The Greek Plays

by The Greek Plays- Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles

  hurling him from the earth to barren rock.

  CHORUS: Gods, may the House of Tantalus, one day,

  be happy! May their suffering have an end!

  HELEN: It’s just my luck! I seem to be accursed!

  We’re finished, Menelaus! Here she comes,

  the priestess, Theonoë. I can hear

  860

  the clang of doors unlocking. Run away!

  But what’s the use? She must already know

  that you are here, whether she comes or not.

  Though you survived barbarian Troy, you’ll die

  upon a barbarous sword right here. I’m done for!

  (Enter Theonoë, with female attendants.)

  THEONOË: (to one of her servants) You, lead the way, carry the burning lamp,

  and fumigate the corners of the air,

  our holy ritual, so we breath pure sky.

  (to another servant) And you, make clean the path with fire, wherever

  someone has marked it with unholy feet;

  870

  and tap the torch in front, so I may pass.

  When we have paid the gods our usual service

  take back the fire to the palace hearth.

  (to Helen) So, Helen, what about my prophecies?

  Your husband, Menelaus, is right here,

  without his ships, without that replica of you.

  Poor man! You’ve been through so much pain already,

  and still don’t know if you’ll get home or not.

  Today the gods will argue: they’ll debate

  about your future at the throne of Zeus.

  880

  Hera, who was your enemy before,

  is kindly now, and wants your safe return

  with Helen, so that Greece may know that Paris

  was only falsely married by the gift

  of Aphrodite. Aphrodite wants

  to spoil your journey home, to save her face,

  if it’s revealed she bought the prize for beauty

  for weddings with no pay-off, and no Helen.

  It’s up to me, whether she gets her wish:

  either I tell my brother you are here,

  and ruin you, or else I side with Hera,

  and save your life by hiding you from him,

  890

  although his orders are that I must tell him

  if ever you should travel to this land.

  (to one of the servants)
  so I can keep myself from any danger.>*34

  HELEN: (kneeling in front of Theonoë and clasping her knees)

  Maiden! I fall as suppliant at your knees!

  My situation here is miserable,

  since I’m about to watch this poor man die,

  when I just got him back after so long.

  Don’t tell your brother that my darling husband

  is here and in my arms. Save him, I beg you!

  900

  Do not betray your holy piety,

  buying your brother’s favor at the price

  of wickedness and injustice. As you know,

  god hates brute force, and orders everyone,

  don’t grab the property of other people.*35

  The sky belongs to every human being,

  as does the earth. We must not rob or steal

  to fill our homes with other people’s things.

  Hermes whisked me up in time of need

  910

  and gave me to your father, to keep safe

  for my own husband, who is here, and wants

  to get me back. How can he, if he’s dead?

  And how can Proteus pay back living debts

  to dead men? Think now of the gods, and think

  of your dead father. Would they wish

  to give back neighbors’ property, or not?

  I think they would. Do not pay greater heed

  to your rough brother than your noble father.

  You are a priestess; you believe in gods.

  920

  If you betray your father’s moral code

  to please your wicked brother, it’s a shame!

  For you to know so much about religion,

  the future and the present, yet not know

  what’s right and wrong. And as an extra favor,

  protect me! I am in most dreadful danger.

  There’s nobody who doesn’t hate poor Helen.

  In Greece they call me an adulteress,

  who cheated on her husband and now lives

  in Trojan palaces bedecked with gold.

  But if I can go back, set foot in Sparta,

  when people hear and see that all those deaths

  930

  were caused by machinations of the gods,

  and that I never did betray my friends,

  they’ll give my good name back to me again!

  I’ll organize a wedding for my daughter

  whom no one wants to marry now. No more

  of grief and poverty. I’ll get the goodness

  of my own property in my own home.

  If he’d been burnt to ash upon a pyre

  in distant lands, I would have been content

  to weep for him. How can I lose him now,

  when he’s alive and safe? No, maiden, please,

  940

  I beg you! Grant me this, and imitate

  your worthy father’s ways. The greatest honor

  a child of a true nobleman can have

  is to turn out exactly like the father.

  CHORUS: The subject of your speech arouses pity,

  and so do you. Now what will Menelaus

  say, for his life? That’s what I want to know.

  MENELAUS: I will not kneel to supplicate, or weep.

  I would not stoop to it, since it would shame

  Troy, if I suddenly turned coward now.

  950

  They say it’s proper for a well-born hero

  to let his eyes shed tears in times of crisis.

  This may be fine, but I refuse to do it:

  I will maintain my fortitude instead.

  I am a stranger and a guest: I ask

  for my own wife back—as is right and proper.

  If you agree, return her and save me.

  If not, it would be nothing new to me:

  I’ve suffered many times. But you’ll reveal

  your wickedness! I fall upon the tomb

  960

  of your own father, and I’ll tell him what

  will touch your heart: the justice I deserve.

  (addressing the tomb) Old man, inhabitant of this stone grave,

  I beg you, give me back my wife, whom Zeus

  sent here to you, to keep her safe for me.

  I know you’ll never give her back: you’re dead.

  But still, I call on you below the earth:

  your daughter’s in control, and she will shrink

  to taint her noble father’s reputation.

  And Hades down below, I call on you

  970

  to be my ally. With my sword I gave you

  a wealth of fallen corpses, killed for Helen.

  Either give back those men, alive again,

  or make this girl give back my wife to me,

  showing herself more pious than her father.

  But if you rob me of my wife, I’ll tell you

  what Helen’s speech left out. Just so you know,

  priestess, we’re bound by promises: the first

  is that I’ll fight a duel with your brother:

  one of us two must die. Simple as that.

  980

  If he will not step up to fight, but hunts

  by starving us, poor suppliants at this tomb,

  we have a plan: I’ll kill my wife, then drive

  this sharp sword through my liver, on this mound,

  so that our streams of blood may soak the grave.

  Upon the polished marble we will lie, />
  coupled in death at least. We’ll give you pain

  forever, and bring shame upon your father.

  Your brother’s never going to marry her,

  and nor is any other man. If I

  990

  can’t bring her home, I’ll take her down to death.

  (He begins to cry.)

  No, I must stop this! If I start to cry,

  just like a woman, I’ll be pitiful,

  not active. If you want to kill us, do it!

  We’ll die as heroes. Or, better yet, obey me,

  then you’ll be good, and I will get my wife.

  CHORUS: Maiden, it’s up to you to judge their words.

  Make a decision that will please us all.

  THEONOË: Piety is my nature and my wish.

  I care about myself, nor would I taint

  1000

  my father’s name. I will not help my brother

  with favors that dishonor me. I have

  a mighty temple in my character,

  to Justice, left to me by Nereus.

  I’ll always try to keep that temple safe.

  If Hera wants to do you good, I add

  my vote to hers. May Aphrodite look

  gently on me, though I’m not on her team.

  I hope to stay a virgin all my life.

  I say the same to that aggressive speech

  1010

  you hurled at Father’s tomb. I would be wrong

  if I refused to give her back, since Father,

  were he alive, would give you her, her you.

  Everyone, those below and up on earth,

  is punished when they sin. When people die

  their mind is dead, but has an understanding

  that lives forever in the immortal air.

  In brief, I’ll keep your prayers to me a secret;

  I’ll never join my brother in his folly.

  1020

  I’ll do him good, though he will not believe it,

  converting him to piety from sin.

  You find a way to get out for yourselves;

  I’ll stand aside, and I will keep your secret.

  Start with the gods, first pray to Aphrodite

  to let this woman go back to her homeland;

  pray Hera that her mind remain the same,

  to save you and your husband. My dead father!

  You have the noble name of holiness.

  You’ll never lose it, if it’s up to me.

  1030

  CHORUS: Justice never guarantees good fortune,

  but justice holds out hope of our salvation.

  HELEN: The girl has done her part to save us, husband.

  Now you must think things through and make a plan,

  for both of us so we can get away.

  MENELAUS: Then listen. You’ve been in that house a while,

  and got to know the servants of the king.

  HELEN: Why do you say this? What do you hope to do

  that may be advantageous to us both?

  MENELAUS: Could you persuade one of the men who drive

  1040

  the four-horse chariots, to give us one?

  HELEN: I’ll try. But how would that help us escape?

  We do not know the land; it’s foreign to us.

  MENELAUS: That won’t work then. What if I hide inside

  and kill the king with this, my sharp edged sword?

  HELEN: His sister wouldn’t stand for it—she’d talk,

  if you were making plans to kill her brother.

  MENELAUS: But there’s no ship in which we could escape.

  The one I used to have is out at sea.

  HELEN: Listen, in case a woman can be smart.

  1050

  Do you want to die in word, but not in fact?

  MENELAUS: An evil omen! Still, if it brings me gain,

  yes, I will die in word but not in fact.

  HELEN: I’ll cut my hair in mourning and I’ll wail,

  as widows do, to that blaspheming king.

  MENELAUS: How could doing that help us escape?

  This whole idea just seems a bit cliché.

  HELEN: I’ll tell the Egyptian tyrant that you died

  at sea, and ask if I can bury you.

  MENELAUS: If he says yes, still, how can we escape,

  1060

  without a ship, by empty burial?

  HELEN: I’ll say he has to give a boat, so I

  can take your grave gifts to the sea’s embrace.

  MENELAUS: There’s just one problem: this pretense is useless

  if he tells you to build my tomb on land.

  HELEN: I’ll say it’s not the way it’s done in Greece,

  for those who died at sea to rest in earth.

  MENELAUS: You solved that, too! Then I will sail with you

  and help you make the offerings from the boat.

  HELEN: Of course you have to be there, and your men,

  1070

  those of the crew who have survived the wreck.

  MENELAUS: If I can have an anchored ship, my men

  will stand close ranked together, swords in hand.

  HELEN: You be in charge of everything. Let’s hope

  fair winds will fill our sails and stir the ship.

  MENELAUS: They will. The gods will end my suffering.

  Who will you say told you about my death?

  HELEN: You! Tell him you sailed out with Menelaus,

  and saw him die. You were the sole survivor.

  MENELAUS: These rags I’m dressed in will confirm your story,

  1080

  since they bear witness I was in a shipwreck.

  HELEN: Bad at the time but now it’s turned out well.

  Your suffering may soon turn into good.

  MENELAUS: Should I go with you now inside the palace,

  or sit here quietly beside this tomb?

  HELEN: Stay here. If he tries anything aggressive,

  this tomb will surely save you. And your sword.

  I’ll go inside and cut my curly hair,

  and scratch my cheeks all bloody with my nails.

  1090

  A lot’s at stake in this. I see two endings:

  either I’m caught, and then I’ll have to die,

  or else I’ll save you, and I’ll go back home.

  Queen Hera, you who share a bed with Zeus,

  set free two wretched mortals from our toils.

  We beg you, as we lift our hands to heaven—

  your home among the spangles of the stars.

  And you, who sold my marriage for your beauty,

  Cypris, Dione’s daughter, don’t destroy me.

  You’ve hurt me quite enough before. You gave

  1100

  my name if not my body, to barbarians.

  But if you want to kill me, let me die

  in my own country. Why are you never sated

  with wickedness: deceit and tricks and lust,

  and charms that spill the blood of families?

  You’d be the sweetest of the gods to humans

  if you were less excessive. That’s the truth.

  (Exit Helen into the palace.)

  strophe 1

  CHORUS: I’ll call to you, up through the tangles of forest,

  up where you nest in some melodious plot,

  poet of birds,

  1110

  singing sweet music of tears:*36

  join with me now in the labor of lamentation,

  trilling from your trembling tawny throat,

  as I sing of the sorrows of Helen,

  and weep for the fate

  of Troy, laid low

  by the spears of the Greeks.

  The barbarian man in barbarian ship swooped away

  over the rushing gray waves, far distant from Sparta,

  bringing the sorrows of sleeping with Helen, with you,

  1120

  to the people of Priam. Destroyer of marriage, destructive in
marriage,

  it was Paris. He was led by Aphrodite.

  antistrophe 1

  The Achaeans hurled lances and rocks that sent many men

  down to the bleakness of Hades; they breathed out their last.

  Their wives were bereaved and in grief cut their hair,

  and their homes became empty of marriage.

  The solitary oarsman ignited the Cape of Euboea

  with his fiery flare, and killed many Achaeans,*37

  hurling their ships

  at the rocks of Caphereus,

  1130

  shining his star of deceit

  on the cliffs of the sea, the Aegean.

  And then Menelaus took away in his ships

  that prize that was no prize, the source of the struggle,

  the phantom, the image, the icon of Hera.

  The breath of the storm blew him far from his homeland,

  to sad harborless borders, where the costumes are strange.

  strophe 2

  What mortal can think it all through and explain

  what is god, what is not god, and what’s in between?

  1140

  The most one can hope is to glimpse how their works

  leap around, back and forth and around,

  in a world of surprises and self-contradiction.

  Helen, descendent of Zeus, Zeus’ daughter:

  your father turned to a swan and he flew

  to between Leda’s thighs and there fathered you.

  Then all through the country of Greece you were labeled,

  treacherous, trustless, immoral and godless.

  I don’t know for sure what truth I can find

  1150

  of the gods among mortals.

  antistrophe 2

  They’re fools who win glory in war

  by stabbing and thrusting with spears,

  stupidly seeking an end to their labors in death.

  If the contest of blood is the judge, there will never

  be an end to the conflicts between cities, between humans.

  What they won by the fighting was a bed to lie down in, beneath Priam’s earth,

  when they could have resolved it with words,

  1160

  all that wrangling for Helen.

  Like lightning from Zeus, the fire of killing fell down on the walls,

  and you must bear pain upon pain,

  poor suffering woman. We pity your life.

  (Enter Theoclymenus.)

  THEOCLYMENUS: Hail to my father’s tomb, hail, Proteus!

  I set you at the entrance of my house,

  so that whenever I go in or out

  I greet you. I am Theoclymenos,

  your son. Now slaves, take in my hounds, and these,

  1170

  my hunting nets, inside the royal palace.

  I’ve often had occasion to regret