Four Tragedies and Octavia (12 page)

There is no woman now whom I must love.

NURSE
: He will not listen; he throws back my words

As some unshakable hard rock, immune

On every side to the assaulting sea,

Flings back the waters.…

                                        But here Phaedra comes,

In such impatient haste, no hand can stop her.

How will Fate shape the outcome of this passion?…

She has fallen as if dead; the pallor of death

Is in her face.… Lift up your head, my child.

Is there not something you can say? Hippolytus

Is here with you, and has you in his arms.

PHAEDRA
: I had been glad to lose myself.… Who drags me

Back to my misery? Who gives me back

My load of anguish?

HIPPOLYTUS
:            How can you refuse

The blessed gift of life brought back to you?

PHAEDRA
[
aside
]: O soul, be bold… have courage… do not shirk

Your self-taught precept. Speak up fearlessly;

One who asks faintly asks to be refused.

My course of wickedness was long ago

More than half run; it is too late for shame;

I have already loved unlawfully.

If I go on the way I have begun,

I may perhaps conceal my sin in marriage.

Success can justify some evil actions.

Then courage, heart!… [
To Hippolytus
] May I have words with you

In private? If there is any friend with you,

Dismiss him.

HIPPOLYTUS
: There is no one who can hear us.

PHAEDRA
: But yet… my lips refuse to frame the words

I meant to speak; one strong power gives me voice,

Another, stronger, takes that voice away.

Be witness, all ye gods, that my desire –

HIPPOLYTUS
: Something your heart desires but cannot speak of?

PHAEDRA
: Light troubles speak, the heaviest have no voice.
¹

HIPPOLYTUS
: Yet tell me what your trouble is, mother.

PHAEDRA
: Mother – that is too fine and great a title

For my condition; better a lower one –

Sister, Hippolytus – or call me servant;

Yes, servant; I will do you
any
service –

Bid me to go through driven snow, gladly

I'd walk across the frozen heights of Pindus;

Send me through fire or battle, I'd not fear

To breast drawn swords. Be regent in my place,

And let me be your slave; it is your right

To rule, my duty only to obey.

It is no part of women's work to hold

The reins of government. You, in the prime

And flower of your youth, should rule your people;

Your birthright gives you power. Only protect

Your slave, and take your suppliant to your arms!

Have pity for a widow –

HIPPOLYTUS
:                    God avert

The omen of that word! My father lives

And he will very soon return unharmed.

PHAEDRA
: The master of the silent prison-house

Of death allows a traveller no way

Back to the world he came from; will he allow

A ravisher
¹
to return? Unless we think

Pluto himself sits by, smiling on love!

HIPPOLYTUS
: Yet I believe the kindly powers of heaven

Will bring him back. Until our prayers are answered,

I will be guardian, as in duty bound,

Of my dear brothers; and my care of you

Will make you never think of widowhood.

I shall be with you in my father's place.

PHAEDRA
[
aside
]: Could he say more? O tempting voice of love!

Fond lovers' hope! I must entreat again.…

[
To Hippolytus
]

Yet pity me; hear my heart's silent prayer;

I long to speak, yet am ashamed –

HIPPOLYTUS
:                                   What ails you?

PHAEDRA
: Such trouble as you would not think a step-mother

Would have to bear.

HIPPOLYTUS
:             You set me riddles to guess.

Can you speak plainly?

PHAEDRA
:                       Madness is in my heart;

It is consumed by love, a wild fire raging

Secretly in my body, in my blood,

Like flames that lick across a roof of timber.

HIPPOLYTUS
: Love – why, your innocent love for Theseus, how

Can that be madness?

PHAEDRA
:                     This is the truth, Hippolytus:

The face of Theseus is the face I love –

The youthful face of former years – the cheek

That had been smooth, pencilled with its first beard –

The moment when he saw the Cnossian monster's

Labyrinth prison – when he wound the thread

Along the twisting alleys. Ah, the splendour!

His gentle face, below the banded hair,

Shone with the golden glow of modesty.

His arms were tender, but with muscle strong;

And in his face there was the face of Phoebe,

Your ancestor – or Phoebus, mine; but yet

More like your own. Yes, yes, I see him now –

So was he when he won his enemy's
¹
favour –

Just so – his head held high; though in your looks

The natural grace, unkempt, is still more splendid.

Your father is all here in you; here too

Is something of your mother's sternness, lending

As great an added dignity – your face

Is Greek but with a trace of Scythian roughness.

If
you
could have been there beside your father

The day he crossed the sea to Crete, my sister
²

Would rather have spun out her ball of thread

For you. And O my sister, help me now!

Now, from wherever in the starry sky

Your bright face shines, come to my aid in this

The same perplexity as was your own:

Two sisters fallen victims to one house,

You to the father, I to the son!…

[
To Hippolytus
]                           Behold,

The daughter of a king kneels at your feet!

Spotless, unstained, and innocent of sin,

Till now; but now, for love of you alone,

No longer what I was. Not without purpose

Have I abased myself in prayer; this day

Must end my misery, or end my life.

Have pity on my love –

HIPPOLYTUS
:                  Almighty God!

God of all gods! Canst thou hear things so foul

And not be moved? Canst see – and not be moved?
¹

For what cause shall the sky be rent with thunder

If no cloud dims it now? Let ruin wreck

The firmament, and black night hide the day!

Let stars run back and all their courses turn

Into confusion! Thou too, king of stars,

Lord Sun resplendent, art thou looking down

Upon thy daughter's wickedness? Wilt thou

Not veil thy light and flee into the darkness?

Ruler of gods in heaven and men on earth,

Why is thy hand not armed, will not thy torch

Of triple fire set all the world a blaze?

Hurl against me thy thunderbolt, thy spear,

And let me be consumed in instant fire.

I am the sinner; I deserve to die;

I have found favour with my stepmother.

[
To Phaedra
]

So, did I seem fit sport for filthy amours?

Was I, of all men, picked by you to be

The easy instrument of your foul crime?

Is my austerity rewarded thus? O woman,

First of all womankind in wickedness,

Worse than your mother! – as your sin is worse

Than hers who was the mother of a monster.

Once did she sin, and – though long afterwards –

The nature of that sin was brought so light

By the crossed offspring of her womb, her crime

Revealed in her freak infant's brutish visage.

And from that mother's womb you too were born!

O three times bless'd, and four times, by the hand

Of generous fate, are those whom enmity

And malice have consumed, cut down, destroyed.

Father, I envy you; you had a stepmother,

The Colchian woman,
¹
but my enemy

Is one far worse, far deadlier than she.

PHAEDRA
: I know the fate that has pursued our house;

What we should shun we must desire. Yet knowing,

I cannot help myself. Even through fire,

Through raging seas, through rivers in full flood,

Over the mountain heights, I shall pursue you.

No matter where you go, I shall go with you,

Mad for your love. Once more, contemptuous man,

I stoop to kiss the ground before your feet.

HIPPOLYTUS
: Keep off those wanton hands from my chaste body!

What! Does she fling herself into my arms?

Here is my sword to see full justice done.…

I have her by the hair, this shameless head

In my left hand… O Goddess of the Bow,

Never did blood more justly stain thy altar.

PHAEDRA
: Hippolytus! My prayer is answered now,

My mind made whole. More than my prayer is granted,

Now I can die by your hand, saved from sin.

HIPPOLYTUS
: Rather than that, go, live, obtain no boon

From me!… Let this contaminated sword

Never again come near my spotless side!…

Will Tanäis wash me clean, will the wild waves

Of far Maeotis, feeding the Pontic sea?

No; nor great Neptune in his whole wide ocean

Drown this great weight of sin.
¹
Woods and wild creatures!…

NURSE
: Now all the evil is exposed. What then?

Shall resolution faint or fail? Not so.

We must prefer a counter charge against him,

Take up the case ourselves and prove him guilty

Of violation. Crime must cover crime.

The safest shield in danger is attack.

When the offence is private, who shall say

Which of us sinned and which was sinned against?…

   Help us, all Athens! Help, you faithful slaves!

Rape is afoot, a ravisher, Hippolytus,

Attacking, assaulting us, threatening death!

Menacing a chaste woman with drawn sword.…

Ay, here it is, the sword, left when he fled

In frightened haste, being surprised in the act;

We have it to prove his guilt. But the poor queen –

We must revive her first. No, let her hair,

Torn and disordered, stay as it is, for proof

Of the terrible thing she has suffered. Carry her

Indoors.… Come back to life, dear mistress.… Nay,

You need not beat your breast, and turn away

As if to avoid our eyes; an accident

Cannot stain innocence, without intention.

   Swift was his flight as the wildest gale,

   Swifter than Corus cloud-compelling,

   Swifter than flames of fire that stream

   From a star that flies before the wind.

What though thy beauty, youth, be set beside all

Beauty of ancient time in fame's account, where

Olden days are remembered; all the brighter

Then shall thy beauty seem; never so brightly

Shines the full-circled moon, her crescent closing

Into an orb of fire, her chariot speeding

Through the long night, when Phoebe's face resplendent

Dims every smaller star. The star of evening,

Hesperus, has such grace, bringing the darkness

At the approach of night, up from his sea-bath

Rising refreshed; so beautiful is the Day Star

   'Ending the darkness.

   Bacchus, from India thyrsus-dancing,

   Ageless for ever, hair unshorn,

   A vine-leaf wand thy tiger-tamer,

   Thy horned head delicately turbaned –

   Nothing hast thou more beautiful

Than the crisp curls of young Hippolytus.

What is thy beauty worth? All the world knows

Whom Phaedra's sister loved, who loved not thee.
¹

   O beauty, but a dubious boon

Art thou to man, brief gift of little stay,

   Lent for a while and all too soon

        Passing away…

   Passing… as the fields' spring glory

   Fades in the summer's heat, when fiercely

   Burns the high sun at noon, when night's

   Wheels roll too rapidly. As lilies

   Languish and their leaves grow pale,

The head must lose the glory of its hair,

   The glowing cheek of youth

   Be ravaged by the hand of time.

   Each day that passes takes its toll

Of body's beauty. Beauty cannot stay;

Would any wise man trust so frail a thing?

        Then use it while you may.

   Time is the enemy, silently

   Working beneath; worse after worse,

        Hour follows hour away.

   And would you fly to empty places?

   Beauty will be no safer there,

   Where few feet walk. Hide in the forest,

   And at high noon a wanton rout

   Of sporting Naiads will surround you;

   Such as trap comely youths in rivers;
¹