by Seneca
The woods were trembling, the whole ground was shaken,
making the courtyard totter: it seems to hesitate,
unsure where it can set its weight. A shooting star
rushes with a black trail on the left part of the sky;
the dedicated wine is changed to blood
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and flows into the fire. His royal crown
kept falling down. In the temples the statues wept.
All were aghast, but Atreus himself
alone remained unmoved, and was the one
to scare the gods that tried to threaten him.
Without delay he stood at the altar and scowled.
Just as in the forests of the Ganges
a hungry tigress prowls between two bullocks,
wanting to seize them both, but wonders which
to pounce on and bite first; she turns her jaws
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* * *
thyestes
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this way and that, keeping her hunger waiting —
so dreadful Atreus watches the boys whose lives are due
to his unholy rage. He wonders which
to slaughter first, and which to butcher second.
It makes no difference, but he ponders, and enjoys
order in brutality.
chorus
So which did he strike?
messenger Do not imagine he lacked family feeling:
first to be killed was his father’s namesake, Tantalus.
chorus How did the boy behave or look as he was killed?
messenger He stood there unconcerned and he refused
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to waste his voice on prayers. But the wild murderer
buried his sword in a deep thrust, and pressing down
he fixed his hand on his throat; when he drew out the sword
the corpse still stood; it was unclear for a while
where it should fall, but it fell on the uncle.
Then that barbarian dragged Plisthenes to the altar,
and added him to his brother. He cut through his neck;
the body without its head flopped to the ground,
while the head rolled down, protesting indistinctly.
chorus After the double murder what did he do?
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Did he spare the little one, or heap more crime on crime?
messenger Just as the long-maned lion in Armenia
lies on his heap of victims after slaughter,
his jaws dripping with blood, his hunger assuaged,
he does not set aside his anger, everywhere
he still pursues the cattle, snarling with tired teeth—
so Atreus rages and swells with his rage,
holding out the sword drenched in the two boys’ blood,
careless where his fury leads him, cruelly,
he drives the blade in the chest of the child, right through,
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and all at once it pokes out from his back.
He fell and put the fires out with his blood,
wounded on both sides, he died.
chorus What
savagery!
messenger Are you horrified? If the crime stopped there,
Atreus would be holy.
chorus
But can nature allow
a worse atrocity?
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thyestes
messenger
You think this the end of his crime?
It was the first step.
chorus
What more could he do? Did he throw
the bodies to wild beasts to tear, refuse cremation?
messenger If only he had! If only they lay unburied,
uncremated corpses, dragged away
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to be a dismal dinner for wild beasts.
This man makes normal pain desirable:
if only the father could see his children unburied!
Incredible evil! Historians will deny it.
The entrails ripped from the living children’s bellies
quiver, their veins throb, the heart still beats in fear;
but he sorts through the innards, checks the omens,
and scans the still-hot markings of the veins.
Once he was happy with the victims, he devoted himself
to his brother’s dinner. He himself carved up
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the body into segments, chopped the broad shoulders
down to the trunk, sawed through the biceps, laid bare
the limbs and chopped the bones — the cruel monster!
He only left the heads and hands — hands given in good faith.
He sticks the organs to the spits, and over the furnace
they slowly burn and drip; the boiling water
tosses them as the pot glows hot. The fire jumps over
the meat he gives it, and repeatedly
throws it back to the trembling hearth, resisting
its orders to stay still; it burns against its will.
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The liver hisses on the spit; I can hardly say
whether the bodies or the flame groaned louder. The fire turned
to pitch-black smoke, and the smoke itself, heavy with smog,
could not drift upwards, could not move up high;
the malformed cloud covered even the household gods.
O all-enduring Sun, though you retreated
and drowned the broken day in the middle sky,
you set too late!* The father rips apart his sons,
putting into his murderous mouth his own dear flesh and blood.
His hair is wet and shiny with perfume, his body heavy
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with wine; his mouth is overstuffed, his jaws
can hardly hold new morsels. O Thyestes,
your only blessing is your ignorance.
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thyestes
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But you will lose that too. If only Titan
could turn his chariot, meeting his own face,
and heavy night sent from the dawn usurp the day,
to cover up this black deed with new darkness.
But we must see this evil; all is now revealed.
chorus Why, Lord of Earth and Sky?
Why is all beauty gone, why is dark night
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risen at noon? Why this change of yours,
why destroy day in the middle of day?
Why, Phoebus, do you rob us of your face?
The messenger of night, the Evening Star,
has not yet called the night-light out;
the turning of the western wheel
has not yet set to rest its tired horses;
day had not yet switched to afternoon,
the trumpeter had not sounded the ninth hour;*
the oxen were not weary yet — the ploughman
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stopped, astonished, at the sudden dinner-time.
What drove you from your heavenly path?
Why were your horses flung away
from their usual track? Is Hell’s dungeon opened
to reveal the conquered Giants, in a new
attempt at war? Is Tityos, though his torso
is weary of wounds, renewing his ancient rage?
Is Typhoeus throwing the mountain off his body,
and stretching out his bulk? Have the enemies
from the Phlegraean Field built up a highway
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and is Pelion pressed by Thracian Ossa?*
Are the usual cycles of the sky all gone?
Will there be no more dawn and no more dusk?
The rosy mother of first light, the Dawn,
who normally hands the horses’ reins to Phoebus,
stops in bewilderment:
her kingdom’s entryway
is all gone wrong;* she does not know
how to damp the tired horses or to soak
their manes, which smoke with sweat, into the sea.*
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The setting Sun is quite surprised to see
Aurora, an unusual guest to him;
* * *
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thyestes
he tells the shadows to grow long although
night is not ready yet:
the stars have not inherited the sky,
no fire lights up the heavens,
the heavy Moon does not arrange the shadows.
But whatever it is, let it be night!
Our hearts go pitter-patter, struck with such dread
fearing that everything is shaken and may topple
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into disaster, chaos come again,
to overwhelm humanity and gods; Nature
again may cover up the earth and circling sea
and all the spangles of the painted sky.
No longer will the Sun, leader of stars,
raise his eternal torch and usher in
the seasons, pointing out the proper times
for summer and winter. The Moon, whose light reflects
the flames of Phoebus, will no longer take
terror from night, beating her brother’s horses
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as she runs her shorter race.
The mass of gods
will be heaped away into a single chasm.
The Zodiac, bearing the constellations,
the pathway of the sacred orbs, dividing
zones at a sideways angle, as it turns the years
now will slip and see its stars have fallen.
Aries, who brings back the gentle winds
to ships, when spring has not yet become kind,
will plunge down headlong underneath the waves,
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through which he carried Helle,* terrified.
The Bull too will be lost, whose shining horns
display the Hyads; after him fall the Twins
and the curving claws of the Crab.
The Herculean Lion, burning and flaming with heat,
will fall from heaven now a second time;
the Virgin will fall down to the abandoned earth,
as will the weights of the level, truthful Scales,
taking with them cruel Scorpio.
Old Chiron* holding feather-tipped arrows
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to his Thessalian bow
* * *
thyestes
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will break his string and the arrows will be lost.
The icy Goat, who brings numb winter back,
will fall, and break your urn, Aquarius —
whoever you are.* With you will disappear
the last stars of the sky,
Pisces the Fish.
The wonders never washed in waves before
will be drowned in the whirlpool which will cover the world.
The slimy Snake which divides the Bears in half
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like a river, and cold Ursa Minor
covered with hard ice, and joined to the larger Snake,
and the slow guardian of the Great Bear,
Arctophylax will topple and rush to ruin.
Were we from all humanity the ones
who earned destruction, crushed by the overturning
of the hinges of the world?
Will the last days come in our time?
We were born for a cruel lot,
whether we, poor things, have lost the sun,
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or forced him into exile. —
Enough complaints, enough of fear;
one would have to be greedy for life not to want
to die when the world is dying.
ACT FIVE
atreus My steps are level with the stars, I rise above the world
touching heaven’s axis with my exalted head.
Now royal power and my father’s throne are mine.
No need of gods! Now all my prayers are answered.
It is good, it is plenty, it is enough, even for me —
but why, enough? I will go on, and fill the father up
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with his children’s death. Shame need not stand in my way:
the day is over: go on while the sky is empty.
If only I could prevent the gods from leaving,
drag them down and force them all to watch
this vengeance feast! — But let the father see it, that is enough.
Though day resists, I will shake off the shadows,
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thyestes
under which your misery is hidden.
You have been lying there eating, looking safe and cheerful,
for far too long. You have had enough food, enough wine.
I need Thyestes sober for this horror.
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Slaves! All of you! Undo the doors of the palace!
I want the whole house open; party time!
How sweet to watch him looking at his children’s heads,
how sweet to see his altered face, to hear him
as his first grief gushes out. Look, he is dazed;
he stands there stiff and breathless. This is my work’s harvest:
I want to watch the onset of his pain.
The open halls are bright with many torches;
he flops around on the gold and purple sofa,
propping his head on his left hand, befuddled with wine.
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He belches. Yes! I am God! Highest of all the powers,
and King of Kings! This is better than I dreamed of.
He is full up. Now he sips from the silver cup.
Drink! No holding back! There is still plenty of blood;
there were so many victims. The vintage wine
camouflages the blood. May this drink, right here, right now,
round off his meal — a cocktail of his children’s blood.
He would have drunk my children otherwise. Look, now
he calls for festive music. He is wasted, out of his mind!
thyestes Long suffering has numbed my heart.
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Now set aside your cares!
Away with grief, away with fear,
away with that companion of my exile:
bitter poverty, and shame which weighs
heavily on the poor. The sense of loss
is worse than suffering. — Good for me!
I fell from a great height, but fixed my feet
firmly on the ground. Good for me!
I was oppressed by such calamities,
but bore the burden of my shattered power;
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I did not break. I was faithful to my royal blood:
unconquered, upright in the midst of pain,
I bore the imposition of disaster.
But now — cast off the clouds of cruel fate,
away with all the marks of my bad times;
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thyestes
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time for a happy face to greet my joy.
The old Thyestes is no longer here.
Unhappy people tend to have this fault:
never believing happiness has come.
But good luck can come back again, although
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those who have suffered distrust celebrations.—
Pain, you rise up inside me for no reason!
Why call me back and tell me not to revel
in this happy day, why say that I should weep?
Why do you stop me from binding up my hair
with lovely flowers? It stops me, stop now, stop!
The spring-time roses topple from my head,
my hair, so wet from all this spicy perfume,
stands up on end with sudden shock.
I had not meant to weep; I find my cheeks are wet.
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My words are interrupted by my cries.
Sorrow loves tears — she is used to them.
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Unhappy people have a strange desire to cry:
I feel like letting out unlucky groans,
I feel like tearing up my fancy clothes, deep-dipped
in Tyrian purple dye. I feel like screaming.
The mind gives indications of a grief to come,
prophet of its future pain.
Sailors know a major storm is coming
when the calm waters swell without a wind.
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Madman, what are you imagining?
What griefs or storms? Be trustful in your heart
towards your brother. At this point, whatever happens,
either your fears are groundless, or too late.
Poor me! I do not want to feel this way:
but terror wanders in me and my eyes
gush with sudden tears. There is no cause.
Is it grief or fear? Or does great pleasure
make me cry?
atreus Brother, let us celebrate together
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this happy day. Today my throne is solid,
and we are bound in solid trust, sure peace.
thyestes I am full of food and full of wine.
The only thing that could increase my pleasure
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thyestes
is if my boys could join me in my joy.
atreus Your boys are here, believe me — held by their father.
They are here and always will be; no part of your children
can ever be taken from you. I will give you the faces
you long to see, I will fill you full with them all.
Do not worry, you will be satisfied. They are mingling
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with my own boys, and enjoying a holy meal.
But they will be summoned. Have a drink.
This is a family cup.
thyestes
Thank you for the gift,
and here’s to brotherhood. Pour a libation first
to the gods of our fathers; then drink. But what is this?
My hands refuse me, the cup is too heavy to hold;
the wine slips from my very lips and pours
away from my open mouth. How very frustrating!
Look, even the table is shaking, the ground trembles;
the fire flickers out; even the heavy sky
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is empty, stupefied: not night or day.
What is this? The mighty dome of heaven slips,
struck over and over; darkness grows more dense;
night hides herself in night. All stars are gone.
Whatever it is, I pray the storm may spare
my brother and my children. Let it strike
only my wretched head. Now give my children back!
atreus I will. And they can never be taken from you.
thyestes My stomach feels upset. What is this rumbling inside me?