by David Malouf
THESEUS:
I have spoken, I take back nothing. Hear this. I banish him. From Athens, from Troezen, from all the lands I rule over, from my sight – for ever. Let him wander the earth as one outcast and accursed. Let him beg for his bread in the public street. Let no man offer him a place to rest his head.
CHORUS:
Theseus, here he comes. See
how clear-eyed, how clean-limbed he is.
Does he look like one who has committed
a crime? Can you really wish him
gone out of your sight, an outcast,
eating his bread among strangers, in a place
where no man knows his name?
(Enter HIPPOLYTUS)
HIPPOLYTUS:
Father. The moment I heard of this, I – Oh who would have thought it would come to this? (to NURSE) How is it possible? Only an hour ago she was alive. What happened in the meantime? Father, let me share your grief. Let it out. I am your son, not some stranger. Speak to me.
THESEUS:
Oh that we should have so little power to see into another man’s heart! That you should look so pure, and be so vile!
HIPPOLYTUS:
What? Father, you know me, you know what I am. If someone has been slandering me, you of all people –
THESEUS:
The heart of man is a bottomless pit. That is what life teaches us. The unjust walk the earth. Evil grows and swells from age to age. The gods would have to create a second earth to make room for all the liars and hypocrites, the jugglers, the lechers we are afflicted with. Look at this man. My own son. So, you are the man who hunts with the gods, who is so much purer than the rest of us. Come on, tell us how pure you are. How you eat no meat, follow the lord Orpheus and mewl his hymns. Well, you are exposed. Let men look at him and beware. Such men are huntsmen just as they say. They frown and play meek as milk, but they’ve got their eye on their prey all right. Oh she is dead. She cannot speak to defend herself. No, don’t you dare! Don’t even draw breath to begin! Do you think any word you could speak, oaths, denials, excuses, would stand against this as a piece of evidence? Her body! The body you violated!
CHORUS:
How can any man be called happy?
Just today this youth was high-spirited and proud, admired of all. Now he feels the whole world turn against him.
HIPPOLYTUS:
Father, what can I say? I know you believe what you are saying. If it were true, my tongue should be tied, I should be struck speechless, dumb. But you see, I can find words to defend myself. Not the words I need to speak, if I am to prove my innocence; I cannot do that without dishonouring myself and my deepsworn oath. You see, honour is dear to me. So nothing. I have nothing to offer you as evidence except what you ought to know already, myself, as I am. There is the evidence on one side, her body laid out in death. Ah, you say, can there be any answer to that? Well there is, and I offer it, not humbly but for what it is worth. Myself. This body. Which is pure as I have always claimed it is. I have known no woman, least of all her, Phaedra, poor woman – even if she did try to bewitch the breath out of me. Oh I have already said too much, I have betrayed myself. I swore an oath before the gods to be silent and from now on I shall be. You are the one who must speak.
CHORUS:
Surely, Theseus, that is enough. It is clear.
The rest, as he says, must remain in the dark –
it should not be enquired into.
THESEUS:
I have spoken. I will not speak again. Exile. I banish you, Hippolytus, because I want no liars about me, no cheats, no dissemblers. You are a lie. Everything you are, whatever you ask us to see in you, is a lie.
HIPPOLYTUS:
(aside) Oh, I could weep! Why don’t I speak the truth now and tell him what she was? Let him look at her with new eyes and judge by what he sees. But I have sworn. It is you, the gods I swore by, who forsake me, who have set this trap for us all. (to THESEUS) I could speak, sir, and clear myself, but I dare not. I have sworn by the gods.
THESEUS:
Damn you and your snivelling pieties. Your lies disgust me. I have spoken, what are you waiting for? Go. Where I rule you are a dead man. Now go.
HIPPOLYTUS:
But where? Who would receive me, knowing the crime I am accused of?
THESEUS:
Exactly. Guards, take him away.
HIPPOLYTUS:
Let one of them lay a hand on me and he’s dead. If I am to be turned out you must do it.
THESEUS:
I shall if you do not go this minute. No, my tears are not for you.
(Exit THESEUS)
HIPPOLYTUS:
My fate is decided then. It’s a cruel end, and a sad one. There is truth, it does exist, but he would not believe me even if I spoke. Artemis, dear companion, I must leave you, I must now live where no one knows your name. All my youth has been spent here at Troezen, riding and hunting on these plains. I shall miss them. One last, long look. Farewell, friends, my fellow huntsmen. We grew up together, we know one another’s hearts. See me now to the frontiers of the kingdom. It is an honourable duty. Though the world finds no honour in me.
(Exit)
CHORUS:
What we ask from life
is peace, peace and good fortune,
a clear mind and a heart
untroubled by grief; to change
today for the new ways of tomorrow,
to live happy and long.
But my eyes melt, I’m bewildered.
I have seen today what I thought
never to see. A youth,
bright star of our world,
dishonoured, driven
forth by his father’s wrath.
I went down to the sandy paths by the city wall.
He was nowhere. I climbed up
to the windy oak-forest where he used to ride
with his hounds till all the air
echoed with his call. Nothing. Nothing.
Only the big trees, restless in the silence.
No more will we watch him leap into the stirrup.
No more his voice, deep in the house.
The garlands will wither that he laid
in the spring grass for his goddess to find.
The girls who vied for his favour
weep, seek other loves.
You leave an emptiness, Hippolytus –
in the house, on the sandy paths,
up in the forest;
most of all, here in our hearts.
How can you look on, you gods,
and see it done? See innocence
trampled, goodness banished from the earth.
(Enter MESSENGER; a young groom)
MESSENGER:
Women, where can I find the King? I bring sad news for him and for all of us.
CHORUS:
The King is coming now. They must have told him there was news.
(Enter THESEUS)
THESEUS:
So? What more must I bear? Speak up, man.
MESSENGER:
Hippolytus – Oh my lord! Hippolytus – (he shakes his head, sinks to his knees. Finally looks up) We were down by the shoreline, bathing the horses in the surf, then rubbing them down and combing out their manes. We were keeping busy to hide our tears. We had heard that our master, Hippolytus, was to leave us, banished from Troezen, made an outcast, sent out to wander nameless over the earth. We saw him coming down to the shore with a whole company of his friends and followers and ran out to greet him, we stable-hands and grooms – he was our master, and we loved him, every one. After a little, he stopped weeping and addressed us. ‘Friends,’ he said, ‘there is nothing to be gained by all this. My father is King. If you love me, obey him as I do. Yoke my horses, harness them to the car. I must go. Troezen is no longer my country.’
So we got going – it was good to work – and in no time had the horses looking good, and yoked and harnessed, and the prince took up the reins, and, dressed as he always is, as a huntsman, leapt
up into the car. Golden he looked. It was a golden sky he looked up to, saying: ‘My lord Zeus, if I am guilty, may you strike me dead, here on Troezen soil. If I am not, may my father live to know at last that he has wronged me.’ He gripped the goad, he was shouting to the horses, urging them on, and we grooms ran along beside him, shouting through our tears, to bring him to the Epidaurus road and the frontier of the kingdom.
You know the road. It runs down along the shore. It was there, in the narrow neck between the beach and the high cliffs, that we first heard it. A rumbling. Distant at first, like thunder, but under our feet, under the earth. The horses reared and shrieked, wild-eyed, jerking their heads. We stopped, terrified. The earth was like water, it was shifting under us, and out in the gulf, beyond the first breakers, we saw something amazing, a great swell tumbling over itself, white with foam. A wave like a herd of white bulls stampeding towards us, and roaring. Our ears were filled with their bellowing.
The horses went crazy. Hippolytus, using all he knew to calm them, tried to turn them away to the beach, into the soft sand, but they were in a panic, nothing could hold them. They tore at the iron bit. And the herd of bulls, in a tumult, all thunderous rage and roaring, came on like a wave, and every way the horses turned it was in their path. They shrieked and swerved. The boss of the chariot-wheel struck against rock. Blue sparks flew out, the linchpin split. The chariot flew up and went soaring – wheels, frame, axles – and he with it, Hippolytus, my master, the knotted reins tight round his wrist. We could hear the axles snapping, see the frame of the car being smashed to fragments – and him too, Hippolytus, him too, rib cage and skull, being dashed against the rocks.
He was still breathing when we dragged him out, there was still breath in him. The horses, the horses, sir, they were licking his wounds. It wasn’t their fault, they loved him. But oh sir, he is broken to pieces. His body, sir. He is broken beyond repair.
THESEUS:
In my anger, when I first heard of it, I rejoiced. But the gods remind me now that no man’s death is to be taken lightly. He was my son. My own flesh.
MESSENGER:
What shall we do, sir? Shall we bring him back here? Will you lift your decree and let him be buried in Troezen soil? What would please you, sir?
THESEUS:
Bring him. Bring my son home. Let me see face to face this man who defiled his father’s bed, so that the eye of heaven may judge if I judged fairly.
(Exit MESSENGER)
CHORUS:
Aphrodite, I sense
your presence in all this.
We are all captive to your will:
and at your side
the blind imp Eros, that wilful
urchin, doing a war-dance round his victim.
Where his spirit moves
all things respond.
On the mountainside, hounds,
in river and stream, the fishes –
all creatures, bird and beast
that draw from the earth’s breast
life, from the sun’s warmth
life, life abounding;
we too, flesh and spirit
respond to the sweet urging.
Aphrodite, you alone
no mortal can deny and still be mortal.
In you, Aphrodite, we are one.
(THESEUS and the others have turned, all to face the statue of APHRODITE. Now ARTEMIS appears and speaks; at first only to THESEUS, whispering at his side)
ARTEMIS:
Theseus. Royal son of Aegeus, bend
your ear in this direction.
Do you know my voice?
I am Artemis, Leto’s daughter.
So you rejoice, do you?
Well, let me tell you what you have done.
You have killed your son unjustly.
You have murdered him. Without witness,
with no evidence against him but your wife’s body
and that brief note in her hand,
you condemned him. Where will you go
Theseus, where will you banish yourself,
to what part of the earth, or under the earth,
to escape what you have done?
You have no place now among men.
(She moves to stand beside her own statue and speaks to all)
I will reveal the truth now, what was in the hearts of all those who have suffered here. But do not expect anything, Theseus, but pain, more pain. I am sorry for you.
Your son dies unsullied. Unsullied his body, and his name. Your wife died of her love for him, but nobly. She too unsullied in all but thought; driven to her death by one – you all know her name, since you call so urgently upon her: Aphrodite. Reason has no power if she gets her claws into a woman.
Poor Phaedra! His body obsessed her. She dreamed of it night and day. She writhed in the golden shadow of his embrace, breathless with a hunger she could not fill. It was her nurse, under an oath of secrecy, who betrayed her to him. He resisted, he was dedicated to me; to all that is modest and pure; he had given his body into my keeping. And Phaedra, in panic at what she might do, at what blind passion might lead her to, killed herself and left that letter to clear her name. And you, faced with the two of them, he on the one side, she on the other, believed her. And he was sworn not to speak.
THESEUS:
Oh my son, oh my son! Oh Phaedra! Goddess, let me die now. My heart cracks. It can bear no more.
ARTEMIS:
Your sin is great, Theseus. But you too were practised against. You did not know the truth, no man alone can know the truth. That frees you of the greatest guilt. And I, who did know, could do nothing. We have power, we gods, over the affairs of men, but not against one another. I too was a helpless witness of all this. There is no joy for us in a good man’s death.
CHORUS:
But look, they are bringing him in,
they are bringing him home to Troezen;
to his father’s house, to his father’s arms.
His body is broken, poor prince, poor youth. Twice in one day this house has been struck
by the hand of heaven and the folly of men.
(HIPPOLYTUS is carried in by his COMPANIONS)
HIPPOLYTUS:
Weep for me, weep.
I was young, I was proud, I have been broken.
My father’s curse, your curse, Aphrodite.
My own horses, crazy with fear, trampled my head.
My own horses! Wild creatures I had tamed
and fed from my own hand, they crushed
the breath out of my body, tore my limbs.
Ah no, do not touch me. All my flesh is raw.
I must make my own way now. All my days
I observed the law, treated the gods with reverence, kept
heart and body pure. Now I must make my way
alone into the dark, letting death
lead me on the steep path downward,
into the underworld.
No, no, do not touch me, let me go
quietly. Death will heal me. I yield my body
up to its touch.
(As music begins to play, the goddess ARTEMIS approaches HIPPOLYTUS, speaking softly, so that only he can hear)
ARTEMIS:
Poor soul. It was your noble heart betrayed you.
HIPPOLYTUS:
Artemis, O my lady. Are you here? Your sweet fragrance is in the air about me. Is it truly you? Will I see you at last?
ARTEMIS:
Yes, I am here, Hippolytus. Wasn’t I always your friend among the gods?
HIPPOLYTUS:
Oh my lady, you see how things stand with me. I am broken. My body, my limbs –
ARTEMIS:
I see and I could weep. But we gods are forbidden to weep.
HIPPOLYTUS:
And who will hunt with you now? Who will ride beside you?
ARTEMIS:
And you know, don’t you, who has done this to you? You do know, don’t you, who worked this plot against your life? One you neglected for l
ove of me. Oh I do thank you for that, Hippolytus, my dear friend.
HIPPOLYTUS:
Though my father wronged me, though he has done me great wrong, I weep for him. He too was deceived and plotted against.
THESEUS:
Oh my son, my heart is broken. I too am dying. I would die in your place if life allowed it.
HIPPOLYTUS:
Father? Are you here too? I thought I had passed already to where only the gods and the newly dead –
THESEUS:
Forgive me. Forgive an old man his –
HIPPOLYTUS:
I’m sorry, father, that you had so little joy of me. I absolve you of all –
ARTEMIS:
Hippolytus, my dear friend, I must leave you now. We are not permitted, we immortals, to look on the dead. You must go on alone. But I will not forget you, or the golden days when you rode at my side and we hunted with the hounds; the brightness and vigour of your young manhood; your delight in all that world of sunlight and air, the green leaves in the thickets, the panting in the heart of each creature as it ran before us. You will be honoured so long as men know the name of Troezen. Virgins, on the eve of their marriage, will cut a lock of their hair in sorrow for your death. Phaedra too will be remembered. Age upon age, men will sing of her fateful love for you and of your father’s grief.
(Exit ARTEMIS)
HIPPOLYTUS:
(as soft music is heard, dying away) Father, she is gone, listen. Hear the sound of her spirit departing from me. My goddess. My life. (he dies)
THESEUS:
Oh Athens, Troezen, cities whose names shall outlast all time. When have you seen a youth so noble? When did a father know a heavier grief? Take up his body, men, bear him away. And you women, take up Phaedra.
(PHAEDRA and HIPPOLYTUS are carried out. Exit THESEUS to funeral music)
CHORUS:
Tears, let fall your tears
now, make solemn music
speak for our grief.
He was noble. Phaedra too
kept faith with nobility.
What we pay reverence to
is life; the shortness,
the sweetness of it,
this brute irresistible force,
this fearful joy, this fatal
impulse that drives us on.
About the Author
David Malouf is the internationally acclaimed author of novels and stories including The Great World, Remembering Babylon, An Imaginary Life, Conversations at Curlow Creek, Harland’s Half Acre, Dream Stuff, Every Move You Make, Collected Stories, Ransom and the autobiographical classic 12 Edmondstone Street. His most recent books are A First Place, The Writing Life and Being There. He was born in Brisbane in 1934 and lives in Sydney.
