Being There

by David Malouf

  NURSE:

  Oh, honour, that’s just a word. Honour won’t help you to your man – yes, yes, I’m speaking plainly now, I know what you really want. He must be told. Straight out, no shilly-shallying. If it wasn’t a matter now of life and death, if you hadn’t already made up your mind – you have, you know – if you were really determined to die rather than give up this honour you go on about, it would be different. But what we’re fighting for now is your life. There’s no dishonour in that.

  PHAEDRA:

  But this is horrible. What are you saying? These are things that are too shameful to be spoken.

  NURSE:

  Shameful? Maybe they are. But they’re also the truth. You’d do better to follow my advice and live than die with your precious chastity.

  PHAEDRA:

  No. I can’t do it. Oh I admit what you say is plausible – but it’s so – I’m surprised at you. I’ve tried so hard to save myself from vileness and all you do is tempt me. You make it all sound so – so matter-of-fact.

  NURSE:

  If it’s tempting it’s because in your heart you’ve already yielded. The rest is just words. Now, I’m going to act. Afterwards you can treat me any way you like. You can lay all the blame on poor old nursie if that makes things easier for you. But you will have what you want at last. You’ll be cured. The drug will cure you, if you take it boldly.

  PHAEDRA:

  Drug? Nurse, I’m beginning to be afraid. I hardly recognise you.

  NURSE:

  No, no, my girl, none of that. You know me well enough. (She gets up, moves towards the door. Turns back) And what is it exactly that you are afraid of? Well, speak up.

  PHAEDRA:

  (as in a trance) That you will – say something to him.

  NURSE:

  (she laughs) Oh, you’re afraid of that, are you? That I’ll say something to him, to Hippolytus. – Now, Queen Aphrodite, come to my aid. It is you who must speak for me. You know what I have in mind. A word to our friend there in the palace. You will know how to put it to him.

  (Exit NURSE)

  CHORUS:

  O Love, the all-powerful.

  Love that makes our hearts melt with longing,

  that when strong arms clasp us makes our soul

  melt in the sweet pangs of ravishment.

  Come, love, invade our hearts, but spare us

  your subtle cruelties.

  To be moon-stuck, to be sun-struck,

  is less fearful than to be

  struck by her rays,

  the fierce light that shines into our hearts

  and consumes us.

  Let the sacred walls of Thebes,

  let the Dircean Spring,

  tell once more the story –

  how Aphrodite, in a torrent of pure flame

  fell upon Semele.

  Terrible is her coming,

  the breath

  of her power over the lives of each one

  of us, that sweet destruction,

  longed for, but terrible.

  PHAEDRA:

  (who has gone to the mid-stage doorway) Shh. Be quiet there. Can’t you see I’m trying to hear. Oh, oh, it’s done. She has told him.

  CHORUS:

  Shh. Shhsh. Something fearful

  is happening there.

  Phaedra, what is it?

  PHAEDRA:

  Shh. I want to hear what they are saying. It’s my breath that is in their mouths, my life, I’m choking here. Oh but it’s unbearable. The suspense is unbearable.

  CHORUS:

  But what is it? What are you listening for?

  PHAEDRA:

  What do you think? The news of my death. Here, come closer. Put your ear to the door. Can’t you hear it in there? All that turmoil, that dark wind rushing?

  CHORUS:

  It’s true, there’s a voice in the house.

  It is dark, it is angry.

  Can’t you hear it?

  PHAEDRA:

  It is his voice. Hippolytus. There, I’ve said it, I’ve spoken his name. I can’t bear it. (she covers her ears) What is he saying?

  CHORUS:

  Oh lady, you are betrayed.

  The walls of the house know your secret.

  A voice out of the house

  is crying it to the world.

  The nurse has betrayed you.

  PHAEDRA:

  She has told him. He knows. He knows.

  CHORUS:

  What now? What will you do now?

  PHAEDRA:

  SHH! I’m trying to hear.

  I don’t know, I don’t know. Die.

  If there’s no other remedy.

  (The set opens. We see HIPPOLYTUS with NURSE. In the following, PHAEDRA goes through all the reactions, from hope, through horror, to despair, to final resolution)

  HIPPOLYTUS:

  But this is monstrous. I can’t believe I – is the sun still shining? Can such words be spoken here in my father’s house and the house still stand, and the sun keep shining?

  NURSE:

  No, no, don’t go on like that. That’s just nonsense, and someone might hear. Dear me, I’ve never heard such a ruckus.

  HIPPOLYTUS:

  Be quiet? After the things you’ve just said to me?

  NURSE:

  No sir, please, I beg you, I kiss your hand. Be good and just listen a minute.

  HIPPOLYTUS:

  Keep your hands off me! Don’t touch me!

  NURSE:

  Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t carry on so. Have a little pity on an old woman. Now, if you breathe a word of what I’ve said it will be the death of me. Be reasonable. What I said was for your ears only, do you understand? You promised to listen and say nothing. You gave your oath.

  HIPPOLYTUS:

  My tongue swore an oath. I could cut it out! I had no notion of the vileness you were swearing me to.

  NURSE:

  So what will you do, you foolish child? Go prating now to all the world and finish the lot of us? Me, yourself, your friend?

  HIPPOLYTUS:

  Friend? That’s a nice word for it – a nice bawd’s word. You’re priceless, you know that? You really are. You’re a jewel!

  NURSE:

  Well, we’re all human, I hope. We love. We act out of love. We do wrong, but wrong is not what we intended.

  HIPPOLYTUS:

  This is amazing. Just listen to her. My god! I thought I knew already what women are, the depths to which your sex can sink and take a man down with them. Just by linking himself to one of you a man puts his whole life at risk. From that moment on his honour, his integrity, his good name in the world, is dependent on your will, he has no more control of it. It depends on your love for him, your concern for his honour, and your own. Oh my poor father! A woman should be allowed no servant, no vile old wretch, to whisper her secrets to – her shamelessness, to send out into the world to do her dirty work for her. To spit out the things she cannot sully her lips with. Make the vile suggestions she is too pure, too hypocritical, to make herself. So, that woman, that she-devil, invites me to her bed! Well, let her hear this. Let the whole world hear it. My flesh creeps, my soul sickens at the thought of it. The very thought of her touch revolts me. My father’s wife, the mother of my little brothers. Do you think the gods are deaf? That at Troezen here we are outside the law? Incest – that’s the plain word for it, for the suggestion you’ve poured into my ear. Do you really believe I would affront the gods and pollute my soul with such a crime? I feel polluted! Do you hear me, Phaedra? – As for repeating any of this: it isn’t simply that I’ve sworn an oath that will keep me from taking all this to my father. It’s that I love him too much, I have too high a regard for his honour, to be the one to tell him how deeply, how shamefully he has been betrayed. That his whole life now, his manhood, his good name, is in the hands of a woman who has not the smallest notion of what honour is. Oh I’ll keep your unclean secret. And let her keep it too. If she can. Let her look my father in the ey
e, knowing that what she is is known, and that I will be there watching her brazen it out, watching the sort of performance she will give of the good wife, the good chaste woman, dissembling, as they all do. I have a reputation, I know, for speaking ill of your wretched sex. Well, teach women to be chaste and I might have something good to say of them.

  (Exit HIPPOLYTUS)

  CHORUS:

  How cruel he is. How unjust.

  Well, you see now what it is to be a woman.

  What now, Phaedra? I see you had

  some last secret hope of him –

  that he might prove human.

  What now? What now?

  PHAEDRA:

  Now I am resolved, I am ready to embrace my fate. My guilt cannot be hidden. I see it too clearly myself to hide it from others. I have no one to turn to. Not Theseus – certainly not you, you old witch. Don’t you see what you have done to me? Didn’t I try to stop you? Didn’t I tell you, not a word to him, not a breath? You spoke, and your words, let me tell you, have robbed me of my life. Of honour too, unless I can save it another way. Well, I’m resolved. No more blaming others.

  NURSE:

  Oh my lady, forgive me, forgive your poor old nurse. Don’t judge me harshly. I’ve known you since you were a little thing no higher than my knee. I’ve loved you, I’d do anything for you. I thought I knew what you wanted.

  PHAEDRA:

  No, you didn’t, you couldn’t have. I didn’t know what I wanted myself. You don’t know me at all. Perhaps you never did. You’ll see now what I really am.

  NURSE:

  I guessed wrong, that’s my only fault. If all this had worked out, people would be saying, what a wise old thing she is, that one. Wisdom is just – guessing right.

  PHAEDRA:

  No more, leave it now, I’m past all that, your guessing right or wrong, your wisdom. Leave me. Go and deal with your own life. Mine is out of your hands. (exit NURSE) Women of Troezen, do me this grace at least, it’s the last thing I will ask of you. Bury this story in your hearts. Never speak of it. Show the world that women can be trusted. That they do know what honour is.

  CHORUS:

  By holy Artemis, we swear,

  each one of us,

  never to speak

  of what has happened here.

  But what will you do, Phaedra?

  PHAEDRA:

  What is honourable. Leave my sons a name they can hear spoken with pride. Did you really think I would live and show my face to Theseus? Well, Aphrodite, I know what you are now – life-giver, gift-bearer, killer. Love has no mercy, that’s what I know now. I die defeated. But I will not die alone. If he had shown even the smallest sign of compassion, of understanding, of common humanity, I might spare him. But you saw how cold and unyielding he is. How godlike he thinks himself. Well, let him learn now what it is to be human.

  (Exit PHAEDRA)

  CHORUS:

  Oh to break free! At the touch of a god

  to break free of the flesh

  and dance like the bay-tree, shake out

  wings, embrace the changes

  and flow, all liquid light, over the gravel.

  The gods weep –

  yes the gods can weep –

  to see the soul

  go forth on its dark voyage.

  Oh for the quiet gardens of the West,

  where the daughters of evening

  guard the immortal fruit, the golden apples,

  and sailors watch the sun go

  down, the light of the world

  go down, beyond the Pillars of Hercules.

  It was a ship with white sails

  that brought our lady Phaedra over the sea

  from Crete; white sails

  for a bride; white sails

  of grace and good fortune, to hide

  the curse she carried with her.

  When the sailors leapt ashore

  at Piraeus, the hawser

  their rough hands sent spinning was the rope

  of her destiny that drew the dark ship in.

  Aphrodite was there,

  watching, and smiling. That secret

  smile, her marriage gift.

  Dark, dark was the hour when the royal barque

  brought her here to Troezen. Lady Phaedra

  was no longer herself. Aphrodite

  possessed her, she was possessed; the rope

  in a loose knot already

  tied to the high beam of her bedchamber,

  its shadow on her breast.

  From your hand, Aphrodite

  to mine. I accept it,

  immortal enemy

  of the house of great Minos –

  with reverence I accept your cruel gift.

  NURSE:

  (in the house) Oh help, help. Who is in the house there to help me? The Queen is hanging from a beam in her bedchamber. My child, my sweet one, has hanged herself. Help me. Someone help me cut her down.

  CHORUS:

  She has kept her word.

  Oh Phaedra! Phaedra!

  She is dead, just as she promised.

  Hanging high from a beam in her own bedchamber.

  (Enter NURSE)

  NURSE:

  Quickly. Oh for god’s sake, be quick. There is breath in her body. Bring a knife, cut her down.

  CHORUS:

  Friends, we must go in

  and tend the Queen. Loosen

  the rope from her neck!

  (The doors open revealing PHAEDRA dead. She is carried out and laid on a bier)

  NURSE:

  Oh Phaedra, my poor baby. Oh what a thing to happen. Lay her limbs out straight. Sleep, sleep, poor baby. But who will break the news to him? To the master? Who will tell Theseus of this?

  CHORUS:

  Do you hear? Phaedra,

  Phaedra is dead.

  They are laying her body out

  in the inner room.

  Phaedra. Phaedra

  is dead.

  Phaedra is dead.

  (Enter THESEUS)

  THESEUS:

  What is that noise in the house? Where is everyone? I come home and the door is shut, no one is here to greet me. What is that wailing? What has happened here? Is it one of the children? Has something happened to one of the children?

  NURSE:

  Theseus. My lord. Your wife.

  THESEUS:

  Phaedra?

  NURSE:

  My baby, my lord. We found her in her bedchamber. This rope was round her neck.

  THESEUS:

  Phaedra? My wife? Dead? But why would she do such a thing?

  NURSE:

  Such a thing indeed, sir. Oh my baby, my poor baby!

  THESEUS:

  Why is my head crowned with a garland? (he throws it off) I come here full of joy – the oracle has deceived me. Here is its true answer. Oh oh Phaedra.

  CHORUS:

  Weep for the queen. Tears for her tears.

  This is the end of all order,

  all peace in this house.

  All bonds now are broken.

  Oh to destroy

  with your own hand

  the life that is in you!

  THESEUS:

  Surely I have seen

  the end of my life,

  the worst that fate can deal me.

  Like a heel it came down!

  I try to see, through the mist, some place

  where the sun still shines, some further shore,

  but the wave of grief overwhelms me, I am choking.

  Oh Phaedra, gone from my hand

  like a bird that soars, then plummets.

  What god, what fate

  should I call to account?

  Surely the seed of this harvest

  was sown long ago, kept warm

  in the breast of some god. It is some god

  who ripened what I gather

  now, in my grief.

  CHORUS:

  King, this sorrow falls on all of us.

  We
share it. Weeping

  for a wife cruelly taken.

  THESEUS:

  I will die of it. I will die of it, and go

  down to the underworld and seek her, thread

  my way through the dark

  and find you, Phaedra. You

  were dearer to me

  than my own life. This

  death you have chosen

  is my death. But who can tell me why – why this

  has happened? Why, Phaedra, why?

  To snatch yourself away from me! Someone

  must know. Friends, pity me,

  you see how I am broken. I am out of words,

  there are no words for this.

  My house is dark. My children

  motherless. The sun

  has gone out of our world,

  and the red star of evening

  gone down into the dark.

  CHORUS:

  (whispering) Ah, but there is a letter in her hand.

  This is not the end after all.

  I feel a chill at my heart. The shadow

  of something worse to come.

  THESEUS:

  (as THESEUS reads) But look. She has not left me with no word. She has left a note, a last word of farewell, to me and her poor children. See, this is her seal, the impression on the wax of her dear hand.

  CHORUS:

  Here is a new pain he must suffer.

  It is coming now. See? The last blow

  to his house, to his heart. Look, look,

  he hears it, her voice out of the grave.

  THESEUS:

  I thought death was the worst. I thought the worst had come, and I had borne it. But this – how can I bear this?

  CHORUS:

  What is it? If it is for us to hear it,

  tell us. Let us share your grief.

  THESEUS:

  I feel crushed, I cannot speak. Yet I must speak. For her sake. To show that what she did was forced upon her. He forced her, he forced himself on her – Hippolytus, my son, Hippolytus! This is what her last words cry out to me. Oh Phaedra, Phaedra, I hear them, I speak for you now, for the dishonour that was done to you – and to me, to me. Poseidon, great god, you promised me once three wishes. Now grant me one of them. Strike him down. Let him not live another hour. Strike him down.

  CHORUS:

  Theseus, in heaven’s name.

  You are wrong, you wrong him.

  You will see that in the end.

  Trust me. Take back your curse.