by Seneca
theseus Here, bring here the remains of his dear corpse,
that mass of body-parts, heaped up all anyhow.
Is this Hippolytus? I recognize my crime:
I killed you. And I spread my sin around:
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when I was plotting my son’s death, I called
my father. Well, now I enjoy the blessing of a father.
My years are broken already; it is hard to bear this loss.
Poor man, pick up these limbs, all that remains of your son,
hug them and hold them tight to your sad heart.
Father, learn to rearrange these parts of a mangled body,
and put back in their place the pieces that have strayed.
This is the place for his strong right arm, and here
we must put his left hand, so skilled at guiding the reins;
I recognize the marks of his left side. So much
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still missing, that I cannot even wet with tears!
Hands, stop trembling! Be steady for your sad work;
eyes, dry up your flow of tears down my cheeks,
just while I count the parts of my son’s body,
and build his corpse. What can this be, so ugly,
disgusting, pierced all over with multiple wounds?
I do not know what part it is, but I know it belongs to you;
Put it here: not where it belongs, but where a space is empty.
Is this your face, which used to shine with starry fire,
your spirited, piercing gaze? Has your beauty come to this? 1270
O terrible fate, O cruelly-helpful gods!
Is this the answer to a father’s prayer, a son’s return?
Here are the final gifts your father gives you.
* * *
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phaedra
You will need multiple burials... Meanwhile, burn these parts.
Open the house: it stinks of death. Let all the land
of Attica ring loud with piercing funeral cries.
You, make ready the flame for the royal pyre,
and you, go out and seek the missing parts of the body
scattered in the country. And as for that woman — bury her,
and may the heavy earth crush down her wicked head.
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* * *
OEDIPUS
Oedipus was the son of Laius and Jocasta, king and queen
of Thebes. Since Laius had heard from an oracle that
his son would kill him, he gave the baby to his shepherd,
to expose on Mount Cithaeron. But the shepherd instead
gave the baby to a herdsman working for King Polybus of
Corinth. Oedipus was raised as the son of Polybus and his
wife, Merope. But the oracle of Apollo at Delphi foretold
that Oedipus would marry his mother and kill his father.
So Oedipus ran away from Corinth. On his travels he met
an old man — Laius. He got into an argument with him and
killed him. He reached Thebes, and managed to solve the
riddle of the Sphinx — a female monster who was oppress-
ing the country. She asked, ‘What walks on four legs in the
morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?’ Oedipus
answered, correctly: ‘Man.’ As a reward for saving the
country Oedipus was given in marriage to the widowed
Jocasta, and ruled as king in Thebes for many years;
the couple had two sons and two daughters. But then a
plague was sent to oppress the city. Oedipus sends his wife’s
brother, Creon, to find out what he can do to save Thebes.
* * *
dramatis personae
oedipus, king of Thebes
jocasta, his wife
creon, Jocasta’s brother
tiresias, a blind prophet
manto, Tiresias’ daughter
old corinthian man
phorbas, a herdsman
messengeR
chorus
* * *
ACT ONE
oedipus Now night has been driven to exile, the hesitant Sun
reappears,
and gloomy brightness dawns from beneath a murky cloud.
With melancholy light, with flames of grief,
day looks out on these homes, wasted by greedy plague,
revealing all the devastation night has made.
Do you think being king is fun? What a fraud, this so-called
good!
What terrible suffering lies beneath your smile!
Just as the breezes always buffet the highest crags,
and cliffs whose rocks jut out over the vast ocean
are beaten by the waves even when the sea is calm:
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so high power is vulnerable to Fortune.
How happy I was to be free from my father Polybus’ throne!
An exile, released from anxiety, wandering without fear,
I happened on a kingdom. May gods and heaven bear witness!
I am afraid of unspeakable things: my father’s death
at my own hands. The oracle warned me of this,
and says I will commit another, even greater crime.
Is any sin more terrible than killing one’s own father?
As a loyal son, I blush to speak about my fate.
Phoebus threatens me with a parent’s bed, a terrible marriage, 20
an indecent, incestuous, wicked union for a child.
Fear of this oracle exiled me from my father’s kingdom,
for this reason I ran away from home and my household gods.
Doubting myself, I wanted to keep the laws
which Nature ordained. When your fears are great and terrible
you start to shudder even at things you think impossible.
I am afraid of everything, I do not trust myself.
Here, now, at every minute, the fates are plotting against me.
Why should I think that horrible curse on the race of Cadmus,*
whose dreadful carnage spread through all our family,
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would pity me alone? What pain did they keep me alive for?
Among the rubble of the city and all these deaths, which demand
a constant flow of fresh tears, among the piles of corpses,
* * *
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oedipus
I stand untouched. I! The man condemned by Apollo! —
Would you have expected a healthy kingdom in reward
for your enormous guilt? I have made the heavens hurt us.
No delicate breeze brings comfort with icy breath of wind
to the hearts which pant on the flames. No tender Zephyrs blow,
Titan the Sun increases the heat of the sweltering Dog
and presses down on the back of the Nemean Lion.
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Water abandons the rivers, colours desert the plants,
Dirce runs dry, Ismenos is barely a trickle,
the waves can hardly reach the naked, thirsty shores.
Apollo’s sister* slips in shadows from the sky,
the gloomy world grows grey, new clouds are forming.
No star shines bright on calm and peaceful nights;
a black and heavy fog lies down upon the world.
The face of Hell obscures the highest homes and castles
of those who live in the sky. Ceres denies us a harvest.
Yellow and ripe, she sways as the spears of corn grow tall,
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but each stalk is dry, the crop is barren, it dies.
Destruction visits everywhere, nowhere is safe.
Both men and women die, of every age.
This deadly pestilence unites young men and old,
sons join their fathers, burnt by a single torch.
There are no mourners left alive to weep or grieve.
Indeed, the overwhelming scale
of this disaster
itself has dried our eyes. When things are at their worst,
there are no tears. See, a father, sick himself,
carries his son to the pyre. A mother, mad with loss,
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brings one child, then fetches another, all for the very same pyre.
In the midst of grief another grief arises:
at funerals, the mourners drop down dead around the corpse.
Loved-ones’ bodies are burnt on the pyres of strangers.
Fire is even stolen. The hopeless have no shame.
Bones are not honoured with burial in separate tombs:
burning is enough. How many are lost in the ashes?
There is no space for graves, the woods have no more fuel.
No prayers or medicine can comfort those infected;
doctors are dying too, the sickness takes the cure.
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I lie down prostrate at the altar, stretching my hands
in prayer for early death. I want to die before
* * *
oedipus
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my country’s ruin — not be the last man standing,
my death the very last in my own kingdom.
Gods, you are too cruel! Fate is too harsh!
Death is so easily come-by, but to me alone
of all the populace, it is denied. So then, reject
the kingdom which your deathly hand infected.
Leave these tears, these deaths, these plagues in the sky,
which you, unlucky stranger, brought with you. Escape,
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quick! Even go back to your parents.
jocasta
How does it help, husband,
to make our suffering heavier by complaining?
It is, I think, the job of kings to bear calamities.
The more unsure things are, the more your power slips,
the firmer you must fix your sturdy feet.
Running away from Fortune is not manly.
oedipus I have no fear of being called a coward.
I am a man, I know no fainting fears.
If all war’s deadly force, with naked blades
was bearing down upon me, I would boldly
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fight back — even against the savage Giants.
Nor did I run from those dark, riddling words
woven by the Sphinx. Though the ground was scattered
white with bones, I faced the creature’s bloody jaws.
Up on her rock she spread her wings, prepared
to seize her prey, and lashed her tail, like a lion,
savage and threatening. But I asked her: ‘What is your riddle?’
Then came a terrible shriek from above;
she gnashed her teeth, and with impatient claws
she tore at the rocks, eager to eat my entrails.
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But I solved the knotted words of fate, her twisted trick,
I answered that wild winged one’s awful puzzle.
It is too late to pray for death! Why want it now?
I could have died back then. But now I have
the gift of kingship, payment for the Sphinx.
She is the one whose monstrous dust confronts us.
I killed her but she rises up, polluting
Thebes all over again. This is our only hope:
Apollo may provide some chance of safety.
chorus Noble line of Cadmus, you are dying,
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* * *
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oedipus
and all the city too. Look now, the land
is empty of inhabitants, poor Thebes.
Bacchus, death has harvested your friends,
troops that you led from far-off India;
they dared to ride over the eastern plains,
and fix their flags at the horizon of the world.
They saw the Arabs and their fertile groves
of cinnamon; they saw the Parthians,
fearful tricksters, firing arrows as they fly.*
They marched across the shores of the Indian Ocean,
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where Phoebus brings forth dawn and opens day:
his flame approaches and makes dark the skin
of the naked natives.
Sons of an unconquered race, we now lie dying.
A swift and savage fate has levelled us.
At every moment more march on to Death.
A long, grieving procession makes its way
to bury the dead, while other mourners halt:
even seven gates* cannot let through
the mass of those who want to reach the tombs.
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Ruin weighs on ruin, death is joined
closely to death.
Infection first took hold of the shambling sheep;
the rich grass could not help the woolly flocks.
A priest stands by the neck of a sturdy bull;
as his skilful hands get ready for the stroke,
the animal, horns glittering with gold,
sinks to the ground. They hack at him with an axe,
to open the creature’s massive throat.
No blood comes out; black gore
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is gushing from the wound, which taints the sword,
and pours to the ground. The galloping horse
grows slow in the middle of a race, and fails its jockey,
falling on the track, as its flanks collapse.
The cattle hunker down, abandoned in the fields.
The herd is dying and the bull grows weak.
The master cannot help the few still left alive;
he dies amid his plague-sick animals.
The deer have now no fear of ravening wolves;
* * *
oedipus
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the onslaught of the raging lion is gone;
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the shaggy bears have now no wildness left;
the slinky snake has lost its power to harm:
its poison shrivels up, and parched, it dies.
The wood has lost its lovely trailing hair
which poured the shadows on the shady hills.
The countryside has lost its mossy green,
the vines no longer curl, their branches full
of their own grape-crop.
Everything is sharing in our suffering.
The gates of deepest Hell have broken open,
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out burst the sister Furies, waving fire,
Phlegethon has overflowed its banks,
the flood of Styx flows to Sidonia.
Black Death reveals its greedy gaping mouth,
unfurling all its terrible dark wings.
The hale old ferryman,* who rows the hoards,
in a roomy boat across the swollen river
can scarcely lift his arms to raise the pole,
too tired with the constant punting,
always bringing new throngs.
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Indeed, they say the Dog* burst through his chains
of hellish iron, and wandered up
into the human world; the earth rumbled;
they say that ghosts were walking through the woods,
larger than lifesize; and the Theban trees
twice shook the snow from their leaves.
Twice the stream of Dirce welled with blood;
the hounds of Amphion howled
in the silent night.
Oh terrible new form of death, much worse
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than death itself !
Numbness binds the languid limbs,
sick faces flush.
A rash of tiny spots covers the skin,
and liquid flame burns up the citadel
of the body’s core.
The cheeks are swollen with blood,
the eyes are stark, the ears are ringing,
* * *
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oedipus
bursting the bloated veins. Often
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their bowels begin to groan and whine;
and Holy Fire* begins to eat their limbs.
Now in their weariness they clutch cold stones.
If their watchman dies and sets them free, they rush outside
to gulp back fresh spring water. Now all of them flop down
flat on their faces in front of the altars,
and pray to die. This single wish alone
the gods provide. The people throng to the shrines,
not hoping that the gods may be appeased
with gifts from us,
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but wanting to glut even their heavenly hunger.
ACT TWO
chorus Who is this hurrying towards the palace?
Is Creon, noble and heroic, here,
or does my sick soul take falsehood for truth?
No, it is Creon, the answer to all our prayers.
oedipus I shudder, fearful where the fates may turn,
my trembling heart is toppling with two fears:
where happiness is doubtful, mixed with pain,
the mind feels fear although it longs to know.
Brother-in-law, if you bring any help
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for all our weariness, come tell us what it is!
creon The answer lies under a doubtful fate.
oedipus Giving uncertain help to the wretched is giving none.
creon The custom is for the oracle at Delphi
to hide its secrets in enigmas.
oedipus
Tell the puzzle!
I, Oedipus, am the expert at solving tricky riddles.
creon The god tells us to banish the killer of the king,
and to avenge the death of murdered Laius.
Only then will day run brightly through the sky,
giving pure, fresh, healthy gusts of air.
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oedipus And who was the killer of the famous king?
Tell us who Phoebus named, so we may punish him.
* * *
oedipus
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creon Things horrible to hear and see — may I speak safely!
My body is besieged by numbness, blood runs cold.
I entered the holy precinct of Apollo, like a pilgrim,
and praying to the god, reverently raised my hands.
The double peak of snowy Mount Parnassus roared;
the laurel tree of Phoebus quivered, moved its leaves,
and all at once, the holy Castalian spring stood still.
Then the priestess began to shake her bristling hair: