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Seneca: Thyestes Act I in English
Seneca: Thyestes Act I in English
and may they seek out the fugitives; let the wavering fortune of the
violent house fall between uncertain kings;
[35] let misery come from power, power from misery
and, having fallen, let it bear/ lift the kingdom with an incessant wave.
Those having been driven away on account of the crime, when the God
gives back their fatherland, let them return to crime and let them be
hated by all
as much as by themselves. Let there be no anger which thinks
anything forbidden.
[40] Let the brother fear the brother and the father fear the son
and the son fear the father; let their children die evilly,
yet more evilly born; let a murderous wife
be threatening to her husband, let them convey/ carry the wars across
the sea,
let the spilled blood irrigate all the lands,
[45] and let pleasure, victorious, exult over the great kings
of the races; let the stuprum be the lightest crime
in this impious house; let divine law and faith
and justice all perish. Let heaven not be free from
ours sins; why do the stars twinkle in the sky
[50] and the flames guard the glory owed to the world?
May the night be deep and may the day fall from the sky.
Mix the penates, call on hatred, murder, funerals
and fill up the whole house with Tantalus.
Let the high column be furnished and the happy
[55] threshold grow green with laurel, let the honorable fire
shine upon your arrival; let a Thracian crime be
of a large number. Why does the uncles hand lie idle?
[Thyestes does not yet mourn his sons;]
Will he ever raise it? Now with supplied fires,
[60] the cauldrons boil, let the torn limbs go (in) by pieces,
let the blood pollute the paternal hearths,
let the courses be put in; may you not come as a guest
with your new evils. We gave the free day
and we resolve your hunger to those tables.
[65] Fill up thirst, may the blood mixed in wine
be drunk with you watching; I found a feast which
you yourself would flee. Stay, to where do you rush headfirst?
[Tantali Umbra]
To the lakes and rivers and receding waters
and to the fleeings of the full tree from my very lips.
[70] May it be allowed for me to return to the darkness
of my wicked prison, let it be allowed, if I seem insufficiently wretched,
[Atreus]
When only the honorable things are permitted for the one ruling,
it is ruled upon request.
[Satelles]
[215] Where this is no shame, no care of right, sanctity, piety, no faith,
the kingdom is unstable.
[Atreus]
Sanctity, piety, faith: these are private goods;
let kings go where it pleases them.
[Satelles]
Believe that to harm even an evil brother is a crime.
[Atreus]
[220] Whatever is right in the case of this man is evil in the case of a
brother.
For what indeed has he left untouched by crime or where
has he refrained from wickedness? He stole my wife by dishonor
and my kingdom by stealth, he obtained, by fraud, the ancient token
of our empire, by fraud he disturbed the house.
[225] In the lofty dwellings of Pelops is a noble beast,
a secret ram, the leader of a wealthy flock.
Throughout his whole body, with poured out gold,
hair falls, from his back the new kings
of Tantalus wear golden scepters;
[230] the owner of him rules, the fortune of the whole house
follows this one. The sacred one grazes in a part of safe meadows
having been set aside, the pasture of which a fateful rock,
covering, encloses with a stone wall.
Daring a great crime, the treacherous one carries off this one
[235] with the partner of my bed accepting the crime.
From this cause, all evil of mutual disaster flows;
I wandered, restless, through my kingdoms as an exile,
there is no part, free from traps, for my race,
[Satelles]
[245] Destroyed by the sword, let him spit out his hostile spirit.
[Atreus]
You speak about the end of punishment; I desire punishment.
Let the gentle tyrant kill; in my kingdom, death is achieved.
[Satelles]
Does pitery not move you at all?
[Atreus]
Withdraw, piety, if in fact you ever were in our
[250] house. Let the dreadful band of Furies and discordant
Erinys come and Megaera shaking her twin
torches. My chest does not burn with a great enough
fury, it pleases to be filled with a great monster.
[Satelles]
What new things do you plan, maddened?
[Atreus]
[255] Nothing which the bound of accustomed suffering may grasp;
I will leave no deed and no (deed) is enough.
[Satelles]
The sword?
[Atreus]
It is too little.
[Satelles]
What of fire?
[Atreus]
Even now that is too little.
[Satelles]
What weapon indeed does so great grief use?
[Atreus]
Thyestes himself.
[Satelles]
This evil is worse than anger.
[Atreus]
[260] I confess. I stunned uproar shakes the chest
and turns inside; I am carried off and I do not know where,
but I am carried off. The ground bellows from its deepest foundations,
the calm day resounds and the house, as if fractured in
the whole roof, creaks and the moved/ disturbed Lares turn
[265] their faces let this happen, let the wickedness happen
which you, Gods, fear.
[Satelles]
[Satelles]
What faith of peach will he give?
Whom will he believe so much?
[Atreus]
[295] Wicked hope is credulous. Although we will give
commands to the sons which they will bear to their uncle,
as a wandering exile with his hospitalities abandoned
that he exchange miseries for kingship and rule Argos
as a part-master. If too harsh Thyestes should spurn the
[300] prayers, his sons, inexperienced, and tired with
evil burdens and easy to catch, will move.
From the one side, the old madness for kingship,
from the otherside sad desire and harsh labor will drive
as much as possible the man no matter how hardened he is with so
many evils.
[Satelles]
[305] By now, time has made light toils for that man.
[Atreus]
You wander; the sense of evil grows by day.
It is light to bear miseries, it is grave to keep bearing them.
[Satelles]
Choose other helpers for the sad plan.
[Atreus]
Youths listen more easily at worse instructions.
[Satelles]
[310] They will do whatever you teach them in the care of their uncle
against the father;
often his own crimes have returned against the teacher.
[Atreus]
Even if no one might teach paths of fraud and crime,
the kingdom will teach. Do you fear lest they become evil?
They were born that way. That thing which you call savage, cruel,
[315] and you believe is being done harshly and too impiously,
perhaps it is being done there also.
[Satelles]
Will the sons know that this trick is being prepared?
[Atreus]
Faith is not silent in such inexperienced years;
perhaps they will expose the deceptions.
To be silent is taught by the many evils of life.
[Satelles]
[320] Will you deceive those through whom you plan to deceive
another?
[Atreus]
So that they themselves will be fre of fault and crime.
What indeed is necessary to implant the children with my crime.
Let our hatreds resolve themselves through us
you do evil, spirit, and fall back; if you spare your sons,
[325] you will also spare those ones. Let knowing Agamemnon
be a helper in my plan and knowing Menelaus be present
for his brother. Let the certainty of uncertain offspring be sought
from this crime; if they refuse wars and
do not wish to bear hatred, if they call him their uncle,
he is their father. Let the mission begin but the worried
[330] face is accustomed to uncover much, great plans betray
even the one unwilling; let them not know of what a great matter
they are becoming my helpers. As for you, cover our undertakings.
[Satelles]
I do not need to be reminded of this at all; faith and fear
will shut those things in my chest,
[335] but faith will do it more.
[Chorus]
Finally, the noble palace,
the race of ancient Inachus,
has connected the threats of the brothers.
What rage rouses you all,
[340] to give blood in turns
and to advance the scepter in crime?
You do not know, longing the citdels,
in which place the kingdom lies.
Power does not make a king,
[345] nor the color of a Tyrian robe,
nor the known crown of the head,
nor beams shining with gold.
A king is who sets aside fears
and the evils of an ill-omened heart,
[350] whom not uncontrolled ambition,
nor the unstable favor
of the rash crowd moves,
nor does whatever is dug from the West
or the golden wave which Tagus drags
[355] from the clear hollow,
nor whatever the fiery threshing floors
crush during Libyan harvest,
nor whom the falling path of
slanted lightening will strike,
rest of choral section to be done later
-[ACT III: Thyestes Tantalus Plisthenes tacitus][Thyestes]
The desired shelters of the fatherland and the wealth of Argos
[405] and the utmost greatest good for the miserable exiles,
the plundered region of the native soil and the paternal gods
(if they are at last gods) I discern, the sacred towers
of the Cyclops, the greater glory of human labor,
the racing tracks filled with the young, through which
[410] I, famous, often bore the palm in my fathers chariot.
Argos will rise to meet me, the people frequently will risebut also certainly will Atreus. Rather seek again the forested refuges
and the dense thickets and the life similar to and among
the beasts. There is no reason why this shining glamour of the throne
should
[415] carry off my eyes with its deceptive radiance;
when you will look at that which is given, behold the one giving also.
Just now among those things, which all think harsh,
but I was resolute and cheerful; now I am returned against fair.
The spirit is stuck and desires to bring back the body;
[420] I move not a willing step.
[Tantalus]
The father is stunned at the slow pace (what is in this place?)
and turns his face and holds himself in uncertainty.
[Thyestes]
Why, spirit, do you weigh down, or why continually do you
turn the plan so easily. In uncertain matters,
[425] the kingdom, and the brothers, do you now believe and fear
evil victories, now do you flee tamed and well-spent
misfortunes? Now it is pleasing to be wretched.
Turn back your course, while it is allowed, and snatch yourself away.
[Tantalus]
Father, what cause forces you to turn back step
from the fatherland having been seen? Why do you
[430] carry the wallet from so great things? The brother comes back
with the anger having been set aside and returns part of the kingdom
and
gathers the joints of the torn house and restores yourself to you.
[Thyestes]
You drive out the cuase of fear which I myself do not know;
[435] I see nothing which must be feared, but I fear nonetheless.
It pleases to go, but my limbs give way with unwilling knees
and I, having been withdrawn, am carried away to another place
than the one I am struggling to go. Thus the resisting heat brings
back with wind and oarsman the raft spurred by oarsman and wind.
[Tantalus]
[440] Conquer whatever stands in the way and impedes the mind
and see the so many prizes that await your return.
Father, you are able to rule.
[Thyestes]
Yes, since I can die.
[Tantalus]
The top power is
[Thyestes]
Nothing, if you wish nothing.
[Tantalus]
You will leave it for your sons.
[Thyestes]
The kingdom does not hold two.
[Tantalus]
[445] Who chooses to be miserable if he is able to be happy?
[Thyestes]