And mine own evil mind, that this should come._[31]
And as the man goes in, leaving her alone with her boys, a poignant
scene follows in which every instinct of her nature struggles against
her wrath. Their sweet young faces stir the tenderness that has hitherto
been bound within her; and as it floods her heart it seems for a few
moments to sweep away her evil purpose. But it only returns in added
strength, and as her soul writhes in the conflict, reason totters, and
she implores the vengeance within, as a living and implacable foe, to
spare her babes. Backward and forward she sways, driven by hatred and
love, until the scale is turned at last by the thought of her own
irrevocable act. Glaucé, even at this moment, is dying from the poison
that she has sent.
“_Too late, too late!
By all Hell’s living agonies of hate,
They shall not take my little ones alive
To make their mock with! Howso’er I strive
The thing is doomed....
Oh, darling hand! Oh, darling mouth, and eye,
And royal mien, and bright brave faces clear,
May you be blessèd, but not here! What here
Was yours, your father stole....
... I am broken by the wings
Of evil.... Yea, I know to what bad things
I go, but louder than all thought doth cry
Anger, which maketh man’s worst misery._“[31]
But even yet she cannot strike: one thing more is needed to nerve her
hand, and it comes only too soon. A messenger is seen flying toward them
from the palace in frantic haste. As he comes within hail, he shouts to
Medea to flee—both Creon and the princess lie dead from the effects of
her poisoned gift, and she has not a moment to lose. Her own life will
surely be demanded for the crime. Medea remains immovable, smiling in
awful joy at the news. She makes the man relate every detail of the
ghastly scene in the palace; and for just so long as the story takes to
tell, she clasps revenge complete and satisfying. But a moment later the
thing has shrivelled in her hand; for there is now no hope to save her
children.
“_Oh, up, and get thine armour on,
My heart!...
Take up thy sword, O poor right hand of mine,
Thy sword: then onward to the thin-drawn line
Where life turns agony._”[31]
She goes into the house; and a moment later the shrieks of the children
are heard. They have hardly ceased when Jason rushes in, bent on
carrying off his sons before the king’s avengers can capture them. A
woman warns him of what is passing within; and as the agonized father
bursts open the door of the house, Medea appears on the roof, in the
dragon-chariot of the Sun, with the poor dead bodies lying at her feet.
There is something weird in this touch of the supernatural; but there is
something symbolic too. For Medea is a woman no longer: with her own
hand, driven by foul wrong and an untamed heart, she has cast humanity
away.
We need not follow to the end the last clash of the two bitter spirits.
Jason pleads piteously for one poor boon: “Give me the dead to weep and
make their grave.” But the fury that has smitten him is inexorable.
“_Never! Myself will lay them in a still
Green sepulchre....
... For thee, behold, death draweth on,
Evil and lonely, like thine heart: the hands
Of thine own Argo, rotting where she stands,
Shall smite thine head in twain, and bitter be
To the last end thy memories of me._“[31]
-----
Footnote 30:
From Dr. A. S. Way’s translation of the _Argonautica_ (Dent and Sons
Ltd.).
Footnote 31:
From Professor Gilbert Murray’s translation of the _Medea_ (George
Allen & Co. Ltd.).
_Euripides: Phædra_
The _Hippolytus_ of Euripides, to which we turn for the story of Phædra,
is frequently called the earliest love-tragedy in European literature.
That is to say, it is the first to deal fully and frankly with the power
of love toward tragic issues. This can hardly be said about the _Medea_,
for that drama is only the last incident of a story wherein love has
been changed to hatred; and the motive is revenge. But in the
_Hippolytus_ the story is unfolded from its inception; and Phædra’s
passion is found to be the force that moves the whole action of the
tragedy. This fact has a peculiar attraction for the modern mind; but
the drama has other claims upon us too. First, for its sheer beauty, as
poetry and as dramatic art of a special type; then, for its accurate
study of character, three people at least gripping our interest as
complete and convincing human creatures; and again, for its lofty tone
and a reflective element which, though characteristically original, is
calm and clear. But the most wonderful fact of all is the surprising
contrast between the nature of the theme and the austere beauty of the
drama which has been built upon it.
The crude facts of the story are almost repulsive on the face of them.
Phædra, the young wife of Theseus, King of Athens and Trozen, had fallen
in love with her husband’s illegitimate son Hippolytus. That is the
initial situation; and the further data of the old Attic legend do not
soften it. For we know that Phædra’s love was unrequited, a fact which,
with curious unreason, seems to accuse her; and we know too that when
her love was betrayed to Hippolytus, she took her own life in shame and
fear, first making a false charge against him which she knew would bring
upon him the punishment of death.
Such, in harsh outline, is the story of unhappy love and wild impulse
which has been made by this poet who was before all things a seeker of
truth, into a work of supreme spiritual beauty. More wonderful still,
Phædra, who by conventional canons would seem to have forfeited all
claim to respect or sympathy, is found to be a woman of sweet and gentle
purity, cruelly betrayed by forces without and within, and driven by
desperation to a frantic attempt to save her honour.
The means to such an end are interesting, although behind them all lies
the explanation of them all—the poet’s higher and broader perception of
truth. He has seen the passion which ruled Phædra as a great
world-force, an elemental power which could neither be escaped nor
overcome. This power is personified as Aphrodite or Cypris, goddess of
love; and she is conceived as the mortal enemy of Hippolytus, because he
has scorned her in his spiritual pride and refused her her need of
worship.
The key to the tragedy lies in this conception of Cypris, and in the
mystical, ascetic spirit of Hippolytus against which she has set her
offended godhead. They represent eternally opposing forces, and warfare
between them is inevitable and deadly. For that reason, the opening
monologue of the Drama is of great importance. The scene is placed
before the castle of Theseus at Trozen. A statue of a goddess stands on
either side—that of Artemis, chaste Moon-goddess, on the one hand,
decked with flowers and carefully tended; and on the other hand, bare
and unhonoured, is the statue of Aphrodite. While beside the latter,
musing in evident anger, is the gleaming form of the goddess herself. We
learn the cause of her anger as she speaks. She is grieved on account of
Hippolytus, who in his excessive devotion to Artemis, despises Aphrodite
and looks upon love as a thing unclean. His arrogance and neglect are an
unbearable insult, and she has determined to punish him, swiftly and
without mercy. She has already prepared the pitfall, long ago in Athens,
when Hippolytus came to be solemnly initiated into the Mysteries.
“_And Phædra there, his father’s Queen high-born,
Saw him, and, as she saw, her heart was torn
With great love, by the working of my will.
And for his sake, long since, on Pallas’ hill,
Deep in the rock, that love no more might roam,
She built a shrine, and named it Love-at-home:
And the rock held it, but its face alway
Seeks Trozên o’er the seas._“[32]
Thus Phædra tried to exorcise her passion; but there came a time when
Theseus, to expiate some sin, retired to Trozen with his queen. There,
meeting the young prince daily, love reawakened; and at the opening of
the tragedy it is secretly consuming her very life.
_And here that grievous and amazéd queen,
Wounded and wondering, with ne’er a word,
Wastes slowly; and her secret none hath heard
Nor dreamed._[32]
Now Aphrodite’s hour has come, and Phædra is the weapon with which she
will strike. The young queen’s vigilant honour, proud and enduring,
shall be overthrown, by a broken word uttered in weakness; and she shall
die, dragging down Hippolytus with her. Even while the goddess is
invoking the prince’s doom, there are cheery distant sounds of the
returning hunt; and the voice of Hippolytus raised above the rest in a
hymn to Artemis. Aphrodite lingers an instant longer, and the menace of
her final words shatters the blithe harmony that is approaching:
“_Little he knows that Hell’s gates opened are,
And this his last look on the great Day-star!_“[32]
The next moment the goddess has vanished, and Hippolytus leads in his
troop of huntsmen, laden with spoil and bearing fresh-culled field
flowers for the honour of the goddess of all wild things. Straight to
the statue of Artemis goes the prince, and standing in an attitude of
supplication, he proffers a wreath from the uncropped meadows that she
loves. There is in his prayer a curious note of exaltation. Young, brave
and fair, there is something at once beautiful and sinister in his claim
to perfect purity: his naïve assumption that he alone of all men is
worthy to worship the goddess: in the ascetic vow he takes; and the
mystical touches, hinting of personal converse with the deity. We
vaguely feel that there is a shade of excess in it; that the limit of
holy confidence has been passed; and that, with all its intensity, there
is something narrow and hard in his devotion. A pious old huntsman has
to remind him that he has not paid service at the second shrine; when,
with a perfunctory salute to the statue of Aphrodite, Hippolytus and his
train go into the castle.
There follows a lovely ode by the Chorus, which prepares for the
entrance of Phædra. They tell of a mysterious sickness that has fallen
on the queen, and of their fears for her life.
“_For three long days she hath lain forlorn,
Her lips untainted of flesh or corn,
For that secret sorrow beyond allayment,
That steers to the far sad shore of the dead._“[32]
Many a surmise they ponder, to account for the strange malady: perhaps
some god is angry with the queen for stinted rites: or the absent king
her husband is unfaithful: or she has had ill tidings from her Cretan
home. Their musing brings no light to the problem; but its purpose is
served, for when Phædra is presently borne out on her couch, we are
prepared to see a being in whom vitality is burning low; but in whom
suffering is overshone by stainless honour and an unconquerable will.
She is attended by her maids, and by an old nurse whose delineation is
wonderful. She is one of the humble characters whom Euripides drew so
often: whose sterling qualities he seems to delight in, but whose
limitation and error he puts in too, with absolute fidelity. Like
Medea’s nurse, she probably came with her mistress from her maiden home;
and she has grown old in faithful service. She has the tenderness of a
mother for the young queen; but age has made her fretful, and slavery
has hardened the fibre of her mind. With pathetic solicitude, she is yet
inclined to be querulous at the feverish caprices of her charge.
Moreover, she divines that there is something weighing upon her mistress
which Phædra will not reveal, even to her; and she is hurt at the lack
of confidence.
As the queen’s languid voice follows the wandering thought that has
almost escaped control, the old woman grows impatient. She cannot
comprehend the yearning flight of fancy which, in phrases of wild
beauty, betrays its longing for escape: to flee to the mountain spaces
and the woods and fields, and thread the mazes of the pines with arrow
and spear, like Artemis herself.
“_Oh for a deep and dewy spring,
With runlets cold to draw and drink!
And a great meadow blossoming,
Long-grassed, and poplars in a ring,
To rest me by the brink!_“[32]
There is a significance in the half-conscious utterances which lies very
near the surface of the words: the fair soul unwittingly hinting its
secret in delirium as lovely as itself. Presently her mind grows clear
again, and she starts in fear of what she may have betrayed.
“_What have I said? Woe’s me! And where
Gone straying from my wholesome mind?
What? Did I fall in some god’s snare?
Nurse, veil my head again, and blind
Mine eyes! There is a tear behind
That lash. Oh, I am sick with shame!_“[32]
The sight of her anguish and humiliation stings the nurse to another
protest. She had not possessed the clue to Phædra’s raving, and the
sudden access of shame is inexplicable. She longs to soothe and help,
out of her deep and genuine affection; and she has also some touch of
quite human curiosity which she cannot restrain. But every way she is
baffled by the silence of the queen. She feels that she is slighted, but
much more she feels the cruelty of unsuccoured pain to one whom she
dearly loves.
The thought that Phædra is surely dying from this mysterious malady
flings her down in supplication; and she pours out a torrent of
entreaties until we feel that the queen is growing exhausted by them.
But there is no sign given until the nurse, reminding her mistress of
the children whom she will leave unprotected by her death, speaks of
Theseus’ bastard son who may disinherit them, and lets fall his name,
Hippolytus. The word brings a cry from Phædra at last; and then,
reluctantly, in slow and broken phrases, all the secret is wrung from
her.
The old woman now is horrified and remorseful at her own persistence.
Terror seizes her, and an unreasoning sense that her mistress must
perforce yield to dishonour. Phædra’s chastity rises indignantly at so
base a thought, giving her strength to face the women about her with a
magnificent defence of her honour. She begins almost hesitatingly, on a
note of sadness for all the sum of human misery; but she gathers courage
as the story is unfolded and rises to sublimity at last:
“_Come, I will show thee how my spirit hath moved.
When the first stab came, and I knew I loved,
I cast about how best to face mine ill.
And the first thought that came, was to be still
And hide my sickness....
After that
I would my madness bravely bear, and try
To conquer by mine own heart’s purity.
My third mind, when these two availed me naught
To quell love, was to die—the best, best thought—
Gainsay me not—of all that men can say!
I would not have mine honour hidden away....
Nay,
Friends, ‘tis for this I die....
‘Tis written, one way is there, one, to win
This life’s race, could man keep it from his birth,
A true clean spirit._“[32]
But while the queen is speaking, winning a painful way upward to her
spirit’s height, the nurse is lagging after her on a much lower path.
She has rallied from the first shock, when Phædra’s confession had
driven her to mere panic; and is now revolving the matter in a mind
where perception has been dimmed by age and the moral fibre coarsened by
long servility. Calling up all her store of doubtful experience and
worldly wisdom, she opposes every cunning and plausible argument to
Phædra’s virtue. Can her mistress not see that she is visibly caught in
the snare of Cypris? Of what use is it to struggle against so mighty a
goddess? No human heart can resist the power of love; and it is wiser to
yield at once than to be broken by Aphrodite’s anger.
Phædra listens patiently, seeing that the faithful old creature is
prompted by real devotion; and her reply has more of pity than of anger
in it, for the crooked counsel.
“_Oh this it is hath flung to dogs and birds
Men’s lives and homes and cities—fair false words!
O why speak things to please our ears? We crave
Not that. ‘Tis honour, honour, we must save!_“[32]
But when the nurse, irritated, flings a rank word at this love that she
cannot comprehend, Phædra’s anger blazes in a vehement rebuke.
“_Shame on thee! Lock those lips, and ne’er again
Let word nor thought so foul have harbour there!_“[32]
The old woman is not silenced, however: she merely changes her tactics.
Will not the queen trust to her? She knows of love-philtres and salves
that will cure her passion without fear of shame. Phædra is growing
weary of the contest; and at last, when endurance is strained to
breaking, she yields on a point which seems quite innocent and harmless.
The nurse may fetch the potion of which she speaks; only—and on this she
lays pathetic stress—no word of her secret must be breathed to the
prince. There is a soothing, half evasive reply from the nurse: a
muttered prayer aside to Cypris which has something ominous in it; and
the old servant goes out to wreck the honour of her mistress in a
foolish attempt to serve her. Hardly has she gone when, above the song
which the women of the Chorus have taken up, Phædra catches the deep
tones of an angry voice within the palace. She springs to her feet,
every nerve tingling with apprehension; and calling to the singers for
silence she bends her ear to the great door. A cry escapes her:
“_Oh, misery!
O God, that such a thing should fall on me!_“[32]
It is the voice of Hippolytus which she can hear, raging at her nurse in
immeasurable scorn, for something that has been asked of him. As each
brutal epithet falls, Phædra, in a trance of horror and shame repeats it
to the listening women. Then she shrinks aside, as Hippolytus bursts out
of the castle, the nurse at his heels, frantically entreating him to
hold his peace. By no direct word does he acknowledge Phædra’s presence;
and she, with every shred of self-respect gone, cowers apart as though
she were indeed guilty of the foulness he imputes to her. But in noisy
indignation, with every word barbed for the trembling queen, he raves
against the nurse, against the whole of womankind, and love and
marriage, ending by a threat to reveal the story to Theseus upon his
return. His anger is just; but in the hardness of youth and the
bitterness of a narrow spirit it is savage, merciless and all too
prompt. Blind to everything but his own wounded pride, he cannot see
that Phædra has been cruelly betrayed by the meddling zeal of her
servant; and he heaps insult upon her until her sensitive soul lies
prostrate—a thing that seems even to herself as black as he believes it.
All through the tirade she, who is the central figure in this
extraordinary scene, takes no part in it: she remains mute, as though
literally smitten dumb with shame, until Hippolytus rushes out. Then she
sinks to the ground, sobbing:
“_And, this thing, O my God,
And thou, sweet Sunlight, is but my desert!
I cannot fly before the avenging rod
Falls, cannot hide my hurt._“[32]
Some of the women try to comfort her, and raising her eyes as they
speak, she catches sight of the figure of the nurse. She springs from
the ground, a wave of anger sweeping away her weakness:
“_O vilest of the vile, O murderess heart
To them that loved thee, hast thou played thy part?
Am I enough trod down?_“[32]
The old woman is deeply contrite for the wrong that she has done; but
garrulous and plausible to the last, she pleads her love as an excuse,
and claims that had her plan succeeded she would have been praised for
what she now is blamed. Phædra’s wrath abates a little after its first
uncontrolled outburst: she cannot long be angry with one so old and
lowly; and besides, there are other, darker things to be thought about
and done. But when the nurse, deceived by her calmness, tries to broach
some other scheme, the queen dismisses her peremptorily. She will
henceforth guide her own affairs, she says; and we know she means that
there remains only one thing for her to do. The old woman goes
sorrowfully away, and Phædra is left to face the thought of her
intolerable humiliation, of the threatened exposure to her husband, and
of the stain upon her children. As reflection brings back the assurance
that she is innocent, despite all, it does but increase her anguish at
the thought of dishonour, and stir her to frenzy against Hippolytus. She
is resolved to die: that she sees to be inevitable now. But how save her
fair name, and the honour of her young children, and the fame of her
dear old Cretan home? How secure to herself, in spite of false
appearances, the innocence that is hers by virtue of every act and
thought of her life? Beating backward and forward in the narrow circle
of shame and fear, the poor baffled mind can only see one path, crooked
and dark, to the thing she craves for. It is the way of a lie—a false
charge against Hippolytus. It will mean the death of a good man: that
she knows—and rejoices in—so completely are truth and justice shrivelled
in the monstrous injustice that she is suffering.
“_... But now, yea, even while I reel
And falter, one poor hope, as hope now is,
I clutch at in this coil of miseries;
To save some honour for my children’s sake:
Yea, for myself some fragment, though things break
In ruin around me. Nay, I will not shame
The old proud Cretan castle whence I came.
I will not cower before King Theseus’ eyes,
Abased, for want of one life’s sacrifice....
Yet, dying, shall I die another’s bane!
He shall not stand so proud where I have lain
Bent in the dust! Oh, he shall stoop to share
The life I live in, and learn mercy there!_”[32]
She goes in, and the Chorus break into a song of foreboding. A few
minutes later there are cries of alarm within the castle, the sound of
hurrying feet and voices calling to come and help the queen. Then there
are ejaculations of pity: a sudden, ominous silence, and again another
voice—“Let it lie straight.” Phædra is dead by her own hand.
* * * * *
We must pass quickly over the fate of Hippolytus, though that is really
the crisis of the tragedy. Hardly had the poor body of Phædra been
composed upon a bier than Theseus himself was announced, returning
garlanded and joyful from a visit to the oracle of some god. Met by the
news of his wife’s death, he tore off all the signs of joy that he was
wearing and threw himself beside her in bitter lamentation. A little
tablet hanging from her wrist caught his eye, and believing it to be
some dying wish, he gently disengaged it. It was the false charge
against Hippolytus; and as the king read, his brow darkened with
terrible anger. The pitiful figure before him seemed to claim swift and
terrible vengeance; and Theseus uttered an awful curse against his son.
Calling upon the god Poseidon to ratify an ancient promise, he demanded
instant death for Hippolytus. The petition was uttered rashly, in anger
and grief; and Theseus himself hardly dreamed that it would be
fulfilled; but the answer came with dreadful promptitude. There was one
stormy scene between father and son; and Hippolytus, pleading in vain
for mercy, went out to banishment. But Poseidon in his far sea-caves had
heard Theseus’ invocation; and as the young prince urged his chariot
along the shore, a mighty wave, crested by a fierce sea-monster, rolled
destruction on him. Hurled from his chariot, and dragged at the heels of
the maddened horses, Hippolytus was barely saved alive by his
attendants. They carried him back to the castle, and brought him into
the presence of the king, wounded and dying. But before life closed for
him he was gloriously vindicated, and the tragedy ends, as it began,
with the appearance of a goddess. It is not Aphrodite now, however. She
has done her worst with the two young lives she has chosen to despoil;
and now Artemis will justify their innocence and leave their memory
clean and sweet.
ARTEMIS. _For this I came, to show how high
And clean was thy son’s heart, that he may die
Honoured of men; aye, and to tell no less
The frenzy, or in some sort the nobleness
Of thy dead wife._[32]
-----
Footnote 32:
From Professor Gilbert Murray’s translation of the _Hippolytus_
(George Allen & Co. Ltd.).
_Euripides: Iphigenia_