The Greek Plays
Page 67
NURSE: I beg you again, don’t destroy me.
HIPPOLYTUS: Why fear? You claim you’ve said nothing bad.
NURSE: What I’ve told you isn’t for all ears, child.
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HIPPOLYTUS: (with contempt) Aren’t good things better if many know them?
NURSE: Child, don’t dishonor your oath.*44
HIPPOLYTUS: My tongue swore, my mind did not.
NURSE: What, child? You’ll destroy your dear ones?
HIPPOLYTUS: Vile thing! No one unjust is dear to me!
NURSE: Have pity, child. It’s human to err.
HIPPOLYTUS: Oh, Zeus, why place in the light of the sun
this fraud, this blight on human existence:
women! If you wanted to sow the human race,
you didn’t need women to provide the means.
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Men could deposit bronze, silver, or gold
in your temples and get in exchange a child,
at a price determined by what he’s worth.
Then he’d live in his home, a free man—
free of women. And here’s the proof that they
are pure disaster: the father of a girl
raises her, and then pays out a dowry
to be rid of her,*45 to house the evil far away.*46
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Then the groom takes the plague into his home
and adorns it, like a statue, to please his heart.
He gilds the ugliness and decks it with clothing—
and exhausts his family’s wealth, poor wretch.*47
He has the easiest time who marries a nothing:
she sits there in the house, silly and useless.
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But clever women I really hate. May I never have
a woman in my house who thinks more deeply
than a woman should. Cypris breeds wrongdoing
in smart women; the helpless ones are saved
from wantonness by their small minds.
We shouldn’t allow a woman and her slave
in the same room. She should live with dumb
and vicious beasts, so that she can talk to no one
and no one talk to her. As it is,
women sit inside concocting evil plots,
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which their slaves carry out for them.
That’s why you’re here, to seduce me into
my father’s holy marriage bed, you filth.
I’ll sluice my ears with fresh running water
to wash away your words. How could I do
wrong, when just to hear your words makes me
unclean! Be sure, woman, only my righteousness
saves you. If I hadn’t been trapped, unsuspecting,
by an oath, nothing could stop me from telling
my father. So now I’ll leave, while Theseus is away
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from home, and I’ll keep silent. But when he’s back
and I with him, I’ll be watching your every look,
you and your mistress. Die, both of you!*48
I’ll never have enough of hating women,
not even if someone complains my words
go on forever—but so does women’s evil.
So either let someone teach them self-control
or let me go on attacking them forever.
(Hippolytus leaves, using the exit that leads away from the town. Phaedra comes out of hiding and sings in dochmiacs, addressing the Chorus.)
PHAEDRA: Ah, the sorry,
ill-starred fate
of women.
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What ways do we have, what words
when things go wrong, to cut
through the talk that binds us? I’ve met with justice.
Oh, earth and light! Where can I go to escape?
How will I hide this pain, friends?
What god, what human
might offer me help, might join
in my unjust acts? My suffering passes
beyond life’s domain, a hard passage;
Most unlucky of women am I.
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CHORUS: pheu, pheu, it’s all over; your nurse’s designs
have not set things right, lady; a bad ending.
(Phaedra addresses the Nurse.)
PHAEDRA: What have you done to me, worst of the worst!
Destroyer of those you love! May Zeus,
my father’s father, tear you up from the roots,
strike you with fire. Didn’t I read your mind,
warn you to hide what now brings me shame?
But you couldn’t stop yourself. And now I’ll die
with my reputation in ruins. I need a new plan.
This man, his mind sharpened with rage,
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will denounce me to his father—because of you!*49
He’ll fill the land with his ugly talk.
I curse you, you and anyone who’s eager
to do wrong for friends against their will!
NURSE: Mistress, you can blame me for this trouble
since its sting controls your judgment.
But I can answer your blame, if you’ll let me.
I raised you; I want the best for you. I sought
a cure for your sickness but didn’t find
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what I wanted. Had I succeeded, I’d be called
wise: our wisdom depends on our success.
PHAEDRA: So this is your justice? I deserve this?
You wound me and then talk your way out?
NURSE: We’re wasting time. I wasn’t prudent, child,
but there’s a way, even now, to be safe.
PHAEDRA: No more! You’ve given enough bad advice
already; you’ve taken enough wrong turns.
Leave me! Go, look after yourself,
and I will put my own affairs in order.
(The Nurse goes into the house; Phaedra addresses the Chorus.)
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And you, noble daughters of Troezen,
give me this one thing I ask of you:
cover in silence what you’ve heard here.
CHORUS: I swear by holy Artemis, daughter of Zeus,
I’ll never bring to light any trouble of yours.
PHAEDRA: I thank you; I’ll tell you one thing more.
I’ve found a way out of my misfortune
that will preserve my children’s good name
and benefit me, as far as events allow.
I’ll not, to preserve one life, bring shame
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to my Cretan home nor face Theseus
under the cloud of my disgraceful acts.
CHORUS: What irreparable harm are you about to do?
PHAEDRA: I’ll die. But it’s how I die I must devise.
CHORUS: Don’t say such things!
PHAEDRA: Give only good advice!
I will give Cypris joy. She destroys me
and will rejoice today when my life is over.
I’ll be the victim of bitter lust but
in death become disaster for another,
so he can know not to feel superior
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about my plight. He’ll share my sickness
and then he’ll learn what self-control is about.
(Phaedra goes into the house.)
strophe 1
CHORUS: I wish I were in the high hidden reaches
where a god might make me
a bird on the wing
flying with the flock.
I would rise high above the waves
striking the Adriatic shore
and the water of the river Eridanus.*50
There the sad sisters of Phaethon
drop shining tears of amber
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into the purple swell,
in their pity for a brother.
antistrophe 1
I wish for my journey’s end on the shore
where the Hesperides*51
sing among
apple trees.
The lord of the purple sea allows
no passage there to sailors,
there he sets the sky’s limit,
which Atlas shoulders.
Streams flow with ambrosia there
where Zeus made his bed of love,
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where Earth with abundant gifts
swells the gods’ happy state.
strophe 2
Oh, ship from Crete, your white sails flying,*52
you carried my mistress from her rich home
across the salt waves of the pounding sea,
swelling her delight
in a marriage to disaster.
She flew with ill omen from Minos’ land,*53
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with ill omen she reached famous Athens.
There they fastened twisted ropes
to the shore at Munychia*54
and set their feet on mainland earth.
antistrophe 2
For this her mind was shattered by unholy passion,
the awful sickness of Aphrodite.
She’s drained the bitter dregs of disaster,
and she will tie the rope
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to her bedchamber’s beams
and fit the noose on her white neck.*55
Shamed by her hateful lot
she chooses to save her name
and free herself
from a passion that gives her pain.
(The Chorus hear a voice crying out from inside the house.)
VOICE INSIDE: iou, iou
Call for help! Hurry, anyone nearby!
The lady, Theseus’ wife, hangs in a noose.
CHORUS: pheu, pheu, it’s done. The queen no longer
lives. She’s hanging from the rope.
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VOICE INSIDE: Hurry, won’t you? Someone bring a sword!
Cut the knot tied fast around her neck.
(The Chorus split into two groups to speak the following lines.)*56
CHORUS 1: Friends, what should we do? Should we go
into the house, undo the tight noose?
CHORUS 2: Why? Young servants are already there.
To interfere invites danger.
VOICE INSIDE: Straighten her poor body, lay it out.
A bitter task for the house’s master.
CHORUS: I hear the poor woman is dead.
They’re laying out her body now.
(Theseus enters wearing a crown of leaves, customarily worn by those who have consulted the Delphic oracle and had a favorable response.)
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THESEUS: Women, what’s that noise in the house,
the heavy cry of slaves echoing in my ear?*57
Something’s wrong: no one has opened the doors
and welcomed me home, back from Delphi.
Is something wrong with Pittheus?
He’s an old man, far on in life, but still
we’d grieve if he’d left these halls.
CHORUS: Your misfortune doesn’t involve the old, Theseus.
The pain comes from the death of the young.
THESEUS: oimoi, it can’t be my children’s lives I’ve lost?
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CHORUS: They live, but their mother’s dead. Oh, the pain!
THESEUS: What are you saying? My wife dead?
CHORUS: She strangled herself, hung in a noose.
THESEUS: Numbed by sorrow? What happened to her?
CHORUS: I know only this. I, too, have just arrived,
Theseus, to mourn your misfortune here.*58
(Theseus throws the crown off his head.)
THESEUS: aiai, why do I wear this leafy crown,
when my journey to the oracle ends like this?
Slaves, undo the locks, open the doors.
Let me see this bitter sight:
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the death of my wife destroys me.
(The doors of the house open, and the body of Phaedra is wheeled out on the ekkyklēma, a movable platform. A writing tablet is attached to her wrist. The Chorus break into a song of mourning in dochmiacs.)
CHORUS: iō, iō, poor woman, miserable misfortune!
You suffered so much, you did
so much, you stun this house—
aiai, your daring—
by dying in violence, in unholy
misfortune, the piteous wrestling
of your hand. Who blots out your unhappy life?
strophe
THESEUS:*59 ōmoi, my woes; wretched I’ve suffered
the worst blow. Oh, misfortune,
heavy your tread on me, on the house,
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some unseen avenger bringing defilement.
The destruction of my life unlivable,
the sea of trouble I see, I suffer,
so vast I’ll never escape it,
never rise from misfortune’s waves.
What story can I tell, Phaedra,*60
what deadly suffering can I name?
You’ve gone like a bird, flown from my hand.
You rushed to leap, down to death.
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aiaiaiai, the pity of it, the piteous pain
sent by a god for a wrong long ago,
someone’s errant past haunting me now.
CHORUS: (speaking) King, you’re not alone in suffering disaster:
like many others you’ve lost your loving wife.
antistrophe
THESEUS: I long for the darkness below the earth, I long
to die, to dwell in wretched darkness there,
now I’ve lost your precious company.
Destroying yourself you destroyed me.
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Who can tell me, who can say what deadly blow,*61
wretched wife, struck you to the heart?
Can anyone tell me what happened? Do I
keep slaves in this royal house for no purpose?
ōmoi, from you, from you […]*62
what pain I’ve seen, unhappy house.
My ruin not to be borne, not to be spoken:
the house a desert, my children all alone.
aiaiaiai, you left, you left dear one,
best of all women the sunlight looks upon,
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and the night’s shining stars.
CHORUS: (singing) Wretched man, such suffering this house holds.
My eyes are wet
with tears I shed for your misfortune,
I tremble at the trouble yet to come.
THESEUS: (crying out in surprise): eā, eā!
What is this? This tablet fixed to her
dear hand? What news does it contain?
Did my poor wife write to ask me something
for the children? about a new wife?
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Take heart, sad one. No bed of mine,
no house will take in another woman.
How the imprint of her golden seal
calls to me, though she lives no longer.
Let me undo the sealed binding, let me
see what this tablet wants to tell me.
CHORUS:*63 pheu pheu! A new calamity
the god sends to follow on
the one that’s here.
pheu pheu! The house of my king
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lies in ruin; it is no more.*64
THESEUS: ōmoi, another horror! Such horror!
CHORUS: What is it? Tell us, if we may share it.
THESEUS: (singing) The tablet cries, it cries pain. Where
can I escape calamity’s weight? I go
in ruins. What words I’ve seen,
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what song they sing to give me pain!
CHORUS: aiai, your words are harbingers of ill.
THESEUS: (singing) I can’t contain this horror
in my head! Its passage from my mouth
is full of pain, it spells ruin. Oh, my city!
Hippolytus has dared to violate my wife
and desecrate the holy eye of Z
eus.
So now, Father Poseidon, fulfill one
of the three curses you promised me: kill
my son. He should not live beyond this day,
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if the curses you gave me hold fast.
CHORUS: King, take back your curse, I beg you.
Believe me, you’re making a mistake.
THESEUS: No, but I’ll add this: I’ll exile him
from this land. One of these two fates
will finish him: either Poseidon will honor
my curse and send him to the house
of Death, or he’ll wander in exile and drain
life’s bitter dregs in a strange land.
CHORUS: But look, here’s Hippolytus now, just in time.
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Cool your anger at your son, King Theseus.
Consider what’s best for your household.
(Hippolytus rushes onto the stage. Theseus ignores him.)
HIPPOLYTUS: I heard you shout, Father, and came here
right away. I don’t know what made you
cry out, but I wish you’d tell me.
(Hippolytus waits for Theseus’ reply, but then sees Phaedra’s body.)
ea¯! What’s this? Father, this is the body
of your wife! I’m stunned. I can’t believe it.
I was with her just now. I just left her.
Not long ago she was still alive and well.
What happened to her? How did she die?
(Theseus is silent.)
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Father, I want to know! Tell me!
You say nothing? Silence has no place*65
in a time of trouble. From friends—and those
dearer than friends—it’s wrong to hide your trouble.
THESEUS: Humankind! so wrong-headed and so useless!
Why teach countless skills, why invent,
why devise all things, but one thing
you don’t know, you don’t even search for:
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how to teach mindless men to be wise.
HIPPOLYTUS: A man would be very clever if he could
force those incapable of thought to think.
But, Father, it’s not the time for subtlety.
You talk to excess from your pain, I fear.
THESEUS: pheu! There should be a clear mark on men:
a way to know friends’ minds and hearts,
to tell which one is true and which is not.
A man should have two voices,
one saying what’s just, the other whatever
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comes into his head, the just voice refuting
the other’s unjust thoughts. Then we wouldn’t be fooled.
HIPPOLYTUS: Has some friend been pouring slander
in your ears? Am I tainted, though innocent?