Six Tragedies Read online

Epictetus, ed. and trans. Christopher Gill, The Discourses of Epictetus

  (Dent, 1995).

  Inwood, B., and Lloyd P. Gerson (trans.), The Stoics Reader: Selected

  Writings and Testimonia (Hackett, 2008).

  Inwood, B., Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome (Oxford University

  Press, 2005).

  Long, A. A., Stoic Studies (California University Press, 1996).

  Marcus Aurelius (trans. Martin Hammond), Discourses (Penguin, 2006).

  Reydams-Schils, Gretchen, The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility and

  Affection (Chicago University Press, 2005).

  Rosenmeyer, Thomas G., Senecan Drama and Stoic Cosmology (California

  University Press, 1989).

  Sellars, John, Stoicism (California University Press, 2006).

  Seneca, trans. Robin Campbell, Letters from a Stoic (Penguin, 1969).

  Tragedy, Drama, Rhetoric

  Beacham, Richard, The Roman Theatre and its Audience (Harvard

  University Press, 1991).

  Boyle, A. J., Introduction to Roman Tragedy (Routledge, 2006).

  Bushnell, Rebecca, Tragedy: A Short Introduction (Blackwell, 2008).

  Dominik, William (ed.), Roman Eloquence: Rhetoric in Society and

  Literature (Routledge, 1997).

  —— and Jon Hall, A Companion to Roman Rhetoric (Blackwell, 2007).

  Easterling, Pat, and Edith Hall (eds.), Greek and Roman Actors: Aspects of

  an Ancient Profession (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

  Poole, Adrian, Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University

  Press, 2005).

  McDonald, Marianne, and J. Michael Walton (eds.), The Cambridge

  Companion to Greek and Roman Theatre (Cambridge University Press,

  2007).

  * * *

  select bibliography

  xxxi

  Silk, M. S. (ed.), Tragedy and the Tragic: Greek Theatre and Beyond

  (Clarendon Press, 1996).

  Taylor, David, The Greek and Roman Stage (Bristol Classical Press, 1999).

  Seneca’s Plays and their Influence

  Ahl, Frederick (trans.), Three Tragedies — Seneca (Cornell University

  Press, 1986).

  Boyle, A. J., Tragic Seneca: An Essay in the Tragic Tradition (Routledge,

  1997).

  Bishop, J. David, Seneca’s Daggered Stylus: Political Code in the Tragedies

  (Hain, 1985).

  Braden, Gordon, Renaissance Tragedy and the Senecan Tradition: Anger’s

  Privilege (Yale University Press, 1985).

  Davis, Peter J., Shifting Song: The Chorus in Seneca’s Tragedies

  (Olms-Weidmann, 1993).

  Eliot, T. S., Essays on Elizabethan Drama (Harcourt, Brace, 1956).

  Harrison, George W. M. (ed.), Seneca in Performance (Duckworth, 2000).

  Helms, Lorraine Rae, Seneca by Candlelight and Other Stories of Renaissance

  Drama (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997).

  Henry, Denis and Elisabeth, The Mask of Power: Seneca’s Tragedies and

  Imperial Rome (Aris & Phillips, 1985).

  Littlewood, C. A. J., Self-representation and Illusion in Senecan Tragedy

  (Oxford University Press, 2004).

  Miola, Robert, Shakespeare and Classical Tragedy: The Infl uence of Seneca

  (Clarendon Press, 1992).

  Motto, Anna Lydia, and John R. Clark, Senecan Tragedy (Hakkert, 1988).

  Pratt, Norman T., Seneca’s Drama (North Carolina University Press,

  1983).

  Segal, Charles, Language and Desire in Seneca’s ‘Phaedra’ (Princeton

  University Press, 1986).

  Share, Don (ed.), Seneca in English (Penguin, 1998).

  Schiesaro, Alessandro, The Passions in Play: ‘Thyestes’ and the Dynamics of

  Senecan Drama (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

  Sutton, Dana, Seneca on the Stage (Brill, 1986).

  Further Reading in Oxford World’s Classics

  Euripides, Heracles and Other Plays, trans. Robin Waterfield.

  —— Trojan Women and Other Plays, trans. James Morwood.

  —— Medea and Other Plays, trans. James Morwood.

  Lucan, Civil War, trans. Susan H. Braund.

  Petronius, The Satyricon, trans. P. G. Walsh.

  Seneca, Dialogues and Essays, trans. John Davie.

  * * *

  xxxii

  select bibliography

  Shakespeare, William, Titus Andronicus, ed. Eugene M. Wraith.

  Sophocles, Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra, trans. H. D. F. Kitto.

  Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, trans. Catharine Edwards.

  Tacitus, The Annals: The Reigns of Claudius, Tiberius and Nero, trans.

  J. C. Yardley.

  Webster, John, The Duchess of Malfi and Other Plays, ed. René Weis.

  * * *

  CHRONOLOGY

  44 bce

  Assassination of Julius Caesar.

  31 bce

  Battle of Actium, victory of Octavian (Augustus) over

  Antony; end of the Republic.

  31 bce – 14 ce Principate of Augustus.

  ?1 bce – 4 ce Birth of Seneca.

  37 ce

  Death of the emperor Tiberius, accession of Caligula.

  39/40 ce

  Probable date of composition of Consolation to Marcia.

  41 ce

  Murder of Caligula; Claudius becomes emperor. Claudius

  exiles Seneca to Corsica, on the charge of adultery with

  one of Caligula’s sisters. During his exile Seneca writes at

  least two of his prose treatises: the Consolation to Polybius

  and the Consolation to Helvia.

  49 ce

  Seneca recalled to Rome by Claudius, through the

  intercession of Nero’s mother Agrippina.

  50 ce

  Claudius adopts Nero as his son, making him heir to the

  throne. Seneca becomes Nero’s tutor.

  54 ce

  Death of Claudius, accession of Nero as emperor. Seneca

  composes the Apocolocyntosis (The Pumpkinification of

  Claudius), a satirical account of the late emperor’s deification.

  55 ce

  Nero has his rival and stepbrother Britannicus poisoned.

  55 – 62 ce

  Seneca composes the De Clementia (On Mercy), to Nero;

  the De Vita Beata (On the Happy Life); and the De Beneficiis

  (On Benefits).

  59 ce

  Nero murders his mother Agrippina.

  62 ce

  Burrus, the praetorian prefect and Nero’s other close ad -

  visor, dies. Seneca asks Nero for leave to retire. Nero

  refuses, but Seneca’s political role is much reduced after

  this date. Seneca writes the Epistles to Lucilius and the

  Natural Questions.

  64 ce Seneca

  officially retires, and returns his fortune to Nero.

  65 ce

  Nero denounces Seneca as a traitor, accusing him of

  involvement in the Pisonian Conspiracy. Seneca is forced

  to kill himself.

  * * *

  MYTHOLOGICAL FAMILY TREES

  m. = marriage

  i. = illegitimate relationship

  T H E H O U S E O F T H E B E S

  Cadmus m. Harmonia

  Agave

  Semele i. Jupiter

  Polydorus

  Pentheus

  Bacchus (Dionysus)

  Labdacus

  Menoeceus

  Laius m. Jocasta

  Creon

  Oedipus m. Jocasta

  Megara

  Creousa m. Jason

  * * *

  T H E H O U S E O F A T R E U S

  my

  Jupiter

  thol

  ogical f

  Tantalus

&nb
sp; Niobe

  Axioche i. Pelops m. Hippodamia

  amil

  [

  children]

  Chrysippus

  y trees

  Atreus m. Aerope

  Thyestes

  Tantalus and other sons

  Clytemnestra m. Agamemnon

  Menelaus m. Helen

  xxxv

  * * *

  xxxvi

  T H E H O U S E O F H E L I O S

  my

  thol

  Helios (the Sun)

  ogical f

  a bull i. Pasiphaë

  m. Minos

  Circe

  Aeetes

  the Minotaur

  amil

  Medea m. Jason

  y trees

  Theseus i. ( ) Ariadne

  Phaedra m. ( ) Theseus m. ( ) Antiope

  Bacchus i. ( )

  Hippolytus

  * * *

  PHAEDRA

  As the play opens, Theseus, king of Troezen, is down in the

  underworld, helping his friend Pirithous steal Hades’ wife,

  Persephone. It soon emerges that his wife, Phaedra, has

  developed an incestuous passion for Theseus’ son, her step-

  son, Hippolytus. But Hippolytus is a chaste young man,

  interested only in hunting animals in the wild. Seneca’s

  Phaedra goes through a number of stages as she grapples

  with her desire, and finally, under the influence of the Nurse,

  testifies falsely that Hippolytus tried to rape her. The truth

  emerges too late, and the family is destroyed.

  * * *

  dramatis personae

  theseus, king of Athens

  hippolytus, his son, by an Amazon woman

  phaedra, Theseus’ wife, Hippolytus’ stepmother

  nurse

  messenger

  chorus

  * * *

  ACT ONE

  hippolytus Come and surround the shades of the forests,

  come over the topmost peaks of the mountain of Cecrops,

  run swiftly, run everywhere, come and explore

  in the places beneath the rocky Parnethus,

  where in the Thriasian dales* the river

  beats, running through them with swift-flowing current.

  Climb up the hills, always white with the snow,

  of Riphaeus.*

  This way, this way, some of you, to the grove,

  thickly plaited with alders, where meadows spread open,

  10

  which Zephyr* softens with dewy breezes,

  and summons the flowers of spring;

  when softly the stream of Ilisos glides

  through poor little farmlands,

  touching the barren sands with its skimpy stream.

  And you, go where Marathon opens the ravines,

  on the left path,

  where the new mother ewes, with small groups of friends,

  look for their food in the night time.

  You, where the harsh Acharneus yields

  20

  to the warm south winds, and softens its icy cold.

  Another should tread the crags of sweet Hymettus,

  another the level plains of Aphnidae.

  That region has lain untapped for a long time —

  round the bay where Sunion pushes back the shore

  of the curving sea.

  If anyone is moved by the glory of forests,

  Phyle calls him.

  Here lives the one that the farmers fear,

  the boar, now marked with many a wound.

  30

  Now you, let loose the leashes of the hounds who can stay silent.

  But still keep the reins on the spirited Molossians

  and let the aggressive Cretans strain

  against sturdy collars which rub at their necks,

  and carefully restrain the Spartan dogs* —

  * * *

  4

  phaedra

  for their breed is courageous and lusts for the hunt —

  with a tighter knot.

  The time will come when the hollow rocks ring with their barking.

  Now low to the ground let them sniff at the winds

  with their knowing noses, and seek out the lairs

  40

  with muzzles pressed down, while the light is uncertain,

  while the dew of the earth retains the traces of feet passing by.

  Let one man hasten to carry fine ropes

  loaded round his neck;

  another to bring the smooth hunting-nets.

  Let a line decked out with bright red feathers

  trick the beasts, terrify them, trap them.

  You, hurl the air-borne weapons;

  you, use both hands at once, left and right,

  directing all your strength to the broad piece of iron;

  50

  you, lie in ambush, then drive the beasts headlong

  with a yell;

  you, when the victory comes, slice into their bellies

  with a curved knife.

  Come to your friend, O masculine goddess,*

  for whose kingdom lie open the secret parts of earth,

  whose unerring arrows pierce through the animals

  as they drink the icy waters of Araxes

  and those which are playing on the frozen Histrus.

  Your hand hunts down the Gaetulian lion,

  60

  your hand hunts down the Cretan deer;

  now with a lighter touch you shoot the swift-footed does.

  The stripy tigers turn their chests to face you,

  the shaggy bisons give you their backs,

  and the wild oxen with their long horns.

  Every beast which feeds in the lonely lands,

  known in the wealthy woods to the Arab

  and all which the indigent Garamantian knows,

  or the nomad Sarmataean on the empty plains,

  or hidden on the ridges of the wild Pyranees,

  70

  or hidden in Hyrcanian glades,

  all, Diana, all are afraid of your bow.

  If a follower is favoured by your power as he comes

  into the forest,

  * * *

  phaedra

  5

  the nets will hold fast the animals he captures,

  his ropes are unbroken by the kicks of their feet,

  his bag will groan heavy with his spoils.

  Then the hounds will be red at the muzzle with all the blood,

  and the crowd of peasants head back to their cottages

  in triumphal procession.

  80

  Come, Goddess, show me your favour! — The barking dogs

  deliver the sign: I am called to the woods.

  This way, this way, I shall go

  where the path makes a long journey short.

  phaedra Great Crete, you dominate the huge expanse of ocean:

  over your every shore there are numberless ships

  keeping to the sea, where Nereus cuts a path

  for the prows of boats to pass, even as far as Assyria:

  Why do you force me to spend my life in tears and pain,

  given as hostage to household gods I hate, and married

  90

  to an enemy? See, my husband has run away. He is gone.

  Theseus shows his bride his usual faithfulness.*

  What a hero! Off he goes, through the misty lake from which

  there is no return. He goes as the soldier of a shameless suitor

  to steal from his throne the stolen wife of the king of Hell.

  He goes as the friend of mad desire. He was not restrained,

  not he,

  by fear or shame. His quest is for rape, and forbidden sex,

  Hippolytus’ father seeks this, in Acheron’s lowest depths.

  But another deeper source of trouble lies on my sad heart.

  I can
not rest at night, no deep sleep comforts me

  100

  and takes away my cares. My suffering eats and grows fat,

  it burns within me, like the blast which gushes out

  from Etna’s depths. I cannot tend the loom of Pallas,*

  and the wool slips down between my very hands.*

  I have no wish to go to the temple with votive gifts,

  nor to dance at the altars, in the Attic women’s band,

  when they whirl the torches, witnessing the silent rites,*

  nor to approach with modest prayers and holy ritual

  the goddess* who was chosen as guardian for the land.

  No: what I like is to rouse wild beasts, and chase them,

  and hunt them down,

  110

  and to hurl stiff javelins from my soft white hand.

  * * *

  6

  phaedra

  Where are you going, my soul? Mad thing, why yearn for the

  forest?

  I recognize the fateful trouble of my poor mother.*

  For us, my mother and me, love means sin in the woods.

  Mother, do you pity me? Unspeakable evil

  seized you, and rashly you fell in love with the savage leader

  of a wild herd: he was fierce, would not submit to the yoke,

  adulterous, too, and commander of a group that was still

  untamed.

  But he loved you a little. Poor me! What god can help me,

  What Daedalus can help assuage the flames of my love?*

  120

  Even if that man returned, with all his power,

  who once shut up our terrible monster* in a dark home,

  he could not provide any help for our present plight.

  Through us, resentful Venus is taking revenge on the race

  of the Sun, whom she detests* for the chains which bound her

  Mars

  and herself. For that act of shame she heaps the whole Phoeban

  family

  with things unspeakable. The women of Crete can never

  enjoy an easy love. They always have monstrous affairs.

  nurse You are Theseus’ wife, and gloriously descended from

  Jupiter:

  banish at once these unspeakable thoughts from your heart:

  keep it chaste.

  130

  Extinguish the flames, do not let yourself indulge

  in this terrible hope: if you resist from the start,

  and drive out love, victory is certain; it was ever thus.

  If one feeds the evil with sweet caresses and flattering words,

  submits to the yoke, it becomes too late to resist.