by Seneca
my plan is to uproot Hercules’ whole house.
Should the people’s gossip and resentment
hold me back? No: the first art of government
is putting up with hatred. —Time to try it.
A lucky opportunity: she is here, by the altar’s protection.
Her head is veiled as if in mourning; at her side
clings Hercules’ real father.*
megara
That man! He means ruin,
destruction to our family. What is his latest plan?
lycus Princess, you bear a noble name by birth.
Let me talk to you, for just a little while:
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listen patiently to what I have to say.
If people always bicker back and forth,
and never let their anger leave their hearts —
victors still clutching their weapons, losers getting them ready —
then wars will leave us nothing; farms will lie in ruin,
their fields laid waste. Homes will be torched;
the people will be buried deep in ash.
It is good strategy for victors to want peace;
necessity for the conquered. So come, share my rule.
Let us be partners together. Have this as proof of my faith:
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take my hand. — Why so quiet? Why scowl?
megara Would I touch a hand stained with the blood
of my father and my brother, double murder? No!
The sun will rise in the west and set in the east,
snow and fire will make a pact of friendship,
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hercules furens
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and rocks will unite Sicily and Greece.
The strait Euripus* with its shifting tide
will sooner stand stock still on Euboea’s shore,
before I touch you. You stole my father, my kingdom, my brothers,
my home, and my country — what else? I still have one
thing left,
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dearer to me than brother, father, kingdom, or home:
my hatred for you. I resent that I have to share it
with the whole population. How little of it is mine!
Go ahead, be a tyrant, boast, puff yourself up with pride.
The avenging god follows close behind the proud.
I know all about Thebes. No need to mention
the crimes that mothers here have done and suffered.*
Why speak of that mixed-up man: husband, father, and son?*
Why bring up the brothers’ two camps, and their separate
funeral flames?*
That proud mother turned to stone from grieving,*
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and her sad rock still drips on the Phrygian mountain.
Why mention even Cadmus himself,* his head transformed
to a crested snake, as he wandered in exile through Illyria,
leaving long tracks as he slithered his body along.
These precedents foretell your fate. Go on, be a tyrant —
as long as your story ends in the usual Theban way.
lycus Crazy woman, enough of your wild talk.
Let Hercules teach you to put up with royal commands.
I know I stole the throne, but I won, and I have got it.
I will be king without fear of the laws.
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My arms defeated law. But let me say a little
to defend my case. Did your father die in war?
And your brothers? Weapons never keep to limits;
a sword drawn in anger cannot be made gentle,
nor easily repressed. War delights in blood.
You say he fought for his kingdom, while I was driven
by base desire? The reasons for war do not matter;
the main thing is its end. Now let us forget all that.
When the victor lays down his arms, it is right
for the loser to lay down her hatred. I do not ask you to kneel 410
and worship me as ruler. It is enough for me
if you accept your ruin with good heart.
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hercules furens
You are a worthy consort for a king. Let us get married.
megara My blood runs cold in my veins, I feel myself shaking.
I can hardly believe my ears — such evil words!
I was not frightened when peace broke, the crash of war
sounded around my walls; I could bear it all, quite calmly.
But I tremble at this marriage. Now I know myself a slave.—
But let chains weigh my body down, let death come slow,
dragged out by long starvation; no force on earth
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can conquer my fidelity. Hercules, I will die yours.
lycus Can a husband drowned in Hell make you so brave?
megara He has gone down low in order to rise high.
lycus An enormous mass of earth is weighing him down.
megara No weight can press him down; he held the sky.
lycus I can force you.
megara
Only those who cannot die can suffer force.
lycus Then tell me what royal gift you want from me
as dowry for this new marriage.
megara
Either your death or mine.
lycus Crazy woman, you will die.
megara
And meet my husband.
lycus Is that slave more powerful than my throne?
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megara How many kings that ‘slave’ has put to death!
lycus Then why does he serve a king and bear the yoke?
megara If there were no hard commands, what place for courage?
lycus You think it courage, to be thrown to beasts?
megara Courage means conquering what everybody fears.
lycus He talked big, but Hell’s shades push him down.
megara There is no easy path from earth to heaven.
lycus Who is his father, that he should hope for a home in the sky?
amphitryon Poor wife of mighty Hercules, be quiet now;
it is my job to give him back his father,
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explaining his true heritage. After so many deeds
of legendary heroism, after he made peace
through all the lands the rising and the setting sun can see;
after so many monsters killed; after he scattered
the blood of the impious Giants, and defended the gods —
is his paternity still unclear? Are we calling Jove a liar?
At least believe in Juno’s hatred.
lycus
You blaspheme Jove!
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hercules furens
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Human beings cannot mate with gods.
amphitryon They can! Many gods were born that way.
lycus And were they slaves before they became gods?
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amphitryon Apollo served as a shepherd,* driving flocks.
lycus But he did not wander all over the world in exile.
amphitryon Really? His exiled mother gave birth on a
wandering island.*
lycus Did Apollo face wild beasts and fearful monsters?
amphitryon A dragon* was the first to stain his arrows.
lycus Have you forgotten what Hercules suffered as a baby?
amphitryon His father’s thunderbolt pushed Bacchus from
the womb;
he soon stood tall beside that thundering father.*
What about the god who rules the stars and shakes the clouds?
Did he not lie hidden in a cavern* as a baby?
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The most important babies need most looking after;
being born a god does not come cheap.
lycus When a man suffers, be sure he is human.
amphitryon When he is brave, do not say that he suffers.*
lycus Should we cal
l him brave, when the lion skin fell
from his shoulders,*
a gift to a girl, and his club fell too, and his body
shone bright with a gaudy dress from Tyria?
Should we call him brave, whose shaggy hair
dripped with perfume? Whose famous hands were quick
to work to the womanish beat of the tambourine,
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wearing a foreign turban on his ferocious head?
amphitryon Delicate Bacchus did not feel any shame
to toss his lustrous hair, and use his slender hands
to shake light ivy wands, wearing his flowing dress
adorned with gold as he pranced and minced along.
After mighty exploits, heroes need to relax.
lycus Yes, and ruin the house of Eurytus,
and drag off flocks of virgin girls* like sheep?
No Juno nor Eurystheus ordered this;
these are his very own actions.
amphitryon
You do not know it all.
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It was his very own action to break the bully Eryx
with his own gloves, and Antaeus just the same;
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hercules furens
and to make the altars, which had sucked up strangers’ blood,
drip with the righteous killing of Busiris;
it was his choice to force Cycnus to die,
although no wound nor sword could pierce his flesh.
Triple Geryon* was killed by his single hand.
You will join the list! — But these were better:
the women they raped were unmarried.
lycus
A king may act like Jove;
you gave one wife to Jove,* give another to the king.
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Your daughter-in-law will learn from you this ancient lesson:
to take the better man, when even the husband says yes.
But if she is stubborn and refuses to marry me,
I can use force to get blue-blooded children from her.
megara By Creon’s ghost, by the gods of the house of Labdacus,*
by the sacrilegious wedding torch of Oedipus —
now bless this marriage with the usual outcome.
Now bloodstained daughters of King Danaus,*
bring here your hands, polluted with mass murder.
One bride missed the crime; I will make it up.
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lycus Since you are stubborn, refusing my hand,
and you threaten your king, it is time for you to learn
the extent of my royal power. Embrace the altars;
no god will tear you from me, not even if earth could open
and Hercules ride back victorious to the sky.
Heap up more logs! Let the temple burn and fall
on the suppliants within. Let a single fire
consume his wife and all her flock of children.
amphitryon As Hercules’ father, let me beg for just one thing —
an appropriate request — that I may be first to die.
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lycus A man who uses death as punishment for all
has not learnt true tyranny. Devise different penalties:
forbid death to the wretched, force it on the happy.
While the pyre grows big with tinder wood,
I make my promised sacrifice to Neptune.
amphitryon By the highest power of heaven, by Jupiter,
father and ruler of gods, whose thunderbolts
shake us on earth, restrain the unholy hands
of this tyrant! But why do I pray to the gods?
Listen, son, wherever you are. — Why is the temple
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hercules furens
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suddenly tottering? Why this rumble from the earth?
A hellish crash sounds from the bottom-most depths.
He hears me! It is the sound of Hercules’ steps.
chorus Fortune, enemy to heroes, how unfairly
you portion out the prizes of the good.
Eurystheus can be king and take it easy;
Alcmena’s son must struggle all the time,
fighting monsters with hands that held the sky.
He keeps on cutting off the savage snaky heads;*
he fools the sisters* and brings the apples back,
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when the dragon that guards the golden fruit
allows his watchful eyes to fall asleep.
He went as far as the Scythian nomads’ home,
and tribes that do not know where their fathers lived.
He trod the icy backbone of the sea,
along the silent ocean, on the quiet beach.
The waters there are hard, there are no waves;
where ships were once spreading their billowy sails,
the Sarmatae are tramping with bare feet.
The sea is still, but twice a year it moves:
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accommodating boats, then bearing horsemen.
There he fought the queen of the Amazons.
A golden belt was slung around her hips;
she stripped it from her body, a lovely prize,
along with her shield and the band from her snowy breasts.
She went down on her knees, and looked up to her conqueror.
What were you hoping for, what drove you down
to the dizzying depths, when you took the risk of taking
the path of no return, to the realm of Proserpine?
No winds from south or west can blow down there,
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stirring the seas to rise with swelling waves.
Down there no Castor and Pollux, helpful stars,
come to guide the sailors in their fear.
The sea is stagnant, thick with blackish water.
Whenever pale Death champs his greedy teeth,
bringing countless people down to Hades,
a single ferryboat has borne them all.
May you defeat the cruel Stygian laws,
conquer the distaff of Fate, which will not wind back!
* * *
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hercules furens
The king who rules so many souls down there,
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while you were making war on Nestor’s Pylos,
raised his destructive hands against you, brandished
his three-pointed trident at your heart;
but when he was slightly grazed, he ran away,
the lord of death was terrified to die.*
Burst fate with your hands. Let the gloomy shadowlands
have a view of the light. May the impassable gate
open up to give an easy journey to the sky.
The songs and humble prayers of Orpheus
could move the pitiless rulers of the dead,
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when he was trying to get Eurydice back.*
The power that had brought rocks and trees alive,
summoned the birds and checked the flowing streams,
and made wild animals stop still to listen,
comforted the dead — not used to hear such sounds —
and rang out still more clearly in that insensate place.
Even the Furies weep for the Thracian bride;
even the gods who never weep are crying.
Even the judges on their thrones, with their stern brows,
who weigh up all the crimes of times gone by,
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even they weep for Eurydice.
Finally the Lord of Death says: ‘We give up.
Go out to the upper world. But one proviso:
Eurydice, follow behind your man.
Orpheus, you must not look back at her
until bright day unfolds the heavenly light,
and you are at the gate of Taenarus.’
True love hates delays, will not endure them.
When he hurried to look a
t his prize, he lost her.
But if these kingdoms can be won by song,
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these kingdoms can be won by violence.
ACT THREE
hercules O ruler of the lovely light, jewel of the sky,
whose flaming chariot crosses both halves of the world,
lifting your bright head across the breadth of earth:
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hercules furens
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Apollo, pardon me, if you have seen
anything you should not. I acted under orders,
bringing secrets up into the light. And you,
Jupiter, hide your gaze with your thunderbolt;
and you, king of the second realm,* the sea,
sink down to the ocean floor. Whatever gods
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look down on earthly things, and fear pollution
from new monstrosities — turn your eyes up to the sky,
avoid this horrible wonder.* Only we two should see it:
I who brought him here, and she* who made me do it.—
There is not earth enough for all my pains and labours
brought by Juno’s hatred. I have seen the hidden places,
unseen by the sun, where the terrible Dark Lord
rules under that lower, blacker sky.
If I had wished to rule the underworld,
I could have. I have conquered that whole chasm
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of night eternal, dark darker than night,
the gods of loss, and the Fates. I scorned death, and returned.
What else remains? I have seen Hell, and revealed it.
Juno, you have let my hands be idle for a while.
Give me a task, if you have any more. What else should I win?
But why are foreign soldiers camped out by the temple,
besieging in full arms the holy seat?
amphitryon Do my eyes deceive me? Has my wish come true?
Has the hero of Greece, world-conqueror,
come back from the silent land of grief and shadows?
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Is it really my son? I feel my legs grow weak.
Son! It is you! At last, for real, our saviour!
Let me hold you! Are you back alive, or am I holding
a ghost — a cruel trick? Is it you? I know your muscles,
your shoulders and the long club in your hands.
hercules Father, why is my wife dressed in dingy mourning?
Why are the children covered in dirt? What is the matter?
What disaster has come upon our house?
amphitryon Your father-in-law is dead, Lycus is tyrant,
he wants to kill your children, wife, and father.
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hercules Ungrateful land, did no one come to help
the house of Hercules? Did the world I used to protect