling stream doth flow?

  The ruthful ruine of these realmes so many townes bet downe,

  Another man would glory count and worthy great renowne.

  But thus my father made his way and these his journeys are,

  And battayles many one he fought whyle warre he doth prepare.

  3 Id. 250–91:

  The onely fault of youth it is not to refraine his rage

  The Fathers bloud already sturres in Pryams1 wanton age:

  Somtime Achilles grievous checkes I bare with pacient hart,

  The more thou mayst, the more thou oughtst to suffer in good part.

  Whereto would yee with slaughtred bloud a noble spirit stayne?

  Thinke what is meete the Greekes to do, and Troyans to sustayne.

  The proude estate of tyranny may never long endure.

  The King that rules with modest meane of safety may be sure.

  The higher step of princely state that fortune hath us signd

  The more behov’th a happy man humility of mynd

  And dread the chaunge that chaunce may bring, whose gifts so soone be lost

  And chiefly then to feare the Gods, whyle they thee favour most.

  In beating down that warre hath wonne, by proofe I have ben taught,

  What pompe and pride in twink of eye, may fall and come to naught.

  Troy made me fierce and proude of mynde, Troy makes me frayd withal:

  The Greekes now stand wher Troy late fel, ech thing may have his fal.

  Sometyme I graunt I did myselfe, and Sceptors proudly beare,

  The thing that might advaunce my hart makes me the more to feare

  Thou Priam perfit proofe presentst thou art to mee eftsones:

  A cause of pride, a glasse of feare a mirrour for the nones,

  Should I accompt the sceptors ought but glorious vanity

  Much like the borrowed brayded hayre, the face to beautify.

  One sodayne chaunce may turne to naught, and mayme the might of men

  With fewer than a thousand shippes, and years in lesse then ten.