by Seneca
Out of the dark of hate. The infernal powers,
Whose den you saw, promise the permanence
Of your new marriage, and to this your house
Eternal life. The blade buried in blood
By Nero’s hand shows he will not unleash
New war, but sheathe the sword in lasting peace.
Take courage then, be comforted, my child;
Have no more fear, and go back to your bed.
POPPAEA: It was my purpose to approach the altars
And holy shrines, and with a sacrifice
Beseech the powers of heaven to avert
The menace of these visions of the night
And turn my fears upon my enemies’ heads.
Pray you for me, too, and entreat the gods
That all this present dread may pass away.
*
CHORUS: If all the tales are true
That history so eloquently tells
Of the clandestine loves
Of Jove the Thunderer –
How he became a winged and feathered bird
To lie upon the breast of Leda;
And in the likeness of a savage bull
Carried Europa through the sea –
Once more, for you, Poppaea,
He will desert his kingdom of the stars,
To seek embraces which he must prefer
To those of Leda, or of Danae
Before whose wondering eyes
He fell as a bright shower of gold.
Let Sparta praise her daughter’s beauty,
And the young Phrygian shepherd
Boast of his prize;1
We have one here, a face
More lovely than the Tyndarid –
That face that launched a lamentable war
And brought the throne of Phrygia to the ground.
But who comes here?
Breathless his haste, and stumbling steps…
What news?
MESSENGER:2 Let every soldier of the royal guard
Defend the safety of the emperor’s house
Against the angry mob that threatens it!
Look, where the officers in desperate haste
Are hurrying troops to man the city walls.
This insurrection, born of headstrong folly,
Will not be checked by fear, but grows the stronger.
CHORUS: What stroke of madness has bemused these people?
MESSENGER: Kindled with zeal upon Octavia’s part,
The fury of the mob is bent on mischief.
CHORUS: What is their plan? What have they dared to do?
MESSENGER: They mean to win back for Octavia
Her place, her right to be her brother’s consort
And partner of his throne.
CHORUS: Although Poppaea
Is now his lawful and accepted wife?
MESSENGER: That is their desperate policy, which now
Fills them with fire and urges on their haste
To acts of madness. Every graven image,
Each polished bronze or gleaming marble statue
Bearing the features of Poppaea, lies
Demolished by the mob or overturned
By iron weapons; the dismembered limbs
Are being dragged away with knotted ropes,
Kicked, trampled under foot, and fouled with dirt,
With insults added to these injuries
In words such as I dare not here repeat.
They are about to ring the emperor’s house
With fire, unless he will forthwith surrender
His new wife to the angry populace
And own defeat, leaving Octavia
Safe in possession of her house and home.
My orders from the prefect are to bring
These tidings of the popular revolt
To the emperor in person; and this charge
I must with haste deliver.…
CHORUS: But what avails the violence of war?
Love’s weapons are invincible;
His fires will stifle yours,
His fires have quenched the lightning
And brought Jove captive out of heaven.
You will pay dearly with your blood for this.
Love has no mercy; roused to anger
He is not patient of restraint.
Under his orders bold Achilles
Became a minstrel; to his power
The Greeks and Agamemnon fell.
He broke great Priam’s kingdom, overthrew
Many a splendid city; and today
What harm this ruthless god’s fierce rage
Will do to us, I dare not guess.…
NERO: Too slow, too soft my soldiers’ hands! Too weak
My anger at such outrages! Not yet
Drowned in the people’s blood those people’s torches
Fired to destroy me? Not yet soaked in slaughter
Those cursed streets of Rome, where such men breed?
No! death is far too small a punishment
For such offences; this mob’s sacrilege
Deserves far worse. As for that dangerous wife
And sister, whom I long suspect of guilt,
Whom these crazed citizens would have to rule me,
She shall no longer live, but render up
Her spirit to my wrath, and quench my rage
In her own blood. Then, let this city’s roofs
Sink in the fires that I shall send upon her!
Let burning ruin, squalor, poverty,
Starvation and bereavement fall upon
Her sinful people’s heads. Now in its pride
The monstrous mob, ungrateful, and corrupted
By the good gifts of these beneficent times,
Cannot abide our gentle rule, hates peace,
And ever discontented, now defiant,
Now reckless, rushes onward to its doom.
It must be tamed by suffering, must be held
At all times under an oppressive yoke;
No other way will teach it to beware
Of making any other such attempt,
Nor dare to lift up its rebellious eyes
Against the saintly face of my loved spouse.
The spirit of the people shall be broken
By punishment and fear, that they may learn
To obey their emperor’s lightest nod.…
Here comes
The captain of my guard, whose loyalty
Well proved, and signal virtue, make him fit
To hold command over my garrison.
PREFECT: I come to tell you, sir, the people’s outbreak
Has, with the death of some few desperate men
Who made the most resistance, been put down.
NERO: And is that all? Is that a soldier’s way
Of carrying out his lord’s commands? Put down?
Is that to be my only satisfaction?
PREFECT: The guilty ringleaders have lost their lives.
NERO: What of the mob that had the hardihood
To attack my house with fire, to lay down laws
For emperors to obey, steal from my bed
My innocent wife, to desecrate her name
So far as their foul hands and voices could –
Are they still wanting their due punishment?
PREFECT: You cry for punishment of your countrymen?
NERO: Of such a kind that time shall ne’er forget.
PREFECT: Your wrath, and not my fears, shall be my law.
NERO: She that first earned it shall first feel my wrath.
PREFECT: Whom does your wrath demand? My hand is ready.
NERO: My sister’s life – and her detested head.
PREFECT: I am stunned, insensible with fear and horror!
NERO: You hesitate?
PREFECT: You doubt my loyalty?
NERO: If you would spare my foe.
PREFECT: Woman– a foe?
NERO: If charged with crime.
PREFECT: Whose evidence convicts her?
NERO: The mob’s revolt.
PREFECT: Hotheads; whose power can rule them?
NERO: His who could stir them up.
PREFECT: Not even he.
NERO: A woman can, by nature taught deceit
And armed with every artifice of evil,
But not with strength – so, not invincible,
Not proof against the breaking power of fear
Or punishment; and punishment, though late,
Shall overtake this too long guilty woman
Whose crime stands plainly proven. Plead no more;
Give me no more advice; obey your orders.
Have her deported to a distant shore
By sea, and executed instantly;
So that the tumult of my wrath may rest.
*
CHORUS: O fatal wind of popularity,
That has destroyed so many!
How propitiously
It breathes to fill the traveller’s sails,
And waft him on his way, but all too soon
Drops, and deserts him on the angry sea.
Why was the mother of the Gracchi doomed
To mourn her sons? Because they were destroyed
By too much popularity, too much
Of common love; for they were noble,
Eloquent, upright and true,
Shrewd statesmen, men of courage firm.
And by the same fate fell
Livius, not to be saved
By public rank or sanctity of home.1
To tell of more
Our present griefs forbid.
With their own eyes our people now may see
One whom but yesterday they had preferred
To be her brother’s consort, queen
Of her late father’s court,
A weeping captive dragged away
To punishment and death.
Happy lies poverty, content, unseen
Under her humble roof.
The high house shakes
More often to the winds of heaven
Or falls to Fortune’s stroke.
*
OCTAVIA:1 Where? To what place of banishment
Am I condemned? What is the emperor’s will,
Or hers, his queen – if her hard heart
Can soften and be won
By pity for my suffering;
If she will let me live?
Or if she means to crown my misery
With death, is it too little vengeance
To let me die on my own country’s soil?
Ah, but I have no hope of life.…
I am lost… the ship, I see, the ship
My brother has prepared… the same
On which his mother sailed… for me, his sister,
His banished wife!
Where is the power of piety?
Where are the gods? They are no more.
Fell Fury rules the world.
What eyes have tears enough to weep
For all my ills?
What nightingale can sing
My song of sorrow?
Ah, would that Fate had given me her wings!
Swift wings would take me far from all my griefs,
Far from the cruel world of man
And his destroying hand.
In some wild wood, alone, I’d sit
Upon a slender branch, to cry
My sorrows in a voice of lamentation.
CHORUS: Fate rules all mortal men; not one of us
Can count his footing firm and permanent
Amid the many accidents that Time,
Our enemy, lays in our way.
Take courage, then,
From the example of the many griefs
Already suffered by the women of your name.
Yours is no harder fate.
Let us remember first
Agrippa’s daughter,1 of Augustus’ house,
A Caesar’s wife, and mother of nine children.
Her fame was a bright star to all the world;
And though her womb had laboured to bring forth
So many pledges of a peaceful union,
She was to suffer whips,
Chains, banishment, bereavement,
Tortures, and lingering death.
Livia,1 wife of Drusus, fortunate
In marriage, fortunate in motherhood,
Fell to a crime and to her punishment.
By the same way went Julia,2 her daughter;
But not till after many years,
Her guilt unproven, was she slain.
Then your own mother; what a power was hers
When she was mistress of the emperor’s house,
Loved by her husband, and in children blest.
She fell to her own servant’s mastery,
To die upon a ruthless soldier’s sword.
And that great lady, who could once have hoped
To be a queen in heaven, Nero’s mother:
Was not she too assaulted
First by a ruffian sailor’s hand,
Then mutilated with a sword, condemned
To a slow death by her inhuman son?
OCTAVIA: As that cold-hearted lord is sending me
To outer darkness and the ghostly shades.
What can I hope for from delay?
Take me away to die,
You whom the lot of life
Has made my masters. Gods in heaven!…
O fool! What use to pray
To powers that hate you?… Gods of hell,
To you I pray,
To goddesses of Erebus, whose wrath
Can punish sin. I pray to you, my father,
Who worthily endured such death and pain:1
A death I do not shrink from.
Come, hoist sail!
Let us away to sea!
Spread all your canvas to the winds
And, helmsman, steer for Pandataria.
CHORUS: And may the gentle Zephyr’s kindly breath
That bore Iphigenia tenderly,
Wrapped in a cloak of cloud, unto her death
At the dread Virgin’s altar, carry thee
To Dian’s shrine, beyond all suffering.
Kinder than ours are those barbarian lands,
Aulis and Tauris; to their gods they bring
Tribute of strangers’ lives; Rome loves to see
The blood of her own children on her hands.
Exeunt
APPENDIX I
(a) PASSAGES PROM THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS
The dates are those of the first publication of each translation, prior to their collection in The Tenne Tragedies edited by Thomas Newton in 1581.
1 TROAS, by Jasper Heywood (1559), 203–18, with much rearrange ment and interpolation:
What tyme our sayles we should have spread, uppon Sygeon seas,
With swift returne from long delay, to seeke our homeward ways.
Achilles rose whose only hand hath geven Greekes the spoyle
Of Troia sore annoyde by him, and leveld with the soyle,
With speede requiting his abode and former long delay,
At Scyros yle, and Lesbos both amid the Aegean sea.
Til he came here in doubt it stoode of fall or sure estate,
Then though ye hast to graunt his wil ye shall it geve to late.
Now have the other captaynes all the pryce of their manhood
What els reward for his prowesse then her al onely blood?
Are his desertes think you but light, that when he might have fled,
And passing Pelyus yeares in peace, a quiet life have led,
Detected yet his mother’s craftes, forsooke his woman’s weede,
And with his weapons prov’d himselfe a manly man indeed:
The King of Mysia, Telephos what woulde the Greekes with-stand,
Comming to Troy, forbidding us the passage of his land:
To late repenting to have felt Achilles heavy stroke,
&nb
sp; Was glad to crave his health agayne where he his hurt had toke:
For when his sore might not be salv’d as told Apollo playne,
Except the speare that gave the hurte, restoared help agayne.
Achilles plasters cur’d his cuttes, and sav’d the King alive:
His hand both might and mercy knew to slay and then revive.
2 Id. 229–33:
What bootes to blase the brute of him whom trumpe of fame doth show,
Through all the coastes where Caicus floud with swelling stream doth flow?
The ruthful ruine of these realmes so many townes bet downe,
Another man would glory count and worthy great renowne.
But thus my father made his way and these his journeys are,
And battayles many one he fought whyle warre he doth prepare.
3 Id. 250–91:
The onely fault of youth it is not to refraine his rage
The Fathers bloud already sturres in Pryams1 wanton age:
Somtime Achilles grievous checkes I bare with pacient hart,
The more thou mayst, the more thou oughtst to suffer in good part.
Whereto would yee with slaughtred bloud a noble spirit stayne?
Thinke what is meete the Greekes to do, and Troyans to sustayne.
The proude estate of tyranny may never long endure.
The King that rules with modest meane of safety may be sure.
The higher step of princely state that fortune hath us signd
The more behov’th a happy man humility of mynd
And dread the chaunge that chaunce may bring, whose gifts so soone be lost
And chiefly then to feare the Gods, whyle they thee favour most.
In beating down that warre hath wonne, by proofe I have ben taught,
What pompe and pride in twink of eye, may fall and come to naught.
Troy made me fierce and proude of mynde, Troy makes me frayd withal:
The Greekes now stand wher Troy late fel, ech thing may have his fal.
Sometyme I graunt I did myselfe, and Sceptors proudly beare,
The thing that might advaunce my hart makes me the more to feare
Thou Priam perfit proofe presentst thou art to mee eftsones:
A cause of pride, a glasse of feare a mirrour for the nones,
Should I accompt the sceptors ought but glorious vanity
Much like the borrowed brayded hayre, the face to beautify.
One sodayne chaunce may turne to naught, and mayme the might of men
With fewer than a thousand shippes, and years in lesse then ten.