B00ARI2G5C EBOK (30 page)

Monster, how dare you be

Seen beside beauty,

Seen by the sun-god

Whose gaze knows all things?

Yet, step forth if you will; for indeed, he

8740

Himself can behold no hideous sight,

Even as his sacred eye has

Never yet looked upon shadow.

But we mortals, alas, by our

Grievous fate, must endure this pain,

This unspeakable sight-affliction

Which all vile, all eternally abject

Things lay on lovers of beauty.

Hear then, you who in insolence

Have confronted us, hear our curse,

8750

Hear such threats and such dire abuse as

Can be formed in the mouths of the fortunate

Who have been fashioned by high gods!

PHORCYAS
. The proverb’s old, but still its meaning’s high and true,

That modesty and beauty never hand in hand

Pursue their way together along the earth’s green path.

Between the two, ancient deep-rooted hatred dwells,

So that wherever they may somehow chance to meet,

Each of them turns her back upon her enemy.

Each will press on then further with more vehement pace,

8760

Modesty sadly, beauty flown with insolence,

Till in the end hell’s hollow night receives them both,

If they are not first subjugated by old age.

Thus now, you foreign hussies, shameless, arrogant as

You are, I find you swarming hither like a hoarse

And noisy flight of cranes, which in a straggling cloud

Above our heads sends down its harsh cacophony

On us, so that the peaceful wayfarer is moved

To glance aloft; but off they fly upon their way,

While he goes his; and so it shall be between us.

8770

Who then are you, who dare to rage around this high

And royal house with drunken maenad revelry?

Who are you then, who howl against the keeper of

The palace household, like dogs howling at the moon?

Do you suppose I do not know your pedigree,

You war-begotten, battle-nurtured bitch-whelp brood?

Man-ravenous all, seducers and seduced alike,

Unmanning warlike energy and civil strength!

I see you huddled there like some cicada swarm,

Dropping and settling, covering the green tender crops.

8780

You female jackals of the fruit of others’ toil!

Dainty devourers of a germinating wealth!

You conquered slaves, you sold and peddled merchandise!

HELEN
. To chide the servants when the mistress of the house

Is present, is to encroach upon their lady’s rights,

For it is her prerogative alone to praise

What is well done, and punish what is done amiss.

Moreover, I am contented with them, for they gave

Me faithful service when the lofty power of Troy

Stood under siege and fell defeated; likewise when

8790

We bore a wandering voyage’s vicissitudes,

Such as more often drive each man to serve himself.

And I expect the same here from these merry girls;

Not who one’s servants are, one asks, but how they serve.

Therefore stop sneering at them now, and shut your mouth.

If on your mistress’s behalf you have kept the king’s house well

Till now, then you have done your duty; but since she

Is here again in person, keep your proper place,

Or you will merit punishment and not reward.

PHORCYAS
. To threaten members of the household is a right

8800

Which the high consort of our heaven-favoured king

Has earned by long years spent in prudent governance.

Lady, since you, whom now I acknowledge, take again

Your former place as queen and mistress of the house:

Take up the reins that have so long grown slack, rule now

And repossess the treasure, repossess us all!

But chiefly I request protection for my years

Against this gaggle—for your swan-like beauty makes

Them seem no more—of poor, half-wingless, cackling geese.

CHORUS LEADER
. How vile beside such beauty ugliness appears!

8810

PHORCYAS
. And beside riper wits how witless witlessness.

[
From this point the members of the
CHORUS
step forward one by one to answer
.]

FIRST CHORUS MEMBER
. Tell of your father Erebus, tell of your mother Night!

PHORCYAS
. Speak of the monster Scylla, your true sibling-child.

SECOND CHORUS MEMBER
. How many monsters crawl about your family tree!

PHORCYAS
. Begone to Hades; there you’ll find your kith and kin.

THIRD CHORUS MEMBER
. You’ll not find yours there; none of the dead are old enough.

PHORCYAS
. Find old Tiresias, try your harlot’s wiles on. him!

FOURTH CHORUS MEMBER
. No doubt your great-granddaughter was Orion’s nurse.

PHORCYAS
. Foul harpies fed you, I suppose, amid their filth.

FIFTH CHORUS MEMBER
. What diet keeps your skinny figure as it is?

PHORCYAS
. At least not blood, the favourite fare for which you crave.

SIXTH CHORUS MEMBER
. Corpses are your prey, a disgusting corpse yourself!

PHORCYAS
. I see the vampire fangs gleam in your insolent mouth.

CHORUS LEADER
. I can stop yours if I pronounce your proper name.

PHORCYAS
. Pronounce your own first, and well share the mystery.

HELEN
. In sorrow, not in anger, I must intervene,

I must forbid this altercation’s violence.

Nothing does greater injury to a prince than if

His loyal servants itch with hidden mutual strife,

For his commands then can no longer echo back

8830

Harmoniously, translated swiftly into deeds:

Instead, disordered noise roars round him waywardly

While in confusion he upbraids the empty air.

Nor is this all. In your unseemly anger you

Called dreadful shapes to mind and dismal images

Which throng around me, so that I myself feel drawn

Down hellwards, even on this my green and native earth.

Is it a memory? Has delusion seized my mind?

Was I all that? And am I? And shall I still be

That nightmare image, Helena the cities’ bane?

8840

The girls all tremble: you alone, the eldest, stand

Calm and composed: now show me wisdom in your words.

PHORCYAS
. Long years of manifold good fortune make the gods’

Latest and highest favours seem no more than dreams.

But you, whom they have so extravagantly blessed,

Saw in life’s sequence only men whose hot desire

Inflamed them quickly to bold various enterprise.

You were a child still whom lust-maddened Theseus snatched;

A splendid shapely man, as strong as Hercules.

HELEN
. He carried me off, a slender fawn, just ten years old,

And I was held-in Attica, in Aphidnus’ halls.

8850

PHORCYAS
. But your twin brothers quickly rescued you; and soon

A choice array of heroes all were wooing you.

HELEN
. And I confess, my silent favour chiefly fell

On one, Patroclus, great Achilles’lookalike.

PHORCYAS
. But Menelaus won you, by your fathers will;

He was a bold sea-rover and good housekeeper.

HELEN
. He won the daughter, and the kingdom’s riches too.

Then of our marriage-bed was born Hermione.

PHORCYAS
. But when, to conquer Crete, he left you by yourself,

8860

You had a visitor whose attractions proved too strong.

HELEN
. Why do you call to mind that semi-widowhood

And the appalling ruin that it spelt for me?

PHORCYAS
. I suffered by that voyage too: free-born in Crete,

It brought me long imprisonment and slavery.

HELEN
. You were brought back at once to keep his household here:

His castle and its hard-won wealth became your trust.

PHORCYAS
. You left them both, to seek the towered walls of Troy

And to enjoy love’s pleasures inexhaustibly.

HELEN
. Do not speak of the pleasures! An infinitude

8870

Of bitter sorrow overwhelmed my heart and mind.

PHORCYAS
. But you appeared, they say, in duplicated shape,
*

Seen at the same time both in Egypt and in Troy.

HELEN
. This is a superstition of dark-tangled sense!

Which of them am I? Even now I do not know.

PHORCYAS
. Then, as the story goes, out of the hollow realm

Of shades Achilles too became your amorous

Consort, his love defying all the decrees of fate.

HELEN
. A phantom to a phantom, thus I joined with him
*

It was a dream, for so the very words make plain.

8880

I vanish, I become a phantom even to myself.

[
She sinks back into the arms of the half-chorus
.]

CHORUS
. Be silent, be silent!

Creature of evil eye and evil tongue!

From such hideous one-toothed

Lips, what should be breathed

Forth from so fearful a maw of horror!

For I dread an ill nature that seems benevolent,

The raging wolf in the garb of a sheep,

And this to me is a thing more fearful

Than the jaws of the three-headed hell-hound.
*

8890

We stand here and in fear we listen:

When? how? where will it break out,

This monstrous malignant

Thing, from the ambush-depth where it lurks?

See, you offer no words full of consolation,

Oblivion-giving, speech gracious and mild:

Instead, you stir up the past and all its

Memories not of good but of evil,

And you smother with darkness not only

This present hour in its radiance

8900

But also the gentle

Gleam of the future’s new-dawning hope.

Be silent, be silent!

That the soul of our queen,

Almost slipping away already,

May still hold fast, and hold fast

This shape of all shapes, lovely

Above all others the sun ever shone upon.

[
HELEN
has recovered and stands in the centre again
.]

PHORCYAS
. Come, from fleeting clouds emerging, lofty sun of this our day:

Even your veiled form was rapture, reign in dazzling glory now!

8910

See, the world unfolds before you, see it with your gracious eyes.

Though for ugliness they chide me, yet I know true beauty well.

HELEN
. In my swoon a desolation seized me, trembling I step free

And would gladly rest again now, for so weary are my bones:

But for princes it is seemly, and indeed for all men too,

To stand firm, to face whatever sudden danger shakes the heart.

PHORCYAS
. Now before us in your greatness, in your beauty here you stand,

And your eye commands obedience: lady, say, what is your will?

HELEN
. You must all compose your quarrel now, and to make good your fault

Hasten, as the king has ordered, to prepare a sacrifice.

8920

PHORCYAS
. All is ready in the palace: vessels, tripod, sharp axe-blade,

Incense-fire and sprinkling-water: say, what shall the victim be?

HELEN
. As to that, the king said nothing.

PHORCYAS
. Nothing? Oh, that word is grief!

HELEN
. Why, what grief is this?

PHORCYAS.
You, lady, are the victim he intends.

HELEN
. I?

PHORCYAS
. These women too.

CHORUS
. Oh horror!

PHORCYAS
. By the axe-blade you must fall.

HELEN
. Dreadful fate! And yet I guessed it.

PHORCYAS
. I can see no remedy.

CHORUS
. What of us? Oh what will happen?

PHORCYAS
. She shall die a noble death:

As for you, from the high beam there that supports the gabled roof,

You shall hang and you shall wriggle like snared thrushes in a row.

[
HELEN
and the
CHORUS
stand grouped in studied expressive attitudes of amazement and terror
.]

Ghosts that you are! —Like frozen statues there you stand,

8930

Fearing the daylight’s loss that is not yours to lose!

Mankind, for they are ghosts like you, the lot of them,

Renounce the sun’s bright rays no less reluctantly;

But there’s no prayer, no help for them against dark fate;

And this is known to all of them, but pleases few.

Enough, you all are doomed; let us make ready then!

[
She claps her hands, and masked, dwarf-like figures appear at the door, who quickly carry out her instructions as she speaks
.]

Come out, you gloomy globular monstrosities!

Roll up, roll up; here’s mischief to delight your hearts.

Bring first the gold-horned altar, set it in its place,

And let the axe lie gleaming on its silver rim;

8940

Fill up the water-jugs, for we shall have to wash

Away the black blood’s hideous defiling stain.

Next bring the costly carpet, spread it in the dust,