Poets Translate Poets: A Hudson Review Anthology (20 page)

O city! city!—

you propertied men of the city!

But fountains of Dirce,

and holy groves of Th

ebes with its many chariots,

you at least can testify how no one laments me,

and by what an aberration of justice

I go to the heaped stones of my prison and unnatural tomb.

What a wretched creature I am—

with nowhere to dwell, neither

among mortals nor corpses,

not the living nor the dead.

c horus

Boldly you pressed to the furthest limit,

my child, until you stumbled against

the awesome throne of Justice—as if doomed

to pay the price of your father’s sins.

a n t ig on e

Ah! now you touch

on the worst thing of all—

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that tripled pity, pain and anguish I feel

at the thought of my father,

the dreadful fate

of the noble house of Labdacus,

and the tainted madness of that marriage bed

where my poor accursed mother slept

incestuously with my father, her own son.

Th

ose were my parents—

already at birth I was doomed

to join them, unmarried, in death.

Brother, your ill-fated wedding

killed us both—though I am yet alive.

c horus

Your piety is admirable. But

the man who holds the power

must also be acknowledged.

Stubborn wilfulness destroyed you.

a n t ig on e

No funeral hymns, no marriage songs; unloved,

unwept and wretched, I am led along the ordained path.

Never again shall I, miserable one,

raise my eyes towards the sacred eye

and light of the sun—

no dear friend is here to mourn me

nor weep for my harsh fate.

Ruth Fainlight and Robert J. Littman, 2009

A Chorus from
Oedipus Rex

?ώ γενεαμ βροτωυ . . .

Alas for the seed of men.

S opho c l e s
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What measure shall I give these generations

Th

at breathe on the void and are void

And exist and do not exist?

Who bears more weight of joy

Th

an mass of sunlight shift ing in images,

Or who shall make his thought stay on

Th

at down time drift s away?

Your splendor is all fallen.

O naked brow of wrath and tears,

O change of Oedipus!

I who saw your days call no man blest—

Your great days like ghosts gone.

Th

at mind was a strong bow.

Deep, how deep you drew it then, hard archer,

At a dim fearful range

And brought dear glory down!

You overcame the stranger—

Th

e virgin with her hooking lion claws—

And though death sang, stood like a tower

To make pale Th

ebes take heart.

Fortress against our sorrow!

Divine king, giver of laws,

Majestic Oedipus!

No prince in Th

ebes had ever such renown,

No prince won such grace of power.

And now of all men ever known

Most pitiful is this man’s story:

His fortunes are most changed, his state

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Fallen to a low slave’s

Ground under bitter fate.

O Oedipus, most royal one!

Th

e great door that expelled you to the light

Gave at night—ah, gave night to your glory—

As to the father, to the fathering son.

All understood too late.

How could the queen whom Laïos won,

Th

e garden that he harrowed at his height,

Be silent when that act was done?

But all eyes fail before time’s eye,

All actions come to justice there.

Th

ough never willed, though far down the deep past,

Your bed, your dread sirings

Are brought to book at last.

Child by Laïos doomed to die—

Th

en doomed to lose that fortunate small death—

Would God you never took breath in this air

Th

at with my wailing lips I take to cry!

For I weep the world’s outcast.

Blind I was, and cannot tell why;

Asleep, for you had given ease of breath;

A fool, while the false years went by.

Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald, 1949

Women of Trachis

Th

e
Trachiniae
presents the highest peak of Greek sensibility registered in any of the plays that have come down to us, and is, at the same time,

nearest the original form of the God-Dance.

S opho c l e s
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A version for KITASONO KATUE, hoping he will use it on my dear old

friend Miscio Ito, or take it to the Minoru if they can be persuaded to

add to their repertoire.

Personae

Th

e Day’s Air
, da i a n e i r a,
daughter of Oineus
.

h e r a k l e s z eus on,
the Solar vitality
.

a k h e l o ö s ,
a river, symbol of the power of damp and darkness, triform as
water, cloud and rain
.

h y l l o s ,
son of Herakles and Daysair
.

l i k h a s ,
a herald
.

A messenger
.

A nurse, or housekeeper, old d a tottery, physically smaller than Daysair.

iol e ,
Tomorrow, daughter of Eurytus, a King
.

Captive women
.

Girls of Trachis
.

days a i r : “No man knows his luck ’til he’s dead.”

Th

ey’ve been saying that for a long time

but it’s not true in my case. Mine’s soggy.

Don’t have to go to hell to fi nd that out.

I had a worse scare about getting married than any

girl in Pleuron, my father’s place in Aetolia.

First came a three-twisted river, Akheloös,

part bullheaded cloud, he looked like,

part like a slicky snake with scales on it

shining, then it would look like a bullheaded man

with water dripping out of his whiskers, black ones.

Bed with that! I ask you!

And Herakles Zeuson got me out of it somehow,

I don’t know how he managed with that wet horror,

you might fi nd out from some impartial witness

who could watch without being terrorized.

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Looks are my trouble. And that

wasn’t the end of trouble.

Herakles never gets sight of his children,

like a farmer who sows a crop and doesn’t

look at it again till harvest.

Always away on one assignment or another

one terror aft er another,

always for someone else.

We been outlawed ever since he kill’d Iphitz,

living here in Trachis with a foreigner,

and nobody knows where he is.

Bitter ache of separation brought on me,

ten months then fi ve, and no news,

bitter childbirth in separation

worried for some awful calamity.

Black trouble may be connected with

this memo he left me.

I keep praying it doesn’t mean something horrible.

n u r se : If a slave be permitted, milady?

I’ve heard you worrying time and again about Herakles . . .

If I’m not speaking out of my turn, ma’am, you got

a

fi ne lot of sons here, why not Hyllos

go look for his father?

He’s coming now. Th

ere, hurrying!

If you felt like to tell him,

if. . . .

day: See here, son, this slave talks sense,

more than some free folks.

h y l l o s: What’s she say? Lemme hear.

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day: No credit to you, that you haven’t gone to look for your father.

h y l : I’ve just heard . . . if it’s true.

day: Heard what? Th

at he’s sitting around somewhere or other.

h y l : Farmed out last year to a woman in Lydia.

day: He’s capable of anything, if . . .

h y l : Oh, I hear he’s got out of
that
.

day: Do they say he’s alive or dead?

h y l : Th

ey
say
he’s in Euboea, besieging Eurytusville

or on the way to it.

day: You know he left some sort of forecast

having to do with that country?

h y l : No, I didn’t know that.

day: Th

at it would be the end of him, or that when he got

through with the job, he would live happy ever aft er.

It’s on the turn of the wheel.

Don’t you want to go and work with him?

If he wins we’re saved,

if he doesn’t we’re done for.

h y l : Of course I’ll go. I’d have been gone before now

if I had known.

I’ve never worried very much about him

one way or the other. Luck being with him.

But now I’ll go get the facts.

day: Well, get going. A bit late, but a good job’s worth a bonus.

k horo s (
accompaniment strings, mainly cellos
):

PHOEBUS, Phoebus, ere thou slay

(
Str
. 1)

and lay fl aked Night upon her blazing pyre,

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Say, ere the last star-shimmer is run:

Where lies Alkmene’s son, apart from me?

Aye, thou art keen, as is the lightning blaze,

Land way, sea ways,

in these some slit hath he

found to escape thy scrutiny?

DAYSAIR is left alone,

(
Ant
. 1)

so sorry a bird,

For whom, afore, so many suitors tried.

And shall I ask what thing is heart’s desire,

Or how love fall to sleep with tearless eye,

So worn by fear away, of dangerous road,

A manless bride to mourn in vacant room,

Expecting ever the worse,

of dooms to come?

NORTH WIND or South, so bloweth tireless

(
Str
. 2)

wave over wave to fl ood.

Cretan of Cadmus’ blood, Orcus’ shaft s err not.

What home hast ’ou now,

an some God stir not?

PARDON if I reprove thee, Lady,

(
Ant
. 2)

To save thee false hopes delayed.

Th

inkst thou that man who dies,

Shall from King Chronos take

unvaried happiness?

Nor yet’s all pain.

(
drums, quietly added to music
)

Th

e shift y Night delays not,

Nor fates of men, nor yet rich goods and spoil.

Be

swift to enjoy, what thou art swift to lose.

Let not the Queen choose despair.

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Hath Zeus no eye (who saith it?)

watching his progeny?

day: You’ve found out, I suppose, and want to help me stop worrying.

Hope you’ll never go through enough to understand how.

One grows up, gets fed. “Don’t get sun-burnt.”

“Don’t get wet in the rain. Keep o ut of draughts,”

that’s a girl’s life till she’s married.

Gets her assignment at night: something to think about,

that is: worry about her man and the children.

You’ve seen my load, while it’s been going on.

Well, here’s another to wail about:

before King Herakles rushed off the last time,

he

left an old slab of wood with sign writing on it.

Never could get a word out of him about it before,

for all the rough jobs he went out on,

he just couldn’t bear to speak of it,

talked as if he were going to work, not to his funeral.

Now? not a bit of it:

all about my marriage property,

what land each of the children was to get from the entail.

Time to work out in three months,

either he would be dead, or come back and spend

the rest of his life without trouble,

all

fi xed by the gods, end of Herakles’ labours,

as

stated

under an old beech-tree in Dodona

where a pair of doves tell you.

Time

up,

see how much truth was in it.

I started from a sound sleep, shaking,

in terror I should have to live on

robbed of the best man ever born.

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k ho: Hush. Here comes a man with a wreath on.

Th

at means good news

m e s se nge r : Queen Daysair,

let me be the fi rst to calm your anxiety.

Alkemene’s son is alive, and has won,

and is carrying the spoils to the gods of our country.

day: What are you talking about?