HERCULES FURENS, TRANS. BY FRANK JUSTUS MILLER

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

HERCULES, son of Jupiter and Alcmena, but the reputed son of Amphitryon.
JUNO, sister and wife of Jupiter, and queen of Heaven.
AMPHITRYON, husband of Alcmena.
THESEUS, king of Athens and friend of Hercules.
LYCUS, the usurping king of Thebes, who has, prior to the opening of the play, slain King Creon in battle.
MEGARA, wife of Hercules and daughter of Creon.
CHORUS of Thebans.

ARGUMENT

The jealous wrath of Juno, working through Eurystheus, has imposed twelve mighty and destructive tasks on Hercules, her hated stepson. But these, even to the last and worst, the bringing of Cerberus to the upper world, he has triumphantly accomplished. Abandoning her plan of crushing him by toils like these, she will turn his hand against himself, and so accomplish his destruction. Upon the day of his return from hell she brings a madness on him, and so precipitates the tragedy which forms the action of the play.

JUNO
[1] The sister of the Thunderer (for this name only is left to me), I have abandoned Jove, always another’s lover; widowed, have left the spaces of high heaven and, banished from the sky, have given up my place to harlots; I must dwell on earth, for harlots hold the sky. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#1 - 1}  Yonder the Bear, high up in the icy North, a lofty constellation, guides the Argive ships; yonder, where in the warm springtime the days grow long, he ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#2 - 2}  shines who bore the Tyrian Europa across the waves; there the Atlantides, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#3 - 3}  far wandering, put forth their band dreadful to ships and sea alike. Here Orion with threatening sword terrifies the gods, and golden Perseus has his stars; the bright constellation of the twin Tyndaridae shines yonder, and they at whose birth the unsteady land stood firm. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#4 - 4}  And not alone has Bacchus himself or the mother of Bacchus attained the skies; that no place might be free from outrage, the heavens wear the crown of the Cretan maid. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#5 - 5}

[19] But I lament ancient wrongs; one land, the baneful and savage land of Thebes, scattered thick with shameless mistresses, how oft has it made me stepdame! Yet, though Alcmena be exalted and in triumph hold my place; though her son, likewise, obtain his promised star (for whose begetting the world lost a day, and Phoebus with tardy light shone forth from the Eastern sea, bidden to keep his bright car sunk beneath Ocean’s waves), not in such fashion shall my hatred have its end; my angry soul shall keep up a long-living wrath, and my raging smart, banishing peace, shall wage unending wars.

[30] What wars? Whatever fearsome creature the hostile earth produces, whatever the sea or the air has borne, terrific, dreadful, noxious, savage, wild, has been broken and subdued. He rises anew and has thrives on trouble; he enjoys my wrath; to his own credit he turns my hate; imposing too cruel tasks, I have but proved his sire, but give room for glory. Where the Sun, as he brings back, and where, as he dismisses day, colours both Ethiop races with neighbouring torch, his unconquered valour is adored, and in all the world he is storied as a god. Now I have no monsters left, and ‘tis less labour for Hercules to fulfil my orders than for me to order; with joy he welcomes my commands. What cruel biddings of his tyrant could harm this impetuous youth? Why, he bears as weapons what he once fought and overcame; he goes armed by lion and by hydra. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#6 - 6}

[46] Nor is earth vast enough for him; behold, he has broken down the doors of infernal Jove, and brings back to the upper world the spoils ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#7 - 7}  of a conquered king. I myself saw, yes, saw him, the shadows of nether night dispersed and Dis overthrown, proudly displaying to his father a brother’s spoils. Why does he not drag forth, bound and loaded down with fetters, Pluto himself, who drew a lot equal to Jove’s? Why does he not lord it over conquered Erebus and lay bare the Styx? It is not enough merely to return; the law of the shades has been annulled, a way back has been opened from the lowest ghosts, and the mysteries of dread Death lie bared. But he, exultant at having burst the prison of the shades, triumphs over me, and with arrogant hand leads through the cities of Greece that dusky hound. I saw the daylight shrink at sight of Cerberus, and the sun pale with fear; upon me, too, terror came, and as I gazed upon the three necks of the conquered monster I trembled at my own command.

[63] But I lament too much o’er trivial wrongs. ‘Tis for heaven we must fear, lest he seize the highest realms who has overcome the lowest – he will snatch the sceptre from his father. Nor will he come to the stars by a peaceful journey as Bacchus did; he will seek a path through ruin, and will desire to rule in an empty universe. He swells with pride of tested might, and has learned by bearing them that the heavens can be conquered by his strength; he set his head beneath the sky, nor did the burden of that immeasurable mass bend his shoulders, and the firmament rested better on the neck of Hercules. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#8 - 8}  Unshaken, his back upbore the stars and the sky and me down-pressing. He seeks a way to the gods above.

[75] Then on, my wrath, on, and crush this plotter of big things; close with him, thyself rend him in pieces with thine own hands. Why to another entrust such hate? Let the wild beasts go their ways, let Eurystheus rest, himself weary with imposing tasks. Set free the Titans who dared to invade the majesty of Jove; unbar Sicily’s mountain cave, and let the Dorian land, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#9 - 9}  which trembles whenever the giant struggles, set free the buried frame of that dread monster; let Luna ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#10 - 10}  in the sky produce still other monstrous creatures. But he has conquered such as these. Dost then seek Alcides’ match? None is there save himself; now with himself let him war. Rouse the Eumenides from the lowest abyss of Tartarus; let them be here, let their flaming locks drop fire, and let their savage hands brandish snaky whips.

[89] Go now, proud one, seek the abodes of the immortals and despise man’s estate. Dost think that now thou hast escaped the Styx and the cruel ghosts? Here will I show thee infernal shapes. One in deep darkness buried, far down below the place of banishment of guilty souls, will I call up – the goddess Discord, whom a huge cavern, barred by a mountain, guards; I will bring her forth, and drag out from the deepest realm of Dis whatever thou hast left; hateful Crime shall come and reckless Impiety, stained with kindred blood, Error, and Madness, armed ever against itself – this, this be the minister of my smarting wrath!

[100] Begin, handmaids of Dis, make haste to brandish the burning pine; let Megaera lead on her band bristling with serpents and with baleful hand snatch a huge faggot from the blazing pyre. To work! claim vengeance for outraged Styx. Shatter his heart; let a fiercer flame scorch his spirit than rages in Aetna’s furnaces. That Alcides may be driven on, robbed of all sense, by mighty fury smitten, mine must be the frenzy first – Juno, why rav’st thou not? Me, ye sisters, me first, bereft of reason, drive to madness, if I am to plan some deed worthy a stepdame’s doing. Let my request be changed; may he come back and find his sons unharmed, that is my prayer, and strong of hand may he return. I have found the day when Hercules’ hated valour is to be my joy. Me has he overcome; now may he overcome himself and long to die, though late returned from the world of death. Herein may it profit me that he is the son of Jove, I will stand by him and, that his shafts may fly from string unerring, I’ll poise them with my hand, guide the madman’s weapons, and so at last be on the side of Hercules in the fray. When he has done this crime, then let his father admit those hands to heaven!

[123] Now must my war be set in motion; the sky is brightening and the shining sun steals up in saffron dawn.

CHORUS
[125] Now stars shine few and faint in the sinking sky; vanquished night draws in her wandering fires as the new day is born, and Phosphor brings up the rear of the shining host; the icy sign high in the north, the Bears of Arcas, with their seven stars, with wheeling pole ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#11 - 11}  summons the dawn. Now, upborne by his azure steeds, Titan peeps forth from Oeta’s crest; now the rough brakes, made famous by Theban Bacchants, touched by the dawn, flush red, and Phoebus’ sister ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#12 - 12}  flees away, to return again. Hard toil arises, sets all cares astir, opens all doors.

[139] The shepherd, turning out his flock, plucks pasturage still white with frosty rime. In the open mead the young bullock sports at will, his forehead not yet broken with young horns; the kine at leisure fill again their udders; the sportive kid with unsteady, aimless course wanders on the soft turf; perched on the topmost bough, shrill-voiced, amid her complaining young, the Thracian paramour ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#13 - 13}  is eager to spread her wings to the morning sun; and all around a mingled throng sounds forth, proclaiming the dawn of day with varied notes. The sailor, life ever at risk, commits his canvas to the winds, while the breeze fills its flapping folds. Here the fisher, perched on the wave-worn rocks, either rebaits his cheated hooks or, with firm grip, watches anxiously for his prize; meantime, his line feels the quivering fish.

[159] Such are the tasks of those whose is the peaceful calm of harmless lives, whose home rejoices in the tiny store that is its own; overweening hopes stalk abroad in cities, and trembling fears. One, sleepless, haunts the haughty vestibules and unfeeling doors of his rich patrons; another endlessly heaps up abundant wealth, gloats over his treasures, and is still poor amid piled-up bold. Yonder dazed wretch, with empty wind puffed up, popular applause and the mob more shifting than the sea uplift; this, trafficking in the mad wrangles of the noisy court, shamelessly lets out for hire his passions and his speech. Known to but few is untroubled calm, and they, mindful of time’s swift flight, hold fast the days that never will return. While the fates permit, live happily; life speeds on with hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned. The harsh sisters ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#14 - 14} ply their tasks, yet do they not spin backward the threads of life. But men are driven, each one uncertain of his own, to meet the speeding fates; we seek the Stygian waves of our own accord. With heart too brave, Alcides, thou dost haste to visit the grieving ghosts; at the appointed time the Parcae come. No one may linger when they command, no one may postpone the allotted day; the urn receives the nations hurried to their doom.

[192] Let glory laud another to many lands, and let babbling fame sing his praise through every city and lift him to a level with the stars of heaven; let another fare towering in his car; but me let my own land, beside my lonely, sheltered hearth, protect. The inactive reach hoary age, and in a lowly estate but secure stands the mean lot of a humble home; from a lofty height ambitious courage falls.

[202] But sad Megara comes hither with streaming hair, her flock of children round her, and, slow with age, the father of Alcides moves.

[Enter from the palace MEGARA with her children, and AMPHITRYON. They take their stand at the altar.]

AMPHITRYON
[204] O mighty ruler of Olympus, judge of all the world, set now at length a limit to our crushing cares, an end to our disasters. No day has ever dawned for me untroubled; no reward from my son’s toil is ever given; the end of one ill is but the step to one beyond. Straightway on his return a new foe is ready for him; before he can reach his happy home, bidden to another struggle he sets forth; there is no chance to rest, no time left free, save while fresh commands are being given. From his very birth relentless Juno has pursued him; was even his infancy exempt? He conquered monsters before he could know that they were monsters. Serpents twain with crested heads advanced their fangs against him; the infant crawled to meet them, gazing at the snakes’ fiery eyes with mild and gentle look; with serene face he raised their close-coiled folds and, crushing their swollen throats with his baby hands, he practised for the hydra.

[222] The nimble hind of Maenalus, raising her head bounteously adorned with gold, was caught by his long pursuit ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#15 - 15} ; the lion, mightiest dread of Nemea, crushed by the arms of Hercules roared his last. Why should I tell of the horrid stalls of the Bistonian herd and the king ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#16 - 16}  given as food to his own herds? of the shaggy boar of Maenalus, whose wont it was on the thick-wooded heights of Erymanthus to harry the groves of Arcady? or of the bull, the crushing terror of a hundred towns? ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#17 - 17}  Among his herds in the distant land of Spain the three-shaped shepherd ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#18 - 18}  of the Tartesian shore was killed and his cattle driven as spoil from the farthest west; Cithaeron has fed the herd once to Ocean known. When bidden ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#19 - 19}  to enter the regions of the summer sun, those scorched realms which midday burns, he clove the mountains on either hand and, rending the barrier, made a wide path ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#20 - 20}  for Ocean’s rushing stream. Next he essayed the rich grove’s dwellings and bore off the watchful dragon’s golden spoil. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#21 - 21}  Lerna’s fell monster, pest manifold, did he not quell at last by fire and teach to die? And the Stymphalian birds, wont to hide the day with veiling wings, did he not bring down from the very clouds? Thermodon’s unwed queen ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#22 - 22}  of ever virgin couch could not prevail against him, nor did his hands, bold to attempt all glorious deeds, shirk the foul labour of the Augean stalls.

[249] But what avails all this? He is banished from the world which he defended. All the earth has felt that the giver of its peace is lost to it. Once again prosperous and successful crime goes by the name of virtue; good men obey the bad, might is right and fear oppresses law. Before my eyes I saw the sons, defenders of their father’s ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#23 - 23}  kingdom, fall dead by the murderer’s ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#24 - 24}  hand, and the king himself fall, last scion of Cadmus’ famous line; I saw the royal crown that decked his head torn from him, head and all. Who could lament Thebes enough? O land, fertile in gods, before what lord dost thou tremble now? The city from whose fields and fecund bosom a band of youth ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#25 - 25}  stood forth with swords ready drawn, whose walls Jove’s son, Amphion, built, drawing its stones by his tuneful melodies – to which not once alone came the father of the gods, quitting the sky – this city, which has welcomed gods and has created gods and (may the word be lawful) perchance will yet create them, is oppressed by a shameful yoke. O seed of Cadmus and Ophion’s race, to what depths have you fallen! You tremble before a dastard exile, of his own land deprived, to ours a burden. But he who avenges crime on land and sea, who with righteous hand breaks cruel sceptres, now far away endures a master ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#26 - 26}  and brooks what he elsewhere forbids – and Lycus, the exile, rules the Thebes of Hercules! But not for long; he will be present with us and exact punishment, and suddenly to the sight of the stars will he come forth. He will find a way – or make one. Oh, be present and return in safety, I pray, and come at last victorious to thy vanquished home!

MEGARA
[279] Come forth, my husband, burst through the darkness shivered by thy hand; if there is no backward way, and the road is closed, rend earth asunder and return; and whatever lies hid in the hold of murky night, let forth with thee. Even as once, rending the hills asunder, seeking for the rushing stream ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#27 - 27}  a headlong path, thou stoodst, what time Tempe, cleft by that mighty shock, opened wide – before the thrust of thy breast, this way and that the mountain yielded and through the broken mass the Thessalian torrent raced in its new bed – even so, seeking thy parents, children, fatherland, burst through, bearing away with thee the bounds of things; and all that greedy time through all the march of years has hidden away, restore; and drive out before thee the self-forgetting dead, peoples that fear the light. Unworthy of thee is the spoil, if thou bringst back only what was commanded. But I speak too frowardly, all ignorant of the fate in store for us. Oh, whence shall come that day for me when I shall clasp thee and thy right hand and lament thy long-delayed returns that have no though of me? To thee, O leader of the gods, a hundred bulls never broken to the yoke shall yield their necks; to thee, goddess of fruits, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#28 - 28}  will I perform thy secret rites; to thee in speechless faith silent Eleusis shall toss long trains of torches. Then shall I deem their lives restored unto my brothers, my father himself governing his own realm and flourishing. But if some greater power is holding thee in durance, we follow thee. Either defend us all by thy safe return, or drag us all with thee – thou wilt drag us down, nor will any god lift up our broken house.

AMPHITRYON
[309] O ally of my blood, preserving with chaste faith the couch and children of the great-souled Hercules, have better thought and rouse thy courage. Surely he will come home, as is his wont from every task the greater.

MEGARA
[313] What the wretched overmuch desire, they easily believe.

AMPHITRYON
[314] Nay, what they fear overmuch they think can never be set aside or done away. Fear’s trust inclineth ever to the worse.

MEGARA
[317] Submerged, deep-buried, crushed beneath all the world, what way has he to upper air?

AMPHITRYON
[319] The same he had when across the parched desert and the sands, billowing like the stormy sea, he made his way, and across the strait with twice-receding, twice-returning waves; and when, his barque abandoned, he was stranded, a prisoner on Syrtes’ shoals, and, though his vessel was held fast, he crossed o’er seas on foot. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#29 - 29}

MEGARA
[325] Unrighteous fortune seldom spares the highest worth; no one with safety can long front so frequent perils. Whom calamity oft passes by she finds at last.

[Enter LYCUS.]

[329] But see, ferocious and with threats upon his brow, the same in gait and spirit, Lycus comes, brandishing another’s sceptre in his hand.

LYCUS
[332] Ruling the rich domains of Thebes and all that sloping Phocis encompasses with its rich soil, whatever Ismenus waters, whatever Cithaeron views from his high peak, and slender Isthmus, keeping asunder its twin straits, no ancient rights of an ancestral home do I possess, a slothful heir; not mine are noble ancestors, nor a race illustrious with lofty titles, but valour glorious. Who vaunts his race, lauds what belongs to others. But usurped sceptres are held in anxious hand; all safety is in arms; what thou knowest thou holdest against the will of citizens, the drawn sword must guard. One alien soil kingship stands not sure; but one there is who can get my power on firm foundations, if joined to me in royal wedlock by torch and couch – Megara. From her noble line my newness shall gain richer hue. Nor do I think she will refuse and scorn my bed; but if stubbornly and with headstrong will she shall decline, it is my resolve to give to utter ruin the whole house of Hercules. Shall hatred and the common people’s talk restrain my hand? ‘Tis the first art of kings, the power to suffer hate. Let us make trial, therefore; chance has given us occasion; for Megara herself, her head close-veiled in mourning vestments, stands by the altar of her protecting gods, and close by her side keeps the true sire of Hercules.

MEGARA
[358] What new thing plans that fellow, that destruction and pestilence of our race? What does he attempt?

LYCUS
[359] O thou whose illustrious name is drawn from royal stock, graciously listen to my words a little while with patient ear. If mortals should cherish everlasting hate and if mad rage, once felt, should never drop from our hearts, but if the victor should keep and the vanquished prepare arms, nothing will wars leave us; then on the wasted farms the fields will lie untilled, the torch will be set to homes, and deep ashes will overwhelm the buried nations. ‘Tis expedient for the victor to with for peace restored; for the vanquished ‘tis necessity. – Come, share my throne; let us be joined in purpose; accept this pledge of faith – touch hands with me. Why in grim-faced silence dost thou stand?

MEGARA
[372] I touch a hand stained with my father’s blood and with my brothers’ double murder? Sooner shall the East extinguish, the West bring back, the day; sooner shall snow and flame be in lasting harmony and Scylla join the Sicilian and Ausonian shores; and sooner far shall swift Euripus with his alternating tides rest sluggish upon Euboea’s strand! My father hast thou taken from me, my kingdom, brothers, my ancestral home – what is there else? There is one thing left to me, dearer than brother and father, kingdom and home – my hate of thee, which it is my grief that I must share with all the populace. How small a part of it is mine! Rule on, swollen with pride, lift thy spirits high; an avenging god pursues the proud. I know the Theban realm; why mention the crimes which mothers have endured and dared? Why speak of the double infamy and the confused names of husband, son and sire? ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#30 - 30}  Why speak of the brothers’ ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#31 - 31}  twofold camps? the two funeral-pyres? The daughter of Tantalus, presumptuous mother, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#32 - 32}  stiffens with grief and, mournful on Phrygian Sipylus, drips tears – a stone. Nay, Cadmus himself reared a head fierce with its crest and, traversing Illyria’s realm in flight, left the long trail of his dragging body. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#33 - 33}  Thee do such precedents of doom await. Lord it as thou wilt, only the accustomed destinies of our realm summon thee.

LYCUS
[397] Come, mad woman, have done with this wild talk, and learn from Alcides to endure the commands of kings. Although I wield a sceptre seized by my victorious hand, though I rule all things without fear of laws which arms o’ermaster, still will I say a few words in mine own cause. ‘Twas in a cruel war thy father fell, sayest thou? thy brothers, too? Arms observe no bounds; nor can the wrath of the sword, once drawn, be easily checked or stayed; war delights in blood. But he fought for his realm, sayest thou; we, impelled by insatiable ambition? Of war men ask the outcome, not the cause. But now let all the past be forgotten; when the victor has laid down his arms, it is meet that the vanquished, too, lay down his hate. That thou on bended knee shouldst pray to me as thy sovereign I do not ask; this of itself is pleasing to me, that thou dost take thy overthrow with a high spirit. Worthy art thou to be a king’s mate; then let us wed.

MEGARA
[414] Cold horror creeps through my bloodless limbs. What outrage has struck my ears? No terror felt I when peace was broken and war’s loud crash rang around our walls; dauntlessly I bore it all; but marriage – I shudder at it; now do I indeed seem captive. Let chains load down my body, and let me die a lingering death by slow starvation; still shall no power o’ercome my loyalty. Alcides, I shall die thine own.

LYCUS
[422] Does a husband buried in the depths produce such spirit?

MEGARA
[423] He reached the depths that he might gain the heights.

LYCUS
[424] The weight of the boundless earth crushes him.

MEGARA
[425] By no weight will he be crushed who upbore the heavens.

LYCUS
[426] Thou shalt be forced.

MEGARA
[426] Who can be forced has not learned how to die.

LYCUS
[427] Say rather, what royal gift I shall prepare for my new bride.

MEGARA
[428] Thy death or mine.

LYCUS
[429] Fool, thou shalt die.

MEGARA
[429] So shall I meet my husband.

LYCUS
[430] Is a slave more to thee than I, a king?

MEGARA
[431] How many kings has that slave given to death!

LYCUS
[432] Why, then, does he serve a king and endure the yoke?

MEGARA
[433] Do away with harsh commands – what then will valour be?

LYCUS
[434] To oppose oneself to beast and monsters think’st thou valour?

MEGARA
[435] ‘Tis valour’s part to subdue what all men fear.

LYCUS
[436] The shades of Tartarus bury the braggart deep.

MEGARA
[437] There is no easy way to the stars from earth.

LYCUS
[438] Who is his father that he hopes for a home in heaven?

AMPHITRYON
[439] Unhappy wife of great Hercules, be still; ‘tis my place to restore to Alcides his father and true lineage. [To LYCUS.] After all the great hero’s memorable deeds, after peace has been gained by his hand for all that he sun, rising and setting, sees, after so many monsters tamed, after Phlegra ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#34 - 34}  stained with impious blood, after his protection of the gods, is not his fathering yet clear? Claim we Jove falsely? Then believe Juno’s hate.

LYCUS
[447] Why blaspheme Jove? The race of mortals cannot mate with heaven.

AMPHITRYON
[449] That is the common origin of many gods.

LYCUS
[450] But were they slaves ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#35 - 35}  ere they became divine?

AMPHITRYON
[451] The Delian as a shepherd tended flocks at Pherae –  ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#36 - 36}

LYCUS
[452] But he did not in exile roam o’er all the world.

AMPHITRYON
[452] What? He whom an exiled mother brought forth on a roaming isle?

LYCUS
[453] Did Phoebus encounter savage monsters or wild beasts?

AMPHITRYON
[454] A dragon was the first to stain Phoebus’ shafts.

LYCUS
[455] Knowest thou not what heavy ills he bore in infancy?

AMPHITRYON
[456] Ripped by a thunderbolt from his mother’s womb, a boy ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#37 - 37}  in after-time stood next his sire, the Thunderer. What? he who rules the stars, who shakes the clouds, did he not lie hid in infancy in a cave of rocky Ida? Such lofty birth must pay its price of care, and ever has its cost dear to be born a god.

LYCUS
[463] Whome’er thou shalt see wretched, known him man

AMPHITRYON
[464] Whome’er thou shalt see brave, call him not wretched.

LYCUS
[465] Are we to call him brave from whose shoulders fell the lion’s skin and club, made present for a girl, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#38 - 38}  and whose side shone resplendent, decked out in Tyrian robes? Call him brave, whose bristling locks dripped with nard, who busied those famous hands with unmanly strummings on the tambourine, whose warlike brow a barbaric turban crowned?

AMPHITRYON
[472] But dainty Bacchus does not blush to sprinkle with perfume his flowing locks, nor in his soft hand to brandish the slender thrysus, when with mincing gait he trails his robe gay with barbaric gold. After much toil, valour still seeks relief.

LYCUS
[477] The fact the ruined house of Eurytus confesses, and the flocks of maidens harried like so many sheep; no Juno, no Eurystheus ordered this; these works are his very own.

AMPHITRYON
[480] Thou knowest not all; his own work it is that Eryx was crushed by his own gauntlets and that Libyan Antaeus shared Eryx’ fate; that the altars which dripped the blood of strangers drank, and justly, too, Busiris’ blood; his own work is Cycnus, though proof against wound and sword, forced to suffer death untouched by wounds; and threefold Geryon by one hand overcome. Thou shalt share the fate of these – and yet they never defiled with lust the marriage-bed.

LYCUS
[489] What is Jove’s right is a king’s right, too. Thou gavest thy wife ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#39 - 39}  to Jove, to a king shall he give his ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#40 - 40} ; and taught by thy example thy daughter shall learn this old-time lesson – when the husband also gives consent, to take the better man. But should she stubbornly refuse to wed me by the torches’ rite, even by force will I get me a noble stock from her.

MEGARA
[495] Ye shades of Creon, ye household gods of Labdacus, ye nuptial torches of incestuous Oedipus, now to our union grant its accustomed doom. Now, now, ye bloody daughters of King Aegyptus, be present here, your hands deep-stained in blood. One Danaïd is lacking from the tale – I will complete the crime.

LYCUS
[501] Since my suit thou dost stubbornly refuse and threatenest thy king, now shalt thou know what royal power can do. Embrace the altar – no god shall snatch thee from me, not though earth’s mass could be pushed aside and Alcides brought back in triumph to the upper world. [To attendants.] Heap high the logs; let the temple fall blazing on its suppliants; apply the torch and let one pyre consume the wife and all her brood.

AMPHITRYON
[509] This boon as father of Alcides I ask of thee, which becomes me well to ask, that I be first to fall.

LYCUS
[511] He who inflicts on all the penalty of death knows not how to be a king. Impose contrasting penalties: forbid the wretched, command the happy man to die. Now while the pyre feeds on the burning beams, with promised gifts will I worship him who rules the sea.
[Exit.]

AMPHITRYON
[516] O mightiest of gods, O ruler and sire of the immortals, at whose hurtling bolts mortals tremble, check thou the impious hand of this mad king – why make vain prayers unto the gods? Where’er thou art, hear thou, my son. But why with sudden motion does the rocking temple totter? Why does earth rumble? Infernal crashing has sounded from the lowest pit. Our prayer is heard; it is, it is the resounding tread of Hercules!

CHORUS
[524] O Fortune, jealous of the brave, in allotting thy favours how unjust art thou unto the good! “Let Eurystheus lord it in untroubled ease; let Alcmena’s son in endless wars employ on monsters the hand that bore the heavens; let him cut off the hydra’s teeming necks; let him bring back the apples from the cheated sisters when the dragon, set to watch over the precious fruit, has given his ever-waking eyes to sleep.”  ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#41 - 41}

[533] He invaded the wandering homes of Scythia and nations strangers to their ancestral haunts ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#42 - 42} ; he trod the sea’s frozen ridge, a still ocean with silent shores. There the frozen waters are without waves, and where but now ships had spread full sail, a path is worn by the long-haired Sarmatae. There lies the sea, changing as the seasons change, ready to hear now ship, now horseman. There she ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#43 - 43}  who rules o’er tribes unwed, with a golden girdle about her loins, stripped the glorious spoil from her body, her shield and the bands of her snow-white breast, on bended knee looking up to her victor.

[547] With what hope, driven headlong to the depths, bold to tread ways irretraceable, dist thou see Sicilian Proserpina’s realms? There beneath no southern, no western wind do the seas rise with swollen waves; there the stars of the twin Tyndaridae come not to the aid of timorous ships; sluggish stands the mere ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#44 - 44}  with black abyss, and, when Death, pale-visaged with greedy teeth, has brought countless tribes to the world of shades, one ferryman transports those many peoples.

[558] Oh, that thou mayest o’ercome the laws of cruel Styx, and the relentless distaffs of the Fates. He ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#45 - 45}  who as king lords it o’er countless peoples, what time thou wast making war on Pylos, Nestor’s land, brought to combat with thee his plague-dealing hands, brandishing his three-forked spear, yet fled away, with but a slight wound smitten, and, though lord of death, feared he would die. Fate’s bars burst thou with thy hands; to the sad nether regions open a view of light, and let the trackless path ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#46 - 46}  now give easy passage to the upper world!

[569] Orpheus had power to bend the ruthless lords of the shades by song and suppliant prayer, when he sought back his Eurydice. The art which had drawn the trees and birds and rocks, which had stayed the course of rivers, at whose sound the beasts had stopped to listen, soothes the underworld with unaccustomed strains, and rings out clearer in those unhearing realms. Eurydice the Thracian brides bewail; even the gods, whom no tears can move, bewail her; and they who with awful brows investigate men’s crimes and sift out ancient wrongs, as they sit in judgment ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens.html#47 - 47}  bewail Eurydice. At length death’s lord exclaims: “We own defeat; go forth to the upper world, yet by this appointed doom – fare thou as comrade behind thy husband, and thou, look not back upon thy wife until bright day shall have revealed the gods of heaven, and the opening of Spartan Taenarus shall be at hand.” True love hates delay and brooks it not; while he hastes to look upon his prize, ‘tis lost.

[590] The realm which could be overcome by song, that realm shall strength have power to overcome.

[Enter HERCULES just returned from the lower world, accompanied by THESEUS; apparently, also, he is leading the dog, CERBERUS, though this point seems less clear as the play develops.]

HERCULES
[592] O lord of kindly light, glory of heaven, who in thy flame-bearing car dost circle both spaces ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#48 - 48}  of the sky, and dost show thy shining face to the broad lands, pardon, O Phoebus, if any unlawful sight thine eyes have seen; at another’s bidding have I brought to light the hidden things of earth. And thou, O judge and sire of heavenly beings, hide thy face behind thy thunderbolt; and thou who, next in power, dost control the seas, flee to thy lowest waters. Whoever from on high looks down on things of earth, and would not be defiled by a strange, new sight, let him turn away his gaze, lift his eyes to heaven, and shun the portent. Let only two look on this monster – him who brought and her who ordered it. To appoint me penalties and tasks earth is not broad enough for Juno’s hate. I have seen places unapproached by any, unknown to Phoebus, those gloomy spaces which the baser pole hath yielded to infernal Jove; and if the regions of the third estate pleased me, I might have reigned. The chaos of everlasting night, and something worse than night, and the grim gods and the fates – all these I saw and, having flouted death, I have come back. What else remains? I have seen and revealed the lower world. If aught is left to do, give it to me, O Juno; too long already dost thou let my hands lie idle. What dost thou bid me conquer?

[616] But why do hostile soldiers guard the shrine and dreadful arms beset the sacred portal?

AMPHITRYON
[618] Can it be that my hopes deceive my sight, or has that world-subduer, the pride of Greece, come back from the silent halls of mournful gloom? Is that my son? My limbs are numb with joy. O son, sure, though late, deliverance of Thebes, do I really clasp thee risen to upper air, or am I mocked, enjoying but an empty shade? Is it thou indeed? Aye, now I recognize the bulging thews, the shoulders, the hand famed for its huge club.

HERCULES
[626] Whence this squalid garb, father? Why is my wife clad in mourning weeds? Why are my sons covered with loathsome rags? What disaster overwhelms my house?

AMPHITRYON
[629] The father of thy wife is slain; Lycus has seized the throne; thy sons, thy father, thy wife he claims for death.

HERCULES
[631] O ungrateful land, was there none to aid the house of Hercules? Did it see this monstrous wrong, the world I succoured? – but why waste the day in idle plaints? Let the victim ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#49 - 49}  be offered up, let my manhood bear this brand of shame, and let the final foe of Hercules be – Lycus. I haste me, Theseus, to drain his detested blood; remain thou here, lest some unexpected force assail. War summons me; delay thy embraces, father; wife, delay them. Let Lycus take the news to Dis that now I have returned.
[Exit HERCULES.]

THESEUS
[640] Banish that tearful look from thine eyes, O queen, and do thou, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#50 - 50}  since thy son is safe, check thy falling tears. If I know Hercules, Lycus shall pay the penalty he owes to Creon. “Shall pay” is slow – he pays; that, too, is slow – he has paid.

AMPHITRYON
[645] May the god who can, fulfil our desire and favour our fallen estate. And do thou, great-hearted companion of our great son, unfold his heroic deeds in order; tell how long a way leads to the gloomy shades, and how the Tartarean dog bore his galling bonds.

THESEUS
[650] Thou dost force me to recall deeds which strike terror to my soul even in security. Scarcely yet do I trust assuredly to breathe the vital air; the sight of my eyes is dimmed, and my dull vision can scarce bear the unaccustomed light.

AMPHITRYON
[654] But, Theseus, master whate’er of dread yet dwells deep in thy heart and rob not thyself of toils’ best fruit; things ‘twas hard to bear ‘tis pleasant to recall. Tell thou the awful tale.

THESEUS
[658] All the world’s holy powers, and thou ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#51 - 51}  who rulest the all-holding realm, and thou ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#52 - 52} whom, stolen from Enna, thy mother sought in vain, may it be right, I pray, boldly to speak of powers hidden away and buried beneath the earth.

[662] The Spartan land a famous ridge uplifts where Taenarus with its dense forests invades the sea. Here the home of hateful Pluto unbars its mouth; a nigh cliff cracks asunder, and a huge chasm, a bottomless abyss, spreads its vast jaws wide and opens for all peoples a broad path. Not in utter darkness does the way first begin; a slender gleam of the light left behind and a doubtful glow as of the sun in eclipse falls there and cheats the vision. Such light the day mingled with night is wont to give, at early dawn or at late twilight. From here ample spaces spread out, void regions, whereto the entire human race turns and hastens. It is no toil to go; the road itself draws them down. As oft-times the waves sweep on unwilling ships, so does the downward breeze drive, and the greedy void, and never do the clutching shades permit a backward step. Within the abyss, Lethe, measureless in sweep, glides smoothly on with placid stream, and takes away our cares; and, that there may be no power to retrace the path, with windings manifold it takes its sluggish way, even as the vagrant Maeander with its inconstant waters plays along, now retreats upon itself, now presses on, in doubt whether to seek the seashore or its source. The foul pool of Cocytus’ sluggish stream lies here; here the vulture, there the dole-bringing owl utters its cry, and the sad omen of the gruesome screech-owl sounds. The leaves shudder, black with gloomy foliage where sluggish Sleep clings to the overhanging yew, where sad Hunger lies with wasted jaws, and Shame, too late, hides her guilt-burdened face. Dread stalks there, gloomy Fear and gnashing Pain, sable Grief, tottering Disease and iron-girt War; and last of all slow Age supports his steps upon a staff.

AMPHITRYON
[697] Is any land there fruitful of corn or wine?

THESEUS
[698] No meadows bud, joyous with verdant view, no ripened corn waves in the gentle breeze; not any grove has fruit-producing boughs; the barren desert of the abysmal fields lies all untilled, and the foul land lies torpid in endless sloth – sad end of things, the world’s last estate. The air hangs motionless and black night broods over a sluggish world. All things are with grief dishevelled, and worse than death itself is the abode of death.

AMPHITRYON
[707] What of him who holds sway over the dark realm? Where sits he, governing his flitting tribes?

THESEUS
[709] There is a place in dark recess of Tartarus, which with a heavy pall dense mists enshroud. Hence flow from a single source two streams, unlike: one, a placid river (by this do the gods sear), with silent current bears on the sacred Styx; the other with mighty roar rushes fiercely on, rolling down rocks in its flood, Acheron, that cannot be recrossed. The royal hall of Dis stands opposite, girt by a double moat, and the huge house is hid by an o’ershadowing grove. Here in a spacious cavern the tyrant’s doors overhang; this is the road for spirits, this is the kingdom’s gate. A plain lies round about this where sits the god, where with haughty mien his awful majesty assorts the new-arriving souls. Lowering is his brow, yet such as wears the aspect of his brothers and his high race; his countenance is that of Jove, but Jove the thunderer; chief part of that realm’s grimness is its own lord, whose aspect whate’er is dreaded dreads.

AMPHITRYON
[731] Is the report true that in the underworld justice, though tardy, is meted out, and that guilty souls who have forgot their crimes suffer due punishment? Who is that lord of truth, that arbiter of justice?

THESEUS
[731] Not one inquisitor alone sits on the high judgment-seat and allots his tardy sentences to trembling culprits. In yonder court they pass to Cretan Minos’ presence, in that to Rhadamanthus’, here the father ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#53 - 53}  of Thetis’ spouse gives audience. What each has done, he suffers; upon its author the crime comes back, and the guilty soul is crushed by its own form of guilt. I have seen bloody chiefs immured in prison; the insolent tyrant’s back torn by plebeian hands. He who reigns mildly and, though lord of life, keeps guiltless hands, who mercifully and without bloodshed rules his realm, checking his own spirit, he shall traverse long stretches of happy life and at last gain the skies, or else in bliss reach Elysium’s joyful land and sit in judgment there. Abstain from human blood, all ye who rule: with heavier punishment your sins are judged.

AMPHITRYON
[747] Does any certain place enclose the guilty? and, as rumour has it, do sinners suffer cruel punishment in bonds unending?

THESEUS
[750] Ixion whirls, racked on a flying wheel; a huge stone rests on the neck of Sisyphus; in mid-stream an old man ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#54 - 54}  with parched lips catches at the waves; the water bathes his chin and, when at last it has given him, though oft deceived, a pledge of faith, the wave perishes at his lips; fruits mock his hunger. To the vulture Tityos gives never-ending feasts; the Danaïdes bear their brimming urns in vain; the impious Cadmeïds roam in their madness, and the ravenous bird ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#55 - 55}  torments Phineus at his board.

AMPHITRYON
[760] Now tell my son’s famous struggle. Is it his willing uncle’s gift, or his spoil, he brings?

THESEUS
[762] A rock funereal o’erhangs the slothful shoals, where the waves are sluggish and the dull mere is numbed. This stream an old man tends, clad in foul garb and to the sight abhorrent, and ferries over the quaking shades. His beard hangs down unkempt; a knot ties his robe’s misshapen folds; haggard his sunken cheeks; himself his own boatman, with a long pole he directs his craft. Now, having discharged his load, he is turning his boat towards the bank, seeking the ghosts again; Alcides demands passage, while the crowd draws back. Fierce Charon cries: “Whither in such haste, bold man? Halt there thy hastening steps.” Brooking no delay, Alcmena’s son o’erpowers the ferryman with his own pole and climbs aboard. The craft, ample for whole nations, sinks low beneath one man; as he takes his seat the o’erweighted boat with rocking sides drinks in Lethe on either hand. Then the monsters he had conquered are in a panic, the fierce Centaurs and the Lapithae whom too much wine had inflamed to war; and, seeking the farthest fens of the Stygian swamp, Lerna’s labour ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#56 - 56}  plunges deep his fertile heads.

[782] Next after this there appears the palace of greedy Dis. Here the savage Stygian dog frightens the shades; tossing back and forth his triple heads, with huge bayings he guards the realm. Around his head, foul with corruption, serpents lap, his shaggy man bristles with vipers, and in his twisted tail a long snake hisses. His rage matches his shape. Soon as he feels the stir of feet he raises his head, rough with darting snakes, and with ears erect catches at the onsped sound, wont as he is to hear even the shades. When the son of Jove stood closer, within his cave the dog crouches hesitant and feels a touch of fear. Then suddenly, with deep bayings, he terrifies the silent places; the snakes hiss threateningly along all his shoulders. The clamour of his dreadful voice, issuing from triple throats, fills even the blessed shades with dread. Then from his left arm the hero looses the fierce-grinning jaws, thrusts out before him the Cleonaean ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#57 - 57}  head and, beneath that huge shield crouching, plies his mighty club with victorious right hand. Now here, now there, with unremitting blows he whirls it, redoubling the strokes. At last the dog, vanquished ceases his threatenings and, spent with struggle, lowers all his heads and yields all wardship of his cavern. Both rulers ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#58 - 58}  shiver on their throne, and bid lead the dog away. Me also they give as boon to Alcides’ prayer.

[807] Then, stroking the monster’s sullen necks, he binds him with chains of adamant. Forgetful of himself, the watchful guardian of the dusky realm droops his ears, trembling and willing to be led, owns his master, and with muzzle lowered follows after, beating both his sides with snaky tail. But when he came to the Taenarian borders, and the strange gleam of unknown light smote on his eyes, though conquered he regained his courage and in frenzy shook his ponderous chains. Almost he bore his conqueror away, back dragging him, forward bent, and forced him to give ground. Then even to my aid Alcides looked, and with our twofold strength we drew the dog along, mad with rage and attempting fruitless war, and brought him out to earth. But when he saw the bright light of day and viewed the clear spaces of the shining sky, black night rose over him and he turned his gaze to ground, closed tight his eyes and shut out the hated light; backward he turned his face and with all his necks sought the earth; then in the shadow of Hercules he hid his head. – But see, a dense throng comes on, glad shouting, with laurel wreaths upon their brows and chanting the well-won praises of great Hercules.

CHORUS
[830] Eurystheus, brought to the light by birth untimely, had bidden thee explore the world’s foundations; this only was lacking to thy tale of labours, to despoil the king of the third estate. Thou wast bold to enter blind approach, where a way leads to the far-off shades, a gloomy way and fearsome with dark woods, but crowded with vast accompanying throngs.

[838] Great as the host that moves through citystreets, eager to see the spectacle in some new theatre; great as that which pours to the Elean ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#59 - 59}  Thunderer, when the fifth summer has brought back the sacred games; great as the throng which (when the time comes again for night to lengthen and the balanced Scales, yearning for quiet slumber, check Phoebus’ car) surges to Ceres’ secret rites, and the initiates of Attica, quitting their homes, swiftly hasten to celebrate their night – so great is the throng that is led through the silent plains. Some go slow with age, sad and sated with long life; some still can run, being of happier age – maidens, not yet in wedlock joined, youths with locks still unshorn, and babes that have but lately learned the name of “mother.” To these last alone, that they be not afraid, ‘tis given to lessen night’s gloom by torches borne ahead; the rest move sadly through the dark. O ye dead, what thoughts are yours when, light now banished, each has sorrowing felt his head o’erwhelmed ‘neath all the earth? There are thick chaos, loathsome murk, night’s baleful hue, the lethargy of a silent world and empty clouds.

[864] Late may old age bear us thither! None comes too late unto that land, whence never, when once come, can he return. Why does it please us to hasten cruel fate? For all this throng which wanders up and down the earth’s vast spaces shall go to the world of shades and shall set sail on Cocytus’ lifeless stream. For thee, O Death, all things are growing; all that the setting sun, all that the rising, sees – oh, spare thou those who are sure to come – for thee are we all preparing. Though thou be slow, we hasten of ourselves; the hour which first gave life is plucking it away.

[875] Thebes’ joyful day is here. Lay hold on the altars, ye suppliants; slay the fat victims; let husbands and wives together start up the festal dance; let the tillers of the fertile field lay by the yoke and rest.

[882] Peace reigns by the hand of Hercules from the land of dawn to the evening star, and where the sun, holding mid-heaven, gives to shapes no shadows. Whatever land is washed by Tethys’ far-reaching circuit Alcides’ toil has conquered. He has crossed the streams of Tartarus, subdued the gods of the underworld, and has returned. And now no fear remains; naught lies beyond the underworld.

[893] Now, priest, bedeck thy bristling ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#60 - 60}  hair with his well-loved poplar.

[Enter HERCULES, fresh from the slaying of LYCUS.]

HERCULES
[895] Felled by my conquering hand, Lycus face down has smitten the earth. Next, whoever had been the tyrant’s comrade lies low, the comrade also of his punishment. And now as victor will I bring offerings to my father and to the heavenly gods, slay victims, and honour the altars with due sacrifice.

[900] Thee, thee, O ally and helper of my toils, I pray, O warlike Pallas, on whose left arm the targe with its petrifying face sends forth fierce threats; may he, too, be near, the tamer ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#61 - 61}  of Lycurgus and the ruddy sea, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#62 - 62}  who bears a spear-point hidden beneath his vine-wreathed staff; and ye, twin deities, Phoebus and Phoebus’ sister, the sister more ready with her arrows, Phoebus with his lyre; and whatever brother of mine dwells in the sky – but not a brother from my stepdame born.

[908] [To his attendants.] Hither drive fat herds; whatever the fields of Indians produce, whatever fragrant thing the Arabs gather from their trees, heap on the altars; let the rich smoke roll on high. Let wreaths of poplar bedeck our hair; but thee, O Theseus, an olive-branch, with thy own race’s leaves, shall crown. The Thunderer shall my hand adore; do thou ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#63 - 63}  invoke the founders of our city, the wooded caves of savage Zethus, Dirce of far-famed water, and the Tyrian house-gods of our pilgrim king. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#64 - 64}  Heap incense on the flames.

AMPHITRYON
[918] O son, first purify thy hands, dripping with thy slaughtered foeman’s blood.

HERCULES
[920] Would that I could pour out to the gods the blood of the man I hate; no more pleasing stream had stained the altars; no greater, richer victim can be sacrificed to Jove than an unrighteous king.

AMPHITRYON
[924] Pray that thy father end thy toils, that at least rest and repose be given to the weary.

HERCULES
[926] Myself will I frame prayers worthy of Jupiter and me: May heaven abide in its own place, and earth and sea; may the eternal stars hold on their way unhindered; may deep peace brood upon the nations; may the harmless country’s toil employ all iron, and may swords lie hid; may no raging tempest stir up the sea, no fires leap forth from angered Jove, no river, fed by winter’s snows, sweep away the uptorn fields. Let poisons cease to be. Let no destructive herb swell with harmful juice. May savage and cruel tyrants rule no more. If earth is still to produce any wickedness, let her make haste, and if she is preparing any monster, let it be mine. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#65 - 65}

[The madness planned by JUNO beings to come upon him.]
[939] But what is this? Shadows have begirt midday. Phoebus fares with darkened face though there be no cloud. Who puts the day to flight and drives it back to dawn? Whence does an unfamiliar night rear its black head? Whence do so many stars fill the sky though it is day? See where the lion, my first toil, glows in no small part of heaven, is all hot with rage, and makes ready his fangs. Forthwith he will seize some star; threatening he stands with gaping jaws, and breathes forth fires, and shakes the mane upon his flaming neck; whatever stars sickly autumn and cold winter with its frozen tracts bring back, with one bound will he o’erleap, and attack and crush the neck of the vernal Bull.

AMPHITRYON
[952] What sudden ill is this? Why, my son, dost turn thy keen eyes now here, now there, and look upon an unreal sky with troubled gaze?

HERCULES
[955] The earth has been subdued, the swollen seas are at rest, the infernal realms have felt my onset; heaven is as yet untried, a task worthy of Alcides. To the lofty regions of the universe on high let me make my way, let me seek the skies; the stars are my father’s promise. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#66 - 66}  And what if he should not keep his word? Earth has not room for Hercules, and at length restores him unto heaven. See, the whole company of the gods of their own will summons me, and opens wide the door of heaven, with one alone forbidding. And wilt thou unbar the sky and take me in? Or shall I carry off the doors of stubborn heaven? Dost even doubt my power? I’ll free Saturn from his bonds, and against my unfilial ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#67 - 67}  father’s lawless sway I’ll loose my grandsire. Let the Titans prepare war, with me to lead their rage; rocks, woods and all, will I bring, and with my right hand I’ll snatch up ridges full of Centaurs. Now with twin mountains I’ll construct a pathway to the realms above; Chiron shall see his own Pelion ‘neath Ossa, and Olympus, set as third in order, shall reach clean to heaven – or else I’ll hurl it there!

AMPHITRYON
[973] Have done with these horrible imaginings: Repress the mad fury of thy proud heart, no longer sane.

HERCULES
[976] What’s this? The baleful Giants are taking arms. Tityos has escaped the shades and, with breast all torn and empty, has almost reached the sky. Cithaeron is tottering, lofty Pellene quakes, and Tempe’s beauty fades. Here one Giant has seized Pindus’ peak, there one has seized Oete, while horribly Mimas rages. Fiery Erinys cracks her brandished scourge, and closer, closer yet, holds out before my face brands burnt on funeral pyres. Cruel Tisiphone, her head with snakes encircled, since the dog was stolen away has blocked the empty gate with her outstretched torch.

[He catches sight of his children.]
[987] But look! here lurk the children of the king, my enemy, the abominable spawn of Lycus; to your detested father this hand forthwith shall send you. Let my bowstring discharge swift arrows – so it is meet that the shafts of Hercules should fly.

AMPHITRYON
[991] To what deed is his blind fury driven? He has bent his huge bow, the tips drawn close together; he has opened his quiver; shrilly sings the shaft, discharged with force – it has struck the neck full in the middle and sped out past the wound.

HERCULES
[995] The rest of the brood will I rout out and all their hiding-places. Why delay? A greater struggle awaits me at Mycenae, that there, by these hands overthrown, the Cyclopean rocks may fall.

[He begins to tear at the doors of the shrine in which his remaining sons have taken refuge.]
[999] Let the doors fly, one here, one there, the barriers cast down and burst the posts asunder; let the smitten roof reel. The whole palace is alight; I see hiding there the son of a cursed sire.
[He seizes the child and drags him from the scene.]

AMPHITRYON
[Standing where he can see what is going on within the palace.]
[1002] See how he stretches out coaxing hands to his father’s knees, and with piteous voice begs – oh impious crime, grim and horrid sight! With his right hand he has caught the pleading child, and, madly whirling him again and yet again, has hurled him; his head crashed loudly against the stones; the room is drenched with scattered brains. But Megara, poor woman, sheltering her little son within her bosom, flees like a mad creature from her hiding-place.

HERCULES
[Behind the scene to MEGARA, also behind the scene.]
[1010] Though thou run and hide in the Thunderer’s bosom, everywhence shall this hand seek thee and hale thee forth.

AMPHITRYON
[1012] [To MEGARA.] Wither dost thou flee, poor child? What flight of what hiding-place dost thou seek? There is no place safe from Hercules enraged. Embrace him, rather, and essay to calm him with soothing prayers.

THE VOICE OF MEGARA
[1014] Husband, spare me now, I beg. See, I am Megara. This is thy son, with thine own looks and bearing. See, how he stretches out his hands.

THE VOICE OF HERCULES
[1017] I have caught my stepdame. Come, pay me thy debt, and free o’ermastered Jove from a degrading yoke. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#68 - 68}  But before the mother let this little monster perish.

THE VOICE OF MEGARA
[1021] What wouldst thou, madman? Thine own blood wilt thou shed?

AMPHITRYON
[1022] Stricken with terror of his sire’s blazing eyes, the child died ere he felt the blow; fear snatched his life away. Against his wife now he poises his heavy club – her bones are crushed, her head is gone from her mangled body, gone utterly.

[1026] [To himself.] Darest thou abide this sight, O too stubborn age? If thou art weary of grief, death thou hast ready; expose they breast to those shafts, or turn against it that club smeared with our children’s gore. [Calling to HERCULES.] Make away with thy pretended sire, this blot upon thy name, lest he make discord midst thy praise.

CHORUS
[1032] Why, old man, dost wantonly challenge death? Whither wouldst go, senseless? Flee and securely hide thee, and save the hands of Hercules from the crime left.

[Re-enter HERCULES.]

HERCULES
[1035] ‘Tis well; the shameless king’s house is utterly destroyed. To thee, wife of almighty Jove, have I slaughtered this devoted flock; vows worthy of thee have I paid right joyfully, and Argos ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#69 - 69}  shall give still other victims.

AMPHITRYON
[1039] Not yet hast thou made full atonement, son; complete the sacrifice. See, a victim stands before the altar; with bent neck he awaits the stroke. I offer myself to death, I run to meet it, I follow after it; smite – but what is this? The glance of his eyes wanders, and faintness dulls his vision. Do I see the hands of Hercules a-tremble? His eyelids fall in slumber, and his tired neck sinks beneath his drooping head; now his knees give way and his whole body goes crashing to the ground, like an ash-tree felled in the woods, or a falling mass of rock that will give a breakwater to the sea.

[1048] [To HERCULES.] Livest thou still, or has that same madness given thee to death which sent thy kindred to their doom? [He examines the prostrate body.] He sleeps; his chest heaves with measured breathing. Let him have time for rest, that deep slumber may break the force of his madness and relive his troubled heart. Ye slaves, remove his weapons, lest in rage he seek them yet again.

CHORUS
[1054] Let heaven mourn, and the great father of high heaven, and fertile earth, and wandering waves of the restless main; and thou above all, who ever the lands and stretches of the sea dost shed thy rays, and dispellest night with comely face, O glowing Sun; equally with thee hath Alcides seen the lands of thy setting and thy rising, and hath known both thy dwellings.

[1063] O free his soul from such monstrous ills, free him, ye gods, and turn to better things his darkened spirit. And do thou, O Sleep, vanquisher of woes, rest of the soul, the better part of human life, thou winged son of thy mother Astraea, sluggish brother of cruel Death, thou who dost mingle false with true, sure yet gloomy guide ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#70 - 70}  to what shall be; O thou, who art peace after wanderings, haven of life, day’s respite and night’s comrade, who comest alike to king and slave, who doest compel the human race, trembling at death, to prepare for unending night – sweetly and gently soothe his weary spirit; hold him fast bound in heavy stupor; let slumber chain his untamed limbs, and leave not his savage breast until his former mind regain its course.

[1082] See, prone on the ground, he revolves in his fierce heart his savage dreams; not yet has the baleful power of so great woe been overcome; wont to recline his weary head on his heavy club, he feels for its ponderous trunk with empty hand, tossing his arms in fruitless movement. Not yet has he dispelled all his surging madness, but as the waves, stirred up by a mighty wind, still keep their long, tumultuous roll, and still are swollen though the wind has ceased, [so does his former rage still rack the hero.] Banish ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#71 - 71}  the mad passions of thy soul; let the hero’s piety and manly courage come again. Or rather, let his mind still be stirred by uncontrolled emotion; let his blind error go on the way it has begun; madness alone can now make thee innocent. Next best to guiltless hands is ignorance of guilt.

[1100] Now let Hercules’ breast resound beneath the blows of his palms; let those arms that were wont to upbear the universe be smitten by his victorious hands; let the heavens hear his mighty groans, let the queen of the dark world hear, and fierce Cerberus, crouching in his lowest cave, his necks still bound with chains; let Chaos re-echo the outcries of his grief, and the spreading waves of the broad deep, and mid-air which no less had felt thy shafts; the breast beset by so great ills must by no light blow be smitten; with one lamentation three kingdoms must resound. And thou, brave reed, which hung so long as ornament and weapon from his neck, and thou, heavy quiver, lay savage blows on his untamed back; let the stout oak club mangle his strong shoulders with its hard knots bruise his breast; let his weapons make lament for his mighty woes.

[1135] Go ye, ill-fated brood, ye boys, along the gloomy way of your father’s famous task, not destined to be partakers of his praise by taking bloody vengeance on savage kings; never taught in Argive wrestling school to ply the limbs, brave with boxing-glove and brave with hand, never yet taught to wound the maned lion with well-hurled javelin, but yet already bold to poise and throw with steady hand the slender Scythian dart, and shoot the deer that seek safety in flight – go to the haven of the Styx, go, harmless shades whom on the very threshold of life your sire’s mad crime o’ercame; go, go to the presence of the angered kings. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#72 - 72}

HERCULES
[Waking up in his right mind.]
[1138] What place is this? What region, what quarter of the world? Where am I? Beneath the sun’s rising or beneath the wheeling course of the frozen Bear? Is this the boundary set to Ocean’s stream by that farthest land on the western sea? What air is this I breathe? What soil lies beneath my weary frame? Surely I have returned to earth –

[His eyes fall on his murdered children.]
[1143] How is it that I see bloody corpses lying before my house? Is my mind not yet free from infernal phantoms? Even after my return do troops of ghastly things still throng before my eyes? With shame I confess it – I am afraid; something, some great calamity my heart forebodes. Where art thou, father? Where is my wife, so proud of her brood of sons? Why is my left shoulder bare of the lion’s spoil? Whither has it gone, that shield of mine, at once a soft couch, too, for the sleep of Hercules? Where are my shafts? my bow? Who ahs been able to steal away my arms while I still live? Who has gained so great spoils of me, and has not shuddered at even a sleeping Hercules? Glad would I be to see my conqueror, glad. Come forth, thou brave hero, whom my sire, leaving heaven, has begotten, a later son, at whose begetting night stood still, longer than at mine –

[He recognizes his dead wife and children.]
[1159] What horror do I see? My sons, with bloody murder destroyed, lie here, my wife lies slain. What Lycus holds sway now? Who ahs dared perpetrate such outrages in Thebes, though Hercules has returned? Whoever dwellest by Ismenus’ stream, on Attic plains, in the kingdom of Dardanian Pelops, lapped by two seas, come to my aid, tell me the doer of this cruel murder. On all let mine anger sweep; my foeman is he who points not out the foe. Vanquisher of Alcides, hidest thou? Come out; whether thou dost seek vengeance for the savage horses of the bloody Thracian ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#73 - 73}  or for Geryon’s flock, or the Libyan heroes, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#74 - 74} I am ready for the fray. Here I stand defenceless, e’en though with my own arms thou shouldst assail me armourless.

[1173] Why does Theseus avoid my eyes, why does my father? Why do they hide their faces? Postpone your tears. Who ahs given my loved ones to death, all of them at once, tell me – why, father art thou silent? But do thou tell, Theseus! Nay, Theseus, tell me by thy loyalty! – They both in silence turn away and hide their faces as if in shame, while tears steal down their cheeks. In woes so great what room is there for shame? Has the ruthless lord ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#75 - 75}  of Argos, has the hostile band of dying Lycus, in ruin so vast overwhelmed me? O father, by the glory of my deeds, I pray thee, and by thy sacred name ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#76 - 76}  always next ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#77 - 77}  hallowed in my sight, speak out! who has overthrown my house? To whom have I fallen prey?

AMPHITRYON
[1186] In silence, as they may, let troubles pass.

HERCULES
[1187] And I be unavenged?

AMPHITRYON
[1187] Oft vengeance has brought bane.

HERCULES
[1188] Has any e’er borne such woes supinely?

AMPHITRYON
[1189] Yes, he who greater woes has feared.

HERCULES
[1189] But than these, father, can aught still greater of heavier be feared?

AMPHITRYON
[1191] How small the part of thy calamity is that thou knowest!

HERCULES
[1192] Have pity, father; see, I stretch out suppliant hands. What? from my hands he started back – here lurks the sin. Whence this blood? What of that shaft, still dripping with the blood of boys? It has been dipped in Hydra’s gore – ah, now my own weapons do I recognize. No need to ask the hand that used them! Who could have bent the bow or what hand drawn the string which scarce yields to me? I turn to you again; father, is this my deed? Silent still – ‘tis mine.

AMPHITRYON
[1200] Truly the woe is thine; the crime thy stepdame’s. This mischance is free from sin.

HERCULES
[1202] Now from every quarter of the sky, O father, thunder in thy wrath; though thou hast forgotten me, with tardy hand at least avenge thy grandsons. Let the starry heavens resound, and the skies dart lightnings from pole to pole; let the Caspian crags ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#78 - 78}  claim my fettered body, and let the ravenous bird – Why are Prometheus’ crags unoccupied? Why, the bare, steep side of Caucasus which, on its lofty summit, feeds beasts and birds of prey? Let those clashing rocks ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#79 - 79}  which confine the Scythian sea stretch my fettered hands apart this way and that o’er the deep, and, when with recurrent change they come together and when, as the crags rush from either side, the rocks force up to heaven the interposing flood, may I lie there the mountains’ tortured curb. Nay, I will build me a huge pile of logs and burn my body spattered with impious gore. Thus, thus must I do – to the nether gods will I give back Hercules.

AMPHITRYON
[1219] His heart, not yet eased of frenzy’s tumult, ahs shifted its wrath’s aim and now, sure sign of madness, he rages against himself.

HERCULES
[1221] Ye dire abodes of fiends, prison-house of the dead, ye regions set apart for the guilty throng, if any place of banishment lies hidden away beneath hell itself, unknown to Cerberus and me, hide me there, O earth; to the remotest bounds of Tartarus will I go and there abide. O heart too fierce! Who can weep worthily for you, my children, scattered through all my house? This face, hardened with woe, has forgotten how to weep. Give my bow here, give me my arrows, here give me my huge club.

[He bends the corpses and addresses each in turn.]
[1231] For thee will I break my shafts, for thee, poor boy, will I rend my bow; but to thy shades my heavy club shall burn; my quiver itself, full of Lerna’s darts, shall go with thee to the pyre. So let my arms pay the penalty. You, too, with my weapons will I burn, O cursed, O stepdame’s hands.

AMPHITRYON
[1237] What man anywhere hath laid on error the name of guilt?

HERCULES
[1238] Oft hath great error held the place of guilt.

AMPHITRYON
[1239] Now must thou be Hercules; bear thou this weight of trouble.

HERCULES
[1240] Shame, quenched by madness, has not so far gone from me that with unhallowed presence I should scare all peoples. Arms, Theseus, my arms! I pray you quickly give back what you have stolen. If my mind is sane give back to my hands their weapons; if madness still remains, fly, O my father; I shall find a path to death.

AMPHITRYON
[1247] By the holy ties of birth, by the right of both my names, whether thou dost call me foster-father or true sire, by these grey hairs, which pious sons revere, spare thyself, I pray, to my lonely age and to my weary years. Sole prop of my fallen house, sole light of my woe-darkened life, save thyself for me. No enjoyment of thee, no fruit of thy toils has fallen to my lot; but always have I had to fear either the stormy seas or monsters; every cruel king that rages in all the world with guilt on his hands or altars is cause of dread to me; always do I, thy father, yearn for the joy of touch and sight of thee, my ever-absent son.

HERCULES
[1258] Why I should longer stay my soul in the light of day, and linger here, there is no cause; all that was dear to me I’ve lost: reason, arms, honour, wife, children, strength – and madness too! No power could purge a tainted spirit; by death must sin be healed.

AMPHITRYON
[1263] Thou’lt slay thy father.

HERCULES
[1263] Lest I do so, I’ll die.

AMPHITRYON
[1264] Before thy father’s eyes?

HERCULES
[1264] I have taught him to look on impious deeds.

AMPHITRYON
[1265] Nay, rather think upon thy deeds glorious to all, and seek from thyself pardon for one sin.

HERCULES
[1267] Shall he give remission to himself who to none other gave it? As for my glorious deeds, at others’ hest I did them; this alone is mine. Help me, father; whether love move thee, or my sad fate, or the tarnished glory of my manhood. Bring me my weapons; by my right hand let fate be vanquished.

THESEUS
[1272] Enough thy father’s prayers have power to move, but let my weeping move thee, too. Up! and with thy wonted force break through adversity. Now get back thy courage which was ne’er unequal to any hardship; now must thou greatly play the man – forbid Hercules to rage!

HERCULES
[1278] If I keep to life, I have wrought wrong; if I die, have borne it. I am in haste to purge the earth. Long since a monstrous form, impious, savage, inexorable, wild, has stalked before my eyes; come, hand, grapple with this task greater than the last of all thy labours. Coward, dost thou shrink, brave against boys alone and trembling mothers? My arms, I say! Unless they are given me, either I will cut down all the woods of Thracian Pindus and Bacchus’ groves and Cithaeron’s ridges, and along with my own body I will burn them up; or else all the dwellings of Thebes with their households and their masters, the temples with all their gods, I will pull down upon myself and lie buried ‘neath a city’s wreck; and if, hurled on my shoulders, the walls shall fall with too light a weight, and if, buried beneath the seven gates, I be not crushed enough, then all the mass which lies at the centre of the universe and separates gods from men will I overthrow upon my head.

AMPHITRYON
[1295] I return thine arms.

HERCULES
[1295] The words are worthy the sire of Hercules. See, slain by this shaft fell my boy.

AMPHITRYON
[1297] ‘Twas Juno shot the arrow by thy hand.

HERCULES
[1298] ‘Tis I who shall use it now.

AMPHITRYON
[1298] Oh, how my woeful heart trembles with fear and smites on my anxious breast!

HERCULES
[1300] The shaft is notched.

AMPHITRYON
[1300] Ah, now wilt thou sin of thine own will and knowledge.

HERCULES
[1301] Speak out; what wouldst have me do?

AMPHITRYON
[1302] I make no prayer; for me woe is assured – thou alone canst preserve my son to me, but not even thou canst snatch him from me. I have passed my greatest fear; wretched thou canst not make me, but blest, thou canst. Decide, then, as thou wilt decide, but know that in so doing thy cause and fame stand at hazard and doubtful issue; either thou livest or slayest me. This flitting soul, weary with age and no less with woe weary, I hold upon my very lips. So grudgingly does any man grant his father life? [He seizes a sword and sets its point to his breast.] I will brook no more delay; with the fatal steel thrust home will I pierce my breast; here, here shall lie the crime of a sane Hercules.

HERCULES
[1314] Now hold, father, hold, recall thy hand! Strong soul of mine, yield, do a father’s will; add this task also to Hercules’ toils – and live! Theseus, lift thou from the ground my father’s fainting limbs. My hands defiled shrink from that pious touch.

AMPHITRYON
[1319] But this hand I clasp joyfully; by its help I’ll walk and, holding it close to my aching heart, banish my griefs.

HERCULES
[1321] Whither shall I flee? Where shall I hide me, or in what land bury me? What Tanaïs, what Nile, what Tigris, raging with Persian torrents, what warlike Rhine, or Tagus, turbid with the golden sands of Spain, can cleanse this hand? Though cold Maeotis should pour its northern sea upon me, though the whole ocean should stream along my hands, still will the deep stains cling. To what countries, man of sin, wilt thou betake thee? The rising or the setting sun wilt seek? Know in every land, I have lost place for exile. The world shrinks from my presence, the stars, moving askance, turn away their courses; Titan himself looked upon Cerberus with kindlier face. O faithful friend, Theseus, seek a hiding-place for me, remote, obscure; since, though witness of others’ sins, thou dost ever love the sinners, grant me now grace and recompense for favours past. Take me back, I pray thee, and restore me to the nether shades; put me in thy stead, loaded with thy chains; that place will hide me – but it, too, knows me!

THESEUS
[1341] My land awaits thee. There Gradivus once cleansed his hands from blood ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#80 - 80}  and gave them back to war; thee, Alcides, does that land call, land which can free the immortals from their stains. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaHerculesFurens2.html#81 - 81}

THE END.

TROADES, TRANSLATED BY FRANK JUSTUS MILLER

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

AGAMEMNON, king of the Greek forces in the war against Troy
PYRRHUS, son of Achilles, one of the active leaders in the final events of the war.
ULYSSES, king of Ithaca, one of the most powerful and crafty of the Greek chiefs before Troy.
CALCHAS, a priest and prophet among the Greeks.
TALTHYBIUS, a Greek messenger.
AN OLD MAN, faithful to Andromache.
ASTYANAX, little son of Hector and Andromache.
HECUBA, widow of Priam, one of the Trojan captives.
ANDROMACHE, widow of Hector, a Trojan captive.
HELENA, wife of Menelaüs, king of Sparta, and afterwards of Paris, a prince of Troy; the exciting cause of the Trojan war.

THE SCENE is laid on the seashore, with the smouldering ruins of Troy in the background.
THE TIME is the day before the embarkation of the Greeks on their homeward journey.

ARGUMENT

The long and toilsome siege of Troy is done. Her stately palaces and massive walls have been overthrown and lie darkening the sky with their still smouldering ruins. Her heroic defenders are either slain or scattered, seeking other homes in distant lands. The victorious Greeks have gathered the rich spoils of Troy upon the shore, among these the Trojan women, who have suffered the usual fate of women when a city is sacked. They await the lot which shall assign them to their Grecian lords and scatter them among the cities of their foes. All things are ready for the start.
But now the ghost of Achilles has risen from the tomb, and demanded that Polyxena be sacrificed to him before the Greeks shall be allowed to sail away. And Calchas, also, bids that Astyanax be slain, for only thus can Greece be safe from any future Trojan war. And thus the Trojan captives, who have so long endured the pains of war, must suffer still this double tragedy.

HECUBA
[1] Whoever trusts in sovereignty and strongly lords it in his princely hall, who fears not the fickle gods and has given up his trustful soul to joy, on me let him look and on thee, O Troy. Never did fortune give larger proof on how frail ground stand the proud. O’erthrown and fallen is mighty Asia’s prop, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#1 - 1}  famous work of gods; she to whose assistance came he ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#2 - 2} who drinks chill Tanaïs, spreading its sevenfold mouths, he ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#3 - 3}  who first greets the new-born day, where mingle the warm waters of Tigris with the ruddy sea, and she ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#4 - 4}  who sees o’er her borders the wandering Scythians and with her virgin hordes scourges the Pontic shore – e’en she by the sword is razed, Pergamum upon herself has fallen. See! The towering glories of her high-piled wall lie low, her dwellings consumed by fire; the flames lick round her palace, and all the house of Assaracus smokes on every side. The flames check not the victor’s greedy hands; Troy is plundered even while she burns; the face of day, obscured as by an impenetrable cloud, is black and foul with the ashes of Ilium. With wrath still unglutted the victor stands, eyeing long-lingering Ilium, and at last, spite of his savage hate, forgives the ten long years; he quakes even at her ruins and, though he sees her overthrown, yet trusts not his own witness that she could have been overthrown. The plunderer hurries away the Dardan spoils, booty which a thousand ships cannot contain.

[28] I call to witness the divinity of the gods, hostile to me, the ashes of my country, thee, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#5 - 5}  ruler of Phrygia, whom, buried beneath thy whole realm, Troy covers, and the shades of thee ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#6 - 6}  with whose standing Ilium stood, and you, great troops of children mine, ye lesser shades: whatever disaster has befallen us, whatever evils Phoebus’ bride, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#7 - 7} raving with frenzied lips, foretold, though the god forbade that she should be believed, I, Hecuba, big with child, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#8 - 8}  saw first, nor did I keep my fears unuttered, and I before Cassandra was a prophetess unheeded. ‘Tis not the crafty Ithacan, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#9 - 9}  nor the night-prowling comrade ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#10 - 10}  of the Ithacan, who has scattered firebrands ‘mongst you, nor the lying Sinon – mine is that fire, by my brands are you burning.

[41] But why lamentest thou the downfall of a city overthrown, old age that clingest too long to life? Think thou, ill-fated, on these recent griefs; Troy’s fall is now an ancient woe. I saw the accursed murder of the king and at the very altar (crime past belief) the arms of Aeacides, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#11 - 11}  when he, with left hand clutching the old man’s hair, bent back the royal head and into the deep wound savagely thrust the impious steel; and when with right good will he had plucked away the deep-driven sword, it came unwetted from the old man’s throat. Ah, whose rage might not have been stayed from savage slaughter by one close drawing to the last period of mortal life, by the gods who beheld the crime, and by what was once the sanctuary of a fallen realm? Priam, that father of so many princes, lies unentombed and lacks a funeral torch, though Troy is burning. And yet the gods are not satisfied; behold, the urn by lot is choosing lords for the matrons and maids of Priam’s house, and I, a spoil unprized, shall follow some new lord. One promises himself the wife of Hector, one prays that Helenus’ wife be his, and one, Antenor’s; nor is one wanting who seeks thy couch, Cassandra; my lot is dreaded, I only am a terror to the Greeks.

[63] Do your wailings falter? O throng of mine, captives as ye are, smite breasts with palms, make loud laments, due rites for Troy perform. Long since ‘twere time for fatal Ida to resound, home of the ill-omened judge. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#12 - 12}

CHORUS
[68] No untrained company, stranger to tears, dost thou bid mourn; this have we done for years unceasing, from when the Phrygian guest ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#13 - 13}  touched at Grecian Amyclae, and the waves were cleft by the pine sacred to mother Cybele. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#14 - 14}  Ten times has Ida whitened with her snows, ten times been stripped for our funeral pyres, and in the Sigean fields ten harvests has the trembling reaper cut, since when no day has been without its grief. But now we have new cause for weeping. On with your lamentation, and do thou, O queen, lift high thy wretched hand. We, the common throng, will follow our mistress; well trained in mourning are we.

HECUBA
[83] Trusty comrades of my fate, unbind your locks; over your sorrowing shoulders let them flow, defiled with Troy’s warm dust. Fill your hands – so much may we take from Troy. Let the band their bared arms make ready; let down your robes and bind their folds; down to the waist let your forms be bared. For what husband dost veil thy breast, O captive modesty? Let our mantles gird up the loose-flowing tunics, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#15 - 15}  let mad hands be free for raining the blows of woe – ‘tis well, this attire is well; now do I recognize my Trojan band. Repeat once more your old lamentations; exceed your wonted manner of weeping; ‘tis for Hector we weep.

CHORUS
[99] We have all loosed our locks at many a funeral torn; our hair has fall’n free from its knot, and hot ashes have sprinkled our faces. From our bared shoulders our garments fall and cover only our loins with their folds. Now naked breasts invite our hands; now, now, O Grief, put forth thy strength. Let the Rhoetean shores resound with our mourning, and let Echo, who dwells in the caves of the mountains, not, after her wont, curtly repeat our final words alone, but give back our full mourning for Troy. Let ever sea hear us, and sky. Smite, hands, bruised breasts with mighty beating; I am not content with the accustomed sound – ‘tis for Hector we weep.

HECUBA
[117] For thee ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#16 - 16}  my right hand smites my arms, and bleeding shoulders it smites for thee; for thee my hand beats on my head, for thee my breasts with a mother’s palms are mangled. Let flow and stream with blood, bleeding afresh, whatever wound I made at thy funeral. O prop of thy country, hindrance of fate, thou bulwark for weary Phrygians, thou wast our country’s wall; propped on thy shoulders, ten years she stood; with thee she fell, and Hector’s last day was his country’s, too.

[130] Turn now your mourning; for Priam shed your tears; Hector has enough.

CHORUS
[132] Receive our mourning, O ruler of Phrygia; receive our tears, twice-captured old man. Naught has Troy suffered once in thy reign; nay, twice she endured the battering of her Dardanian walls by Grecian steel and twice ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#17 - 17}  felt the arrows of Hercules. After Hecuba’s sons were borne out to burial, after that troop of princes, thou, father, dost close the long funeral train and, slaughtered as a victim to mighty Jove, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#18 - 18}  on Sigeum’s strand headless thou liest.

HECUBA
[142] Otherwhere turn ye your tears; not to be pitied is my Priam’s death, ye Trojans. Cry ye all, “Happy Priam!” Free fares he to the deep land of spirits, nor ever will bear on his conquered neck the yoke of the Grecians; he does not look upon the two sons of Atreus, nor behold crafty Ulysses; he will not, as booty of Argolic triumph, bend neck ‘neath their trophies; he will not yield hands to be bound which have wielded the sceptre, nor, following the car of Agamemnon, wearing gold fetters, will he make show for wide-spreading Mycenae.

CHORUS
[157] “Happy Priam,” say we all. With him, in departing, he has taken his kingdom; now in the peaceful shades of Elysium’s grove he wanders, and happy midst pious souls he seeks for his Hector. Happy Priam, happy whoe’er, dying in battle, has with his death made an end of all.

[Enter TALTHYBIUS.]

TALTHYBIUS
[164] O delay, ever long for Greeks in harbour, whether they would seek war or seek fatherland!

CHORUS
[166] Tell thou what cause delays the Grecian fleet, what god blocks the homeward paths.

TALTHYBIUS
[168] My spirit is afraid; shivering horror makes my limbs to quake. Portents transcending truth scarce gain belief – but I saw it, with my own eyes I saw. The sun was just grazing the hill-tops with his morning rays and day had vanquished night, when suddenly the earth with hidden rumblings rocked convulsive and brought to light her innermost recesses; the woods tossed their tops and the lofty forest and sacred grove resounded with huge crashing; and rocks came falling from the shivered heights of Ida. Nor did the earth only tremble; the sea, too, felt its own Achilles near and stilled its waters. Then was the valley rent asunder, revealing caverns measureless, and yawning Erebus gave passage-way through the cleft earth to the world above and opened up the tomb. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#19 - 19}  Forth leaped the mighty shade of the Thessalian chief, such shape as when practising for thy fate, O Troy, he laid low the Thracian ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#20 - 20}  arms, or smote the son ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#21 - 21}  of Neptune with white plumes gleaming; or when, amidst the ranks raging in furious battle, he choked rivers with corpses, and Xanthus, seeking his way, wandered slowly along with bloody stream; or when he stood in his proud car victorious, plying the reins and dragging Hector – and Troy.

[190] The shout of the enraged hero filled all the shore: “Go, go, ye cowards, bear off the honours due to my spirit; loose your ungrateful ships to sail away over my ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#22 - 22}  seas. At no small price did Greece avert the wrath of Achilles, and the great cost shall she avert it. Let Polyxena, once pledged to me, be sacrificed to my dust by the hand of Pyrrhus and bedew my tomb.” So speaking with deep voice, he bade farewell to day and, plunging down to Dis once more, closed the huge chasm as the earth was again united. The tranquil waters lie motionless, the wind has given up its threats, the calm sea murmurs with gentle waves, from the deep the band of Tritons has sounded the wedding hymn.

[Enter PYRRHUS and AGAMEMNON.]

PYRRHUS
[203] When thou wast spreading joyful sails for thy return over the sea, Achilles was quite forgot, who by his sole hand made Troy to totter, so that – whate’er delay was added after his death – she but stood wavering which way to fall. Though thou shouldst wish and haste to give him what he seeks, thou wouldst give too late; already have all the chiefs made choice of their spoils. What meaner prize can be given to his great worth? Or was his desert but slight who, bidden to shun the war and idly spend a long old age, surpassing the years of the ancient Pylian, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#23 - 23}  put off his mother’s wiles and those disguising garments, confessing himself a man by his choice of arms? When Telephus, unbridled ruler of inhospitable realm, refused him passage through warlike Mysia, he with his royal blood first dyed that inexperienced hand, and found that same hand brave and merciful. Thebes fell and conquered Eëtion saw his kingdom taken; by a like disaster little Lyrnesos, perched on a high hill, was overthrown, and the land famous for Briseïs’ capture; Chyrse, too, lies low, cause of strife for kings, and Tenedos, well known in fame, and fertile Scyros, which on its rich pasturage feeds the Thracian flocks, and Lesbos, cleaving in twain the Aegean sea, and Cilla, sacred to Phoebus; and what of the lands which the Caÿcus washes, his waters swollen by the floods of spring?

[229] This great overthrow of nations, this widespread terror, all these cities wrecked as by a tornado’s blast, to another could have been glory and the height of fame; to Achilles they were but deeds upon the way. ‘Twas thus my father came, and so great wars he waged while but preparing war. Though I speak not of other merits, would not Hector alone have been enough? My father conquered Ilium; you have plundered it. Proud am I to rehearse my great sire’s illustrious praises and glorious deeds: Hector lies low, slain before his father’s eyes, and Memnon before his uncle’s, in sorrow for whose death his mother ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#24 - 24} with wan face ushered in a mournful day, while the victor shuddered at the lesson of his own work, and Achilles learned that even sons of goddesses can die. Then fell the fierce Amazon, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#25 - 25}  our latest dread. Thou art Achilles’ debtor, if rightly thou estimate his worth, even if he should ask a maiden from Mycenae and from Argos. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#26 - 26}  Dost hesitate and now of a sudden deem wrong what has already been approved, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#27 - 27}  and count it cruel to sacrifice Priam’s daughter to Peleus’son? And yet thine own daughter for Helen’s sake thou, her sire, didst immolate. I claim but what is already use and precedent.

AGAMEMNON
[250] Ungoverned violence is a fault of youth; in the case of others ‘tis the first fervour of their years that sweeps them on, but with Pyrrhus ‘tis his father’s heat. The blustering airs and threats of arrogant Aeacides I once bore unmoved. The greater the might, the more should be the patience to endure.

[255] Why with cruel bloodshed dost thou besmirch the noble shade of an illustrious chief? This ‘twere fitting first to learn, what the victor ought to do, the vanquished, suffer. Ungoverned power no one can long retain; controlled, it lasts; and the higher Fortune has raised and exalted the might of man, the more does it become him to be modest in prosperity, to tremble at shifting circumstance, and to fear the gods when they are overkind. That greatness can be in a moment overthrown I have learned by conquering. Does Troy make us too arrogant and bold? We Greeks are standing in the place whence she has fallen. In the past, I grant, I have been headstrong in government and borne myself too haughtily; but such pride has been broken by that cause which could have produced it in another, e’en Fortune’s favour. Thou, Priam, mak’st me proud – and fearful, too.

[271] Should I count sovereignty anything but a name bedecked with empty glamour, a brow adorned with a lying coronet? Brief chance will plunder these, mayhap without the aid of a thousand ships or ten long years: Fate hangs not over all so long. For my part, I will confess – thy pardon for saying it, O Argive land! – I wished to see the Phrygians beaten down and conquered; but overthrown and razed to the ground – would that I could have spared them that. But wrath, the fiery foeman, victory given to night’s charge, these cannot be kept in hand. All that any might have deemed unworthy in me or brutal, this resentment wrought and darkness, whereby fury is spurred to greater fury, and the victorious sword, whose blood-lust, when once stained with blood, is madness. All that can survive of ruined Troy let it survive; enough and more of punishment has been exacted. That a royal maid should fall, be offered to a tomb, should water the ashes of the dead, and that men should call foul murder marriage, I will not permit. The blame of all comes back on me; he who, when he may, forbids not sin, commands it.

PYRRHUS
[292] And shall Achilles’ ghost gain no reward?

AGAMEMNON
[293] It shall; all shall sing his praises and unknown lands shall hear his mighty name. But if his dust can be appeased only by on-poured blood, let Phrygian cattle, rich spoil, be slain, and let blood flow which will cause no mother’s tears. What custom this? When was a human victim offered up in honour of human dead? Save thy father from scorn and hate, whom thou art bidding us honour by a maiden’s death.

PYRRHUS
[301] O thou swollen with pride so long as prosperity exalts thy soul, but faint of heart when the alarms of war resound, tyrant of kings! Is now thy heart inflamed with sudden love and of a new mistress? Art thou alone so often to bear off our spoils? With this right hand will I give to Achilles the victim due. If thou dost refuse and keep her from me, a greater will I give, worthy the gift of Pyrrhus; too long has my hand refrained from killing kings, and Priam claims his peer.

AGAMEMNON
[310] Nay, I deny not that ‘tis Pyrrhus’ most glorious deed of war that Priam lies slain by thy brutal sword, and he thy father’s suppliant. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#28 - 28}

PYRRHUS
[313] Yea, I know my father’s suppliants – and enemies, too. And yet in my father’s presence Priam prayed; thou, quaking with o’ermastering fear, not brave enough to make thy own plea, didst delegate thy prayers to Ajax and the Ithacan, staying hid in thy tend and trembling at thy foe. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#29 - 29}

AGAMEMNON
[318] But no fear then, I grant it, had thy father, and mid Grecian carnage and their blazing ships idly he lay, thoughtless of war and arms, strumming with dainty quill on tuneful lyre.

PYRRHUS
[322] Then mighty Hector, though he scorned thy arms, still feared Achilles’ songs, and midst so great general dread deep peace lay on the ship-camp of Thessaly. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#30 - 30}

AGAMEMNON
[325] Yea, and in that same ship-camp of Thessaly deep peace, again, did Hector’s father find.

PYRRHUS
[327] ‘Tis a high, a kingly act to give life to a king.

AGAMEMNON
[328] Why then from a king did thy right hand take life?

PYRRHUS
[329] The merciful will oft give death instead of life.

AGAMEMNON
[330] And is it now in mercy thou seekest a maiden for the tomb?

PYRRHUS
[331] So now thou deemst the sacrifice of maids a crime?

AGAMEMNON
[332] To put country before children befits a king.

PYRRHUS
[333] No law spares the captive or stays the penalty.

AGAMEMNON
[334] What law forbids not, shame forbids be done.

PYRRHUS
[335] Whate’er he will, ‘tis the victor’s right to do.

AGAMEMNON
[336] Least should he will who has much right.

PYRRHUS
[337] Darest fling such words to those whom, overwhelmed beneath thy heavy sway for ten long years, Pyrrhus freed from the yoke?

AGAMEMNON
[339] Does Scyrus give such airs?

PYRRHUS
[339] ‘Tis free from the crime of brothers. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#31 - 31}

AGAMEMNON
[340] Hemmed by the waves –

PYRRHUS
[340] Yes, of a kindred sea. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#32 - 32}  Atreus and Thyestes – well do I know their noble house.

AGAMEMNON
[342] Thou son of a maiden’s secret shame and of Achilles, but scarce yet a man –

PYRRHUS
[344] Of that Achilles who by right of lineage extends throughout the realm of the immortals and claims the universe: the sea through Thetis, through Aeacus the shades, the heavens through Jove.

AGAMEMNON
[347] Of that Achilles who lies slain by Paris’ hand.

PYRRHUS
[348] Whom e’en a god would not contend with face to face.

AGAMEMNON
[349] I could check thy words and curb thy recklessness by punishment; but my sword knows how to spare e’en captives. Rather, let Calchas, the interpreter of the gods, be called. If the fates demand, I will give her up.

[Enter CALCHAS.]
[353] Thou who didst free the Pelasgian fleet from bonds, and dist end the wars’ delays, who by thy art doest unlock the sky, to whom the entrails’ secrets, to whom the crashing heavens and the star with its long, flaming trail disclose the fates, thou whose utterances ever cost me dear: what is God’s will, declare, O Calchas, and by thy wisdom guide us.

CALCHAS
[360] ‘Tis at the accustomed price fate grants the Danaï their voyage. A maiden must be sacrificed on the Thessalian chieftain’s tomb; but in the barb in which Thessalian brides are wed, or Ionian or Mycenaean, let Pyrrhus lead his father’s bride to him. ‘Tis so she shall be given duly. But it is not this cause alone which delays our ships; blood nobler than thy blood, Polyxena, is due. Whom the fates seek, from the high watch-tower let him fall, Priam’s grandson, Hector’s son, and let him perish there. Then with its thousand sails may the fleet fill the seas.

CHORUS
[371]Is it true, or does the tale cheat timid souls, that spirits live on when bodies have been buried, when the wife has closed her husband’s eyes, when the last day has blotted out the sun, when the mournful urn holds fast our dust? Profits it not to give up the soul to death, but remains it for wretched mortals to live still longer? Or do we wholly die and does no part of us remain, when with the fleeting breath the spirit, mingling with vapours, has passed into the air, and the lighted fire has touched the naked body?

[382] All that the rising sun and all that the setting knows, all that the ocean laves with its blue waters, twice ebbing and twice flowing, time with the pace of Pegasus shall gather in. With such whirlwind speed as the twelve signs fly along, with such swift course as the lord ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#33 - 33}  of stars hurries on the centuries, and in such wise as Hecate hastens along her slanting ways, so do we all seek fate, and nevermore does he exist at all who has reached the pool ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#34 - 34}  whereby the high gods swear. As smoke from burning fires vanishes, staining the air for once brief moment; as clouds, which but now we saw lowering, are scattered by the cold blasts of Boreas, so shall this spirit which rules our bodies flow away. There is nothing after death, and death itself is nothing, the final goal of a course full swiftly run. Let the eager give up their hopes; their fears, the anxious; greedy time and chaos engulf us altogether. Death is a something that admits no cleavage, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#35 - 35} destructive to the body and unsparing of the soul. Taenarus and the cruel tyrant’s ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#36 - 36} kingdom and Cerberus, guarding the portal of no easy passage – all are but idle rumours, empty words, a tale light as a troubled dream. Dost ask where thou shalt lie when death has claimed thee? Where they lie who were never born.

[Enter ANDROMACHE, leading her little son, ASTYANAX, and accompanied by an aged man-servant.]

ANDROMACHE
[409] Ye Phrygian woman, mournful band, why do you tear your hair, beat on your wretched breasts, and water your cheeks with weeping unrestrained? Trivial woes have we endured if our sufferings can be told by tears. Ilium has fallen but now for you; for me she fell long since, when the cruel foeman behind the swift car dragged his limbs – my own, and his axle-tree, on Pelion hewed, groaned loud, straining beneath Hector’s weight. On that day overwhelmed and ruined, whatever has happened since I bear, benumbed with woe, stony, insensible. And now, escaping the Greeks, I should follow my husband, if this child held me not. He tames my spirit and prevents my death; he forces me still to ask something of the gods, has prolonged my suffering. He has robbed me of the richest fruit of sorrows, the scorn of fear. All chance of happiness has been snatched away from me; calamity has still a door of entrance. Most wretched ‘tis to fear when you can hope for naught.

OLD MAN
[426] What sudden terror has stirred thy stricken soul?

ANDROMACHE
[427] Some greater woe from woe already great arises. The fate of falling Ilium is not yet stayed.

OLD MAN
[429] What new disasters, though he wish, will the god discover?

ANDROMACHE
[430] The bars of deep Styx and its darksome caves are opened and, lest terror be wanting to our overthrow, our buried foemen come forth from lowest Dis. To the Greeks only is a backward passage given? Death surely is impartial. That terror ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#37 - 37}  disturbs and alarms all Phrygians alike; but this vision ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#38 - 38}  of dread night doth terrify my soul alone.

OLD MAN
[437] What vision hast thou to tell? Speak out thy fears before us all.

ANROMACHE
[438] Two portions of her course had kindly night well-nigh passed, and the seven stars had turned their shining car; at last long unfamiliar calm came to my troubled heart, and a brief slumber stole o’er my weary cheeks – if, indeed, the stupor of a mind all dazed be slumber – when suddenly Hector stood before my eyes, not in such guise as when, forcing the fight against the Argives, he attacked the Grecian ships with torches from Ida’s pines, not as when he raged in copious slaughter against he Danaï and bore off true spoils from a feigned Achilles ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#39 - 39} ; not such his face, blazing with battle light, but weary, downcast, heavy with weeping, like my own, covered with matted locks. Even so, ‘twas joy to have looked upon him. Then, shaking his head, he said: “Rouse thee from slumber and save our son, O faithful wife! hide him; ‘tis the only hope of safety. Away with tears! Dost grieve because Troy has fallen? Would she were fallen utterly! ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#40 - 40}  Make haste, remove to any place soever the little scion of our house.” Cold horror and trembling banished sleep; quaking with terror, I turned my eyes now here, now there, taking no thought of my son, and piteously seeking Hector; but from my very arms his cheating ghost was gone.

[461] O son, true offspring of a mighty sire, sole hope of Phrygians, sole comfort of our stricken house, child of an ancient, too illustrious line, too like thy father, thou; such features my Hector had, such was he in gait, such in bearing; so carried he his brave hands, so bore he his shoulders high, such august, commanding look had he as with head thrown proudly back he tossed his flowing locks. O son, born too late for the Phrygians, too soon for thy mother, will that time ever come and that happy day when, as defender and avenger of the Trojan land, thou shalt establish Pergama restored, bring back its scattered citizens from flight, and give again their name to fatherland and Phrygians? But, remembering my own lot, I shrink from such proud prayers; this is enough for captives – may we but live!

[476] Ah me, what place will be faithful to my fears? where shall I hide thee? That citadel, once rich in treasure and its god-built walls, amongst all nations famed and envied, is now deep dust, wasted utterly by fire; an of that huge city not even enough is left wherein a child may hide. What place shall I choose to cheat them? There is my dear lord’s great tomb, hallowed, awe-inspiring to the foe, which of huge bulk and at mighty cost his father reared, a prince not niggardly in his grief. To his sire shall I best entrust the child. Cold sweat streams down all my limbs. Ah me! I shudder at the omen of the place of death.

OLD MAN
[497] In wretchedness, seize any refuge; in safety, choose.

ANDROMACHE
[496] What that he cannot hide without great danger of betrayal?

OLD MAN
[492] Have none to see thy guile.

ANDROMACHE
[493] If the foe inquire?

OLD MAN
[498] He perished in the city’s downfall; this cause alone has saved many from destruction – the belief that they have perished.

ANDROMACHE
[490] Scant hope is left; the crushing weight of his noble birth lies heavy on him. What will it profit him to have hidden, when he must fall into their hands?

OLD MAN
[495] The victor’s first onslaughts are the deadliest.

ANDROMACHE
[498] [To ASTYANAX.] What place, what spot, remote and inaccessible, will keep thee safe? Who will bring help in our sore need? Who will protect? O Hector, who didst always shield thine own, shield them even now; guard thou a wife’s pious theft and to thy faithful ashes take him to live again. Enter the tomb, my son – why dost thou shrink back and reject this safe hiding-place? I recognize thy breeding; thou art ashamed of fear. But put away thy high spirit and old-time courage; put on such spirit as misfortune grants. See how small a company of us remains – a tomb, a child, a captive woman; we must yield to ills. Come, boldly enter the sacred home of thy buried father. If the fates befriend the wretched, thou hast a safe retreat; if the fates deny thee life, thou hast a tomb.

[ASTYANAX enters the tomb and the gates are closed and barred behind him.]

OLD MAN
[512] The bars protect their charge; and, that thy fear may not hale him forth, retire thou far from here and withdraw thyself apart.

ANDROMACHE
[515] Who fears from near at hand, fears often less; but if thou thinkest well, we will betake us elsewhere.
[ULYSSES is seen approaching.]

OLD MAN
[517] Be still a little while, utter no word or cry; the leader of the Cephallenians hither bends his accursed steps.

ANDROMACHE
[With a final appealing look towards the tomb.]
[519] Yawn deep, O earth, and thou, my husband, rive the rent earth to its lowest caves and hide the charge I give thee in the deep bosom of the Styx. Ulysses is here, with step and look of one in hesitation; in his heart he weaves some crafty stratagem.

[Enter ULYSSES.]

ULYSSES
[524] As the minister of harsh fate I beg this first, that, although the words are uttered by my lips, thou count them not my words; it is the voice of all the Grecian chiefs, whom Hector’s son is keeping from their late home-coming; ‘tis the fates demand him. A fretting mistrust of uncertain peace will ever possess the Danaï, and fear ever will force them to look behind and not let them lay down their arms, so long as thy son, Andromache, and Hector’s shall give heart to the conquered Phrygians. Calchas, the augur, gives this response; and if Calchas, the augur, were silent upon this, yet Hector used to say it, and I dread even a son of his; the generous scion grows to its parent’s likeness. So that little companion of the mighty herd, his first horns not yet sprouting through the skin, suddenly, with high-borne neck and proudly lifted brow, leads his father’s herd and rules the drove; the slender shoot which has sprung up from a lopped-off trunk in a little while rises to match the parent tree, gives back shade to the earth and a sacred grove to heaven; so do the embers of a great fire, carelessly left behind, regain their strength. I know that grief is no impartial judge; still, if thou weigh the matter with thyself, thou wilt forgive a soldier if, after ten winters and as many harvest seasons, now veteran he fears war, fears still other bloody battles and Troy never wholly o’erthrown. A great matter moves the forebodings of the Danaï – another Hector. Free the Greeks from fear. This one cause holds our ships, already launched; this cause stays the fleet. And think me not cruel because, at the bidding of the lot, I seek Hector’s son; I would have sought Orestes. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#41 - 41} Bear thou what thy conqueror has borne. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#42 - 42}

ANDROMACHE
[556] Oh, that thou wert within thy mother’s reach, my son, and that I knew what hap holds thee now snatched from my arms, or what place – not though my breast were pierced with hostile spears, and my hands bound with cutting chains, not though scorching flames hemmed me on either side, would I ever put off a mother’s loyalty. O son, what place, what fate, hath gotten thee now? On some pathless way dost thou roam the fields? Has the vast burning of thy fatherland consumed thy frame? or has some rude conqueror revelled in thy blood? Slain by some wild beast’s fangs, dost feed the birds of Ida?

ULYSSES
[568] Have done with lies; ‘tis not easy for thee to deceive Ulysses; we have out-matched the wiles of mothers and even of goddesses. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#43 - 43}  Away with vain designs; where is thy son?

ANDROMACHE
[571] Where is Hector? Where all the Phrygians? Where is Priam? Thou seekest one; I seek for all.

ULYSSES
[573] Thou shalt be forced to tell what of thyself thou wilt not.

ANDROMACHE
[574] She is safe who is able, who ought, who longs to die.

ULYSSES
[575] When death draws near it drives out boastful words.

ANDROMACHE
[576] If thou desirest, Ulysses, to force Andromache through fear, threaten her with life; for ‘tis my prayer to die.

ULYSSES
[578] Stripes, fire, and every form of torture shall force thee against thy will, through pain, to speak out what thou concealest, and from thy heart shall tear its inmost secrets; necessity is oft a greater force than love.

ANDROMACHE
[582] Bring on thy flames, wounds, devilish arts of cruel pain, and starvation and raging thirst, plagues of all sorts from every source, and the sword thrust deep within these vitals, the dungeon’s pestilential gloom yea, all a victor dares in rage – and fear.

ULYSSES
[587] ‘Tis foolish confidence to hide what thou must at once betray.

ANDROMACHE
[588] My dauntless mother-love admits no fears.

ULYSSES
[589] This very love, in which thou now dost stubbornly withstand us, warns the Danaï to take thought for their little sons. After a war so distant, after ten years of strife, I should feel less the fears which Calchas rouses, if ‘twas for myself I feared. Thou art preparing war against Telemachus.

ANDROMACHE
[594] Unwillingly, Ulysses, will I give to the Danaï cause for joy, but I must give it; confess, O grief, the woes which thou wouldst conceal. Rejoice, ye sons of Atreus, and do thou bear joyful tidings to the Pelasgians as is thy wont – Hector’s son is dead. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#44 - 44}

ULYSSES
[598] What surety givest thou the Danaï that this is true?

ANDROMACHE
[599] So may the conqueror’s worst threat befall, may fate set me free by an early and easy passing, may I be buried in my own soil, may his native earth rest light on Hector, according as my son, deprived of light, lies amongst the dead and, given to the tomb, has received the due of those who live no more. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#44 - 44}

ULYSSES
[605] That the fates have been fulfilled by the removal of Hector’s stock, and that peace is secure, this news will I joyfully bear to the Danaï – [Aside.] What doest thou, Ulysses? The Danaï will believe thy word, but whose word, thou? A mother’s – or would any mother feign her offspring’s death, and not shrink from the omen of the abhorrent word? Yet omens they fear who have naught worse to fear. She has confirmed her truth by oath; if the oath is false, what is the worse thing she can be fearing? Now, my heart, summon up thy craft, thy tricks, thy wiles, now all Ulysses; truth is never lost. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#45 - 45}  Watch the mother. She grieves, she weeps, she groans; now here, now there she wanders restlessly, straining her ears to catch each uttered word; this woman’s fear is greater than her grief. Now have I need of skill.

[619] [To ANDROMACHE.] Other parents ‘twere fitting to console in sorrow; but thou art to be congratulated, poor soul, that thou hast lost thy son, for a cruel death awaited him, cast headlong from the tower which still stands solitary midst the fallen walls.

ANDROMACHE
[623] [Aside.] Life deserts my limbs, they quake, they fail; my blood stands still, congealed with icy cold.

ULYSSES
[625] [Aside.] She trembles; by this, yes, by this means must I test her. Her fear has betrayed the mother; this fear will I redouble.

[627] [To his attendants.] Go, go quickly! This enemy, hidden away by his mother’s guile, this last plague of the Pelasgian name, wherever he is hiding, hunt him out and bring him hither. [Pretending that the boy is discovered, and then speaking as if to the man who has found him.] Good! He is caught! Come, make haste and bring him in! [To ANDROMACHE.] Why dost thou look around and tremble? Surely he is already dead.

ANDROMACHE
[632] Oh, that I were afraid. ‘Tis but my wonted fear, sprung use from long use. The mind unlearns but slowly what it has learned for long.

ULYSSES
[634] Since the boy has forestalled the lustral rites we owed the walls and cannot fulfil the priest’s command, snatched from us by a better fate, the word of Calchas is that only thus can a peaceful homecoming be granted to our ships, if the waves be appeased by the scattering of Hector’s ashes and his tomb be utterly levelled with the ground. Now, since the boy has escaped the death he owed, needs must hands be laid upon his hallowed resting-place. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#46 - 46}

ANDROMACHE
[642] [Aside.] What shall I do? My mind is distracted by a double fear: here, for my son; there, for my husband’s sacred dust. Which shall prevail? I call the unpitying deities to witness, and that true deity, my husband’s shade, that in my son naught else endears him to me, Hector, than thyself. May he live, that so he may recall thy face. – But shall thy ashes, torn from the tomb, be sunk beneath the sea? Shall I permit thy scattered bones to be flung upon the vasty deep? Sooner let the boy meet death. – But canst thou, his mother, see him given up to murder infamous? Canst see him sent whirling over the lofty battlements? I can, I will endure it, will suffer it, so but my Hector after death be not scattered by the victor’s hand. – But he can still feel suffering, while death has placed the other beyond its reach. Why dost thou waver? decide whom thou wilt snatch from vengeance. Ungrateful woman, dost thou hesitate? On that side is thy Hector – nay, herein thou errest – Hector is in both ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#47 - 47} ; but the boy can still feel pain, and is destined perchance to avenge his father’s death – both cannot be saved. What then? Save of the two, my soul, him whom the Danaï dread.

ULYSSES
[663] I will fulfil the oracle; the tomb will I raze to its foundations.

ANDROMACHE
[664] The tomb ye sold? ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#48 - 48}

ULYSSES
[664] I’ll keep right on, and from the mound’s top I’ll drag the sepulchre.

ANDROMACHE
[665] To heaven’s faith I appeal, and Achilles’ faith; Pyrrhus, protect thy father’s gift.

ULYSSES
[667] This mound shall at once lie level with the plain.

ANDROMACHE
[668] Such sacrilege, truly, the Greeks had left undared. Temples you have profaned, even of your favouring gods; but our tombs your mad rage had spared. I will resist, will oppose my unarmed hands against you, armed; passion will give strength. Like the fierce Amazon who scattered the Argive squadrons, or like some god-smit Maenad who, armed with the thyrsus only, with frenzied march frightens the forest glades and, beside herself, has given wounds, nor felt them, so will I rush against you and fall in the tomb’s defence, an ally of its dust.

ULYSSES
[678] [To his men.] Do you hold back, and does a woman’s tearful outcry and futile rage move you? My orders – be quick and do them.

ANDROMACHE
[680] [Struggling with the men.] Me, me destroy here with the sword sooner. Ah me, I am thrust back. O Hector, burst the bars of death, heave up the earth, that thou mayst quell Ulysses. Even as a shade thou art enough – he ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#49 - 49}  has brandished his arms in his hand, he is hurling firebrands – ye Danaï, do you see Hector? or do I alone see him?

ULYSSES
[685] I’ll pull it down to its foundations, all of it.

ANDROMACHE
[686] [Aside, while the men begin to demolish the tomb.] What art thou doing? dost thou lay low together in common ruin both son and husband? Perhaps thou wilt be able to appease the Danaï by prayer. – But even now the huge weight of the bomb will crush the hidden boy – poor lad! let him perish no matter where, so but sire o’erwhelm not son, and son harm not sire.

[She casts herself at the knees of ULYSSES.]
[691] At thy knees I fall, a suppliant, Ulysses, and this hand, which no man’s feet have known, I lay upon thy feet. Pity a mother, calmly and patiently listen to her pious prayers, and the higher the gods have exalted thee, the more gently bear down upon the fallen. What is given to misery is a gift to Fortune. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#50 - 50}  So may thy chaste wife’s couch see thee again; so may Laertes prolong his years till he welcome thee home once more; so may thy son succeed thee, and, by his nature’s happy gifts, surpassing all your prayers, transcend his grandsire’s years, his father’s gifts: pity a mother. This one only comfort is left in my affliction.

ULYSSES
[704] Produce thy son – and pray.

ANDROMACHE
[Going to the tomb, calls ASTYANAX.]
[706] Hither from thy hiding-place come out, sad object of a wretched mother’s theft.

[ASTYANAX appears from the tomb.]
[708] Here he is, Ulysses, here is the terror of a thousand ships! [To ASTYANAX.] Lower thy hands and, prone at thy master’s feet, pray thou with appealing touch; and deem naught base which fortune imposes on the wretched. Forget thy royal ancestry, the illustrious sway of thy noble grandsire o’er all lands, forget Hector, too; play the captive and on bended knee, if thou feelst not yet thine own doom, copy thy mother’s tears.

[She turns to ULYSSES.]
[718] Troy aforetime also ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#51 - 51}  saw the tears of a boy-king, and little Priam averted the threats of fierce Alcides. He, yes he, fierce warrior, to whose vast strength all savage creatures yielded, who burst through the doors of Dis and made the dark retraceable, conquered by his small enemy’s tears, exclaimed: “Take the reins and rule thy state, sitting high on thy father’s throne; but wield the sceptre with better faith.” This it was to be taken by such a conqueror; learn ye the merciful wrath of Hercules. Or is it the arms alone of Hercules that please thee? ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#52 - 52}  See, there lies at thy feet a suppliant, no less than that other suppliant, and pleads for life –as for Troy’s throne, let Fortune bear that whithersoe’er she will.

ULYSSES
[736] The grief of a stricken mother moves me, true, and yet the Pelasgian mothers move me more, to whose great sorrow that boy of thine is growing.

ANDROMACHE
[739] These ruins, these ruins of a city brought to dust, shall he wake to life? Shall these hands raise Troy again? Troy has no hopes if she has but such as these. Not such our overthrow ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#53 - 53}  that we Trojans can be a fear to any. Does thought of his father rouse pride in him? ‘Twas a father dragged in the dust. That father himself after Troy’s fall would have given up courage, which great misfortunes break. If revenge be sought, what greater revenge couldst thou seek? Let the yoke of bondage be placed upon his high-born neck, let a slave’s lot be granted him. Does any refuse this to a prince?

ULYSSES
[749] ‘Tis not Ulysses, but Calchas refuses this to thee.

ANDROMACHE
[750] O thou contriver of fraud, cunning master in crime, by whose warlike prowess none has ever fallen, by whose tricks and by cunning of whose vicious mind even Pelasgians ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#54 - 54} are undone, dost seek to hide behind seer and blameless gods? This is the deed of thine own heart. Thou nocturnal soldier, brave to do a mere boy to death, at last thou darest some deed alone and in the open day.

ULYSSES
[757] Ulysses’ courage the Danaï know full well, and all too well the Phrygians. But leisure we lack to waste the day in empty words; the fleet is weighing anchor.

ANDROMACHE
[760] Generously grant a brief delay while I, his mother, do the last service to my son, and with a farewell embrace satisfy my yearning grief.

ULYSSES
[762] Would that I might have compassion on thee; but what alone I may, I will give thee time and respite. Weep thy fill; weeping lightens woe.

ANDROMACHE
[766] [To ASTYANAX.] O sweet pledge of love, O glory of our fallen house, last loss of Troy, thou terror of the Danaï, thy mother’s vain hope, for whom in my madness I used so oft to pray thy sire’s war-earned praises, thy grandsire’s years; God has denied my prayers. Thou shalt not with kingly might wield Ilium’s sceptre in thy royal hall, shalt not give laws unto the nations, nor send conquered tribes beneath thy yoke; thou shalt not smite fleeing Greeks nor drag Pyrrhus at thy chariot-wheels. Thy slender hand shall wield no boyish weapons, nor shalt thou boldly chase the wild beasts scattered through broad forest-glades, nor on the appointed lustral day, celebrating the sacred festival of the Trojan Game, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#55 - 55}  shalt thou, a princely boy, lead on thy charging squadrons; nor among the altars, with swift and nimble feet, while the curved horn blares out stirring measures, shalt thou at Phrygian shrines celebrate the ancient dance. O mode of death sadder than cruel war! A sight more tearful than great Hector’s death shall the walls behold.

ULYSSES
[785] Break off now thy tears, thou mother; great grief sets no limit to itself.

ANDROMACHE
[787] For my tears, Ulysses, the respite I ask is small; grant me a few tears yet, that with my own hand I may close his eyes while he still lives. [To ASTYANAX.] Thou diest, little indeed, but already to be feared. Thy Troy awaits thee; go, depart in freedom; go, look on Trojans who are free. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#56 - 56}

ASTYANAX
[792] Pity me, mother.

ANDROMACHE
[792] Why clingest thou to my breast, and graspest the vain protection of thy mother’s hands? As, when the lion’s roar is heard, the young bull draws close to its mother’s trembling flank, but see! the savage lion thrusts the dam away and, with huge jaws grasping the lesser booty, crushes and bears it off, so shall thy enemy snatch thee from my breast. Now, son, take my kisses and tears, take my torn locks and, full of me, hasten to thy sire. Yet bear, too, some few words of a mother’s plaint: “If spirits still feel their former cares, and if love perishes not in the funeral flames, dost thou permit Andromache to serve a Greek lord, O cruel Hector? Indifferent and sluggish dost thou lie? Achilles has come back.” Take now once again these locks, and take these tears, all that is left from my poor husband’s funeral, take kisses to deliver to thy sire. This cloak leave as comfort for thy mother; my tomb has touched it, and my beloved shades. If any of his dust is hidden here, I’ll hunt it with my lips.

ULYSSES
[812] [To his attendants.] There is no limit to her weeping – away with this hindrance to the Argive fleet.

[Exeunt ULYSSES and his attendants, the former leading the little ASTYANAX.]

CHORUS
[814] What place of dwelling calls to our captive band? Thessalian mountains and Tempe’s shady vale, or Phthia, land more fitted to produce warriors, and rocky Trachin, famous for its breed of brave herds, or Iochos, the vast sea’s mistress? ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#57 - 57}  Crete, spacious with her hundred towns, little Gortynis and barren Tricce, or Mothone, abounding in tiny rills, the land of caves beneath Oeta’s wooded heights which sent not once only to Troy’s fall the deadly bow? ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#58 - 58}  Olenos, land of scattered homes, Pleuron, which the virgin goddess ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#59 - 59} hates, or Troezen, on the broad sea’s curving shore? Pelion, proud kingdom of Prothoüs, third step to heaven? (Here, reclining at full length within his hollowed mountain cave, Chiron, tutor of a youth already pitiless, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#60 - 60}  with his quill striking out tinkling chords, even then whetted the boy’s mighty passions by songs of war.) Or Carystos, rich in many-hued marble, or Chalcis, hard by the shore of the restless sea, where Euripus’ racing tides ever flow? Calydnae, easy of approach in any wind, or Gonoëssa, never free from winds, and Enispe, which shivers before the northern blast? Peparethos, lying close to the Attic shore, or Eleusin, rejoicing in her sacred mysteries? Shall we to the true Salamis, home of Ajax, or to Calydon, famed for the wild boar, or to those lands ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#61 - 61}  which the Titaressos bathes, destined to flow with its sluggish waters beneath the sea? ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#62 - 62}  or to Bessa, and Scarphe, or Pylos, the old man’s ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#63 - 63}  home? to Pharis or Pisae, sacred to Jupiter, and Elis, famed for victor’s crowns?

[851] Let the mournful blasts bear our misery where’er they list and give us to any land if only Sparta, which brought such woe on Troy and the Greeks alike, be far away, and far away be Argos, and Mycenae, home of savage Pelops, and Neritos, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#64 - 64}  smaller than small Zacynthos, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#64 - 64}  and baleful Ithaca with her crafty crags.

[858] What fate, what lord waits for thee, Hecuba, or to what land will he lead thee to be a public show? In whose kingdom shalt thou die?

[Enter HELEN.]

HELEN
[861] [Aside.] Whatever wedlock, calamitious, joyless, has mourning, murder, blood, and lamentations, is worthy of Helen’s auspices. Even in their ruin am I driven to be the Phrygians’ bane. It is my task to tell a false tale of marriage ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#65 - 65}  with Pyrrhus; mine, to dress the bride in Grecian fashion; by my craft she will be snared and by my treachery will the sister of Paris fall. Let her be deceived; for her I deem this the easier lot; ‘tis a death desirable, to die without the fear of death. Why dost hesitate to execute thy orders? To its author returns the blame of a crime compelled.

[871] [To POLYXENA.] Thou noble maid of the house of Dardanus, in more kindly wise doth heaven begin to regard the afflicted, and makes ready to dower thee with a happy bridal; such a match neither Troy herself while still secure, nor Priam, could make for thee. For the greatest ornament of the Pelasgian race, whose realm stretches wide over the plains of Thessaly, seeks thee in holy bonds of lawful wedlock. Thee will great Tethys call her own, thee, all the goddesses of the deep, and Thetis, calm deity of the swelling sea; wedded to Pyrrhus, Peleus as thy father-in-law shall call thee daughter, and Nereus shall call thee daughter. Put off thy mournful garb, don festal array, forget thou art a captive; smooth thy unkempt locks, and suffer my skilled hand to part thy hair. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#66 - 66}  This fall, perchance, will restore thee to a more exalted throne. Many have profited by captivity.

ANROMACHE
[888] This one woe was lacking to the ruined Phrygians – to rejoice. Pergama’s ruins lie blazing around – fit time for marriage! Would any dare refuse? Would any hesitate to go to a bridal when Helen invites? Thou plague, destruction, pest of both peoples, seest thou these tombs of chieftains, the bare bones which everywhere lie unentombed o’er all the plain? These has thy marriage scattered. For thee has flowed Asia’s, has flowed Europe’s blood, whilst thou gleefully didst look out upon thy warring husbands with wavering prayer. Go on, make ready thy marriages! What need of pine-brands, what of the solemn nuptial torch, what need of fire? For this strange marriage Troy furnishes the torch. Ye Trojan dames, celebrate Pyrrhus’ nuptials, celebrate them worthily: let blows and groans resound.

HELEN
[903] Although great grief lacks reason and will not be turned aside, and sometimes hates the very comrades of its suffering, still could I maintain my cause even before a hostile judge, having borne worse things than you. Andromache mourns for her Hector, and Hecuba for her Priam; for Paris alone must Helen mourn in secret. Is it a hard, a hateful, and a galling thing to endure servitude? This yoke have I long endured, for ten years captive. Is Ilium laid low, are your household gods overthrown? It is hard to lose one’s native country, harder to fear it. You are comforted by companionship in so great misfortune; against me victor and vanquished rage alike. Which one of you each lord should drag away as his slave, has long hung on uncertain chance; me has my master dragged away at once, without waiting for the lot. Have I been the cause of wars and all this ruin to the Teucrians? Count that the truth if ‘twas a Spartan ship that clove your seas; but if, swept along by Phrygian oarsmen, I was a helpless prey, if a triumphant goddess gave me as a reward to her judge, pity the helpless prey. ‘Tis an angry judge my cause will have; the decision of that case waits on Menelaüs. But now forget your own woes a little while, Andromache, and prevail on her ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#67 - 67}  – I can scarce keep from weeping.

ANDROMACHE
[926] How great must be the woe for which Helen weeps! But why weep? Tell us what tricks, what crimes the Ithacan is devising. Must the maiden be cast down from Ida’s crags or thrown from the lofty citadel’s high rock? Must she be hurled into the vasty deep over these cliffs which lofty Sigeum with sheer sides raises, looking out on his shallow bay? Speak, speak, whatever it is thou hidest beneath thy lying looks. All woes are easier to bear than that Pyrrhus be son-in-law to Hecuba and Priam. Tell us, explain what suffering thou hast in hand, and subtract this one from our calamities – ignorance of our fate. Thou seest us ready to suffer death.

HELEN
[938] Would that the prophet of the gods bade me, too, end with the sword this lingering, hateful life, or fall before Achilles’ tomb by the mad hand of Pyrrhus, a companion of thy fate, poor Polyxena, whom Achilles bids be given to him, and be sacrificed in presence of his ashes, that in the Elysian fields he may wed with thee.

ANDROMACHE
[945] See with what joy her mighty soul has heard her doom! The becoming attire of royal robes she seeks, and allows Helen’s hand to approach her locks. Death she deemed that other, this, her bridal. But, hearing the woeful news, her wretched mother ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#68 - 68}  is in a daze; her tottering reason has given way. Arise, lift up thy courage, poor queen, strengthen thy fainting spirit.

[HECUBA falls in a faint.]
[952] On how slender a thread her frail life hangs! But very little lacks to bring – happiness to Hecuba. She breathes, she lives again. ‘Tis the wretched that death first flees.

HECUBA
[955] Does Achilles still live for vengeance on the Phrygians? Does he still war against them? O hand of Paris, too light! ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#69 - 69}  His very ashes and his tomb thirst for our blood. But late a happy throng of children girt me round, and I grew weary of sharing a mother’s love among so many kisses and so large a flock; but now this daughter alone is left, object of my prayer, my companion, comfort in affliction, my resting-place; she is Hecuba’s entire offspring, hers is the only voice that now calls me mother. O obstinate, unhappy soul, come, slip away, and spare me the sight of this one death at least. Tears overflow my cheeks and from my vanquished eyes a sudden shower falls.

ANDROMACHE
[969] ‘Tis we, Hecuba, we, we, Hecuba, who should be mourned, whom the fleet, once started on its way, will scatter to every land; but her the dear soil of her native land will cover.

HELEN
[972] Still more wilt thou envy her when thine own lot thou knowest.

ANDROMACHE
[973] Is any part of my suffering still unknown to me?

HELEN
[974] The urn has whirled and to the captives given lords.

ANDROMACHE
[975] To whom am I given as slave? Speak! Whom do I call master?

HELEN
[976] Thee, by the first lot, the youth ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#70 - 70}  of Scyros gained.

ANDROMACHE
[977] Fortunate Cassandra, whom madness and Phoebus from the lot exempt.

HELEN
[978] Her the most mighty king of kings receives.

HECUBA
[967] [To POLYXENA.] Rejoice and be glad, my daughter! How would Cassandra, how would Andromache long for thy marriage!
[979] [To HELEN.] Is there anyone who would have Hecuba called his?

HELEN
[980] To the Ithacan, against his will, hast thou fallen, a short-lived prize.

HECUBA
[981] Who so reckless and unfeeling, who so cruelly drawing lots from an unjust urn hath given royalty to royalty? What god so perverse apportions the captives? What arbiter, heartless and hard to the unfortunate, so blindly chooses our lords, and unites Hector’s mother to Achilles’ arms? ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#71 - 71}  To Ulysses am I summoned; now indeed do I seem vanquished, now captive, now beset by all disasters – ‘tis the master shames me, not the servitude. That barren land, hemmed in by stormy seas, does not contain my tomb ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#72 - 72}  – lead, lead on, Ulysses, I hold not back, I follow my master; but me my fates shall follow: upon the deep no calm peace shall come; the sea shall rage with the winds and engulf thy comrades; and thee, e’en when safe home again, shall wars and fires, my own and Priam’s evil fortunes, o’erwhelm. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#73 - 73}  And till those shall come, meanwhile this serves in place of vengeance on thee – I have usurped thy lot, I have stolen from thee thy prizes. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#74 - 74}

[999] But see, Pyrrhus approaches with hurried step and grim countenance. Pyrrhus, why dost thou hesitate? Come, plunge thy sword into my breast, and so unite the parents of thy Achilles’ bride. Proceed, thou murderer of old men, this blood of mine also becomes thee. [Pointing to POLYXENA.] Seize! drag her hence! Defile, ye Greeks, the gods above with deadly slaughter, defile the shades below – nay, why pray to you? I pray for seas that befit such ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#75 - 75}  rites as these; may such doom befall the whole fleet and the Pelasgians, may such befall their thousand ships, as I shall call down on my own when I set sail.

CHORUS
[1009] Sweet to the mourner is a host of mourners, sweet to hear multitudes in lamentation; lighter is the sting of wailing and of tears which a like throng accompanies. Ever, ah, ever is grief malicious; glad is it that its own fate comes on many, and that it alone is not appointed unto suffering. To bear the lot which all endure none can refuse.

[1018] Remove the fortunate: unfortunate though he be, none will so think himself. Remove those blest with heaps of gold, remove those who plough rich fields with a hundred oxen: the downcast spirits of the poor will rise again. No one is unfortunate save as compared with others. ‘Tis sweet to one set in widespread desolation to see no one with joyful countenance; but he deplores and complains of his hard fortune who, while he cleaves the waves in solitary vessel, has been flung naked into the harbour he had sought. More calmly has he endured the tempest and disaster who has seen a thousand vessels engulfed by the selfsame billows and who comes back, borne on a piece of wreckage, to safety, while Corus, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#76 - 76}  controlling the waves, forbids their onslaught on the land. Phrixus mourned because Helle fell, when the flock’s leader, resplendent with golden fleece, bore brother and sister on his back together, and in mid-sea lost half his burden; but both Pyrrha and her husband ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#77 - 77}  checked their mourning, though they saw the sea, and saw nothing else than sea, left as they were sole remnants of the human race on earth.

[1042] But he fleet driven this way and that will separate these our laments and scatter our tears, when once the sailors, by the trumpet bidden to spread sail, shall gain the deep, by winds and speeding oarage, and the shore shall flee away. What will be the wretched captives’ feelings when all the land shall dwindle and the sea loom large, and lofty Ida shall vanish in the distance? Then son to mother, mother to her son, pointing to the place where Troy lies prostrate, will mark it afar with pointing finger, saying: “Yonder is Ilium where the smoke curls high to heaven, where the foul vapours hang.” The Trojans by that sign only will see their fatherland.

[Enter MESSENGER.]

MESSENGER
[1056] O cruel fate, harsh, pitiable, horrible! What crime so savage, so grievous, has Mars seen in ten long years? Which first shall I tell amidst my lamentations, thy woes, Andromache, or thine, thou aged woman?

HECUBA
[1060] Whosoever woes thou weepest, thou wilt weep mine. Each feels the weight of his own disaster only, but I the disasters of them all; for me do all things perish. Whoever is unfortunate is Hecuba’s.

MESSENGER
[1063] The maiden is slain; thrown from the walls the boy. But each met doom with noble spirit.

ANDROMACHE
[1065] Expound their deaths in order and relate the twofold crime; great grief hath joy to dwell on all its woes. Out with it, tell us all the tale.

MESSENGER
[1068] There is one high tower left of Troy, much used by Priam; upon its battlements and lofty pinnacles he would sit watching the war and directing the embattled lines. On this tower, nestling his grandson in his fond arms, when Hector with sword and torch pursued the Danaï fleeing in abject fear, the old man would point out to the lad his father’s battles. Around this tower, once famous, the glory of the walls, but now a solitary ruin, on all sides pours a throng of chiefs and commons, assembles here. For some, a far-off hill gives a clear view of the open space; for others, a high cliff, on whose top the eager crowd stands on tiptoe balanced. A pine-tree holds one, a laurel-tree, another, a beech-tree one; and the whole forest sways with clinging people. One climbs to the highest peak of a steep mountain, another seeks a smouldering roof or stands on an overhanging stone of a crumbling wall, and one (oh, shame!) sits heartlessly to view the show from Hector’s tomb.

[1088] Now along the plain, on every hand thronged with people, with stately step the Ithacan makes his way, leading by the hand the little grandson of Priam; and with no lagging step does the boy approach the lofty walls. When he stood on the tower’s summit, he turned his keen gaze now here, now there, undaunted in spirit. As the cub of some great beast, tiny and young, not yet strong enough to do injury with its fangs, still bristles, bites harmlessly, and swells with rage; so the boy, though in his enemy’s grasp, was proudly bold. He had moved the crowd to tears, and the chieftains, and even Ulysses. Of all the throng he alone, for whom they wept, wept not; and while Ulysses rehearsed the words and prayers appointed by the fate-revealing priest, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#78 - 78}  and summoned the cruel gods to the sacrifice, of his own will leaped the boy down into the midst of Priam’s kingdom –

ANDROMACHE
[1104] What Colchian, what Scythian of shifting home e’er committed crime like this, or what tribe to law unknown by the Caspian sea has dared it? No blood of children stained the altars of Busiris, cruel though he was, nor did Diomedes set limbs of babes for his herds to feast on. Who will take up thy limbs and consign them to the tomb.

MESSENGER
[1110] What limbs has that steep place left? His bones were crushed and scattered by the heavy fall; the familiar marks of his noble form, his face, the illustrious likeness of his sire, have been disfigured by his body’s weight plunging to earth below; his neck was broken by the crash upon the rock, his skull was crushed, his brains dashed out – he lies a shapeless corpse.

ANDROMACHE
[1117] So also is he like his sire.

MESSENGER
[1118] After the boy fell headlong from the lofty tower, and the throng of Greeks wept for the crime it wrought, that same host turned to a second crime and to Achilles’ tomb. Its further side is gently lapped by Rhoeteum’s waters; its front is surrounded by a plain, while a valley, sloping gently up, hems in the middle space. The surging mass increases as if thronging to a theatre and has filled all the shore. Some think that by this death the fleet’s delay is ended; some joy that the foeman’s stock is cut away; the greater part of the heedless mob detest the crime – and gaze. Nor any less do the Trojans throng their own funeral and, quaking with fear, look on at the last act of the fall of Troy; when suddenly, as at a wedding, the torches come, leading the way, and the daughter ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#79 - 79}  of Tyndareus as bride’s attendant, with sad and drooping head. “So may Hermione ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaTroades.html#80 - 80}  be wed,” the Phrygians pray; “in such wise may base Helen to her husband be given back.” Terror holds both peoples awe-struck. The maid herself comes on with eyes in modesty cast down, but yet her face is radiant and the dying splendour of her beauty shines beyond its wont; as Phoebus’ light is wont to appear more glorious at the moment of his setting, when the stars come back to their stations and the uncertain daylight is dimmed by the approach of night. Astonished gazes the whole multitude, for all ever admire the more what must soon pass from them. Some, her beauty moves; some, her tender youth; some, the shifting changes of her fortune; but one and all, her courage, dauntless and death-confronting. On she comes and Pyrrhus follows; the hearts of all are filled with terror, wonder, pity.

[1149] Soon as the young man reached the summit of the steep mound, and stood upon the high-raised top of his father’s tomb, the dauntless maid did not shrink back, but, facing the stroke, stood there with stern look and courageous. A spirit so bold strikes the hearts of all and – strange prodigy – Pyrrhus is slow to kill. When his hand, thrust forth, had buried deep the sword, with the death-stroke her blood leaped out in a sudden stream through the gaping wound. Yet, though in the very act of death, she put not by her spirit; she fell, as if thus to make the earth heavy on Achilles, prone and with angry thud. The throng of both peoples wept; but the Phrygians mourned her with timid lamentation, while the victors wailed aloud. Thus was the rite performed. The shed blood stayed not nor flowed off on the surface of the ground; instantly the savage mound sucked it down and drank the whole draught of gore.

HECUBA
[1164] Go, go, ye Danaï, seek now your homes in safety; let your fleet now spread its sails and at ease plough the longed-for sea. A maiden and a boy have fallen; the war is done. But I, whither shall I betake my tears? Where in my old age shall I spew out this lingering life? Daughter or grandson, husband or country – which shall I lament? Shall I mourn all or, in my loneliness, myself alone? O death, object of my prayer, to boys and girls everywhere thou com’st with speed and savage violence; me alone dost thou fear and shun; sought midst swords and spears and firebrands the livelong night, thou dost evade my eager search. No foe, no falling wall, no fire has consumed my limbs; and yet how near to Priam did I stand!

MESSENGER
[1177] Haste to the sea, ye captives; already the vessels are spreading sail and the fleet is off.

THE END.

MEDEA, TRANSLATED BY FRANK JUSTUS MILLER

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

MEDEA, daughter of Aeëtes, king of Colchis, and wife of Jason.
JASON, son of Aeson, and nephew of Pelias, the usurping king of Thessaly; organizer and leader of the Argonautic expedition to Colchis in quest of the Golden Fleece.
CREON, king of Corinth, who had received into his hospitable kingdom Medea and Jason, fugitives from Thessaly, after Medea had plotted the death of Pelias.
NURSE of Medea.
MESSENGER.
TWO SONS of Medea and Jason (personae mutae).
CHORUS OF CORINTHIANS, friendly to Jason and hostile to Medea.

THE TIME of the play is confined to the single day of the culmination of the tragedy, the day proposed by Creon for the banishment of Medea and the marriage of Jason to Creusa, daughter of Creon.
THE SCENE is in Corinth, in the court of the house of Jason.

ARGUMENT

Although the play is confined in time to the final day of catastrophe at Corinth, the background is the whole romantic story of the Argonauts: how Jason and his hero-comrades, at the instigation of Pelias, the usurping king of Thessalian Iolchos, undertook the first voyage in quest of the Golden Fleece; how, after many adventures, these first sailors reached the kingdom of Aeëtes, who jealously guarded the fleece, since upon its possession depended his kingship; how the three deadly labours were imposed upon Jason before the fleece could be won – the yoking of the fiery bulls, the contest with the giants that sprang from the sown serpent’s teeth, and the overcoming of the sleepless dragon that ever guarded the fleece; how, smitten by love of him, the beautiful barbaric Medea, daughter of the king, by the help of her magic aided Jason in all these labours and accompanied him in his flight; how to retard her father’s pursuit she slew her brother and scattered his mangled remains in the path as they fled; how again, for love of Jason, she restored his father to youth and tricked Pelias’ own daughters into slaying their aged sire; how, for this act, Medea with her husband were exiled from Thessalia and dwelt in Corinth; how, for ten happy years, she lived with her husband and two sons in this alien land, her wild past almost forgotten, her magic untouched.
But now Jason has been won away from his wife, and is about to wed Creusa, the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth. The wedding festivities have already begun when the play opens and reveals Medea invoking all the powers of heaven and hell in punishment of her false lord.

MEDEA
[1] Ye gods of wedlock, and thou, Lucina, guardian of the nuptial couch, and thou ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#1 - 1}  who didst teach Tiphys to guide his new barque to the conquest of the seas, and thou, grim ruler of the deeps of Ocean, and Titan, who dost portion out bright day unto the world, and thou who doest show thy bright face as witness of the silent mysteries, O three-formed Hecate, and ye gods by whose divinity Jason swore to me, to whom Medea may more lawfully appeal – thou chaos of endless night, ye realms remote from heaven, ye unhallowed ghosts, thou lord ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#2 - 2}  of the realm of gloom, and thou, his queen, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#3 - 3}  won by violence but with better ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#4 - 4}  faith, with ill-omened speech I make my prayer to you. Be present, be present, ye goddesses ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#5 - 5}  who avenge crime, your hair foul with writhing snakes, grasping the smoking torch with your bloody hands, be present now, such as once ye stood in dread array beside my marriage couch; upon this new wife destruction bring, destruction on this father-in-law and the whole royal stock.

[19] I have yet curse more dire to call down on my husband – may he live. Through unknown cities may he wander, in want, in exile, in fear of life, hated and homeless; may he seek hospitality at strange doors, by now a familiar applicant; may he desire me for wife, and, that which I can pray nothing worse, may his children be like their sire and like their mother. – Already borne, borne is my vengeance! I have borne children! But why frame complaints and idle words? Shall I not go against my enemies? I’ll snatch the bridal-torches from their hands and the light from heaven. Does he behold this, the Sun, father of my race, and do men still behold him ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#6 - 6}  as, sitting in his chariot, he courses over bright heaven’s accustomed spaces? Why does he not return to his rising and measure back the day? Grant, oh, grant that I ride through the air in my father’s car; give me the reins, O sire, give me the right to guide thy fire-bearing steeds with the flaming reins; then let Corinth, with her twin shores cause of delay ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#7 - 7}  to ships, be consumed by flames and bring the two seas together.

[37] This course alone remains, that I myself bear the wedding torch unto the chamber and, after sacrificial prayers, slay victims on consecrated altars. Amid the very entrails seek thou a way for punishment, if thou livest, O soul, if there remains to thee aught of thy old-time strength. Away with womanish fears, clothe thy heart with unfeeling Caucasus. Whatever horror Pontus has beheld, or Phasis, Isthmus shall behold. Wild deeds, unheard-of, horrible, calamities at which heaven and earth alike shall tremble, my heart deep within is planning – wounds, slaughter, death, creeping from limb to limb. Ah, too trivial the deeds I have rehearsed; these things I did in girlhood. Let my grief rise to more deadly strength; greater crimes become me, now that I am a mother. Gird thyself with wrath, and prepare thee for deadly deeds with the full force of madness. Let the story of thy rejection match ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#8 - 8}  the story of thy marriage. How wilt thou leave thy husband? Even as thou didst follow him. Break off now dull delay; the home which by crime was gained, by crime must be abandoned.

CHORUS
[Chanting the epithalamium for JASON and CREUSA.]
[56] May the high gods who rule over heaven, and thy who rule the sea, with gracious divinity attend on our princes’ marriage, amid the people’s solemn applause. First to the sceptre-bearing Thunderers ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#9 - 9}  let the bull with white-shining hide offer his high-raised neck. Lucina let a heifer appease, snow-white, untouched by the yoke; and let her ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#10 - 10}  who restrains the bloody hands of rough Mars, who brings peace to warring nations and holds plenty in her rich horn, mild goddess, be given a tender victim. And do thou, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#11 - 11}  who the torches of lawful marriage attendest, dissipating the night with propitious hand, hither come, reeling with drunken footstep, binding thy temples with garlands of roses. And thou star, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#12 - 12}  forerunner of twilight, who returnest ever slowly for lovers – thee, mothers, thee, brides eagerly await, to see the full soon thy bright beams scattering.

[75] Our maiden in beauty far excels the Cecropian ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#13 - 13}  brides, and those who on Taÿgetus’ ridges are trained after the manner of mean by the unwalled city, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#14 - 14}  and those who bathe in Aonia’s ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#15 - 15}  waters and Alpheus’ ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#16 - 16}  sacred stream. Should he wish to be judged in beauty, all will yield to the son of Aeson, our leader – the ruthless lightning’s son ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#17 - 17}  who yokes with wild tigers, and he ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#18 - 18}  who makes tremble the tripod, the stern virgin’s ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#19 - 19}  brother; with his twin Castor, Pollux with yield, more skilful in boxing. So, so, ye heaven-dwellers, I pray you, let this bride surpass brides, this husband far excel husbands. When she has taken her stand midst her train of maidens, her one beauty shines more brightly than all. So does starlight splendour wane with the coming of the sun, and the huddled flock of the Pleiades vanish away when Phoebe, shining with borrowed light, with encircling horns encloses her full-orbed disk. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#20 - 20}

[98] While on such beauty the young lover gazes, her cheeks are suddenly covered with rosy blushes. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#21 - 21}  So snowy wool, dipped in purple dye, doth redden; so shines the sun when the shepherd at dawn, wet with the dew, beholds it.

[102] Do thou, O bridegroom, rescued from the marriage bonds of barbarous Phasis, wont with fear and reluctant hand to caress an unruly wife, joyfully take to thy arms the Aeolian maid ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#22 - 22}  – now at last ‘tis with the parents’ will.

[107] Sport, youths, with free banter and jesting; let your songs ring out, O youths, in responsive cadence; rarely against our lords is unrebuked licence given. Comely, noble scion ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#23 - 23}  of Lyaeus, the thyrsus-bearer, now is the time to light thy torch of frayed pinewood; toss on high the ritual fire with languishing fingers. Let saucy, sharp wit pour forth festive banterings and let the throng be free with jesting. – Let her pass in silent gloom who steals away to wed with a foreign husband.

MEDEA
[116] We are undone! Upon my ears has sounded the marriage-hymn. So great a calamity scarce I myself, scarce even yet can comprehend? Had Jason the heart to do this; having robbed me of my father, native land, and kingdom, could he leave me alone in a foreign land, cruel? Has he scorned my deservings, who saw flames and sea conquered by my crime? Does he think that all my powers of evil are so exhausted? Perplexed, witless, with mind scarce sane, I am tossed to every side. Whence can I get vengeance? I would that he had a brother! ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#24 - 24}  A wife he has; into her heart let the sword be driven. Is this enough to offset my woes? All monstrous deeds which Pelasgian, which barbaric cities know, all that thy own hands do not know, must be made ready now. Let thine own crimes urge thee on, and let them all return in memory – the bright ornament of the kingdom stolen away, and the wicked girl’s little comrade ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#25 - 25}  hewn in pieces with the sword, his murder forced upon his father’s sight, his body scattered over the deep, and the limbs of aged Pelias seethed in a brazen pot. Murder and impious bloodshed now often have I wrought! – and yet no crime have I done in wrath; ‘twas ill-omened love stirred me.

[137] But what else could Jason have done, once made subject to another’s will and power? He should have bared his breast unto the sword – nay, ah, nay, mad grief, say not so! If possible, may he live and, mindful of me, keep unharmed the gift ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#26 - 26}  I gave. The fault is Creon’s, all, who with unbridled sway dissolves marriages, tears mothers from their children, and breaks pledges bound by straitest oath; on him be my attack, let him alone pay the penalties which he owes. I will pile his home high with ashes; its dark pinnacles wrapt in flames Malea shall see. where, jutting out, it holds ships in tedious delay.

NURSE
[150] Be silent, I pray thee, and confide to secret grief thy hidden plaints. Whoe’er has dumbly borne hard blows with patient and calm soul, has been able to repay them; it is hidden wrath that harms; hatred proclaimed loses its chance for vengeance.

MEDEA
[155] Light is the grief which can take counsel and hide itself; great ills lie not in hiding. ‘Tis pleasing to face the foe.

NURSE
[157] Stay this frenzied outburst, my child; even silent calm can scarce defend thee.

MEDEA
[159] Fortune fears the brave, the cowardly overwhelms.

NURSE
[160] If there is place for courage, then should it be approved.

MEDEA
[161] It can never be that for courage there is no place.

NURSE
[162] No hope points out a way for our broken fortunes.

MEDEA
[163] Whoso has naught to hope, let him despair of naught.

NURSE
[164] The Colchians are no longer on thy side, thy husband’s vows have failed, and there is nothing left of all thy wealth.

MEDEA
[166] Medea, is left – in her thou beholdest sea and land, and sword and fire and gods and thunderbolts.

NURSE
[168] The king is to be feared.

MEDEA
[168] My father was a king.

NURSE
[169] Fearst thou not arms?

MEDEA
[169] Not though they were sprung from earth. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#27 - 27}

NURSE
[170] Thou’lt die.

MEDEA
[170] I wish it.

NURSE
[170] Flee!

MEDEA
[170] Of flight I have repented.

NURSE
[171] Medea,

MEDEA
[171] Will I be.

NURSE
[171] Thou art a mother.

MEDEA
[171] By whom, thou seest.

NURSE
[172] Dost delay flight?

MEDEA
[172] Flee I shall, but I’ll take my vengeance first.

NURSE
[173] The avenger will pursue.

MEDEA
[173] Perchance I shall find means to stay him.

NURSE
[174] Check thy words, spare now thy threats, foolish one, and thy proud spirit humble; ‘tis well to fit thee to the times.

MEDEA
[176] Fortune can take away my wealth, but not my spirit. – But under whose blows does the king’s door upon its hinges creak? It is Creon himself, puffed with Pelasgian power.

[MEDEA has retired to the back of the stage. Exit NURSE. Enter CREON.]

CREON
[179] Medea, Colchian Aeëtes baleful child, has she not yet taken herself from my realm? She is plotting mischief; I know her guile, I know here power. Whom will she spare? Whom will she let live in peace? I was making ready to rid me of this outrageous pest by the sword’s means and with all speed; but the prayers of my daughter’s husband have prevailed. I have granted her life; let her free my boundaries from fear, and depart in safety.

[He sees MEDEA approaching.]
[186] Boldly she moves to meet me, and with threatening mien seeks closer speech. Keep her off, ye slaves, from touch and approach far off; bid her keep silence; let her learn at last to obey a king’s commands. [To MEDEA.] Hence in swift flight! remove at once thine abominable presence, dire, horrible!

MEDEA
[192] What crime, what fault is punishment by my exile?

CREON
[193] What cause expels her – that may an innocent woman ask.

MEDEA
[194] If thou’rt my judge, then hear me; if my king, command.

CREON
[195] A king’s commands, just and unjust, thou must obey.

MEDEA
[196] Unjust rule never abides continually.

CREON
[197] Go, complain to the Colchians.

MEDEA
[197] I go; but let him take me who brought me thence.

CREON
[198] Thy prayer comes too late; my resolve is fixed.

MEDEA
[199] Didst thou hear Pelias ere he suffered punishment? But say on; be a hearing granted to thine excellent case.

MEDEA
[203] How hard it is to turn away from wrath the spirit when once aroused, and how royal it seems to him who has grasped the sceptre in his proud hands to go on as he has begun, I have learned in my own royal home. For, although I am overwhelmed by piteous disaster, an exile, suppliant, lonely, forsaken, on all sides buffeted, once I had glory from my noble father, and from my grandsire, the Sun, traced illustrious descent. All the land that Phasis waters with its calm, winding stream, all the Scythian Pontus sees behind it, where the sea grows sweet with marshy waters, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#28 - 28}  all that the unwedded hordes, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#29 - 29}  crescent-shielded, hemmed by Thermodon’s banks, fill with alarm – over all this my father rules. High-born, blest of heaven, in royal power and splendour then I shone; then princes sued for marriage with me, whom now I must sue. Swift and fickle is fortune and, swooping down, ahs torn me from royalty and given me o’er to exile.

[221] Put thy trust in royalty, although light chance hither and thither tosses e’en mighty wealth! This is the glorious, great privilege of kings, which time can never snatch away – to succour the afflicted, on a safe hearth to shelter suppliants. This only have I brought from my Colchian realm, that by my own self I saved that great glory and illustrious flower of Greece, bulwark of the Achaeans, offspring of gods. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#30 - 30}  Orpheus is my gift, who softens the rocks by his singing and draws trees after him; mine, too, are the twins, Castor and Pollux, and the sons of Boreas, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#31 - 31}  and Lynceus, who with far-flung gaze sees things removed even beyond Pontus, – and all the Minyans. For of the leader ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#32 - 32}  of the leaders I say no word; for him naught is owing; I count none debtor for his sake. For you I brought back the rest; him only for myself.

[236] Come on now, and heap all kinds of shameful deeds upon me. I will confess them; but as for crimes, this only can be charged, the rescue of the Argo. Suppose modesty should please the maiden, suppose her filial duty should please her; then will the whole Pelasgian land perish with its leaders, and this thy son-in-law will first fall before the fiery breath of the fierce bull. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#33 - 33}  Let what fortune will, oppress me; I repent not the glorious salvation of so many kings. Whatever reward I have won by all my crimes, it is in thy hands. Arraign and condemn me, if ‘tis thy pleasure; but give me back my sin. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#34 - 34}  I am guilty, I confess it, Creon; such didst thou know me when I clasped thy knees and as suppliant sought the loyalty of thy protecting hand. Once more, some corner, some abiding-place for my woes I beg, some paltry hiding-place; if from thy city thou art pleased to drive me, let some remote nook in thy realm be given me.

CREON
[252] That I am not one to wield the sceptre with violence nor to trample upon misery with haughty foot, methinks I have not unclearly shown by choosing for son-in-law an exile, crushed and stricken with heavy fear – aye, one whom Acastus, lord of Thessaly, demands for punishment and death. He complains that his father, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#35 - 35}  palsied and weak with age, burdened with years, was taken off, and the murdered old man’s limbs torn asunder, when, deceived by thy guile, his ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#36 - 36}  pious sisters dared an impious crime. Jason can defend his own cause if it is separate from thine; no blood has stained his innocence, his hand wielded no sword, and he has kept far off and free from company of such as thou. Thou, thou contriver of wickedness, who combinest woman’s wanton recklessness and man’s strength, with no thought of reputation, away! Purge my kingdom and take thy deadly herbs with thee; free the citizens from fear; abiding in some other land, harry ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#37 - 37}  the gods.

MEDEA
[272] Dost force me to flee? Give back then to the fugitive her ship, yea, give back her comrade. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#38 - 38}  Why dost thou bid me flee alone? I did not come alone. If ‘tis war ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#39 - 39}  thou fearest, drive us both from thy kingdom. Why make distinction ‘twixt two culprits? ‘Tis for him Pelias lies dead, and not for me. Add flight, theft, a deserted father, a mangled brother, any crime which e’en now the bridegroom is teaching his new wives ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#40 - 40}  – ‘tis no crime of mine. Full oft have I been made guilty, but never for myself.

CREON
[281] Thy going is already overdue. Why doest contrive delay with words?

MEDEA
[282] Suppliant I make this last prayer to thee as I depart: let not the mother’s guilt drag down her guiltless sons.

CREON
[284] Go then; these will I take as father to my fatherly embrace.

MEDEA
[285] By the blest bed of this royal marriage, by thy hopes for the future, and by the estate of thrones, which fickle Fortune disturbs with changeful lot, I pray thee be bountiful of a brief stay of my flight, while I, their mother, imprint on my sons the latest kiss, perchance my dying act.

CREON
[290] For treachery thou art seeking time.

MEDEA
[291] What treachery can be feared in time so scant?

CREON
[292] No time is too brief for harm to those on evil bent.

MEDEA
[293] Dost refuse a poor mother just a little time for tears?

CREON
[294] Though my ingrained fear bids me refuse thy plea, one day shall be given to prepare for banishment.

MEDEA
[296] ‘Tis more than enough, though thou retrench it somewhat. I also am in haste.

CREON
[298] With thy life shalt thou pay penalty if before Phoebus brings the bright day thou art not gone from Isthmus.

[299] But the marriage rites summon me, summons the festal day to pray to Hymen.
[Exuent.]

CHORUS
[301] Too venturesome the man who in frail barque first cleft the treacherous seas and, with one last look behind him at the well-known shore, trusted his life to the fickle winds; who, ploughing the waters on an unknown course, could trust to a slender plank, stretching too slight a boundary between the ways of life and death.

[329] Unsullied the ages our fathers saw, with crime banished afar. Then every man inactive kept to his own shores and lived to old age on ancestral fields, rich with but little, knowing no wealth save what his home soil had yielded. Not yet could any read the sky and use the stars with which the heavens are spangled; not yet could ships avoid the rainy Hyades; not yet did the fires of the Olenian Goat nor the Attic Wain which slow old Boótes follows and controls, not yet did Boreas, not yet Zephyrus have names.

[318] Tiphys made bold to spread his canvas on the vasty deep and to write new laws for the winds: now to spread full-bellied sail, now to haul the forward sheet ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#41 - 41}  and catch cross-breezes, now to set the yards in safety midway of the mast, now to bind them at the top, when the too eager sailor prays for winds aloft the ruddy topsails flutter. The lands, well separated before by nature’s laws, the Thessalian ship ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#42 - 42}  made one, bade the deep suffer blows, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#43 - 43}  and the sequestered sea become a part of our human fear.

[340] Heavy the penalties which that bold barque paid, brought through long terrors, when two mountains, barriers of the deep, from either side quick rushing, soared as with sound of thunder, and the sea, caught between, sprinkled their peaks and the clouds themselves. Bold Tiphys paled with fear and let the helm slip wholly from his faltering hand; Orpheus was still, his lyre mute with amaze, and the Argo herself lost voice. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#44 - 44} What, when the maid ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#45 - 45}  of Sicilian Pelorus, her waist begirt with dogs, opened all her gaping throats together? Who did not shudder in every limb when that one monster howled with so many tongues? What, when the deadly pests ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#46 - 46}  soothed the Ausonian sea with their tuneful songs, when, sounding back on his Pierian lyre, Thracian Orpheus well-nigh forced the Siren to follow, though wont to hold ships spell-bound by her song? Of this voyage what was the prize? The golden fleece and Medea, worse evil than the sea, worthy to be the first ship’s merchandise.

[364] Now, in our time, the deep has ceased resistance and submits utterly to law; no famous Argo, framed by a Pallas’ hand, with princes to man its oars, is sought for; any little craft now wanders at will upon the deep. All bounds have been removed, cities have set their walls in new lands, and the world, now passable throughout, ahs left nothing where it once had place: the Indian drinks of the cold Arazes, the Persians quaff the Elbe and the Rhine. There will come an age in the far-off years when Ocean shall unloose the bonds of things, when the whole broad earth shall be revealed, when Tethys shall disclose new worlds and Thule not be the limit of the lands.

NURSE
[Sees MEDEA hurrying out of the house.]
[380] Dear child, whither hurriest thou abroad? Stay, curb thy passion, check thy impetuous haste.

[MEDEA gods on without heeding.]
[382] As a maenad uncertainly directs her frenzied steps when now she raves at the oncoming of the god, on snowy Pindus’ top or on Nysa’s ridges, so she runs now here, now there, with frantic rush, marks of distracted passion in her face. Her cheeks aflame, she pants with deep sobs for breath, shouts aloud, weeps floods of tears, beams with joy; she assumes the proof of every passion. Whither the weight of her wrath inclines, where it aims its threats, hangs still in doubt; she threatens, seethes with rage, complains, groans aloud. Where will this wave break itself? Madness o’erflows its bounds. No simple or half-way crime doth she ponder in her heart; she will outdo herself. I recognize the marks of her old-time rage. Something great is impending, wild, monstrous, impious.

[MEDEA now approached]
[396] I see madness in her face. May Heaven avert my fears!

MEDEA
[397] [Aside.] If thou seekst, poor soul, what limit thou shouldst set to hate, copy thy love. Can it be that unavenged I should endure this royal wedding? Shall this day go idly by so anxiously besought, so anxiously bestowed? While the central earth shall bear up the balanced heavens, while the bright universe shall pursue its unchanging rounds, while sands lack number, while day attends the sun and stars the night, while the dry ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#47 - 47}  Bears revolve about the pole, and rivers fall to the sea, my madness shall never cease its quest of vengeance and shall grow on for ever. What ferocity of beasts, what Scylla, what Charybdis, sucking up the Ausonian and Sicilian waters, or what Aetna, resting heavily on panting Titan, shall burn with such threats as I? No whirling river, no storm-tossed sea, no Pontus, raging beneath the north-west wind, no violence of fire, fanned by the gale, could imitate the onrush of my wrath. I shall lay prostrate and destroy all things.

[415] Did he ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#48 - 48}  fear Creon and the threats of Thessaly’s king? ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#49 - 49}  True love can fear no man. But grant that under compulsion he yielded and made surrender; he could at least have come to me, could have spoken some last words to his wife. This also, though bold of heart, he feared to do. Surely ‘twas in the power of the king’s son-in-law to put off the time of my cruel banishment – one day was given for my children twain. But I complain not that the time is short; it shall stretch far. This day shall do, shall do that whereof no day shall e’er be dumb. I will storm the gods, and shake the universe.

NURSE
[425] Win back thy woe-troubled heart, my mistress; calm thy soul.

MEDEA
[426] The only calm for me – if with me I see the universe o’erwhelmed in ruins; with me let all things pass away. ‘Tis sweet to drag others down when thou art perishing.
[Exit.]

NURSE
[Calling after MEDEA.]
[429] Beware how many perils are to be feared if thou persist; no one may safely assail the strong.

[Enter JASON.]

JASON
[431] O fate, ever hard, and fortune, cruel – when she rages and when she spares, equally malign! How often does God find cures for us worse than our perils; should I resolve to be faithful to my wife according to her deserts, my life would be forfeited to death; should I refuse to die, alas! I must be faithless. It is not fear, but fearful father-love that has conquered faith; surely my children would share their parents’ death. O holy Justice, if in heaven thou dwellest, I call thy divinity to witness: the sons have prevailed upon the sire. Nay, even she herself, though she is fierce of heart and ill brooks the yoke, would rather, methinks, take thought for her sons than for her marriage rights. My mind is fixed to assail her wrath with prayers.

[Enter MEDEA.]
[445] And see, at sight of me she stars up, bursts into a passion, displays her hate; all her anguish is in her face.

MEDEA
[447] We are fleeing, Jason, fleeing. ‘Tis no new thing to change our abode; but the cause of flight is new – ‘twas for thee I was wont to flee. I withdraw, I go away, whom thou art forcing to flee forth from thy home; but whither doest thou send me back? Shall I seek Phasis and the Colchians, my father’s kingdom, the fields drenched with my brother’s blood? What lands dost thou bid me seek? What waters dost show to me? The jaws of the Pontic sea through which I brought back the noble band of princes, following thee, thou wanton, through the Clashing Rocks? Is it little Iolcos or Thessalian Tempe I shall seek? All the ways which I have opened for thee I have closed upon myself. Whither dost send me back? Thou imposest exile on an exile, but givest no place. But let me go. A king’s son-in-law has commanded it; I’ll not refuse. Heap dire penalties upon me; them have I deserved. Let the angry king crush thy mistress with cruel punishments, load her hands with chains, shut her up and bury her in dungeons of eternal darkness; I shall suffer less than I deserve.

[465] O ungrateful man, let thy heart recall the bull’s fiery breath, and, midst the savage terrors of unconquered race, the fire-breathing herd on Aeëtes’ arm-bearing ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#50 - 50}  plain, the weapons of the suddenly appearing foe, when, at my order, the earth-born soldiery fell in mutual slaughter. Think, too, on the long-sought spoil of the ram of Phrixus, the sleepless dragon, bidden to close his eyes in unknown slumber, my brother given up to death, crime not done once alone in one act of crime ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#51 - 51} ; think on the daughters ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#52 - 52}  who, lured by my guile, dared dismember the old man who was never to return to life. By the hopes of thy children, thine established house, by the monsters conquered, by these hands which I have never spared in thy service, by the perils we have undergone, by heaven and sea, witnesses of my marriage, have mercy on me; happy thyself, give thy suppliant her turn at happiness. Seeking a kingdom for another, I have given up my own; of all that wealth which, plundered even from the distant swart tribes of India, the Scythians heap up, that golden treasure which, since the packed palace can scarce contain it, we hang upon the trees, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#53 - 53}  I brought away nothing in my exile save only my brother’s limbs. Those also I squandered upon thee; for thee my country has given place, for thee father, brother, maidenhood – with this dower did I wed thee. Give back to the fugitive her own.

JASON
[490] When angry Creon was bent on thy destruction, ‘twas by my tears he was prevailed upon to grant thee banishment.

MEDEA
[492] As punishment I deemed it; now, as I see, exile is a boon.

JASON
[493] Depart while still thou mayst; take thyself hence; grievous ever is the wrath of kings.

MEDEA
[494] In urging this upon me, thou art Creusa’s advocate; thou wouldst remove the rival whom she hates.

JASON
[496] What! Medea charge me with love?

MEDEA
[496] Yes, murder, too, and treachery.

JASON
[497] What crime, pray, canst thou charge to me?

MEDEA
[498] Whatever I have don.

JASON
[498] This one thing remains still for me, to become guilty of thy sins as well.

MEDEA
[500] They are, they are thine own; who profits by a sin has done the sin. Though all should holy thy wife infamous, do thou alone protect her, do thou alone call her innocent; let her be guiltless in thy sight, who for thy sake is guilty.

JASON
[504] Unwelcome is life which one is ashamed to have accepted.

MEDEA
[505] Then one should not keep a life which he is ashamed to have accepted.

JASON
[506] Nay, calm thy wrath-stirred heart; for thy sons sake be reconciled.

MEDEA
[507] I reject, forswear, disown them! Shall Creusa bear brothers to my children?

JASON
[509] Yes, a queen, to the sons of exiles; a royal lady to the fallen.

MEDEA
[510] Never may such ill day come to the wretched, as shall mingle a base breed with illustrious stock, Phoebus’ sons with the sons of Sisyphus.

JASON
[513] Why, wretched woman, dost thou drag both me and thee to ruin? Begone, I pray thee.

MEDEA
[514] Creon has heard my prayer.

JASON
[515] What can I do? Tell me.

MEDEA
[515] For me? Crime.

JASON
[516] A king on this side and on that –

MEDEA
[516] There is (and this more fearsome still) Medea. Let us ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#54 - 54}  strive together, and let the prize be Jason.

JASON
[518] I yield, worn with trouble. And do thou thyself beware lest thou tempt fate too often.

MEDEA
[520] Always has every fortune stood beneath my feet.

JASON
[521] Acastus is hard after us.

MEDEA
[521] Nearer foe is Creon; flee them both. That thou arm thy hand against thy father-in-law, and stain thyself with kindred ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#55 - 55}  blood, Medea does not compel thee; remain guiltless and escape with me.

JASON
[525] And who will resist if double war assail us, if Creon and Acastus unite their arms?

MEDEA
[527] Add the Colchians to these, add Aeetes, too, to lead them, join Scythians with Pelasgians; to destruction will I give them all.

JASON
[529] I tremble at lofty sceptres.

MEDEA
[529] See that thou lust not after them.

JASON
[530] Cut short this long discourse, lest it arouse suspicion.

MEDEA
[531] Now, O most high Jupiter, thunder throughout thy heavens, stretch forth thy hand, thine avenging flames prepare, rend the clouds and make the whole world quake. Let thy bolts be poised with hand that chooseth neither me nor him; whichever of us falls will perish guilty; against us thy bolt can make no error.

JASON
[537] Begin to think with reason, and speak with calm. If any solace from my father-in-law’s house can soothe thy flight, request it.

MEDEA
[540] To scorn the wealth of kings, my soul, as well thou knowest, hath strength and wont. I ask but this: that I may have my children as comrades of my flight, that in their bosoms I may pour forth my tears. Thee new sons await.

JASON
[544] I confess that right gladly would I yield unto thy prayer, but a father’s love forbids; for that I should permit this thing, not Creon himself, my king and father-in-law, could force me. This is my reason for living, this, my heart’s comfort, consumed as it is with cares. Sooner could I part with breath, with limbs, with light.

MEDEA
[549] [Aside.] Thus does he love his sons? ‘Tis well! I have him! The palce to wound him is laid bare. [To JASON.] As I depart, my final message, at least, grant me to speak; grant me to give the last embrace; e’en that will be a boon. With my latest utterance I beg thee now; let not any words my distracted grief has poured forth remain within my mind; let the memory of my better self stay with thee, and let these words spoken in wrath be quite forgot.

JASON
[557] All have I driven from my mind, and I also make prayer to thee that thou curb thy hot passion and be calm; peace soothes the soul’s distresses.
[Exit.]

MEDEA
[560] He has gone! Can it be so? Goest thou, forgetful of me and of all the deeds I wrought? Have we fallen from thy memory? Nay, we shall never fall therefrom. [To herself.] To thy task; summon up all thy powers and arts. The fruit of thy crimes is to count nothing crime. There is scant room for fraud; we are held in fear. There make attack where no one can fear aught. Haste thee now, dare, begin whatever Medea can – and cannot – do.

[568] [To the NURSE.] Do thou, faithful nurse, comrade of my grief and of my shifting fortunes, help my unhappy plannings. I have a robe, a gift from heaven, the glory of our house and kingdom, given by the Sun to Aeetes as a pledge of fatherhood; there is also a gleaming necklace of woven gold and a golden band which the sparkle of gems adorns, with which the air is encircled. Let my sons bring these as gifts unto the bride, but let them first be anointed and imbued with baneful poisons. Now call on Hecate. Prepare the death-dealing rites; let altars be erected, and let now their fires resound within the palace.

CHORUS
[579] No violence of fire or of swelling gale, no fearful force of hurtling spear, is as great as when a wife, robbed of her love, burns hot with hate; not when cloudy Auster has brought the winter’s rains, and Hister’s floods speeds on, wrecking bridges in its course, and wanders afield; not when the Rhone beats back the sea, or when the snows melt into streams beneath the sun’s strong rays and in mid-spring Haemus has dissolved. Blind is the fire of love when fanned by rage, cares not to be controlled, brooks no restraint, has no fear of death; ‘tis eager to advance even against the sword.

[595] Have mercy, O gods, be gracious, we beseech you, that he ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#56 - 56}  may live in safety who tamed the sea; but the lord ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#57 - 57}  of the deep is enraged that the second realm is conquered. The youth ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#58 - 58}  who dared drive the everlasting chariot, heedless of his father’s goal, himself caught the fire which in his madness he scattered o’er the sky. The familiar path has cost no mortal dear; walk thou where ‘twas safe for folk aforetime, nor break, rash man, the inviolable covenants of the universe.

[607] Whoever handled that daring ship’s famous oars and despoiled Pelion of his sacred grove’s thick shade, whoever entered between the roaming rocks ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#59 - 59}  and, having passed the perils of the deep, moored his vessel on a savage shore, to return captor of foreign gold – all by a dreadful end atoned for the sea’s outraged laws.

[616] Punishment the challenged ocean claims. First of all, Tiphys, the tamer of the deep, gave up control to an untrained helmsman; dying on a foreign shore, far from his ancestral realm, in a paltry tomb he lies midst unfamiliar shades. For this, Aulis, remembering her lost king, in her becalmed harbour holds ships chafing at delay. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#60 - 60}

[625] That son ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#61 - 61}  of the tuneful Muse, at whose sweet melodies the swift stream stood still and the winds were hushed, when the bird, leaving off its own singing, came near him, the whole wood following after – he lay scattered over the Thracian fields, but his head floated down mournful Hebrus; he came to the familiar ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#62 - 62}  Styx and Tartarus, never to return.

[634] Alcides laid low the sons ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#63 - 63}  of Aquilo, he slew Neptune’s son ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#64 - 64}  wont to take upon him countless shapes; but he himself, after establishing peace on land and sea, after opening up the kingdoms of savage Dis, laid him down, living, on burning Oeta, and gave his body to the devouring flames, consumed by the wasting of the double blood, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#65 - 65}  his wife’s offering.

[643] The bristling boar, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#66 - 66 http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#53 -}  irresistible in his thrust, laid Ancaeus low; thou, Meleager, dost impiously slay thy mother’s brother and diest by thine engraged mother’s hand. All these deserved the charge ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#67 - 67}  for which that tender boy, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#68 - 68}  sought vainly by mighty Hercules, atoned by death – the boy snatched away, alas, midst peaceful waters. Go now, ye brave, plough the sea, whose streams ye ought to dread.

[652] Idmon, though he well knew his fate, was slain ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#69 - 69}  by a serpent on Libya’s sands; true to all, but false to himself alone, Mopsus fell and saw not Thebes again. If he ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#70 - 70}  told truth as to the future, Thetis’ husband ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#71 - 71}  shall in exile wander. Nauplius, while striving to wreck the Argives by false beacon fires, shall fall headlong into the deep; his son ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#72 - 72}  shall perish and pay the penalty of his father’s sin ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#73 - 73} ; Oileus, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#74 - 74}  too, dying midst flame and flood; redeeming from death her lord ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#75 - 75}  of Pherae, the wife ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#76 - 76}  shall perish, giving up her life for her husband’s sake. Pelias himself, who bade the prize of the golden spoil be brought away in the first ship, seething in boiling pot, wandering midst waters close confined, perished by fire. Enough now, ye gods, have ye avenged the sea; spare him ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#77 - 77}  who was ordered to the task.

NURSE
[670] [Alone.] My spirit quakes with horror; some great disaster is at hand. Monstrously grows her grief, feeds its own fires and renews its former strength. Often have I seen her in frenzy and assailing the gods, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#78 - 78}  drawing down the sky; but greater than such deeds, greater is the monstrous thing Medea is preparing. For now that with maddened steps she has gone out and come to her baleful shrine, she lavishes all her stores and brings forth whatever e’en she herself long has dreaded, and marshals her whole train of evil powers, things occult, mysterious, hidden; and, supplicating the grim altar with her left hand, she summons destructive agencies, whatever burning Libya’s sands produce, what Taurus, stiff with arctic cold, holds fast in his everlasting snows, and all monstrous things. Drawn by her magic incantations, the scaly brood leave their lairs and come to her. Here a savage serpent drags its huge length along, darts out its forked tongue, and seeks against whom it is to come death-dealing; hearing her incantation, it stops in amaze, knots its swollen body into writhing folds, and settles them into coils. “Petty are the evils,” she cries, “and cheap is the weapon which deepest earth begets; from heaven will I seek my poisons. Now, now is the time to set in motion some plan deeper than common guile. Hither let that serpent ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#79 - 79}  descend which lies like a vast rushing stream, whose huge folds the two beasts ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#80 - 80}  feel, the greater and the less ( the greater used ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#81 - 81}  by Pelasgians; by Sidonians, the less); let Ophiuchus at length relax his choking grip and give the poison vent; in answer to my incantations let Python come, who dared to attack the twin divinities. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#82 - 82}  Let Hydra return and every serpent cut off by the hand of Hercules, restoring itself by its own destruction. Thou, too, ever-watchful dragon, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#83 - 83}  quitting the Colchians, come thou to my aid, thou who through my incantations wast first lulled to slumber.”

[705] When she had summoned forth the whole tribe of serpents, she assembled her evil store of baleful herbs. Whatever trackless Eryx produces on his rocky slopes; plants that grow on heights clothed in unbroken winter, the heights of Caucasus, spattered with Prometheus’ gore; plants wherewith the rich Arabians smear their arrows, and the bold Mede, girt with his quiver, or the light-armed Parthians; or those juices which, under the bold pole, high-born Sueban women gather in Hyrcanian groves; whatever the earth produces in the nest-building springtime of when frozen winter has stripped the woods of their glory and bound all things with icy fetters; all plants that bloom with deadly flower, and all whose juices breed case of death in their twisted roots – all these she handles. Haemonian Athos contributed those baneful herbs, these, mighty Pindus; on the ridges of Pangaeus that plant was lopped of its tender foliage with a bloody sickle; these Tigris fed, checking his deep flood the while; the Danube, those; these, gem-studded Hydaspes, flowing with warm waters through thirsty tracts, and the Baetis, which gave its name to its own country, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#84 - 84}  pushing into the western sea with languorous flood. These plants felt the knife while Phoebus was making ready the day; the shoot of that was clipped at midnight; while this was severed by finger-nail with muttered charm.

[731] She seizes death-dealing herbs, squeezes out serpents’ venom, and with these mingles unclean birds, the heart of a boding owl, and a hoarse screech-owl’s vitals cut out alive. Other objects the mistress of evil lays out, arranged in separate heaps; in some is the ravening power of fire; in others numbing frost’s icy cold. She adds to her poisons words, no less fearsome than they. – But listen, her frenzied step has sounded, and she chants her incantations. All nature shudders as she begins her song.

[Enter MEDEA singing an incantation.]

MEDEA
[740] I supplicate the throng of the silent, and, you, funereal gods, murky Chaos and shadowy Dis’ dark dwelling-place, the abysses of dismal Death, girt by the banks of Tartarus. Leaving your punishments, ye ghosts, haste to the new nuptials; let the wheel stop that is whirling his body, and Ixion stand on earth; let Tantalus in peace drink his fill of the Pirenian spring. You, too, whom a fruitless toil mocks with urns full of holes, ye Danaids, come hither: this day needs your hands. On one alone, my lord’s new father, let a penalty rest heavier – let the slippery stone roll Sisyphus ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#85 - 85}  backward o’er the rocks.

[750] Now, summoned by my sacred rites, do thou, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#86 - 86}  orb of the night, put on thy most evil face and come, threatening in all thy forms. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#87 - 87}

[752] For thee, losing my hair from its band after the manner of my people, with bare feet have I trod the secret groves and called forth rain from the dry clouds; I have driven the seas back to their lowest depths, and the Ocean, his tides outdone, has sent his crushing waves farther into the land; and in like manner, with heaven’s law confounded the world has seen both sun and stars together, and you, ye bears, have bathed in the forbidden sea. The order of the seasons have I changed: the summer land has blossomed ‘neath my magic song, and by my compelling Ceres has seen harvest in winter-time; Phasis has turned his swift waters backward to their source, and Hister, divided into many mouths, has checked his boisterous streams and flowed sluggishly in all his beds. The waves have roared, the mad sea swelled, though the winds were still; the heart of the ancient woods has lost its shadows, when the bright day has come back to them at commandment of my voice; Phoebus has halted in mid-heaven, and the Hyades, moved by my incantations, totter to their fall. The hour is at hand, O Phoebe, for thy sacred rites.

[She offers various gifts to HECATE.]
[771] To thee I offer these wreaths wrought with bloody hands, each entwined with nine serpent coils; to thee, these serpent limbs which rebellious Typhoeus wore, who caused Jove’s throne to tremble. In this is the blood which Nessus, that traitor ferryman, bestowed as he expired. With these ashes the pyre on Oeta sank down which drank in the poisoned blood of Hercules. Here thou seest the billet of a pious sister but impious mother, Althaea, the avenger. These feathers the Harpy left in her trackless lair when she fled from Zetes. Add to these the quills of the wounded Stymphalian bird which felt the darts of Lerna. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#88 - 88}  – You have given forth your voice, ye altars; I see my tripods shaken by the favouring deity.

[787] I see Trivia’s swift gliding car, not as when, radiant, with full face, she drives the livelong night, but as when, ghastly, with mournful aspect, harried by Thessalian threats, she skirts with nearer rein the edge of heaven. So do thou wanly shed form thy torch a gloomy light through air; terrify the peoples with new dread, and let precious Corinthian bronzes resound, Dictynna, to thy aid. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#89 - 89}  To thee on the altar’s bloody turf we perform thy solemn rites; to thee a torch caught up from the midst of a funeral pyre has illumed the night; to thee, tossing my head and with bended neck, I have uttered my magic words; for thee a fillet, lying in funeral fashion, binds my flowing locks; to thee is brandished the gloomy branch ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#90 - 90}  from the Stygian stream; to thee with bared breast will I as a maenad smite my arms with the sacrificial knife. Let my blood flow upon the altars; accustom thyself, my hand, to draw the sword and endure the sight of beloved blood. [She slashes her arm and lets the blood flow upon the altar.] Self-smitten have I poured forth the sacred stream.

[812] But if thou complainest that too often thou art called on by my prayers, pardon, I pray; the cause, O Perses’ daughter, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#91 - 91}  of my too oft calling on thy bows is one and the same ever, Jason.

[817] Do thou now [she takes a phial] poison Creusa’s robe that, when she has donned it, the creeping flame may consume her inmost marrow. Within this tawny gold [she takes a casket] lurks fire, darkly hid; Prometheus gave it me, even he who expiates with ever-growing live his theft from heaven, and taught me by his art how to store up its powers. Mulciber hath also given me fires which subtly lurk in sulphur; and bolts of living flame I took from my kinsman, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#92 - 92}  Phaëthon. I have gifts from Chimaera’s middle part, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#93 - 93}  I have flames caught from the bull’s scorched throat, which, well mixed with Medusa’s gall, I have bidden to guard their bane in silence.

[833] Give sting to my poisons, Hecate, and in my gifts keep hidden the seeds of fire. Let them cheat the sight, let them endure the touch; let burning fire penetrate to heart and veins; let her limbs melt and her bones consume in smoke, and with her blazing locks let the bride outshine her wedding torches.

[840] My prayers are heard: thrice has bold Hecate bayed loud, and has raised the accursèd fire with its baleful light. Now all my power is marshalled; hither call my sons that by their hands thou mayst send these costly gifts unto the bride.

[MEDEA’s sons are brought in.]
[843] Go, go, my sons, born of an ill-starred mother, win to yourselves by means of gifts and much beseeching your mistress and stepmother. Begone and quickly come you home again, that I may enjoy one last embrace.

[Exuent sons toward the palace; MEDEA in the opposite direction.]

CHORUS
[849] Whither is this blood-stained maenad borne headlong by mad passion? What crime with reckless fury is she preparing? Her distraught face is hard set in anger, and with fierce tossings of her head she haughtily threatens e’en the king. Who would think her an exile.

[858] Her cheeks blaze red, pallor puts red to flight; no colour in her changing aspect does she keep long. Hither and thither she wanders, as a tigress, robbed of her cubs, ranges in mad course through the jungles of Ganges.

[866] How to curb her anger Medea knows not, nor yet her love; now that anger and love have joined cause, what will the outcome be? When will the wicked Colchian be gone from the Pelasgian borders and free from terror at once our kingdom and our kings? Now, O Phoebus, speed thy chariot with no check of rein; let friendly darkness veil the light and let Hesperus, vanguard of the night, plunge deep this fearful day.

[Enter MESSENGER, running from the direction of the palace.]

MESSENGER
[879] All is lost! The kingdom’s props have fallen. Daughter and father in commingled ashes lie.

CHORUS
[881] By what snare taken?

MESSENGER
[881] By the common snare of kings – by gifts.

CHORUS
[882] What snare could have been in them?

MESSENGER
[883] Myself, I also marvel, and, though the woeful thing is done, can scarce believe it could be done. What stay is there to ruin? The greedy fire rages through the palace’s every part as if ‘twere bidden so. Already the whole house has fallen, the city is in peril.

CHORUS
[897] Let water put out the flames.

MESSENGER
[898] Nay, in this disaster this marvel, too, has happened: water feeds the flames, and the more ‘tis checked the more fiercely burns the fire; the very defences ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#94 - 94}  does it seize upon.

[Enter MEDEA, in time to hear the last words.]

NURSE
[891] [To MEDEA.] Quickly begone, Medea, from the land of Pelops; seek headlong any land thou wilt!

MEDEA
[893] What I – shall I give ground? Nay, had I fled already, for this I should return. Strange nuptials see I here.

[She becomes absorbed in her own thoughts.]
[895] Why, soul, dost falter? Follow up the attack so well begun. How small a part of thy vengeance is that in which thou art rejoicing! Thou dost love him still, mad one, if ‘tis enough for thee that Jason wifeless be. Seek thou some unaccustomed form of chastisement, and now thus prepare thyself: let all right give way; let honour begone, defeated; light is the rod which innocent hands uplift. Bend to thine anger, rouse up thy halting purpose, and with all thy strength drain from thy heart’s very depths its old-time violence. Let all that has yet been done be called but piety. To the task; let them know how petty, of what common stamp, were the crimes I wrought to serve him. In them my grief was but practising; what great deed had prentice hands the power to do? What, a girl’s rage? Now I am Medea; my wit has grown through suffering.

[911] Glad am I, glad, that I tore off my brother’s head, glad that I carved his limbs, that I robbed my father of his guarded treasure, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#95 - 95}  glad that I armed daughters ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#96 - 96}  for an old man’s death. Seek thou fresh fields, my grief; no untrained hand wilt thou bring to any crime.

[916] Whither, then, wrath, art tending, or what weapons art thou aiming at the forsworn foe? ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#97 - 97}  A dark purpose my fierce spirit hath resolved within me, and dares not yet acknowledged to itself. Fool! fool! I have gone too fast – would that mine enemy had children by his paramour! [She pauses and then addresses herself.] All offspring that thou hast by him are Creusa’s brood. Resolved is this way of vengeance, rightly resolved; for a last deed of guilt, I see it now, must my soul make ready. Children that once were mine, do you pay penalty for your father’s crimes.

[926] Horror has smit my heart! My limbs are numb with cold and my heart with terror flutters. Wrath has given place; the mother has all come back, the wife is banished. Can I shed my children’s, my own offspring’s blood? Ah, mad rage, say not so! Far, even from me, be that unheard-of deed, that accursed guilt! What sin will the poor boys atone? Their sin is that Jason is their father, and, greater sin, that Medea is their mother. [She pauses.] Let them die, they are none of mine; let them be lost – they are my own. They are without crime and guilt, yea, they are innocent – I acknowledge it; so, too, was my brother. Why, soul, dost hesitate? Why are my cheeks wet with tears? Why do anger and love now hither, now thither draw my changeful heart? A double tide tosses me, uncertain of my course; as when rushing winds wage mad warfare, and from both sides conflicting floods lash the seas and the fluctuating waters boil, even so is my heart tossed. Anger puts love to flight, and love, anger. O wrath, yield thee to love.

[945] Hither, dear children, sole comfort of my fallen house, come hither and link your entwining limbs with mine. Let your father have you unharmed, so but your mother may have you too. But exile and flight press hard upon me; now, now will they be torn from my bosom and carried away from me, midst tears and sighs and kisses. – Let them be lost to their father; they are lost to me. My grief grows again and my hate burns hot; Erinys, as of old, claims my unwilling hand. O wrath, where thou dost lead I follow. I would that from my womb the throng of proud Niobe had sprung, and that I had been the mother of twice seven sons! Too barren have I been for vengeance – yet for my brother and my father there is enough, for I have borne two sons.

[958] Whither hastes that headlong horde of Furies? Whom seek they? Against whom are they preparing their flaming blows? Whom does the hellish host threaten with its bloody brands? A huge snake hisses, whirled with the writhing lash. Whom does Megaera seek with her deadly torch? Whose shade comes there dimly seen, its limbs all scattered? It is my brother, and ‘tis punishment he seeks. We’ll pay, yes, all the debt. Plunge your brands into my eyes, tear, burn; see, my breast is open to the Furies.

[967] O brother, bid the avenging goddesses depart from me, and go in peace to the deep-buried ghosts; to myself leave me and use this hand, brother, which has drawn the sword – [She slays the first son.] With this victim I appease thy ghost. – What means that sudden noise? ‘Tis arms they are making ready, and they seek me for my slaying. To the lofty roof of our palace will I mount, now the bloody work hath been begun. [To her remaining son.] Do thou come with me. [To her dead son.] Thy corpse also will I take hence with me. Now to the task, O soul; not in secrecy must thy great deed by lost; to the people approve thy handiwork.

[Exit MEDEA, carrying the body of her dead son and leading the living. Enter JASON in the street below shouting to the citizens.]

JASON
[978] Ye faithful souls, who mourn your princes’ doom, rally to me that we may take the author herself of this dread crime. Here, here, my brave band of warriors, bring weapons, raze this house to the very ground.

MEDEA
[Appearing on the house-top.]
[982] Now, now have I regained my regal state, my brother, my sire; and the Colchians have once more the spoil of the golden fleece; restored is my kingdom, my ravished virginity is restored. Oh, divinities, at last propitious, oh, festal day, oh, nuptial day! On! the crime is accomplished; but vengeance is not yet complete; be done with it while they hands are still about it. Why dost thou delay now, O soul? Why hesitate, though thou canst do it? Now has my wrath died within me. I am sorry for my act, ashamed. What, wretched woman, have I done? – wretched, say I? Though I repent, yet have I done it! Great joy steals on me ‘gainst my will, and lo, it is increasing. [She catches sight of JASON in the crowd below.] This one thing I lacked, that yon man should behold. Naught have I done as yet; whatever crime I’ve done is lost unless he sees it.

JASON
[Discovering her.]
[995]See, there she is herself, leaning over the sheer battlement! Someone bring fire that she may fall consumed by her own flames.

MEDEA
[997] Nay, Jason, heap up for thy sons their last funeral pyre; build them a tomb. Thy wife and father have already the services due the dead, buried by me; this son has met his doom, and this shall suffer like fate before thy eyes.

JASON
[1002] By all the gods, by our flight together, by our marriage couch, to which I have not been faithless, spare the boy. If there is any guilt, ‘tis mine. I give myself up to death; destroy my guilty head.

MEDEA
[1006] Here ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#97 - 97}  where thou dost forbid it, where it will grieve thee, will I plunge the sword. Go now, haughty man, take thee maids for wives, abandon mothers.

JASON
[1008] One is enough for punishment.

MEDEA
[1009] If this hand could be satisfied with the death of one, it would have sought no death at all. Though I slay two, still is the count too small to appease my grief. If in my womb there still lurk any pledge of thee, I’ll search my very vitals with the sword and hale it forth.

JASON
[1014] Now end what thou hast begun – I make no more entreaty – and at least spare ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#98 - 98} my sufferings this suspense.

MEDEA
[1016] Enjoy a slow revenge, hasten not, my grief; mine is the day; we are but using the allotted ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#99 - 99}  time.

JASON
[1018] O heartless one, slay me.

MEDEA
[1018] Thou biddst me pity – [She slays the second son.] ‘Tis well, ‘tis done. I had no more atonement to offer thee, O grief. Lift thy tear-swollen eyes hither, ungrateful Jason. Dost recognize thy wife? ‘Tis thus ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaMedea.html#100 - 100}  I am wont to flee. A way through the air has opened for me; two serpents offer their scaly necks bending to the yoke. Now, father, take back thy sons. [She throws the bodies down to him.] I through the air on my winged car shall ride.
[She mounts the car and is borne away.]

JASON
[1026] [Calling after her.] Go on through the lofty spaces of high heaven and bear witness, where thou ridest, that there are no gods.

THE END.

PHAEDRA, TRANSLATED BY FRANK JUSTUS MILLER

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

HIPPOLYTUS, son of Theseus and Antiope, an Amazon.
PHAEDRA, wife of Theseus and stepmother of Hippolytus.
THESEUS, king of Athens.
NURSE of Phaedra.
MESSENGER
SLAVES AND ATTENDANTS
CHORUS of Athenian citizens.

THE SCENE is laid throughout the court in front of the royal palace at Athens, and the action is confined to the space of one day.

ARGUMENT

Theseus had wed Antiope, the Amazons, and of their union had been born Hippolytus. This youth grew up to love the chase, austere and beautiful, shunning the haunts of men and scorning the love of women. Theseus had meanwhile slain Antiope, and married Phaedra, Cretan Minos’ child.
And now, for four years past, the king has not been seen upon the earth, for, following the mad adventure of his bosom friend, Pirithoüs, he has descended into Tartarus to help him steal away its queen, and thence, men think, he will never return.
Deserted by her lord, the hapless Phaedra has conceived a hopeless passion for Hippolytus; for Venus mindful of her old armour with Mars, which Phaedra’s ancestor, Apollo [Phoebus or Sol the Sun], had exposed, has sent this madness on her, even as Pasiphaë, her mother, had been cursed with a most mad and fatal malady.

HIPPOLYTUS
[In the early morning, in the palace court at Athens. Enter HIPPOLYTUS with a large company of huntsmen armed with the various weapons of the hunt, and leading numerous dogs in leash. HIPPOLYTUS proceeds to assign the various tasks of the day to his followers.]
[1] Go, girdle the shadowy woods and the topmost ridges of the mount, ye sons of Cecrops! With nimble feet wide wandering, scour the coverts that lie ‘neath rocky Parnes and in the vale of Thria, whose swift-flowing stream lashes its banks; climb the hills ever white with Rhipean snow. Here, here let others hie, where the all alder-thickets fringe the grove, where meadows lie which Zephyr soothes with his dew-laden breath and calls forth the herbage of the spring, where scant Ilissos flows sluggishly along through meagre fields and with ungenerous stream creeps o’er unfruitful sands.

[17] Go ye by the left path where Marathon opens out her forest glades, where with their small following the suckling mothers seek nightly forage; and ye, where rugged Acharneus tempers his frosts beneath the warm south-wind.

[23] Let one tread sweet Hymettus’ cliff, another, small Aphidnae; too long unharried is that spot where Sunium thrusts out the shores of the curving sea. If any feels the lure of the forest, Phlye calls for him; there is the haunt of the boar, terror of husbandmen, famed by now for many a wound.

[31] But do you cast off the leashes from the dogs that hunt in silence; still let thongs hold the keen Molossians fast, and let the savage Cretans tug on the stout bonds with well-worn necks. But the Spartans (for their breed is bold and eager for the prey) hold in carefully with a tighter knot. The time will come when the hollow rocks will re-echo with their bayings; now, with heads low-hung, let them snuff the air with keen nostrils, and with muzzles to earth quest through the forest haunts, while the light is still dim, while the dewy ground still retains the well-marked trail.

[44] Let some of you make speed to load your necks with the heavy, wide-meshed nets, and others, with the smooth-wrought snares. Let a line decked out with crimson feathers hedge the deer with empty terror. Thou shalt brandish the dart, thou with right and left hand together hurl the heavy oak-shaft with broad iron head; do thou lie in hiding and with shouts drive the game on the headlong rush; and thou, when victory is won, shalt free flesh from hide with thy curved hunting-knife.

[54] And do thou be with thy follower, O manlike goddess, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#1 - 1}  for whose sovereignty earth’s secret places are reserved, whose darts with unerring aim seek out the prey which drinks the cool Araxes or sports on Ister’s frozen streams. Thy hand aims at Gaetulian lions, thine at Cretan deer; and now with lighter stroke dost thou pierce swift-fleeing does. The striped tigers face thee, but the shaggy-backed bisons flee, and the wild ox with wide-spreading horns. All things that feed in the lonely fields, whether the Arabian knows them in his rich forests, or the needy Garamantian and the wandering Sarmatian on his desert plains, whatever the heights of the rough Pyrenees or the Hyrcanian glades conceal, all fear thy bow, Diana. If, his offerings paid, thy worshipper takes thy favour with him to the glades, his nets hold the tangled prey, no feet break through his snares; his game is brought in on groaning wains, his hounds have their muzzles red with blood, and all the rustic throng come home in long triumphant line.

[81] Lo, goddess, thou dost hear me: the shrill-tongued hounds have given the sign. I am summoned to the woods. Here, here I’ll hasten by the shortest way.
[Exuent.]

[Enter PHAEDRA, from the palace.]

PHAEDRA
[85] O mighty Crete, the vast sea’s mistress, whose countless vessels along every coast have held the deep, yea, whatever, lands, e’en to Assyria, making path for the prows of ships, old Nereus cleaves – why dost thou force me here, given o’er to an enemy’s house as hostage, wife to my foe, to spend my days in wretchedness and weeping? Behold, fled is my lord afar and keeps his bridal oath as is the wont of Theseus. Through the deep shades of the pool which none recrosses is he faring, this brave recruit of a madcap suitor, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#2 - 2}  that from the very throne of the infernal king he may rob and bear away his wife. He hurries on, a partner in mad folly; him nor fear nor shame held back. And there in the depths of Acheron he seeks adultery and an unlawful bed, this father of Hippolytus. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#3 - 3}

[99] But another, greater smart burdens my woeful breast. No rest by night, no deep slumber frees me from care. A malady feeds and grows within my heart, and it burns there hot as the stream that wells from Aetna’s caverns. Pallas’ loom stands idle and my task slips from my listless hands; no longer it pleases me to deck the temples with votive offerings, nor at the altars, midst bands of Athenian dames, to wave torches in witness of he silent rites, nor with pure prayers and pious worship to approach the goddess ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#4 - 4}  who guards the land once granted to her! My joy is to follow in pursuit of the startled beasts and with soft hand to hurl stiff javelins.

[112] Whither, my soul, art tending? Why this mad love of forest glades? I recognize my wretched mother’s fatal curse ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#5 - 5} ; her love and mine know how to sin in forest depths. Mother, my heart aches for thee; swept away by ill unspeakable, thou didst boldly love the wild leader of the savage herd. Fierce was he and impatient of the yoke, lawless in love, leader of an untamed herd; yet he did love something. But as for me, what god, what Daedalus could ease my wretched passion? Though he himself ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#6 - 6}  should return, mighty in Attic cunning, who shut our monster in the dark labyrinth, he could afford no help to my calamity. Venus, detesting the offspring of the hated Sun, is avenging through us the chains that bound her to her loved Mars, and loads the whole race of Phoebus with shame unspeakable. No daughter of Minos’ house hath found love’s bondage light; ever ‘tis linked with guilt.

NURSE
[129] O wife of Theseus, illustrious child of Jove, quickly drive guilty thoughts from thy pure breast, put out these fires, nor show thyself obedient to this dread hope of love. Whoever at the outset has resisted and routed love, has been safe and conqueror; but whoso by dalliance has fed the sweet torment, too late refuses to bear the accepted yoke.

[136] I know how the stubborn pride of princes, ill brooking truth, refuses to be bent to righteousness; but whatever outcome fate shall give I am ready to endure; freedom near at hand makes the aged brave.

[140] Best is the upright purpose and the unswerving path; next is the shame, that knows some measure in transgressing. To what end art thou hasting, wretched woman? Why heap fresh infamy upon thy house and outsin thy mother? Impious sin is worse than monstrous passion; for monstrous love thou mayst impute to fate, but crime, to character. If, because thy husband sees not the realms of earth, thou dost believe thy guilt safe and devoid of fear, thou errest. Suppose that Theseus is indeed held fast, hidden away in Lethean depths, and must suffer the Styx eternally; what of him, thy father, who holds the seas under his wide dominion and gives law to a hundred ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#7 - 7}  peoples? Will he permit so great a crime to lie concealed? Shrewd is the care of fathers. Yet suppose that by craft and guile we do hide this great wickedness from him; what of him who sheds his light on all things, thy mother’s sire? ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#8 - 8}  What of him who makes the heavens rocks, brandishing Aetnean bolts in his glittering hand, the father of the gods? Dost believe thou canst so sin as to escape the all-seeing eyes of both thy grandsires?

[159] But grant that heaven’s kindly grace conceals this impious intercourse; grant that to incest be shown the loyalty which great crimes never find; what of the ever-present penalty, the soul’s conscious dread, and the heart filled with crime and fearful of itself? Some women have sinned with safety, but none with peace of soul. Then quench the fires of impious love, I pray, and shun a deed which no barbaric land has ever done, neither the Getae, wandering on their plains, nor the inhospitable Taurians, nor scattered Scythians. Drive this hideous purpose from thy chaste mind, and, remembering thy mother, shun strange matings. Dost purpose to share thy bed with father and with son, and receive in an incestuous womb a blended progeny? Then go thou on and overturn all nature with thy unhallowed fires. Why do monsters cease? ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#9 - 9}  Why does thy brother’s ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#10 - 10}  labyrinth stand empty? Shall the world hear of strange prodigies, shall nature’s laws give way, whenever a Cretan woman loves?

PHAEDRA
[177] I know, nurse, that what thou sayest is true; but passion forces me to take the worser path. With full knowledge my soul moves on to the abyss and vainly seeks the backward way in quest of counsels sane. Even so, when the mariner urges his laden vessel against opposing seas, his toil goes for naught and the ship, vanquished, is swept away by the swift-moving tide. What can reason do? Passion has conquered and now rules supreme, and, a mighty god, lords it o’er all my soul. This winged god rules ruthlessly throughout the earth and inflames Jove himself, wounded with unquenched fires. Gradivus, the warrior god, has felt those flames; that god ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#11 - 11}  has felt them who fashions the three-forked thunderbolts, yea, he who tends the hot furnaces ever raging ‘neath Aetna’s peaks is inflamed by so mall a fire as this. Nay, Phoebus, himself, who guides with sure aim his arrows from the bowstring, a boy of more sure aim pierces with his flying shaft, and flits about, baneful alike to heaven and to earth.

NURSE
[195] ‘Tis base and sin-mad lust that has made love into a god and, to enjoy more liberty, as given to passion the title of an unreal divinity. The goddess of Eryx ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#12 - 12}  sends her son, forsooth, wandering through all lands, and he, flying through heaven’s void, wields wanton weapons in his boyish hands, and, though least of gods, still holds such mighty empire! ‘Tis love-mad souls that have adopted these vain conceits and have feigned Venus’ divinity and a god’s archery. Whoever rejoices in overmuch prosperity and abounds in luxury is ever seeking unaccustomed joys. Then that dire comrade of high estate, inordinate desire, steals in; wonted feasts no longer please, nor houses of simple fashion or modest cups. Why steals this deadly pest more rarely into humble homes, choosing rather the homes of daintiness? Why doth hallowed love dwell ‘neath lowly roofs and the general throng have wholesome impulses? Why hath modest fortune self-control? Why, on the other hand, do rich men, propped on empire, ever grasp at more than heaven allows? He who is too powerful seeks power beyond his power. What becomes one endowed with high estate, thou knowest well; then fear and respect the sceptre of thy returning lord.

PHAEDRA
[218] Love’s is, I think, the mightiest sovereignty over me, and I fear no lord’s return. Nevermore has he reached sight of the vaulted skies who, once plunged in perpetual night, has gone to the silent home.

NURSE
[222] Trust not in Dis. Though he bar his realm, and though the Stygian dog keep guard o’er the grim doors, Theseus alone finds out forbidden ways.

PHAEDRA
[225] He will give indulgence to my love, perchance.

NURSE
[226] Harsh was he even to a virtuous wife; foreign Antiope found his hand severe. But suppose thou canst bend thy angry husband; who can bend this youth’s stubborn soul? Hating the very name of woman, he flees them all, sternly devotes his years to single life and shuns the marriage tie. Thou wouldst know him of Amazonian breed.

PHAEDRA
[233] Though he keep him to the peaks of snowy hills, though he course swiftly ‘mongst the ragged rocks, still through the deep forests, over the mountains, ‘tis my resolve to follow him.

NURSE
[236] Will he stop for thee and yield himself to thy caresses? Will he lay aside his pure practices for impure love? Will he give up his hate for thee, when ‘tis for hate of thee, perchance, he repels all women? By no prayers can he be overcome.

PHAEDRA
[240] Wild is he; but wild things, we have learned, can be o’ercome by love.

NURSE
[241] He will flee away.

PHAEDRA
[241] Though he flee through the very seas, still will I follow.

NURSE
[242] Remember thy father.

PHAEDRA
[242] My mother I remember too.

NURSE
[243] He shuns the whole race of women.

PHAEDRA
[243] Then need I fear no rival.

NURSE
[244] My husband will be here.

PHAEDRA
[244] Yes, comrade of Pirithoüs!

NURSE
[245] And thy father will be here.

PHAEDRA
[245] He will be kind, Ariadne’s father.

NURSE
[246] By these gleaming locks of age, by this heart, worn with care, by these dear breasts, I beg thee check this made love and come to thy own relief. The wish for healing has ever been the half of health.

PHAEDRA
[250] Now wholly has shame fled my noble soul. I yield, dear nurse. Let the love which will not be controlled by overcome. Fair fame, I will not suffer thee to be defiled. This is the only way, the one sole escape from evil: let me follow my husband; by death will I forestall my sin.

NURSE
[255] Check, O my child, the rush of thine unbridled spirit; control thy passion. For this cause do I deem thee worthy life, since thou declarest thyself worthy death.

PHAEDRA
[258] I am resolved on death; I seek but the manner of my fate. With the noose shall I end my life, or fall upon the sword? or shall I leap headlong from Pallas’ citadel?

NURSE
[262] Can my old age permit thee thus to go headlong to thy death? Resist this mad impulse. No one can easily be recalled to life.

PHAEDRA
[265] No argument can stay from perishing one who has resolves to die and ought to die. Wherefore in protection of my honour let me arm my hand.

NURSE
[267] O mistress, sole comfort of my weary years, if so unruly a passion weighs on thy soul, scorn thou this fame; scarcely doth fame favour truth, being better to the worse deserving, worse to the good. Let us test that grim and stubborn soul. Mine is the task to approach the savage youth and bend the cruel man’s relentless will.
[Exuent into the palace.]

CHORUS
[274] Thou goddess, born of the cruel sea, who art called mother of both Loves, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#13 - 13}  that wanton, smiling boy of thine, reckless alike with torches and with arrows, with how sure bow doth he aim his shafts! His madness steals to the inmost marrow, while with creeping fire he ravages the veins. The wound he deals has no broad front, but it eats its way deep into the hidden marrow. There is no open peace with that boy of thine; throughout the world nimbly he scatters his flying shafts. The shore that beholds the new-born sun and the shore that lies at this far western goal, the land lying beneath the burning Crab and the cold region of the Arcadian Bear, which sustains its ever-wandering husbandmen, all know these fires of his. He kindles the fierce flames of youth and in worn-out age he wakes again the extinguished fires; he smites maids’ breasts with unknown heat, and bids the very gods leave heaven and dwell on earth in borrowed forms.

[296] Phoebus as keeper of the Thessalian herd ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#14 - 14}  drove his cattle along and, laying quill aside, called together his bulls on the unequal reeds. How often did he put on lower forms, even he ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#15 - 15}  who made heaven and the clouds: now as a bird he fluttered his white wings with note sweeter than the dying swan; now with savage front as a wanton bull he lowered his back for the sport of maidens and through the strange kingdom of his brother’s waves, using his hoofs in place of pliant oars, he breasted the deep sea and overcame it, a ferryman trembling for the prize ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#16 - 16}  he bore. The radiant goddess ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#17 - 17}  of the darksome sky burned with love and, forsaking the night, gave her gleaming chariot to her brother to guide in fashion other than his own. He learned to drive the team of night and to wheel in narrower circuit, while the axle groaned beneath the car’s heavier weight; nor did the nights keep their accustomed length, and with belated dawning came the day. The son of Alcmena ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#18 - 18}  laid by his quiver and the threatening skin of the huge lion, letting emeralds be fitted on his fingers and law be enforced on his rough locks; he bound his legs with cross-garterings of gold and within yellow sandals confined his feet; and in that hand, with which he but now bore the club, he spun out threads with flying spindle.

[325] Persia and the rich, fertile realm of Lydia saw the fierce lion’s skin laid aside, and on those shoulders, on which the royal structure of the lofty sky had rested, a gauzy cloak of Tyrian web. ‘Tis an accursed fire (believe those who have suffered) and all too powerful. Where the land is encircled by the briny deep, where the bright stars course through heaven itself, over these realms the pitiless boy holds sovereignty, whose shafts are felt in the lowest depths by the sea-blue throng of Nereids, nor can they ease their heat by ocean’s waters. These fires the race of winged creatures feel. Goaded on by love, the bold bull undertakes battle for the whole herd; if they feel that their mates are in danger, timid stags challenge to war. At such a time swart India holds striped tigers in especial fear; at such a time the boar whets his death-dealing tusks and his jaws are covered all with foam; African lions toss their manes and by their roarings give token of their engendered passion. When Love has roused them, then the forest groans with their grim uproar. Love sways the monsters of the raging sea, sways Lucanian bulls, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#19 - 19}  claims as his own all nature; nothing is exempt, and hate perishes at the command of Love. Old grudges yield unto his fires. Why tell of more? Love’s cares o’erwhelm harsh stepmothers.

[Enter NURSE from the inner palace.]
[358] Nurse, tell the news thou bearest. How stands it with the queen? Hath her fierce flame any bound?

NURSE
[360] No hope is there that such suffering can be relieved, and no end will there be to her mad fires. She is parched by a silent fever, and e’en though ‘tis hidden away, shut in her heart, her passion is betrayed in her face; fire darts from her yes; again, her weary gaze shrinks from the light; nothing long pleases her unbalanced soul, and her limbs by ever-shifting pangs are tossed in changeful wise. Now with failing steps she sinks down as if dying, and can hardly hold up her head on her fainting neck; now she lies down to rest and, headless of slumber, spends the night in lamentations; she bids them to lift her up and again to lay her down, to loose her hair and again to bid it up; her raiment, with itself dissatisfied, is ever changed. She has now no care for food or health. She walks with aimless feet, wasted now in strength. Her old-time sprightliness is gone, and the ruddy glow of health no longer shines on her bright face; care feeds upon her limbs, her steps totter and the tender grace of her once beautiful form is fallen away; her eyes, which once shone like Phoebus’ torch, no longer gleam with their ancestral fire. Tears fall down her face and her cheeks are wet with constant drops, as when on the top of Taurus the snows melt away, pierced by a warm shower.

[384] But see, the palace doors are opening, and she herself, lying on golden couch, all sick of soul, rejects her wonted garments.

PHAEDRA
[387] Away, ye slaves, with robes bedecked with purple and with gold; away, scarlet of the Tyrian shell, the webs ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#20 - 20}  which the far-off Seres gather from the trees. Let a narrow girdle hold in my garments’ unencumbering folds, let there be no necklace at my throat, let no snowy pearls, the gift of India’s ocean, weight down my ears, and let my hair hang loose, unscented by Assyrian nard. So, tossed at random, let my locks fall down upon my neck and shoulders and, moved by swift running, stream upon the wind. My left hand shall be busied with the quiver and my right wield a Thessalian spear. In such guise as the dweller by Tanaïs or Maeotis, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#21 - 21}  leaving cold Pontus’ tract behind, led her hordes, treading Athenian soil, and, binding her locks in a knot, let them flow free, her side protected by a crescent shield; so will I betake me to the woods.

CHORUS
[404] Cease thy complainings; grieving helps not the wretched. Appease the rustic divinity of our virgin goddess.

NURSE
[406] O queen of the groves, thou who in solitude lovest thy mountain-haunts, and who upon the solitary mountains art alone held holy, change for the better these dark, ill-omened threats. O great goddess of the woods and groves, bright orb of heaven, glory of the night, by whose changing beams the universe shines clear, O three-formed Hecate, lo, thou art at hand, favouring our undertaking. Conquer the unbending soul of stern Hippolytus; may he, compliant, give ear unto our prayer. Soften his fierce heart; may he learn to love, may he feel answering flames. Ensnare his mind; grim, hostile, fierce, may he turn him back unto the fealty of love. To this end direct thy powers; so mayst thou wear a shining face and, the clouds all scattered, fare on with undimmed horns; so, when thou drivest thy car through the nightly skies, may no witcheries of Thessaly prevail to drag thee down and may no shepherd ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#22 - 22}  make boast o’er thee. Be near, goddess, in answer to our call; hear now our prayers.

[HIPPOLYTUS is seen approaching.]
[424] The man himself I see, coming to perform thy sacred rites, no comrade at his side. [To herself.] Why dost thou hesitate? Chance has given thee both time and place. Thou must employ thy arts. Why do I tremble? ‘Tis no easy task to dare a crime bidden by another, but whoso fears a sovereign’s behests must lay aside and banish form his heart all thought of honour; shame is but an ill servant of a sovereign’s commands.

HIPPOLYTUS
[431] Why dost hither wend wearily thy aged steps, O faithful nurse, with troubled brow and face dejected? Surely my sire is safe, Phaedra is safe, and their two sons?

NURSE
[435] Banish thy fear. The realm is in prosperous state, thy house is strong, flourishing under the smile of Heaven. But in this happy lot do thou show thyself less harsh; for distress for thee harasses my anxious heart, seeing that thou in thine own despite dost break thyself with heavy penances. If fate compels, ‘tis pardonable to be wretched; but whoso of his own accord surrenders himself to misery and causes his own torment, he deserves to lose the happiness he knows not how to use. Nay, remember thy youth and relax thy spirit; go out o’ nights, raising the festal torch; let Bacchus unburden thy weighty cares.

[446] Enjoy thy life; ‘tis speeding swift away. Now hearts are light, now love to youth is pleasing. Let thy heart rejoice. Why dost lie on a lonely couch? Free thy youth from gloom; lay hold on pleasures; loosen the reins; let not life’s best days escape thee. God has portioned out its proper duties to each time of life and led this span of ours through its own stages; joy befits the young, a serious face the old. Why dost hold thyself in check and strangle thy true nature? That crop will give to the farmer the best return which in the tender blade runs riot with joyous growth, and that tree with lofty head will overtop the grove which no grudging hand cuts down or prunes away. So will right minds be reared unto a richer fruit of praise, if sprightly freedom nourish the high-born soul.

[461] Wilt thou, as a harsh wood-dweller, ignorant of life, spend thy youth in gloom and let Venus be forgot? Is it man’s allotted task, thinkst thou, to endure hardship, curb horses in their swift course, and wage savage wars in bloody battles? How various are the forms of death that seize and feed no mortal throngs! the sea, the steel and treachery! But suppose these lacking: by thy path we make wantonly for murky death. The unwedded life let barren youth applaud; then will all that thou beholdest be the throng of one generation only and will fall in ruins on itself. In his providence did yonder almighty father of the universe, when he saw how greedy were the hands of Fate, give heed ever by fresh progeny to make losses good. Come now, let love but be banished from human life, love, which supplies and renews the impoverished race: the whole globe will lie foul in vile neglect; the sea will stand empty of its fish; birds will be lacking to the heaven, wild bests to the woods, and the paths of air will be traversed only by the winds. Follow, then, nature as life’s guide; frequent the city; seek out the haunts of men.

HIPPOLYTUS
[482] There is no life so free and innocent, none which better cherishes the ancient ways, than that which, forsaking cities, loves the woods. His heart is inflamed by no mad greed of gain who has devoted himself to harmless ranging on the mountain-tops; here is no shouting populace, no mob, faithless to good men, no poisonous hate, no brittle favour. No slave is he of kings, nor in quest of kingship does he chase empty honours or elusive wealth, free alike from hope and fear; him venomous spite assails not with the bite of base-born tooth; those criems that spawn midst the city’s teeming throngs he does not know, nor in guilty consciousness does he quake at every sound, or frame lying words. He seeks not in pride of wealth to be sheltered by a roof reared on a thousand pillars, no in insolence plates he with much gold his rafter-beams. No streams of blood drench his pious altars, no hecatombs of snow-white bullocks, sprinkled with the sacred meal, bend low their necks; but his lordship is over the empty fields, and beneath the open sky he wanders blameless.

[502] His only craft is to set cunning snares for the wild beasts, and, when weary with hard toil, he refreshes his body in Ilissos’ stream, chilled by the snows. Now he fares along the bank of swift-flowing Alpheus, now traverses the lofty grove’s deep places, where cool Lerna is transparent with its crystal shoals, and the silent forest-depths, wherein the complaining birds make music, and the ash-trees and ancient beeches quiver, moving gently in the breeze. Sweet it is to lie on the bank of some vagrant stream, or on the bare sward to quaff light-stealing slumbers, be it where some copious spring pours down its hurrying waters, or through budding flowers some brook murmurs sweetly as it glides along.

[515] Fruit shaken from the forest trees stays his hunger, and berries plucked from the low bushes afford an easy meal. It is his passion to flee far from royal luxury. ‘Tis from anxious cups of gold that the proud drink! how sweet to catch up with the bare hand the water of the spring! Here slumber more surely soothes as he lays him down, care-free, on his hard bed. He guiltily plots no stealthy deeds in secret chamber and on a hidden couch, nor hides fearfully away in his labyrinthine palace; ‘tis the air and light he seeks, and his life has heaven for its witness.

[525] ‘Twas in such wise, methinks, they lived whom the primal age produced, in friendly intercourse with gods. They had no blind love of gold; no sacred boundary-stone, judging betwixt peoples, separated fields on the spreading plain; not yet did rash vessels plough the sea; each man knew only his native waters. Then cities were not surrounded with massive walls, set with many towers; no soldier applied his fierce hand to arms, nor did hurling engines burst through closed gates with heavy stones. Not yet did earth, suffering a master’s rule, fruitful of themselves, fed nations who asked nothing more; the woods gave men their natural wealth, and shady caves afforded natural homes.

[540] Unholy passion for gain broke up this peaceful life, headlong wrath, and lust which sets men’s hearts aflame. Next came cruel thirst for power; the weaker was made the stronger’s prey, and might took the place of right. At first men fought with naked fists [next they began to lay hand to deadly weapons ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#23 - 23} ] and turned stones and rough clubs to the use of arms. As yet there was no light cornel-shaft, tipped with tapering iron; no long, sharp-pointed sword hung at the side; no helmets crested with plumes gleamed from afar; rage furnished arms. Warlike Mars invented new modes of strife and a thousand forms of death. From this source streams of blood stained all lands and the sea grew red. Then crime stalked unchecked through every home and no impious deed lacked precedent. Brother was slain by brother, father by the hand of son, husband lay dead by the sword of wife, and unnatural mothers destroyed their own offspring. I say naught of stepmothers; they are no whit more merciful than the beasts. But the leader of all wickedness is woman; ‘tis she, cunning mistress of crime, besets our minds; ‘tis by her foul adulteries so many cities smoke, so many nations war, so many peoples lie crushed beneath the ruins of their kingdoms, utterly o’erthrown. Let others be unnamed; Aegeus’ wife alone, Medea, will prove that women are an accursed race.

NURSE
[564] Why make the crime of few the blame of all?

HIPPOLYTUS
[565] I abominate them all, I dread, shun, curse them all. Be it reason, be it instinct, be it wild rage: ‘tis my joy to hate them. Sooner shall you mate fire and water, sooner shall the dangerous Syrtes offer to ships a friendly passage, sooner shall Tethys from her far western shore bring in bright dawn, and wolves gaze on does with eyes caressing, than I, my hate o’ercome, have kindly thought for woman.

NURSE
[574] Oft-times does Love put curb on stubborn hearts and change their hate. Look at thy mother’s kingdom; those warlike women feel the yoke of Venus. Thou bearest witness to this, of her race the only son. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#24 - 24}

HIPPOLYTUS
[578] I count it the one solace for my lost mother, that now I may hate all womankind.

NURSE
[580] [Aside.] As some hard crag, on all sides unassailable, resists the waves, and flings far back the flood importunate, so does he spurn my words.

[583] But Phaedra is hurrying towards us, impatient of delay. Whither will fortune go? Whither will madness tend?

[PHAEDRA enters and falls as in a swoon.]
[585] Her fainting body has fallen suddenly to earth and death-like pallor has overspread her face.

[HIPPOLYTUS hastens to raise her in his arms.]
[587] Lift thy face, break silence. See, my daughter, thine own Hippolytus embraces thee.

PHAEDRA
[589] [Recovering.] Who gives me back to grief and again sets in my soul this fever dire? How blest was my unconsciousness of self!

HIPPOLYTUS
[591] Why dost thou shun the sweet boon of life restored?

PHAEDRA
[592] [Aside.] Courage! my soul, essay, fulfil thine own behest. Fearless be thy words, and firm; who makes timid request, invites denial. The chief part of my guilt is long since accomplished; too late for me is modesty – I have loved basely. If I follow up what I have begun, perchance I may hide my sin behind the marriage torch. Success makes some sins honest. Come now, my soul, begin! [To HIPPOLYTUS.] Lend ear to me privately a little while, I pray. If any comrade of thine is here, let him withdraw.

HIPPOYTUS
[601] Behold, the place is free from all witnesses.

PHAEDRA
[602] But my lips refuse passage to the words I seek to frame; some strong power urges me to speak, and a stronger holds me back. I call you all to witness, you heavenly powers, that what I wish –

HIPPOLYTUS
[606] Thy heart desires somewhat and cannot tell it out?

PHAEDRA
[607] Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.

HIPPOLYTUS
[608] Entrust thy troubles to my ears, mother.

PHAEDRA
[609] Mother – that name is too proud and high; a humbler name better suits my feelings. Call me sister, Hippolytus, or slave – yes, slave is better; I will endure servitude. Shouldst thou bid me walk through deep-drifted snows, I would not shrink from faring along the cold peaks of Pindus; shouldst thou send me through fire and midst deadly battle ranks, I would not hesitate to offer my breast to naked swords. Take thou in my stead the sceptre committed to my care, accept me for thy slave; it becomes thee to bear sway, me, to obey thine orders. It is no woman’s task to watch o’er royal cities. Do thou, in the vigour of thy youth’s first bloom, rule o’er the citizens, strong in thy father’s power; take to thine arms thy suppliant, and protect thy slave. Pity my widowhood –

HIPPOLYTUS
[623] The most high God avert that omen! In safety will my father soon return.

PHAEDRA
[625] The overlord of the fast-holding realm and of the silent Styx has made no way to the upper world once quitted; and will he let the robber ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#25 - 25}  of his couch go back? Unless, perchance, even Pluto sits smiling upon love!

HIPPOLYTUS
[629] Him surely the kindly deities will bring again. But while God still holds our prayers in doubt, with due affection will I care for my dear brothers, and so deserve of thee that thou shalt not deem thee widowed, and myself will fill for thee my father’s place.

PHAEDRA
[634] [Aside.] O credulous hope of lovers, O deceitful one! Has he not said enough? I’ll bring my prayers to bear upon him and attack.

[636] [To HIPPOLYTUS.] Have pity! hearken to the prayers my heart may not express. I long – and am ashamed – to speak.

HIPPOLYTUS
[637] What, pray, is this thy trouble?

PHAEDRA
[638] A trouble thou wouldst scarce believe could befall a stepmother.

HIPPOLYTUS
[639] Words of doubtful meaning thou utterest with riddling lips. Speak out and plainly.

PHAEDRA
[640] ‘Tis burning love scorches my maddened heart. A hot fire glows deep in my inmost vitals and hides darkly in my veins, as when nimble flames dart through deep-set timbers.

HIPPOLYTUS
[644] ‘Tis with pure love for Theseus thou dost burn?

PHAEDRA
[645] Hippolytus, ‘tis thus with me: Theseus’ features I love, those former looks of his which once as a youth he had, when his first beard marked his smooth cheeks, when he looked on the dark home of the Cretan monster, and gathered in the long thread o’er the winding way. How glorious was he then! Fillets bound his locks, and his young face glowed with the blush of modesty; strong muscles lay beneath the softness of his arms; and his features were as of thy Phoebe or of my Phoebus – or, rather were thy own. Such, yes, such was he when he won his foeman’s ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#26 - 26}  valour; just so he bore his head erect. In thee more brightly shines a beauty unadorned; all of thy sire is in thee, and yet some portion of thy mother’s sternness blends with an equal charm; on Grecian face shows Scythian austerity. If with thy father thou hadst come to the shores of Crete, for thee and not for him would my sister have spun the thread. Thee, thee, O sister, wherever amidst the starry heavens thou shinest, I call to aid for a cause like to thine own. One house has ruined two sisters: thee, the father, but me, the son.

[She kneels to HIPPOLYTUS.]
[666] See, a king’s daughter lies fallen at thy knees, a suppliant. Without spot or stain, pure, innocent, I am changed for thee alone. With fixed purpose have I humbled myself to prayer; this day shall bring an end either to my misery or my life. Have pity on her who loves –

HIPPOLYTUS
[671] Great ruler of the gods, dost thou so calmly hear crimes, so calmly look upon them? And when wilt thou send forth thy thunderbolt with angry hand, if now ‘tis cloudless? Let all the sky fall in shattered ruin, and in murky clouds the day; let the stars be turned backward and, wrenched aside, go athwart their courses. And thou, star of stars, O radiant Sun, dost thou behold this shame of thy race? Hide thy light and take refuge in darkness. Why is thy right hand empty, O ruler of gods and men? why is not the world in flames by thy forked lightning? Me let thy thunder smite, pierce me, me let thy swift-darting fire consume. I am guilty, I have deserved to die; I have stirred my stepmother to love.

[684] [To PHAEDRA.] Look thou! Am I fitted for adulteries? For such crime did I alone see to thee an easy instrument? Hath my austerity earned this? O thou, who hast outshined the whole race of women, who hast dared a greater evil than thy monster-bearing mother, thou worse than she who bore thee! She did but pollute herself with her shameful lust, and yet her offspring by its two-shaped infamy displayed her crime, though long concealed, and by his fierce visage the hybrid child made clear his mother’s guilt. That was the womb that bore thee. Oh, thrice and again blest of fate are they whom hatred and treachery have destroyed, consumed, and given unto death! O father, I envy thee; than thy Colchian stepdame ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#27 - 27}  this is a curse, greater, greater far!

PHAEDRA
[698] I, too, recognize the fortune of my house: we seek what we should shun; but I am not mistress of myself. Thee even through fire, through the mad sea will I pursue, yes, over crags and rivers, swollen by torrent streams; where’er thou shalt direct thy steps, there will I madly rush. Once more, proud man, I grovel at thy feet.

HIPPOLYTUS
[704] Away with thy impure touch from my chaste body! What? Even rush into my arms! Out, sword, and mete her just punishment. See, with left hand in her twisted hair have I bent back her shameless head. Never has blood been more justly spilled upon thy altar, O goddess of the bow.

PHAEDRA
[710] Hippolytus, now dost thou grant me fulfilment of my prayer; thou healest me of my madness. This is beyond my prayer, that, with my honour saved, ‘tis by thy hands I die.
[She grasps the sword and points it at her breast.]

HIPPOLYTUS
[713] Begone, live, lest thou have thy wish; and let this sword, polluted by thy touch, quit my chaste side.
[He throws his sword from him.]

[715] What Tanaïs will cleanse me, what Maeotis, with its barbaric waves rushing into the Pontic sea? Not great Father Neptune’s self, with his whole ocean, could wash away so much of guilt. O woods! O beasts!
[He rushes off into the depths of the forest.]

NURSE
[719] Her sin has been found out. O soul, why dost stand inactive and aghast? We must throw the crime back on him himself, and ourselves charge him with incestuous love. Crime must be concealed by crime. ‘Tis safest, when in fear, to force the attack. Whether we first dared the sin or suffered it, since it was done in secret, who of his own knowledge is to testify?

[She raises her voice in loud cry.]
[725] Help, Athens, help! Faithful band of slaves, come to our aid! The ravisher, Hippolytus, with vile, lustful intent, is after us; he is upon us and threatens us with death; with the sword he is terrifying our chaste queen – ah! he has rushed headlong forth and, dazed, in panic flight, has left his sword. We hold the proof of guilt. But the stricken queen, revive her first. Let her dishevelled hair, her torn locks, stay even as they are, the marks of that great guilt. Bear her to the city. Now come back to consciousness, my mistress. Why doest tear thyself and shun the glances of us all? ‘Tis thinking makes impure, not circumstance.
[Exuent.]

CHORUS
[736] He fled like a raging tempest, swifter than cloud-collecting Corus, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#28 - 28}  swifter than flame which speeds on its way when a star, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#29 - 29}  driven by the winds, extends its long-trailing fire.

[741] Let fame compare with thee ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#30 - 30}  all ancient beauty, fame, admirer of the olden time; as much fairer does thy beauty shine as gleams more brightly the full-orbed moon when with meeting horns she has joined her fires, when at the full with speeding chariot blushing Phoebe shows her face and the lesser stars fade out of sight. Such as he is the messenger of night, who brings the first shadows back, Hesperus, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#31 - 31}  fresh bathed in ocean; and when the shadows have been driven away again, Lucifer ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#32 - 32}  also.

[753] And thou, Bacchus, from thyrsus-bearing India, with unshorn locks, perpetually young, thou who frightenest tigers with thy vine-clad spear, and with a turban bindest thy hornèd head – thou wilt not surpass Hippolytus’ crisp locks. Admire not thou thy beauty overmuch; story has spread through every nation whom ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#33 - 33}  the sister of Phaedra preferred to Bromius.

[761] O beauty, doubtful boon to mortals, brief gift for but a little time, how swiftly on quick foot thou dost slip away! Not so swifty are the meadows, beauteous with early spring, despoiled by the hot summer’s glow, when with solstitial fire midday rages, and the nights sweep headlong in their brief course. As lilies wither and their leaves grow pale, so do our pleasing locks fall form the head, and the bright glow which shines on youthful cheeks is ravished in a moment and no day takes not spoilt of our body’s beauty. Beauty is a fleeting thing. Who that is wise would trust so frail a blessing? Enjoy it while thou mayest. Time is silently undermining thee, and an hour , worse than the last, is ever creeping on.

[777] Why seek desert places? Beauty is no safer in pathless regions. Hide thee in the woods when Titan has brought midday, and the saucy Naïds, a wanton throng, will encompass thee, wont in their waters to imprison shapely boys, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#34 - 34}  and for thy slumbers the frolicsome goddesses of the groves will lay their snares, the Dryads, who pursue Pans wandering on the mountains. Or else, looking down on thee from the starry heavens, the orb ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#35 - 35}  that was born after the old Arcadians ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#36 - 36}  will lose control of her white-shining car. And lately she blushed fiery red, though no staining cloud obscured her bright face; but we, anxious for our troubled goddess, thinking her harried by Thessalian charms, made loud jingling sounds: yet ‘twas thou ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#37 - 37}  hadst been her trouble, thou the cause of her delaying; while gazing on thee the goddess of the night checked her swift course.

[795] This face of thine let frosts more rarely ravage, let this face more seldom woo the sun; ‘twill shine more bright than Parian marble. How pleasing is the manly sternness of thy face and the severe dignity of thine old-seeming brow! With Phoebus mayst thou match that gleaming neck. Him locks that will not be confined, streaming o’er his shoulders adorn and robe; but thee a shaggy brow, thee shorter locks, lying in disarray, become. ‘Tis thine with manly strength to dare meet the trough and warlike gods and by the spread of thy huge body to overcome them; for even in youth thou dost match the muscles of a Hercules, art broader of chest than war-waging Mars. Shouldst thou be pleased to ride a horn-footed horse, with hand more agile on the rein than Castor’s thou couldst guide the Spartan Cyllarus. Stretch thong with thy first fingers ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#38 - 38}  and shoot the dart straight with all thy might; still not so far, though skilled to hurl the dart, will Cretans send the slender shaft. Or should it please thee to shoot thy arrows into the sky, in Parthian fashion, none will come down without its bird, but, deep fixed in the warm breast, will bring prey from the very clouds.

[820] To few men hath beauty (scan the ages past) not brought its penalty. May God, more merciful, pass thee by unharmed, and may thy illustrious beauty pass the threshold o’er of shapeless age.

[824] What would the woman’s headlong madness leave undared? She is preparing outrageous charges against this guileless youth. Behold her guilty wiles! By her torn hair she seeks to be believed; she disorders all the glory of her locks, bedews her cheeks with tears. She is marshalling her plot by every art that woman knows.

[A man is seen approaching who proves to be THESEUS.]
[829] But who is this, wearing a regal dignity on his face and with head borne high? How like the young Pirithoüs he is in countenance, were his cheeks not so deathly pale and did not unkempt squalor stiffen in his bristling hair. See, it is Theseus himself, restored to the upper world.

THESEUS
[835] At last I escaped the realm of eternal night, the dark world which in vast prison-house o’ershades the dead, and scarcely do my eyes endure the longed-for light. Now for the fourth time is Eleusis harvesting the bounty of Triptolemus, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#39 - 39}  as many times has Libra made day equal unto night, since dubious battling with an unknown fate has kept me between the ills of death and life. Though dead to all things else, one part of life remained to me – my sense of ills. Alcides was the end, who, when he dragged the dog by violence out of Tartarus, brought me, too, along with him to the upper world. But my strength is spent, has lost its old-time vigour, and my steps do falter. Alas, how hard a struggle it was from lowest Phlegethon to attain the far realms of air, at once to flee form death and follow Hercules!

[850] But what is this tearful outcry that strikes my ears? Let someone tell me. Greiving and tears and woe, and on my very threshold sad lamentation? – auspices tha well befit a guest from hell.

NURSE
[854] Phaedra holds unbending purpose of self-murder; she scorns our tears and is on the very edge of death.

THESEUS
[856] What cause for death? Why die, now that her husband is come back?

NURSE
[857] That very cause has brought with it speedy death.

THESEUS
[858] Thy riddling words some weighty matter hide. Tell me plainly what grief weighs on her mind.

NURSE
[860] She discloses it to none; though sorrowing, she hides her secret grief and is resolved to take with her the woe whereof she dies. But come now, I pray thee, come; there is need of haste.

THESEUS
[863] Unbar the closed portals of the royal house.
[The doors are thrown open and THESEUS encounters his wife just within.]

[854] O partner of my couch, is it thus thou welcomest thy lord’s return and the face of thy long-sought husband? Come, put away the sword from thy right hand, give me heart again, and whatever is driving thee out of life, declare it.

PHAEDRA
[868] Alas, O Theseus, great of soul, by the sceptre of thy kingdom, by thy children’s lives, by thy return, and by my body already doomed to dust, allow my death.

THESEUS
[871] What cause forces thee to die?

PHAEDRA
[872] If the cause of my death is told, its fruit is lost.

THESEUS
[873] No one else shall hear it, save myself.

PHAEDRA
[874] A chaste woman dreads her husband’s ears alone.

THESEUS
[875] Speak out; in my true heart will I hide thy secret.

PHAEDRA
[876] Where thou wouldst have another silence keep, keep silence first thyself.

THESEUS
[877] No means of death shall be granted unto thee.

PHAEDRA
[878] If one wills to die, death can never fail.

THESEUS
[879] Tell me what sin is to be purged by death.

PHAEDRA
[880] That I still live.

THESEUS
[880] Do not my tears move thee?

PHAEDRA
[881] ‘Tis best to die a death to be wept by friends.

THESEUS
[882] She persists in silence. Then by scourge and bonds shall her old nurse reveal whatever she will not tell. [To attendants.] Bind her with chains. Let the power of the scourge drag forth the secrets of her soul.

PHAEDRA
[885] Hold! I will myself confess.

THESEUS
[886] Why dost turn away thy sorrowing face and hide with veiling robe the tears that suddenly o’er flow thy cheeks?

PHAEDRA
[888] Thee, thee, O sire of the heavenly gods, I call to witness, and thee, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#40 - 40}  bright radiance of celestial light, on whom as founder of this house of ours depends – though sorely tempted, I withstood his prayers; to sword and threats my soul yielded not; yet did my body bear his violence. This stain of shame shall my blood wash away.

THESEUS
[894] Who, tell me, was the destroyer of my honour?

PHAEDRA
[895] Whom thou least thinkest.

THESEUS
[895] Who is he? I demand to hear.

PHAEDRA
[896] This sword will tell, which, in his panic terror, the ravisher left behind, fearing the gathering of the citizens.

THESEUS
[898] Ah me! What villainy do I behold? What monstrous thing do I see? The royal hilt of ivory, embossed with tiny figures, gleams before me, the glory of the Athenian race. But he, whither has he escaped?

PHAEDRA
[901] The slaves, here, saw him speeding swift away in headlong flight.

THESEUS
[903] O holy Piety, O ruler of the heavens, and thou ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#41 - 41}  who with thy billows dost sway the second realm, whence came this infection of infamy in our stock? Was that man nurtured by the land of Greece or by the Scythian Taurus and Colchian Phasis? The breed reverts to its progenitors and debased blood reproduces the primal stock. This, truly, is the madness of that warlike race, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#42 - 42}  to contemn Venus’ laws and to prostitute the long-chaste body to the crowd. O abominable race, yielding to no laws of a better land! Even the very beasts do shun incestuous love, and instinctive chastity guards Nature’s laws. Where are those features, that feigned austerity of the man, that rough garb, aping old-fashioned and archaic ways? Where thy stern manners and the sour severity of age? O two-faced life, thou keepest thy true thoughts hidden and dost clothe foul purpose with an aspect fair – chaste bearing hides unchastity; meekness, effrontery; piety, sin unspeakable; false men approve truth and the soft affect hardihood.

[922] O thou lover of the woods, the boasted wild man, continent, rough, unstained, is it for me thou keepst thyself in check? With my couch, by such crime as this, was it thy pleasure to make first test of manhood? Now, now I give thanks to the heavenly powers that Antiope fell stricken by my hand, and that, descending to the Stygian pit, I did not leave to thee thy mother. Fugitive, traverse nations remote, unknown; though a land on the remotest confines of the world hold thee separated by Ocean’s tracts, though thou take up thy dwelling in the world opposite our feet, though thou escape to the shuddering realms of the high north and hide deep in its farthest corner, and though, placed beyond the reach of winter ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#43 - 43}  and his hoar snows, thou leave behind thee the threatening rage of cold Boreas, still shalt thou pay penalty for thy crime. Fugitive, through all thy hiding-places untiringly will I pursue thee; regions remote, blocked, hidden away, far separate, trackless, will I traverse, and no place shall stop me – thou knowest whence I am returned. Whither weapons cannot be hurled, thither will I hurl my prayers. My father of the sea granted me thrice to fashion prayers whereto the god would bow, and, calling upon Styx, confirmed the boon.

[945] [To NEPTUNE.] Now fulfil the sad ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#44 - 44}  boon, O ruler of the sea! Let Hippolytus see the bright day no more, and in youth pass to the ghosts that are wrathful with his sire. Now bring aid, which my soul abhors, O father, to thy son; never should I squander this last boon ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#45 - 45}  of thine, did not great ills o’erwhelm; in depths of Tartarus, in presence of dread Dis, and imminent menace of hell’s lord, I was sparing of this prayer. Keep now thy promised faith. Father, dost thou delay? Why are thy waves yet silent? Now veil the night with dark clouds driven by the winds; snatch stars and sky from sight; pour forth the deep; and, rising high, summon the floods from Ocean’s self.

CHORUS
[959] O Nature, mighty mother of the gods, and thou, fire-bearing Olympus’ lord, who through the swift firmament whirlest the scattered stars, and the wandering courses of the planets, who makest the heavens on swift axis turn, why dost thou take such care to keep perpetual the pathways of the lofty sky, that now the hoar frosts of winter may strip the woods, now to the plantations their umbrage come again, that now in summer the Lion’s fervent heat may ripen the grain and the year regulate its powers? But why, again, dost thou, who holdest so wide sway, and by whose hands the ponderous masses of the vast universe are poised and wheel their appointed courses – why dost thou dwell afar, all too indifferent to men, not anxious to bring blessing to the good, and to the evil, bane?

[978] Fate without order rules the affairs of men, scatters her gifts with unseeing hand, fostering the worse; dire lust prevails against pure men, and crime sits regnant in the lofty palace. The rabble rejoice to give government to the vile, paying high honours even where they hate. Warped are the rewards of uprightness sad virtue gains; wretched poverty dogs the pure, and the adulterer, strong in wickedness, reigns supreme. O decency, honour, how empty and how false!

[989] But why does yon messenger haste hither with rapid pace, his sad countenance wet with grieving tears?

[Enter MESSENGER.]

MESSENGER
[991] O lot bitter and hard, O cruel servitude, why calls fate upon me to bear unutterable tidings?

THESEUS
[993] Fear not to speak out boldly the disaster, cruel though it be; I bear a heart not unprepared for suffering.

MESSENGER
[995] My tongue refuses utterance to the grief-bringing woe.

THESEUS
[996] Tell what mischance weighs down this shattered house.

MESSENGER
[997] Hippolytus, woe is men, lies in lamentable death.

THESEUS
[998] That his son was dead the sire has long since known; now is the ravisher dead. But tell the manner of his end.

MESSENGER
[1000] When with troubled steps he left the city, a fugitive, unfolding his swift way with flying feet, he quickly brought his prancing steeds ‘neath the high yoke and curbed their mouths with tight-drawn reins. Then much did he utter, communing with himself, and, cursing his native land, called oft upon his sire, and with loose reins fiercely shook the lash; when suddenly from out the deep the vast sea thundered and starward heaved itself. No wind was blowing on the briny sea, from no quarter of the clam sky came the noise, but a self-born ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#46 - 46}  tempest stirred the peaceful deep. Not so violently does the south wind distress Sicilia’s straits, nor so madly does the Ionian sea swell beneath the north-west’s tyranny, when the cliffs tremble under the shock of waves and the white spray smites Leucate’s summit. The mighty deep heaves up into a huge mound, and the sea, swollen with a monstrous birth, rushes to land.

[1017] Nor is that vast destruction piled up for ships; ‘tis the land it threatens. With no light sweep the flood rolls forward; some strange thing in its burdened womb the heavy wave is carrying. What new land shows its head to the stars? Is a new Cyclad rising? The rocks, the sacred seat of the Epidaurian god, ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#47 - 47}  were hid, and the cliffs famous for he crime of Sciron, and the land ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#48 - 48}  which is hemmed in by two seas.

[1025] While we in dumb amaze are wondering what this means, behold, the whole sea bellows, and the cliffs on every hand echo back the sound; the highest peak is wet with dashed-up spray; it foams, and then in turn spews back the flood, as when a cavernous whale swims through the deep ways of ocean, spouting back streams of water form his mouth. Then the great globe of waters shivered, shook and broke, and brought to the shore a thing more terrible than our fear; the sea rushed landward, following its monster. My lips tremble in the telling. How the thing looked! how huge! A bull it was, towering high with a dark blue neck, and he reared a high mane upon his verdant crest; his shaggy ears stood up; his eyes flashed with changing colour, now such as the lord of the wild herd might have, now such as one born beneath the sea – now his eyes dart flame, now they flash wondrous with cerulean gleam. His brawny neck with great muscles bulges and his wide nostrils roar with his gaping draughts of air. His breast and dewlap are green with clinging moss, and his long flanks with red seaweed are spotted. His hinder parts are joined into monstrous shape, and, all scaly, the huge beast drags his measureless length along. Such is that sea-monster of the outer ocean which swallows or crushes swift-flying ships. The lands quaked with fear; herds fled in frenzy in all directions through the fields, and the herdsman forgot to follow his cattle. All beasts fled from their wooded haunts; all hunters stood trembling, pale with chilling fear. Hippolytus alone, quite unafraid, with tight reins holds fast his horses and, terror-stricken though they are, urges them on with the encouragement of his familiar voice.

[1057] There is a deep passage towards the fields through the broken hills, hard by the neighbouring stretches of the sea below. Here that huge creature sharpens his anger and prepares his wrath. When he has gained his spirit, and with full trail rehearsed his wrath, he darts forth, running swiftly, scarce touching the surface of the ground with flying feet, and stands, in grim menace, before the trembling steeds. Thy son, rising up, confronts him with fierce, threatening look, nor does he change countenance, but loudly thunders: “This empty terror cannot break my spirit, for ‘twas my father’s task to conquer bulls.” But straightway his horses, disobedient to the reins, seized the chariot and, roaming from the road, wherever frenzied terror carried them in their mad flight, there they plunged along and dashed amid the rocks.

[1072] But he, as a helmsman holds his ship steady on the boisterous sea, lest it give its side to the waves, and skilfully cheats the floods, in like manner guides his swift-moving steeds. Now he drags on their mouths checked by the tight-drawn reins, and now, oft plying the twisted lash, he forces them to his will. His companion ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#49 - 49}  holds doggedly in pursuit, now racing alongside the horses, now making detour to face them, form every side filling them with fear.

[1080] But now they could flee no further; for he charged full front upon them, that bristling, horned monster of the deep. Then, truly, the plunging horses, driven by mad fear, broke form control, struggled to wrench their necks from the yoke, and, rearing up, hurled their burden to the ground. Headlong on his face he plunged and, as he fell, entangled his body in the clinging reins; and the more he struggled, the tighter he drew those firm-holding coils. The horses felt their deed, and now, with the light chariot, since none controlled, wherever fear bade on they dashed. Just so, not recognizing their wonted burden, and indignant that the day had been entrusted to a pretended Sun, the horses ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#50 - 50} flung Phaëthon far from his heavenly track. Far and wide the fields are stained with blood, and his head, dashed on the rocks, bounds back from them. The brambles pluck away his hair; the hard stones ravage that lovely face, and his ill-fated beauty is ruined by many a wound. The swift wheels drag his dying limbs; and at last, as he is whirled along, a tree, its trunk charred into a stake, stays him with its stock driven right through the groin and holds him fast, and for a little while the car stands still, held by its impaled master. Awhile that wound stays the team – then equally delay and their master, too, they break. ^{http://www.theoi.com/Text/SenecaPhaedra.html#51 - 51} Thereafter the thickets slash his half-dead body, the rough brambles with their sharp thorns tear him and every tree-trunk has taken its toll of him.