City-wards.
Ah! They still stood there, Ilium’s
Walls, but the glow of the flames
Soon ran from neighbour to neighbour,
Ever spreading, hither and thither,
With the breath of their storm,
Over the darkening city.
Fleeing, through smoke and heat, I saw
Amid the tongues of soaring fire,
The fearful angry presence of gods,
Marvellous, those striding figures,
Like giants, they were, through the gloom,
The fire-illumined vapour.
Did I see that Confusion,
Or did the fear-consumed Spirit
Create it? Never will I be able,
To say, but I’m truly certain
Of this, that here I see, Her,
Monstrous shape to my eyes:
My hand could even touch Her,
If terror did not restrain me,
Saving me from danger.
Which of the daughters
Of Phorkyas are you?
Since I liken you
To that family.
Are you perhaps one of the Graeae,
A single eye and a single tooth,
Owned alternately between you,
One born of greyness?
Monster, do you dare
Here, next to Beauty,
Show yourself to Phoebus,
And his knowing gaze?
Then step out before him regardless:
Since he’ll not look at what’s ugly,
Just as his holy eye,
Has never seen shadow.
Yet we mortals are compelled, ah,
By unfortunate gloomy fate,
To the unspeakably painful sight
She, reprehensible, ever ill fated,
Provokes in the lover of Beauty.
Yet hear me then, if you boldly
Encounter us: hear the curse,
Hear the threat of every abuse,
From the condemnatory mouth of the fortunate,
Whom the gods themselves have created.
Phorkyas (The transformed Mephistopheles.)
The saying is old, with meaning noble and true,
That Beauty and Shame, together, hand in hand,
Never pursue the same path, over green Earth.
Such ancient, deep-rooted hatred lives in both,
That whenever they meet, by chance, on the way,
The one will always turn her back on her rival.
Then quickly and fiercely each goes on, again,
Shame downcast, but Beauty mocking in spirit,
Till in the end Orcus’ dark void shall take her,
If age hasn’t, long before then, tamed her pride.
So now I find you, impudent, come from abroad,
With overflowing arrogance, like the cranes,
Their noisily croaking ranks, high overhead,
Their long cloud, sending its creaking tones, down here,
Tempting the quiet traveller to look upwards:
Yet they pursue their way, while he follows his:
And that’s the way it will be with us as well.
What then are you, wild Maenads or Bacchantes,
That dare to rage round the great royal palace?
Who are you, then, who howl at this high house’s
Stewardess, like a pack of bitches, at the moon?
Do you think it’s hidden from me what race you are?
You brood, begotten in battle, raised on slaughter,
Lusting for men, the seducers and the seduced,
Draining the soldiers’ and the citizens’ powers!
To see your crowd’s like watching a vast swarm
Of locusts settle here, darkening the fields.
You the wasters of others labour! Nibbling,
Destroying, the ripening crops of prosperity!
Defeated, bartered, sold in the market, you!
Helen
Who abuses the servants before the mistress,
Presumptuously usurping a wife’s true rights?
Only to her is it given to praise whatever’s
Praiseworthy: and to punish what is at fault.
I’m well content, as well, with all the services
They provided to me, when Ilium’s great might,
Stood beleaguered, and fell in ruins: none the less
Just as we’ve endured the wretched wandering
Journey, where often one thinks only of oneself,
So here I expect it now from a happier crew:
A lord asks how slaves serve, not what they are.
So be silent, then, and no longer jeer at them.
If you’ve guarded the king’s house well until now,
In place of the mistress, such is to your credit:
But now that she comes herself, you should draw back,
Lest you find punishment instead of fair reward.
Phorkyas
Disciplining servants is a prerogative
That the noble wife of a king, loved by the gods,
Has duly earned by years of wise discretion.
Since you, acknowledged, take up your former place
Once more, as Queen, and mistress of the house,
Resume the slackened reins again, and rule here,
Hold the treasure in your keeping, and us with it.
But first of all defend me, who am the elder,
Against this crowd, who if they are compared
To your swanlike beauty, are only cackling geese.
The Leader of the Chorus
How ugly ugliness looks, next to beauty.
Phorkyas
How stupid the lack of reason, next to sense.
(From here on the Chorus answer in turn, stepping forward one by one.)
First Member of the Chorus
Tell us of Father Erebus: tell us of Mother Night.
Phorkyas
Speak about Scylla, sweet sister of your race.
Second Member of the Chorus
There are plenty of monsters in your family tree.
Phorkyas
Go down to Orcus, look for your tribe down there!
Third Member of the Chorus
Those who are down there are far too young for you.
Phorkyas
Try your arts of seduction on old Tiresias.
Fourth Member of the Chorus
Orion’s nurse was your great great-grandchild.
Phorkyas
I suspect that the Harpies raised you all, on filth.
Fifth Member of the Chorus
What do you feed your perfect leanness on?
Phorkyas
Not on the blood that youall lust so much for.
Sixth Member of the Chorus
You hunger for corpses, you, foul corpse yourself!
Phorkyas
Vampire’s teeth gleam there, in your shameless muzzle.
The Leader of the Chorus
It would shut yours tight, if I called out who you are.
Phorkyas
Well say your own name first: that’ll solve the riddle.
Helen
I intervene, not in anger but in sorrow,
To forbid this alternating discord!
A ruler meets with nothing that’s more harmful
Than private disputes of his quarrelling servants.
Then his firm orders are no longer answered
With swiftly answering and harmonious action,
Instead, wilful commotion roars around him:
Self-composure lost, he abuses them in vain.
Not only that. Unacceptably, in anger,
You’ve summoned the wretched shapes of dreadful forms,
They surround me, so I feel I’m being whirled
To Orcus, from these familiar paternal fields.
Am I remembering? Did delusion grip me?
Was I all of that? Am I, now? And shall be still,
Symbol of dream and fear, to those who waste cities?
The maidservants shudder, but you, the eldest,
Stand there calmly: speak words of reason to me!
Phorkyas
The favour of the gods seems only a dream
To one who recalls the troubles of long ages.
But you, blessed, beyond all aim and measure,
Quickly inflamed to every sort of daring risk,
Only found fires of love, in the realm of life,
Theseus, driven by lust, abducted you, a child,
He strong as Hercules: a man nobly formed.
Helen
He carried me off, a slender ten-year old fawn,
And caged me in Aphidnus’ tower in Attica.
Phorkyas
But soon freed, by the hands of Castor and Pollux,
A crowd of suitors, the heroes, swarmed round you.
Helen
Yet, I freely confess, above all, Patroclus
The image of Achilles, had my secret favour,
Phorkyas
But your father’s will bound you to Menelaus,
The brave sea rover, the defender of his house.
Helen
He gave him his daughter, and command of the state.
Hermione came from our married existence.
Phorkyas
But while he disputed his right to far off Crete,
To you, the lonely, came all too handsome a guest.
Helen
Why do you recall that semi-widowhood,
And all the terrible ruin it caused around me?
Phorkyas
To me, a free-born Cretan, his same journey
Brought captivity and years of slavery.
Helen
He ordered you here at once, as Stewardess,
Entrusting the fortress and his treasure to you.
Phorkyas
Which you abandoned, for Ilium’s high city,
And the inexhaustible delights of love.
Helen
Not delights, be sure! All too bitter a sorrow
Was poured endlessly over my head and breast.
Phorkyas
Yet they say that you appeared in dual form,
Seen in Troy and, at the same time, in Egypt.