The Tragedy of Helen, Queen of Sparta

The Tragedy of

HELEN Queen of Sparta DAVID ANSDELL Edited and with an Introduction by M. D. Van Bauer

T H E T R AG E DY O F H E L E N , Q U E E N O F S PA RTA

The Tragedy of

HELEN Queen of Sparta DAVID ANSDELL

Edited and with an Introduction by M. D. Van Bauer

OMPHALOS

First published 1953 Editor’s Preface and Introduction copyright © 2021 by Omphalos Books Printed and bound in the United States of America All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-7348-9091-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020923525 First edition published, 1953 Front Jacket: Detail of Pallas Athena or, Armoured Figure (c. 1655), by Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn Back Jacket: David Ansdell in Performance as Tiresias (1872), wet collodion glass-plate negative; one half of stereograph by Charles Fitzhume.

Back Flap: Uncredited playbill from 1872 performance.

This paper meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984

He sings to you, like Solomon’s father, from the branch of a rose tree that you might know the name he hides.

—Ibn Tamam (from the Kitab-i-Mehrieh) Not Judith nor Susanna raised by thee Is proof enough that thou their father be.

—Anonymous

Contents Editor’s Preface Introduction Dramatis Personae

ix xiii xxvii

Act 1 Scene 1: Scene 2: Scene 3: Scene 4: Scene 5: Scene 6: Scene 7:

Hades.

Menelaus’ palace.

Helen’s apartments.

Menelaus’ court.

Sinon’s quarters.

Helen’s apartments.

Menelaus’ court.

3 4 8 10 14 17 19

Act 2 Scene 1: Scene 2: Scene 3: Scene 4: Scene 5: Scene 6: Scene 7: Scene 8:

Hades.

Hector’s ship.

Temple of Apollo (interior).

Temple of Apollo (exterior).

Temple of Apollo (interior).

Omphalos.

Temple of Apollo (exterior).

Temple of Apollo (interior).

23 24 28 32 35 38 41 43

Act 3 Scene 1: Scene 2: Scene 3: Scene 4:

Hades.

Priam’s palace.

A Trojan port.

Priam’s court.

47 48 51 53 vii

Contents Scene 5: Scene 6: Scene 7: Scene 8:

Temple of Zeus.

Gate of Troy.

Priam’s palace.

Priam’s court.

59 65 67 69

Act 4 Scene 1: Scene 2: Scene 3: Scene 4: Scene 5: Scene 6: Scene 7:

Hades.

Priam’s palace.

Gate of Troy.

The Greek camp.

The Battlefield.

Priam’s court.

The Battlefield.

73 75 77 81 83 88 90

Act 5 Scene 1: Scene 2: Scene 3: Scene 4: Scene 5: Scene 6:

Hades.

The Greek camp.

Priam’s court.

Priam’s palace.

Priam’s palace (exterior).

Temple of Zeus.

95 96 99 108 111 119

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Editor’s Preface David Ansdell’s drama, The Tragedy of Helen, Queen of Sparta, is today largely unknown. The three extant copies of the play were filed away, neglected, and forgotten. Two of the three textual sources, eighty years after the play’s first performance, are disintegrating. Fragile and brittle, many pages must be gently handled to prevent them from crumbling away into dust, taking entire passages with them. Water and mold stain the edges of many pages with streaks of black and brown. The bindings themselves have deteriorated beyond repair, leaving only rust-­colored markings along the spine.

Yet the pages are, under careful lighting, still mostly legible. Comparing one to the others, it is possible to retrieve most of the verses. Unfortunately, the three sources are different, with altered scenes, bowdlerized passages, and significant excisions and omissions. Nevertheless, we can restore much of the play as it was originally performed in 1872 at Booth’s Theatre in Manhattan.

This volume is the end result of the effort.

The first textual source is a complete original early draft of the play, which is of considerable length.* This was unquestionably the first draft, and the one Edwin Booth initially rejected when Ansdell presented it to him circa 1870. The second source is a partial version of the play as it was performed in Booth’s Theatre during its run in July and August 1872. It is missing several scenes. Both the first draft and the partial version of Ansdell’s play

*The initial draft is nearly the length of Hamlet, and its full running time can be estimated at approximately 50 minutes per act, which would have exceeded four hours, exclusive of intermission, unless the actors were racing through the lines. This first draft was overlong. Ultimately Ansdell sacrificed some verses (though never any entire scenes) to make allowances for reasonable act time, to avoid needless repetition, and to improve the pacing. See Thornton Shirley Graves, “The ‘Act Time’ in Elizabethan Theatres,” appearing in Studies in Philology, vol. XII, no. 3, 1915.

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were originally found among Edwin Booth’s papers in special collections at Washington State University.

A third source is the bowdlerized but otherwise complete version staged at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre, recently discovered in special collections at the University of Chicago. This third version is almost entirely intact. When consulted together, these three sources make it possible to reconstruct the complete play as it was most likely originally intended.

There are few areas where the second and third versions are in conflict (not more than a handful of lines in toto). The assumption made in this volume is that, where these two plays agree, those verses are considered authentic. Two difficulties arise, however. Both the first and second versions, as noted, are significantly damaged. The third, largely undamaged version would otherwise serve as the most authoritative of the texts, but it is missing passages because of the omission of potentially offensive verses. We necessarily consulted the first and second drafts to reconstruct those missing lines. Reference to the expurgated version made it easy enough to determine which lines and scenes were altered for public performance. Those omitted lines and scenes are restored to their original form by comparing the initial draft and the version used in performance at Booth’s Theatre. Where the latter was missing relevant scenes, the first version was then consulted.

The few outstanding issues were ultimately reconciled by elimination.

That is, where interpretive problems or internal inconsistencies arose by favoring one version over another version, I have chosen the verses that resolved those same inconsistencies (primarily in narrative flow and character motivation).

The single issue that remains unresolved is whether additions, excisions, and emendations were made to the text of the play in its performance at Booth’s Theatre in 1872, which, besides water damage and poor paper quality, might explain several of the missing scenes. Such alterations wouldn’t be unusual for a skilled company performing a new play. Likewise, Ansdell was known to have been unconcerned about changes, particularly those made by the players, as he was aware, for example, of discrepant versions of Elizabethan plays, and of the needs of the audience and of the actors. There is no record that such alterations definitely occurred, and the intent in this volume is to provide text that is akin to the final version of the play as it was crafted by Ansdell and accepted by Booth, irrespective of unknown changes x

Editor’s Preface

made in the actual performance on stage. This approach seems preferable to making assumptions about textual changes in performance for which there is no authoritative record. Indeed, any such assumptions would require, at a minimum, staging the play to see where changes might have been needed.

Nevertheless, the play in this short volume is a reasonable reconstruction of the play as it was intended by the playwright and as it was performed in 1872.

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Introduction The Life of David Ansdell We know little of the poet and dramatist David Ansdell, the playwright of The Tragedy of Helen, Queen of Sparta. His appearance in our accounts is as sudden and unexpected as his disappearance from living memory. There is no record of his birth, and we know nothing about his life before or after his interlude in New York City in the 1870s. The sources of our knowledge of him are sparse. What passes for biography consists predominantly of surmises and assumptions based on scant evidence. This evidence includes only the period in which he lived, the few published works that bear his name, and occasional references to him in the diaries and journals of his contemporaries. Even the merest sketch of a biography is beyond our power.

Only one known portrait of him exists—­a photograph by Charles Fitzhume, the one-­ time apprentice to famed Civil War photographer Matthew Brady. Taken in his studio, Fitzhume’s photograph depicts Ansdell as the blind seer Tiresias. Although posed, the portrait is much as Ansdell wearing heavy makeup would have appeared on stage. He performed the role of Tiresias with closed eyes so that the charcoal cosmetic on and around his eyelids gives the appearance of empty sockets. Based on the portrait, Ansdell is believed to have been in his forties or fifties, putting his birthdate no earlier than the 1820s. More than this is mere conjecture.

Even the spelling of his name is uncertain. In the 1870 registry of the St. Nicholas Hotel in New York City, the hastily scrawled name appears twice, but both times spelled “David Ansdel”—­a second “L” is missing.

His name as it appears elsewhere is spelled “David Ansdell,” a difference of a single letter. Yet it is the latter spelling of the name that appears in Portions of the text here are adopted from the article by M. D. Van Bauer, “Ansdell’s Queen of Sparta,” appearing in The Journal of Western Philology, vol. 12, no. 2, 1948.

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Figure 1. David Ansdell in Performance as Tiresias (1872), wet collodion glass-plate negative; one half of stereograph by Charles Fitzhume

his works and on the other few pieces of documentation that confirm his presence in New York in the 1870s. Notwithstanding its inconsistent spelling, Ansdell is one relatively common variant of an English surname,1 and thus it seems likely that David Ansdel and David Ansdell are the same man.

We know that Ansdell resided, at least briefly, in New York City.

There he met actress Mary Booth (neé McVicker), and through her became acquainted with her husband and acting partner Edwin Booth, the famed tragedian well-known for his performance as the titular character in Hamlet.2 After the fire that resulted in the demolition of the Winter 1. Ansdell is a place-­name fifty miles by motor north of Liverpool but is named after Richard Ansdell, the nineteenth-­century English painter. The Ansdell name first arrives in England with the Norman conquest and with almost innumerable alternate spellings.

The name Ansdell came to the Americas in the seventeenth century.

2. Edwin Booth, a supporter of the Union during the American Civil War, is today also known as the brother of John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin. After the assassination, Edwin Booth forbade even the mention of his disgraced brother’s name in his presence.

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Figure 2. Booth’s Theatre, Harper’s Weekly, 9 January 1869

Garden Theatre in New York, Booth invested his fortune to build his own theatre in Manhattan. Booth’s Theatre opened in 1869 and it was here in 1870 that Ansdell first met Booth.

Booth regularly provided Ansdell acting roles at Booth’s Theatre, although the parts he played were minor and uncredited. Reviews of the players, Ansdell included, were unkind. The newspaper the New York Eagle accused Booth of “filling up his company with mediocre actors” and stated that “some members of his company would be more generally liked in the capacity of ushers in the lobby than as actors on the stage.” It was during this time, circa 1870, that Ansdell composed the initial draft of his first play.

Booth’s impression of the play was not wholly positive, but he encouraged Ansdell to continue revisions. Booth’s review of a later revision was far more favorable and, although it strayed from the company’s preference for performing established and reputable plays, Booth agreed to stage it in the following year.3 3. Booth’s notes to Ansdell are lost, and his decision to put on Ansdell’s little-­ remembered play was partly owing to the economy of its production—this according to the diary of Junius Booth, Jr., Edwin’s older brother and the treasurer of the Booth Theatre. Ansdell’s play and Booth’s receptivity to it are also based on Mary Booth’s letters to

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Introduction

The 1872 Performances Ansdell’s The Tragedy of Helen, Queen of Sparta was first performed in July and August 1872. Booth himself played Hector, and his wife took the role of Helen, characters in conflict, an ironic reflection of their sometimes-­ tempestuous marriage in which Mary Booth was the dominant and often unstable partner.

Although Ansdell was not well-­regarded for his acting ability (he had trouble memorizing lines and his affect was flat), he possessed a deep baritone voice and was capable of delivering it effectively to large audiences. This trait served Ansdell well when intoning “Beware the Ides of March” in productions of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Mary Booth remarked on Ansdell’s voice and described its “sometimes peculiar menacing quality,” which Edwin Booth believed was suitable for the character of Tiresias. Ansdell agreed and was given the role, which piqued the curiosity of audiences when they discovered that the dramatist himself had taken the stage.

The production was modestly popular and financially successful. Booth’s Theatre took in just under $25,000 during its run when it was, alongside Richard III, chiefly performed. Booth’s performance of the tortured character of Hector was remarked upon. This sufficiently disguised what some described as the play’s several faults. Yet the reviewer from the New York Dispatch was, on the whole, unimpressed: The performance was uneven, and the tension between the characters of Hector, played by Booth, and Helen, played by his wife, was altogether too convincing, made the audience distinctly uncomfortable, and seemed distasteful, particularly to the ladies present. The drama itself, written by the actor playing Tiresias, is based on events depicted in the Iliad, and its take on that classic tale is, if nothing else, unique.

The result is unlucky for an audience wishing not to be mocked, but entertained.

her sister-­in-­law Asia Frigga Clarke (neé Booth), the poet and essayist. Clarke and her husband emigrated to England, leaving to avoid association with her younger brother’s murder of the American president, which, like Edwin, she hardly favored.

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Figure 3. Portrait of Edwin and Mary McVicker Booth (1869)

by Matthew Brady

The review from the Herald was more kind to the performance, but not to the drama itself, and read, The play has many moments of adequate verse, which are countered by significant missteps in pacing and exposition. The second act, for example, was off course and undid much of the credit due its promising first act. The third act is not much better, though the arrival of the Greeks was a welcome development, if only to put an end to it. But by the conclusion of the fourth act and the entirety of the fifth, the cleverness, which ought not be called excellence, of the play becomes evident. Booth’s performance was flawless throughout. As Hector, he plays a tragic and pitiable character prone to self-­doubt and impotent rage. Based on Booth’s past performances as Hamlet, the character of Hector matched Booth’s range and tenor perfectly.

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The review in the Eagle was damning, making no reference to the performance, but focusing on the drama and the dramatist, describing the play as, . . . foul and scandalous, offending against common decency and Christian morality in nearly every scene. Helen is a treacherous miscreant, Hector a braying coward, Hecuba a lunatic, Priam a weakling, and Menelaus a confirmed pederast. There is neither heroism, nor nobility in this account, and no character is sympathetic. [. . .] The drama’s single redemptive quality is the death of nearly every character when Troy, in the final act, is sacked. The play ends with a final insult directed at the audience. Mr. Ansdell should be ashamed and would be well advised to give up quill and ink and quit the city at once to atone for this obscene outrage.

These reviews, and the Eagle’s review in particular, did not negatively affect ticket sales and might, indeed, have encouraged them. Nevertheless,

Figure 4. Uncredited playbill advertising the play The Tragedy of Helen, Queen of Sparta (1872)

xviii

Introduction

after its four-­week run, Booth never staged it again. Some years later, however, an expurgated version of the play was regularly performed in Chicago and San Francisco at the Auditorium Theatre and the California Theatre respectively. The drama’s unconventional and controversial elements made it briefly fashionable.

Within a year of its performance in New York, Ansdell and Booth parted ways, never to speak again. Although several additional plays are attributed to Ansdell, including a history of Ivan IV and a presumptuous revision of Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage, only tantalizing fragments have been found as of this writing.

Verse, Structure, and Style Ansdell wrote his play in blank verse iambic pentameter (in ten syllables sometimes with an eleventh unaccented syllable). There is occasional use of trochaic pentameter, alexandrines, and rhyming couplets, and even a little prose. Ansdell was not invariably strict in the construction of his lines and frequently adopts secondary stress in words of more that two syllables. Yet he was arguably more strict than other playwrights working in blank verse.

Many Elizabethan plays, including Shakespeare’s and Marlowe’s, hewed to iambic pentameter when appropriate, yet these sixteenth century playwrights never established or apparently felt any need to establish definitive rules of unrhymed metered versification.4 Ansdell was clearly aware of this and his verses are best described as pentameter with an iambic rhythm.

Scansion, which naturally is subject to interpretation and pronunciation, readily establishes that Ansdell wrote in consistent iambic meter.

In one significant way Ansdell did depart from his predecessors. He wrote the play in modern English without burdening the verses with archaic second person singular pronouns and associated verbs with -­est or -­st endings. Ansdell’s first draft used some of these archaic conventions in the first few scenes, but they were quickly abandoned by Act 2, and they appear nowhere in the later versions performed at Booth’s Theatre or in the Chicago revival of the play. He evidently believed archaic usage undesirable 4. Statements that Shakespeare always wrote in iambic pentameter are demonstrably untrue.

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and pretentious.5 Nevertheless, he does use words considered archaic even at the time of writing.

In agreement with the Elizabethan pattern, Ansdell’s play follows a traditional five act structure, with the climax at the end of the third act (the arrival of the Greeks). Some critics, Davidson among them, argue that the true climax comes as late as the end of the fourth act, when Helen (disguised) confronts Menelaus in combat.6 However, the end of third act sets the stage for all that follows; the arrival of the Greeks is the sine qua non of the rest of the action. The fourth and fifth acts depict the tragic outcomes that necessarily follow, and could not otherwise but follow, by the appearance of the Greeks on Trojan shores. Other arguments have been made that the climax comes as early as the first act, with Helen’s escape. Indeed, still others have argued that the first act alone could function as a single act closet play, as it has its own internal climax at the end of scene 4.

Finally, as a tragedy of Helen alone, the play is imperfect. Tiresias explains in the text of the play that it is as much a tragedy of Hector as it is of Helen.

Tiresias makes this point directly, leaving the audience to determine which tragic fate is more affecting.

What tragedy is hers is likewise his; For tragedy what touches one, the rest Alike are touched. Does not the body quake And shudder losing hand, or eye, or tongue?

Does not the shaken ground unloose the sea When deepest mantle breaks beneath the earth?

Thus Helen’s tragedy embraces his, And touches those who come to hear it played. (4. 1. 17–24) Yet Tiresias is describing not a conflict between the tragedy of Hector and the tragedy of Helen, but their confluence. Helen’s freedom is not achieved 5. According to Mary Booth, in an undated letter, Ansdell did not want his play “to tread the ground others had already trod,” and that “if the play were to fail, it would at least fail honestly,” that is, without an attempt at aping the language of Elizabethan playwrights.

6. See A. J. Davidson, “The Elizabethan Five Act Structure and Its Discontents” appearing in The Journal of Western Philology, vol. 14, no. 1, 1950.

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because of this war; Hector’s innocence (or his honor, at least) is not preserved because of Troy’s protection of Helen. Each tragic fate depends on the other.

The Plot The tale of Helen of Troy is broadly known to even the most casual students of Western antiquity. Its two primary sources, the Iliad and the Aeneid have been the wellspring of a great body of literature and commentary. Ansdell’s treatment of this tale, however, is sui generis.7 He is intentionally unfaithful to the classic sources, although many of the characters and elements of both epics are portrayed in his drama. However, they are so altered as to entirely transform the work. Ansdell flips the traditional tale on its head.

The result is uncoventional—­­the conceit being that Paris is long dead, there is no judgement of Paris, he does not come down from the slopes of Ida, and does not seduce or kidnap Helen. In Ansdell’s drama Helen flees Sparta for her own reasons, and not as the result of any spell cast by Aphrodite, or any seduction by a reckless Trojan prince. She flees because Menelaus is a monster, and is likely, based on the events in the first act, to mutilate or murder her.

Reference to Paris is made in the second act when Hector and a votary of the prophetess of Apollo at Delos8 reveal the traditional tale of the burning torch and the subsequent murder of the infant Paris, which in this telling is a murder that was carried out successfully. Oenone, who was in the traditional tale a mountain nymph and Paris’ mate when he was still a shepherd, instead appears in Ansdell’s version of the tale as Helen’s handmaid, and possibly her lover.

7. This was unprecedented strictly in reference to the traditional story as recounted in the Iliad and the Aeneid. See, for example, L. M. Yates, Alternative Ramayanas: Ceylon’s Subversive Retellings of India’s Foundational Epics, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1948). Unlike such eastern counterparts, Ansdell doesn’t appear to be making an overtly political statement.

8. Ansdell’s reference to Delos is not an error, though the description in the play more closely matches the Oracle at Delphi. Based on any cursory examination of modern geography, Delos would be a stop between Sparta and Troy; a visit to Delphi would require doubling back or overland portage between the Ionian and the Aegean Sea. Notably, Delos is the site of another well-­known temple to Apollo. Yet the omphalos mentioned in the play is, in fact, a singular feature of the Oracle at Delphi. Ansdell probably knew the difference.

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Here, the sexuality of characters in Ansdell’s play is a somewhat distasteful but unavoidable topic, and this is, at least in part, where the original controversy of the play first arises. The damning review in the New York Eagle, quoted above, reflects the attitudes and mores of its time.

Many lines of the drama elicited gasps from the audience. It is unclear, but strongly implied, that Helen and Oenone are lovers. Indeed, the drama includes such elements as lesbianism, transvestitism, pederasty, rape, infanticide, and other more gruesome sexual violations. However, much of this is oblique, and is implied more than stated, except in the case of Menelaus, whose indecent interest in handsome boys is noted (the better part of one scene is virtually devoted to it), and whose angry outbursts do rather more than simply imply sexual violence. That said, Ansdell’s approach has nothing in common with the grotesque indecency that is Marquis De Sade’s Les 120 Journées de Sodome ou l’école du libertinage.

Ansdell does not employ these references for the sake of titillation or onanism, but rather to inform the motivations of the characters, to explain why Helen is escaping, or her need to avenge Oenone, or Hector’s occasional ambivalence about returning Helen without delay to Menelaus when he discovers her, disguised as a boy, on his ship bound for Troy.9 Tiresias and Agamemnon If one is to have any hope of understanding The Tragedy of Helen, Queen of Sparta, one must look to the character of Tiresias, the blind seer. He is the essential commentator providing both thematic elements of the tale while offering concise exposition between the acts. He replaces the need for a chorus. He is a character with a particular philosophy in his own right. Whether his thinking represents Ansdell’s, notwithstanding 9. A woman dressed as a man is hardly an unknown device in Elizabethan plays.

As You Like It, Cymbeline, The Merchant of Venice, and Twelfth Night are instructive in this regard. Yet the reviewer for the Eagle objected to the extent of it in Ansdell’s play, or, as I will argue, objected to something else in the play entirely. Indeed Helen is dressed as a man beginning in Act 2 and continues to be so dressed throughout the entire play. While Elizabethan England might be more forgiving of a certain amount of transvestitism, Ansdell’s play would not likely be considered acceptable in any era.

But there is another more likely reason that this play is considered objectionable—­its concluding lines.

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Ansdell’s performance in the role at Booth’s Theatre, is unknown. Yet the few lines available from Ansdell’s play The History of Ivan IV display a markedly different philosophical outlook, which is that the account of the life of Ivan IV is essentially true if you see it as it is, and the players honest.10 The Tragedy of Helen, Queen of Sparta is anchored in a different outlook. In the very first lines of the play, Tiresias describes what the drama is about. The story of Helen, Queen of Sparta is one of lies and dissimulations.11 It is a tale that, in the telling, posits that history is unknowable because memory is unreliable and accounts corruptible. Tiresias makes clear that, When Homer’s wondrous epic strain is sung, No commerce has the truth with vaunted verse, For history is glutted in account With ignorance and bad intent alike.

Be not deluded by the ancient tales, Nor yet bewitched by arts of their reciting; But put aside your books and learning’s lore Of all you have assumed about the war They made on Troy in golden Helen’s name. (1. 1. 6–14) If we take Tiresias at his word, he presents us a “truer” version of the tale.

While relying on Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid as sources, Ansdell is purposely subverting them to tell a very different story about Helen’s flight from Menelaus and the war with Troy. Helen’s deception, both willing and unwilling, is at the core of the play, but this is not its purpose.

10. In Ivan IV, Ansdell establishes in the chorus that the events portrayed in the play are roughly factual, even if abbreviated or told out of order in service to the narrative.

The opening lines Now let us speak together not of fictions,/Nor entertainments decked in falsities, . . . in Ivan IV make clear the departure of the underlying philosophy of Ivan IV from Tiresias’ philosophy in Helen, Queen of Sparta.

11. Throughout the characters are engaged in deception. In fact, deception drives the action of the play, from Helen’s flight from Sparta ultimately to the destruction of Troy.

More specifically, Agamemnon, Agathe, Helen, Odysseus, Oenone, Hecuba, Priam, Sinon, and the Prophetess of Apollo regularly deceive themselves or others.

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At the close of the play in the final lines. Agamemnon addresses the audience directly: Your history is glutted in account With ignorance and bad intent alike.

Two hours played, by my deceit deformed, You braved these lies, dishonestly performed. (5. 6. 86–89) In this final statement, Agamemnon calls into question the validity of the story in its entirety; Agamemnon subverts the subversion, substituting his account, which is the traditional one as described in the Iliad and the Aeneid, for the tale the audience has witnessed. It is possible, that more than any other aspect of the play, these final verses are what the reviewers found so objectionable. Ansdell has intentionally undermined the audience’s suspension of disbelief; and the reviewers, expecting a second-­rate imitation of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, find instead that their evening’s entertainment has been undone by a nihilistic philosophy of history.

Conclusion Opinions of Ansdell’s play have been sharply divided between those who despise the play’s conclusion as a crude final deception, and those who welcome the play’s conceit in which Helen acts and is not, as in the traditional story, merely acted upon. While written and performed in the nineteenth century, the theme of the play and the philosophy informing it seem more a product of the twentieth, a century that thus far has offered two devastating world wars and which today threatens a third annihilating one. Ansdell’s eighty-­year-­old play speaks to the modern era where lies and deception are no less potent, and where people hold two or more contradictory beliefs at once, hoping to assuage the unhappiness and disappointment arising from our ridiculous hypocrisy and dangerous fallibility.

It is possible that Ansdell was purposely toying with the audience­—perhaps even intentionally mocking it. However, it is dubious that Booth would have staged the play if he believed, as the reviewers plainly do, that the drama was a series of malicious untruths nested one within the other, like dolls in the matryoshka. Instead, I think Ansdell’s intent was honest; that what we believe, however comforting, deserves examination; and that it is better to xxiv

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live a lifetime facing a terrible truth than to embrace for an instant a beautiful lie. Indeed, it is our own uncomfortable relationship with the truth that discomfited the reviewers and the audience, and which consigned the play to an enduring obscurity. The style of the play (that is, the use of unrhymed iambic pentameter) was already antiquated by the end of the nineteenth century. Yet the drama Ansdell wrote and the production Booth staged possessed a kind of thematic prescience. It is a work written for a very few; and perhaps none were yet living when it was performed.

M. D. Van Bauer, M.A., Ph. D. Hallum, the Netherlands 1952

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Dramatis Personae THE ACHAEANS Helen, Queen of Sparta Menelaus, King of Sparta Oenone, Helen’s handmaid Agathe, Servant in Menelaus’ household Sinon, Servant in Menelaus’ household Agamemnon, King of the Greeks Achilles, King of the Myrmidons Nestor, King of Pylos Odysseus, King of Ithaca Attendants and Soldiers THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO The Prophetess, Priestess at Delos Votaries, Servants of the prophetess THE TROJANS Hector, Prince of Troy Aeneas, Hector’s cousin and lieutenant Hecuba, Queen of Troy Priam, King of Troy Andromache, Hector’s wife Anaxis, Watch of western shore Callimachus, Captain of the guard Cassandra, Daughter of Priam Trojan captive Attendants and Soldiers xxvii

Shades Wandering in Hades from Act 1. Scene 1. as performed at the California Theatre, San Francisco (1892) by Paul Eliasoph. Courtesy of the California Theatre Archives. The depicted scene precedes the emergence of Tiresias from the background.

T H E T R AG E DY O F H E L E N , Q U E E N O F S PA RTA

[ACT 1]

[Scene 1] The scene is Hades.

Enter Tiresias.

Tiresias If you draw knowledge of the past from me, The ancient seer blinded by a glance Upon the bathing huntress, Artemis, Then your own vision may yet wash away With waters poured from memories’ deep bath.

When Homer’s wondrous epic strain is sung, No commerce has the truth with vaunted verse, For history is glutted in account With ignorance and bad intent alike.

Be not deluded by the ancient tales, Nor yet bewitched by arts of their reciting; But put aside your books and learning’s lore Of all you have assumed about the war They made on Troy in golden Helen’s name.

An embassy of Ilios drops sail.

The trireme moors at Menelaus’ quay Where Hector, prince of Troy, is come the guest To treat with Sparta’s king in Priam’s name, To make the peace, to bind in brotherhood A savage son of fearsome Atreus.

Yet palace-­haunting schemes and jealousies Within the court torment its prisoned queen.

Let this be braved, and honestly performed.

Hear me, O muse, unspin the spider’s veil, That men might know the truth of Helen’s tale.

[Exit Tiresias].

3

5

10

15

20

25

Act 1. SC 2 Helen, Queen of sparta

5

10

15

20

25

30

[Scene 2] The scene is Menelaus’ palace.

Enter Agathe.

Agathe What love had I, his mouth upon my throat?

What wish to make me queen, what promise kept?

The words he spoke, what meaning have they now?

“Recline upon the throne of my desire And, shameless, offer me your love’s expanse.”

The comely boys he queens cannot be wife, Nor can they bear him sons to suit his name.

Yet his designs incline no more on me With want to bring him noble sons. He is Beguiled. The cruel enchantress of the eye Ensorcelled him, and Helen’s cloven snare Has captured him. O Hera, wife of Zeus, O queen of heavens, grant to me requital, For Menelaus slighted me. The witch That is his wife, your faithless husband’s child, Has stolen what is mine. Let me revenge Her beauty’s treachery with treason of my own.

Let me be restitute, this theft avenged That I may take from her such settlement That from her cleft, but sorrow will be born And I become the midwife of her woe.

[Enter Sinon.]

Sinon Friend Agathe, behold our lady’s maid Oenone in her humble servant’s dress.

To me she is fair-­decked in finery Of fittest cloth, of chiton lightly-­worn.

Arrayed in simple blue, she is the sky, Her ebon hair the dusk proclaiming dawn.

And through the vision of my heart she is More dazzling than heaven’s lustrous stars.

Though Helen’s like the sun, too radiant

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Helen, Queen of sparta

Act 1. SC 2

To look upon, Oenone is the moon Whose loveliness on earth shines gentle light.

Agathe That girl is not for you, in truth you know She’s in the service of the queen; her state Most like the moon’s, exalted, out of reach.

And love is perilous to one whose calloused king Despises courtship, deems it mere exchange Of faithless loving oaths that are discarded.

Sinon Yet how can I contain tormenting want, Or yet restrain this thirst that must be drowned, Or satisfy what gluttony demands, Or tame the tempest of the howling wind That cries her name in waking and in dream?

Her face and form have breached all barricade And mount the ramparts of my every thought.

Agathe But see, the girl is hasting from the court, No doubt now to attend our handsome queen.

Go speak to her directly, plate the truth To sate the hunger of benighted love.

Sinon I dare not field an undefended heart.

Agathe Love ventures every risk; it is not love If never word nor sign is sacrificed.

[Enter Oenone.]

Sinon Oenone, will you hear from me my plaint?

We’ve spoken and I’ve sung sweet songs to you Of love, yet never heard response in kind.

Since childhood I have offered up my heart And you have teased, but never gave reply.

Please put aside false pride and say aloud, In earnest truth, I love you or I love you not.

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Oenone I’ve message for the queen and must in haste Deliver it to her; it cannot wait.

Sinon Then speak your heart in haste; I’ll hold you not A moment more if you might make response.

Release me from this torment that I may Be bound to you and freed from discontent.

Oenone What answer can I give that won’t inflict A grievous wound? We were but childhood friends.

If playmates in our youth, it was but play.

Yet are we not both grown? Must we persist In childish games or children’s fantasy?

How could you think such entertainments honest?

I cannot be for you a faithful wife Nor will I take a husband while I serve My mistress Helen, consort of the king.

Go find a worthy wife, but not in me.

I haven’t love for you; pray set me free. . . . I must away.

[Exit Oenone.]

Agathe [aside] The weapon of my vindication’s lust Is baited and aroused to prick the queen, And ravish her with heartbreak’s agonies.

Sinon My spirit pierced, I gasp upon the field.

I dropped the shield and set my plate aside, And dipped the sword; disarmed I stood exposed.

Diminished and denied, how shall I live?

Agathe She thinks you are unworthy of her love, For Helen’s is the only love she seeks.

Her queen, her husband more than any man, Is likewise wife to her. They are espoused By every marriage rite except the bond That openly they cannot ever make.

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Helen, Queen of sparta

Act 1. SC 2

Sinon . . . Unworthy of her love?

My hope’s delusion brutally cast out, And love itself is banished from my heart.

Before, I drank from her the loving milk, Yet now I taste the poison from her breast!

Agathe Their congress, while your heart’s adrift in blood, Is an offense; to manhood, an affront.

Sinon I’ll see her suffer that she spurned a man To lie with Helen, queen and faithless wife!

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[Exeunt.]

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Act 1. SC 3 Helen, Queen of sparta

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[Scene 3] The scene is Helen’s apartments.

Enter Helen.

Helen By beauty’s tyranny, I have been wived To Menelaus, lucky with the lots, That worst of animals and savage Greeks; While I, a child of Zeus, a child of rape, Have mortal beauty without agency, For I am merely owned by what men crave.

But Thunderer, if you might honor prayer To give this pinioned heart her dearest wish, Let men not be by beauty overcome With passion’s greed, with dispossession’s rage, Or jealousy for treasure but to keep Locked full away, or sunken in the deep.

Am I the daughter Helen, nothing more Than fashioned by my father as a springe?

[Enter Oenone.]

Oenone Sweet fairest of the swan, my loving queen Bewitching men and women both alike, Belovéd of the god that brought you forth, I have a message from your fearsome king.

Helen Praise not so shallow qualities. They fade.

And beauty has but spite within this breast, With curse that I am valued for my face, My figure’s form, for mere appearance made.

I am my mother’s child, disowned by him Who ruined her with lust, and me with beauty.

Oenone My noble queen, you are exceeding fair, And women crave the most what you possess.

Yet for myself I bear no jealousy Of beauty you display, for you bestow A share of ecstasy upon my breast, And press your beating heart upon my own, Then, with your kiss, you mark your love for me.

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Helen, Queen of sparta

Act 1. SC 3

Helen Lamentable such fate, and hard to bear That you weren’t born a king and he a maid.

Oenone I am your darling friend and richly loved.

Helen But tell me of your message from the king.

Oenone He spoke to Hector, prince of Ilios, And bragged of you, a treasure for the eyes.

He bid me bring you to his throne to dance, To sit upon his lap, to laugh and sing, To entertain his guest, the Trojan prince, That envoy of a kingdom far away.

Helen He said these words?

Oenone In truth that you must come.

Helen How many arrows must his quiver hold, Each soaked in oil, aflame with insolence While I remain the target of his choice?

Oenone His blood flows thick with wine; I beg we haste, Before his drunken anger breaks restraint.

Helen Then come, Oenone, join me in this farce, And witness the assail upon your queen.

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[Exeunt.]

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Act 1. SC 4 Helen, Queen of sparta

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[Scene 4] The scene is Menelaus’ court.

Enter Menelaus, Hector, and attendants with drums and colors.

Hector

By Ilios and Sparta we have sworn Our oaths in witness of the deathless gods, Perfumed by burning sacrificial smoke And carried thus to father Zeus’ court.

Together we swear brotherhood with vows Self-­murder would their violation work.

Menelaus Pray, take our oaths, our love, our kingly gifts Of riches and of slaves to serve your king That they may bind the oaths we undertake More firmly, as with adamantine strength, So enmity between ourselves and Troy Will not arise today, or evermore—­ For Hector is my brother by this bond.

[Enter Helen and Oenone.]

Menelaus [To Hector] Let slip that beauty’s praise in Trojan tongue.

Hector Yes she is fairest of the seven stars.

Six sisters all together do not shine To rival half the brilliance of her light.

The morning star herself is but her maid In service to the dowry of her grace.

Her tribute paid, her offering to Zeus, Is mirrored heaven drawn upon that face.

Menelaus Come hence, my tardy queen, exquisite pearl Of flawless beauty fashioned for my bed.

[To Hector] The rose that pricks the hand is not as loved As that which may be pricked in recompense.

Hector My wife, Andromache, in brightness shines, Yet she is but the candle’s fitful glint, 10

Helen, Queen of sparta

Act 1. SC 4

And full-­eclipsed her precious spark beside Supernal beauty blazing like the sun.

[To Helen] With undilated eyes, I can but bear A glance upon your incandescent cheek.

Helen I am the prize in Menelaus’ house.

Menelaus She is my queen; I won her in a game.

And powerless, she is my property In form and figure fashioned for a man.

If you, good Trojan prince, would like a turn, I can arrange a quiet rendezvous Upon her perfect breasts, her hips, her face.

Nor will she disappoint.

Hector Alluring as she is I will not cuckold kings, nor make for them the horn.

If not Andromache, she is not mine.

Menelaus But have her for the night, she’ll satisfy Whatever lustful wicked urge you summon.

Hector You surely play.

Helen He is too drunk to know.

Menelaus [To Helen] Do not presume to contradict your king To whom supreme obedience is owed; For, by the lots, you are but merchandise, Mere chattel won. How now a churlish queen?

Helen You foulest king, you make a show of faults.

Hector He does but play; he does not offer you.

Helen Yet in his play, the truth of him reveals As like a snake presents its forkéd tongue, Or dog afraid but growls and bares its fangs.

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He is no longer man, but filthy beast Who wallows in the violences of lust.

Menelaus Be careful with your tongue, it is not match For one who tears it from your feral mouth.

You who give no issue, offer me no child From out the barren womb Zeus gifted you, My every son you drown in menstrual blood!

Helen If I had hair of serpents, you’d repent, Except my face would turn your words to stone.

I’ll never give you sons to violate!

Menelaus [Striking Helen; she falls.]

That hair I’ll cut and burn, and strip you naked, And give you over to my rankest slaves!

Look now their eyes grow wide, their mouths do water.

I’ll let them seed the furrows of your flesh, And feed upon your ruined beauty’s waste Like hogs consume fresh slaughter on the field.

Helen You cruel and wicked blight; you are unmasked.

Menelaus [Dragging Helen by her hair across the stage.]

I wonder now, your mother took a swan, Perhaps my dogs would have a turn with you.

Perhaps your womb will offer me a wolf.

Helen Release me, sir, at once!

Menelaus Yet if I find you with a beast or man or girl, I’ll tear your soul from out your broken neck, Or quarter you alive to still my rage!

[All fall silent; Menelaus composes himself.]

With morning, I will treat with your offense.

[To Oenone] Take her from my sight; nor let her speak Lest I repay her impudence with wounds 12

Helen, Queen of sparta

Act 1. SC 4

That outer beauty mar, and brightness dim.

A treasure that is ruined is no prize To cherish, nor sweet solace to my eyes.

[Exeunt Helen and Oenone.]

Come, Hector, let us make the sacrifice To calm Poseidon’s easy jealousy That you may cross in peace to Trojan shores.

[Exeunt.]

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Act 1. SC 5 Helen, Queen of sparta

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[Scene 5] The scene is Sinon’s quarters.

Enter Sinon and Agathe.

Sinon My lady Agathe, what blissful words To hear the consort of the king abased.

Oenone likewise shares her queen’s disgrace.

Their boundless shame surpasses every hope.

Their coupled grief redoubles my delight, And sugars memories of discontent.

How sweet are such desserts to one who was Made starving by a slave who plated none.

Agathe Unburied are the treasure of their woes.

And would that I could spend their diamond tears, Or count in coin the riches of their grief.

Sinon My vengeance has been done; I need not more.

The queen’s disgrace has wracked Oenone’s heart, And by this turn my hurt is sweetly salved.

Agathe If you would be avenged, your hand must show.

You said yourself! How often you did say? [mocking] My heart refreshed with love had not the space To hold another thought but dear Oenone; Until you pleaded with her like a dog, A whining supplicant before her feet.

Yet she disdained your sad lament and fled With haste to Helen’s arms and Helen’s bed.

Sinon Riposte was made.

Agathe Inflicted by the king!

Sinon Is harm not harm, what matters it the source?

Agathe She knows not that this harm is well-­deserved; That every angry word and grievous injury 14

Helen, Queen of sparta

Act 1. SC 5

She justly earns for wronging you your love.

Your firmness of resolve I will not let Go soft and limp, unequal to the work Of ravishment you’ll do upon the girl Who like a cutpurse, stole your heart away, And when confronted would not give it back.

Sinon Do not remind me of that pain! That wound, If touched but lightly, hurts as freshly made!

Where shall I find the balm to cool its sting?

Agathe Think! What becomes of her, the captive queen?

Like youths that Menelaus flings his lust upon, When darker hair or broken voice erupt, He ends their lives, impaled or by the spear.

Sinon Dispatched, his boys well-­loved, are men despised.

Agathe A haughty queen is more the man than king, And he will sooner do no less to her He won by drawing lots, but never loved.

We need but hasten it.

Sinon Oenone wounded me.

How does a broken queen avenge my pride?

Agathe What does become of maids to fallen queens?

If not debased, their station is diminished.

With lover slain, Oenone will be yours To wed or ruin.

Sinon At last it’s clear. Lead me aright.

I’ll carry your command like to a king’s.

Agathe To Helen’s chambers go, and urgently To steal yourself upon the portal there, Which is tonight unguarded and unlit.

If still, you’ll be secreted from these two— 15

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Act 1. SC 5 Helen, Queen of sparta 55

Oenone and her queen—but very near.

And when they speak, each word that they confide Will be as though confiding it to you.

Sinon Full trusting in your counsel, I obey!

[Exit Sinon.]

Agathe [aside] And will reveal to me the plots they lay.

[Exit Agathe.]

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Helen, Queen of sparta

Act 1. SC 6

[Scene 6] The scene is Helen’s apartments.

Enter Helen and Oenone.

Helen Too long this has been coming; now it comes.

No drunkenness impairs his memory.

He will recall each word I said tonight, And in the morrow resurrect his threats Delivering to me the proof of them With evidence of wild, ungoverned fury.

At once he’ll wrap his hands around my neck, And thick with disrespect, his mouth will blast Such hellish spite to burn my ringing ears.

He’ll vault upon this prey, and rend this throat.

Oenone Must it be so?

Helen No more can I prevent it Then stop from flow and ebb the ocean tide, Or turn the moon and planets from their courses.

[Enter Sinon undetected.]

Oenone My queen, from king and country make escape Until the temper of the king has cooled.

Helen He does not cool nor can he be appeased, Except by his command, before his eyes, That I am flayed, my skin in his embrace.

But sotted now, he’ll stay his violent work Till morn, for he’s too drunken but to dream Of all he’ll do tomorrow to this queen.

Oenone If you are struck, I likewise bear the wound.

If murdered by the king, I’m doubly dead.

Escape, belovéd queen.

Helen Where shall I fly?

What refuge can I take, on whom depend With strength enough to save me from a king?

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Act 1. SC 6 Helen, Queen of sparta

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Oenone The Trojan vessel moored, this evening sails, Well manned by Spartan slaves, the kingly gift Of Menelaus to his honored guest.

Before the anchor’s raised, in darkness dressed, Take shelter. Then disguised in ragged clothes.

They’ll think you but a boy, and not suspect The cargo of a queen they freight to Troy.

Helen How can I flee, as secret stowed away, And therefore leave my loving friend behind?

To keep my life? What value has it then If purchased at the price of losing you?

Oenone My perfect queen, I must remain to meet The inquiries the king will surely make.

On Hector’s ship you’ll be disguised, among His crew, and far away by oar and sail.

The rest, I do not know, but set you free From tyrant king and husband’s villainy.

[Helen removes and gives her jewelry to Oenone.]

Helen These worthless trifles, dower for divorce, Will salary your life, and your escape To Trojan shores, where we may join again.

I’ll sacrifice to father Zeus in Ilios That once more I will clasp in my embrace The woman dearly loved, my mountain nymph.

Oenone I do not doubt that truth, but pray accept Your loyal slave is shadow to your form, And bound to you with every living breath.

[Exeunt.]

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Helen, Queen of sparta

Act 1. SC 7

[Scene 7] The scene is Menelaus’ court.

Enter Agathe and Sinon.

Agathe The morning nigh, your vengeance trailing dawn.

And comes the king to seek a full account Of Helen’s whereabouts. But hush! The maid arrives No doubt to feign surprise that she is called.

Sinon This moment comes too near my fainting heart.

Agathe Be firm bold Sinon, wedded to revenge.

If she is false, and wrongs the king with lies, You must reveal the plot you overheard Between the loving maid and haughty queen That you would not divulge until you lay Upon my bed and in your ecstasy unloosed.

[Enter Oenone.]

Oenone Why am I this morning brought to see the king?

Agathe How strange that you’d not know why you are called.

Such prodigy of skill at playing false That even torn from sleep your tongue should sport At lies, as though by natural deport.

Oenone Of what am I accused that you would speak, With hatred’s scorn, such spiteful words as these?

Sinon Be warned, sweet gentle maid, if made to speak.

I know his mind and manner; be not proud Before his throne, nor falsely testify If there is truth that you would hope conceal.

Oenone What do you mean? Am I not fair?

Sinon.

Be warned.

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Act 1. SC 7 Helen, Queen of sparta

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[Enter Menelaus and soldiers.]

Menelaus.

Bring Helen here that I may make reply To her defiant words that reached the ears Of Hector, and the servants of my robe—­ Within my house!

That viper for a wife, her venomed speech Must be unfanged, her prideful neck be crushed, Her tongue wrenched out, her serpent’s skin pulled off.

Agathe Most august king, the queen is nowhere found, Her chamber bare, nor is she seen abroad.

Her maid Oenone was the last to serve The queen before the cockrow of the dawn.

Menelaus Oenone, tell your king, where is my wife?

When last did she appear before your eyes?

Oenone Yesternight, my lord, nor have beheld Her since, not in her chamber nor her bath.

This morn, I sought her to attend but found No clothes cast off nor yet her bed disturbed.

If gone, I know not where, but trust that she May yet return today, for oft she’s been Well known to walk alone, and in her care Naught but her thoughts among the cypresses, Among the hills and breakers of the shore.

Menelaus With occultation’s art my hidden bride Has vanished from the view of even maids.

Well-­favored is the king to find his queen Delivered from his sight and company.

And yet I feel not favored but disgraced, Dishonored, disobeyed, and impotent.

I’ve summoned her, and yet she is not here!

[To all shouting] Where is the queen?

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Helen, Queen of sparta

Act 1. SC 7

Agathe [To Sinon] You warned her, yet she brought the moment on.

Now be revenged! But speak! And she is done.

Menelaus [To Sinon] You, servant, pray speak up, embark the truth, If not by urging, then by my command, If any words that sail upon the air Should not be ported to believing ear.

Now speak or die!

Sinon The maid Oenone knows!

She lies to you my king. In her deceit, The queen departed by the Trojan ship, And voyages to Troy in Hector’s crew.

Oenone [aside] O gods, I am undone; my queen betrayed!

Menelaus Oenone, tell your king again, in truth, If Helen is at sea at Hector’s side.

Oenone I know nothing of this tale; nor why it’s told.

Agathe Within Oenone’s chambers you will find The bridal gifts you lay in Helen’s hands Are payment now to bear a passage forth To Trojan shores, where Helen will be found.

Menelaus Oenone, we will speak more privately, Where I will beat you hard to hear some truth Through broken teeth, from once such fair a face.

And when I’m satisfied with every word With blood that you eruct, in kindness will I silence you. With bronze I will caress Your lovely throat, and sever every limb.

I’ll cast your ruined body to my hounds, Your heart upon a spear, your head unmoored.

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Act 1. SC 7 Helen, Queen of sparta

No rites shall be performed, no pyre burnt.

In torment and uncomforted, your shade Will wander lost, forever unconsoled.

[Exeunt Menelaus, soldiers, and Oenone in custody.]

Agathe Be patient, you will hear Oenone’s cries 85 As Menelaus tears the truth from her.

Your vengeance is fulfilled, the debt repaid; You’ve balanced all accounts with Helen’s maid.

Sinon What have I done? Dear gods, what have I done?

That in my spite Oenone goes to die 90 Because her love did not incline to me.

Agathe In murder you should be at least a man, Not whimpering and whining like a child.

But hush, I hear her cries.­ Sinon In murder I am used!

AGATHE The girl you’ve stolen from the queen’s embrace, 95 Her crown is broken by a crownéd king.

My jealous appetite is satisfied.

My thirst now quenched, its flavor lingers sweet With Helen now disgraced, her lover dead.

[Exit Agathe.]

Sinon O wicked world that makes of infants, men 100 So changeable and cruel as staggers wit.

By potent venom’s art, O mother, drink That might abortion work upon your sons Who in the world incarnadine their hands With woman’s blood, as I’ve Oenone done!

[Exit Sinon.]

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[ACT 2]

[Scene 1] The scene is Hades.

Enter Tiresias.

Tiresias How swiftly Helen speeds away from him Who yearns to separate her spirit’s fire From mortal flesh! It is but true divorce By queen’s escape or death at husband’s hands At king’s command! What choice remains to her Who has no right to flee but cause enough?

In tattered clothes and dirty hair cut short She plays a feral boy with lustrous eyes, So dazzling with brilliance they divulge The cunning queen beneath the false display.

A day at sea, she is still unaware, Knows nothing of Oenone’s mournful end, Her mountain nymph who sacrificed her shade To wander lost, and passage left unpaid.

[Exit Tiresias.]

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[Scene 2] The scene is Hector’s ship.

Enter Hector and Aeneas.

Hector Who is that one among the Spartan slaves That Menelaus gifted us at parting?

Aeneas Good prince, they look alike to me; they are All dirty and half-­­starved; that Spartan king Delivered us a gift of dying men.

Hector.

The boy I mean, he seems unlike the rest, His form too frail, his body yet unchapped.

Aeneas I’ll bring that youth to you with speed, my prince.

[Exit Aeneas.]

Hector That boy among the slaves has never served In Menelaus’ house, nor would this gift Be given freely, sent away a slave.

Perhaps he was a favorite of the king, Discarded or too manly for the bed.

Yet Menelaus puts those boys to death.

When chins go black, their wine turns sourness.

But this boy is too sweet and womanly Like Ganymede. Would Zeus withhold caress?

Would Menelaus leave the cup untopped, Or turn his hand and dash the wine away That is not spoilt with taint of vinegar?

[Enter Helen and Aeneas.]

Hector Come, we will speak apace.

Helen As you command.

Hector Present your name, and season it with truth.

Helen Have I done such to give offense to you?

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Act 2. SC 2

Aeneas Make answer or I’ll drop you to the waves!

Helen I am a slave, my name is yours to give.

I’m but a boy, more nursling than a man, With mother’s milk still wet upon my lip.

Hector No, you are nothing that you claim to be.

Your figure is a girl’s, though half-­­concealed By clothes that are not yours and tattered with intent.

Your voice, however false the baritone, In truth I’ve heard in Sparta’s kingly court.

Helen My voice unchanged, no hair upon my face Must satisfy the truth in what I am.

Hector Your moon-­like face I’ve likewise seen before.

I marked it well, and now it speaks more truth Than your dissimulation would attest.

Your countenance and carriage are too proud.

And with your haughty accent you affirm That every word you utter is deceit.

O Helen! Why are you aboard my ship?

Aeneas What truth unnatural, how is it so?

Why would a queen become a stowaway?

Helen Grant me your grace. You saw my wretched state When sat you quiet in that savage court.

Did you not hear his words or guess my end Degraded and demeaned like to a slave?

Hector Your presence is a shock. It is a curse Upon my house, upon my city both, And likewise on my honor as a guest In Menelaus’ court. There I stood firm To swear to Sparta’s king a brother’s bonds.

This I did swear! How can I offer refuge 25

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Or shelter from the storm of troubled wedhood And violate the oaths your king and I Together swore; or sunder sacred ties, That should not be unknotted by a wife?

Helen You cannot swear an oath with animals That animals will keep. He is a beast Who hungers for my blood and not your vows!

Aeneas It’s grievous sin, this charity you seek.

Without the oath, still right propriety Requires that we honor its demand To take you to your king without delay.

Helen To whom shall I apply if, turning back You remand this queen to Menelaus?

The grievous sin is not benevolence Or the aegis of my masculine disguise, But rather that I’ll die a shameful death.

Hector You are his wife, in truth, his property.

I must restore his queen to him.

Helen Be wise And think upon your own uncertain end, When Menelaus wonders how I came To be in your possession, then returned.

What offering of food is thus received, Devoured by a dog and then disgorged?

Hector I’m not complicit in your treachery; And have not been seduced to take as mine Another’s wife, however beautiful.

My honor soars above the blazing sun.

Helen But he will surely think you were seduced, Affixing loving words as in his court, But sated, faulted least to bring me back.

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Helen, Queen of sparta

Act 2. SC 2

He will believe your honor’s waxen wings But melted in my arms and in embrace.

And he’ll avenge his honor with your head.

Hector No service to your cause are wicked threats, Lest here I give your beauty to the sea.

Helen I make no threats, this is but what I know Presents to us at Menelaus’ hands.

Pray save my life that I may save your own, For with my death, he will not pardon you.

He knows not I am here; let’s leave it so.

Hector [aside] To kill or keep this queen, I will be faulted.

Yet futures hold more fortunes than these two.

[To Helen] I’ll carry you to Delos, where your fate Apollo’s Prophetess in visions will unveil.

Whatever is pronounced I will obey.

And if I’m bid to bring you hence to Troy, Then Priam shall adjudge your final end.

[To Aeneas] Aeneas, bear this child discretely and Imprison her beneath the heaving deck, That no one but ourselves shall know the truth For fear that at next port the word will out, And ruin follow us at frantic speed.

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[Exeunt.]

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Act 2. SC 3 Helen, Queen of sparta

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[Scene 3] The scene is the Temple of Apollo (interior).

Enter Prophetess.

Prophetess It’s cold; the wind, a blast from furnaces Unstoked. In frigid air, the fire cowed Is shivering; more flicker than a flame Has not the warmth that would appease my bones.

[Enter ghost.]

Too much Apollo’s scent upon my clothes, Long fragrant with the fumes of augury That I hallucinate a spectral wisp.

[To ghost] Speak then O sprite if you have sound to utter, For silence in your step bespeaks but dread.

Ghost O priestess of Apollo, give your fear As offering that I may tell my story.

Prophetess What traces do I see of ghastly wounds?

Ghost I show the wounds, delivered while alive All injuries of truth, from one dispatched.

Prophetess And how have you a memory to speak A tale to me? Are not your sorrows cleansed, And memories effaced in sweet forget?

Ghost My tomb is in the stomachs of the hounds.

No rites upon my body were performed.

I have no coin to pay the ferryman For passage over Acheron and Styx, Nor taste upon my lips nepenthe’s peace; And I condemned to wander.

Prophetess Spirit, give account.

Assault with fiery tears my barricades Of ignorance, of disbelieving eyes.

Divulge to me the death that you endured.

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Ghost You cannot sound the fathoms of my pain, First ravished by a king, and then by bronze Thrice mutilated, bleeding, left alive!

In his embrace, he loved my agonies.

I’ll tell this tale, but grant me this appeal And swear the oath that my most grave demand Shall be obeyed, once I have uttered it Or else a curse will fall upon this temple.

Your columns shall be shattered, fissures fused, The omphalos you venerate then cleaved, And thus this temple’s fame will be effaced That even prescient gods did not foresee.

Prophetess I cannot swear, except with Phoebus’ voice If he commands. No promise can I make On his behalf, but will in earnest try To honor your appeal. And if he is Displeased, more terrible his threats than yours.

But tell your tale, for nothing will be lost By sounding it.

Ghost My enemies betrayed That I concealed my mistress Helen’s flight From home and husband’s murderous design.

With my deceit exposed, he stole my life.

Prophetess Who was the villain, ghost?

Ghost The Spartan king Did render me a desecrated corpse.

He hacked apart each member by its root And fed to dogs who feasted with delight The flesh still warm and marrow from the bone.

And in this state, how can I cross? No coins Upon the bloodied eyes he tore away Nor in the cratered sockets that remained.

My head he piked, my spirit likewise pithed.

With neither rites, nor any mourning voice!

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How can I cross, presented in this form?

How can I cross, without the coin to pay The ferryman? With loathsome voice He turned my spirit back, demanding I depart.

He barred my way. Unwelcomed and unmourned, I’ll never cross; let Helen know the truth, My loyalty is made tormenting grief; My death transformed my love to misery.

Prophetess You mournful shade; how terrible an end.

Ghost A servant nears, and burning dawn arrives.

I must away; or else be set ablaze, For I am bound to Acheron and Styx Where never sunlight burns upon their shores.

In darkest day I roam the bank and watch The ferryman bear souls across the strait Of voided memory, all cares resolved.

Let Helen make to Troy, to offer there A sacrifice, a lamb to deathless gods, That this lamb finds relief, some currency To pay my passage out of memory.

Tell Hector what this ghost would have him hear, By prophesy or falsehood if you must, That he must bear the daughter of the god To Ilios, and to his father’s court.

Prophetess How can I promise this, you doleful ghost?

For Helen is not here, nor Hector come.

Nor can I falsely prophesy or be Disobedient to him whom I obey.

I’ll make the sacrifice myself; does this suffice, If I appeal to bring you over Styx?

Ghost You love me not, how can you supplicate On my behalf, or comfort me in death?

The smoke of hearts aflame with honest love Will scent appeals that Zeus with favor grants.

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Her love alone can give my soul release If offered in the Temple made for Zeus In Priam’s land, by Priam’s child performed.

But Helen, her I cannot bear to see, Must salve the wounds the gods inflict on me.

[Exit ghost as the Prophetess retreats to her bed.]

Prophetess Poor phantom, I cannot fulfill this oath, Nor has the season come, nor hour struck When Phoebus’ breath arises from the ground And, through my voice, delivers prophecies.

[Enter First Votary.]

First Votary Dear priestess of Apollo, you are pale And shivering as though in icy cold While morning air has warmly bathed the earth.

The sun is bright that peers into this gloom.

Prophetess I was in waking dream of mortal grief Afflicted on a child who suffers still.

But now I wake; what news have you to give?

First Votary A ship upon our shores this morning beached With sails drawn down, its oarsmen taking rest.

Three figures from the mists of early dawn Now tread the road that leads them to our shrine, To purchase knowledge hidden by the gods.

The season passed, the next has yet to come.

Dear priestess, give me your command.

Prophetess Go bid them leave to quench the burning torch, Then send them hence; that they may part in peace.

If these appeals they choose to set aside, Lead Hector straight to me that we may speak.

Convey this to your sisters; go at once!

[Exit First Votary.]

Prophetess [aside] You dread prophetic ghost; you set the stage.

[Exit Prophetess.]

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[Scene 4] The scene is the Temple of Apollo (exterior).

Enter Hector, Helen, and Aeneas followed by the votaries of Apollo.

First Votary Hail Hector, prince of Troy. We fare you well.

Aeneas We have but come, why wish us off in haste?

Second Votary The priestess of Apollo bid us say Farewell to you.

Third Votary Farewell to Priam’s son, Who comes and goes with meteoric fire.

Hector This cast I do not like.

First Votary If liked or not, The priestess bids us say and does not lie.

Second Votary It’s day, will you not quench this burning torch?

Hector That was my mother’s dream, it is not mine.

The torch that was my brother was put out.

Prometheus is bound, no spark remains In princely form to ravage Ilios.

But go and tell your mistress we have come Nor will we leave before she hears our question.

First Votary Pray, give remark upon your august house, The ancient tree with Priam at its trunk, And you the eldest branch, full-­­foliaged, And kinsmen, sisters, brothers, bearing fruit, Who lay the table of that noble feast.

Hector Is this the honest question, or the feint?

Aeneas Do not delay; we seek the Prophetess.

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Second Votary We have no gifts of prophecy, but have The key to secrets locked that men conceal.

But proving this, you must depart at once.

Hector If you are keepers of this key, relate The tale, or failing this, confess the truth That I may know you all as perjurers, And have you put to death, to satisfy The punishment that rightly comes to those Who brag and bray but cannot keep a pledge.

First Votary Your mother, Hecuba, the faithful wife, And queen in Priam’s house, brought forth a son, Second Votary Your brother, Paris, when you were a boy.

But while the infant lay in mother’s arms, Third Votary She dreamt a burning torch upon her breast.

And Priam did impart this dream to priests First Votary Who, fearful of the vision of the torch, Declared the boy must die that Troy might live.

Helen What did the dream portend, that such a price Demanded by the gods, should be disbursed?

Hector The dream predicted ruin of the king, Portended Troy in warfare and in fire.

And thus my father, fearful of the gods And of such fate for Troy, obeyed at once.

He tore from mother’s arms the newborn child And bid a shepherd take the boy away To Ida’s peaks and leave him there exposed.

Helen Your brother died?

First Votary The dream was not dispelled; 33

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Second Votary The harsh command was never carried out.

The king then sent contingents of his soldiers To finish him on Ida’s snowy heights.

They carried out the king’s immoral charge.

Third Votary They slew the shepherd and his wife; the child They cast alive into the blazing hearth.

The ashes scattered into howling winds, First Votary And buried in the white upon the peaks.

Hector Where Zeus was given milk, my brother death.

This is the tale of Paris, dead for Troy.

First Votary Is this not true? Are you not satisfied?

Hector You spoke the truth, but stories may yet come To men by words more often that they hear.

I gave no oath; I promised not a word.

Aeneas Delay no more. We seek the Prophetess, Nor will we leave until we speak with her.

[Exeunt Votaries.]

Hector I’ll go before the Prophetess within, To hear what we may do with Helen’s life.

Helen What life I’ll keep, at least is mine to keep, And not for Menelaus to dispose.

Whatever life remains, I am content With brother Phoebus’ grace, or cerement.

[Exeunt.]

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Act 2. SC 5

[Scene 5] The scene is the Temple of Apollo (interior).

Enter Prophetess.

Prophetess He will persist, he comes, I hear his steps, Unwashed towards this ancient shrine, he comes.

Unpurified he will demand the words That I must make; yet what have I to say?

The season’s wrong; the metaphysic fumes That burst the strongest seams and crack the earth Are silenced for a time and rarely bring Apollo’s breath, or sacred prophecy To augur Helen’s fate or Argive wrath, Or satisfy unhappy luckless shades.

[Enter Votaries.]

First Votary Dear Prophetess!

Second Votary Beloved of the god!

He hastens here with pride and self-­­conceit.

Third Votary Give us command!

Prophetess Allow him to approach.

Let him entreat with me; though I’ve no words To send him out or satisfy his plea.

[Enter Hector.]

Prophetess Hail Hector, prince of fabled Ilios, Step forth before the hazy light and taste The foulness of the scent of prophecy That drenches walls, that soaks mephitic air.

I am the sibyl and the Prophetess, The priestess and the keeper of the fire, And mistress of the god of wolf and plague.

Through Phoebus’ breath I speak what futures come, To men foretelling fortunes good and ill.

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[Hector throws coins upon the ground before the Prophetess’s feet.]

Hector Then mark me, sibyl of the sacred fume, You’ll hear my question; grant to me some vision Of what I must perform or yet undo.

First Votary Why harbor here? The season has not come When supplicants arrive with offerings To Phoebus, granting visions in return.

The season now has gone nor come again Nor should she seek Apollo’s prophecies Lest she displease the god with your demands.

Hector But I have come with her, the Spartan queen, The sister of your god by father Zeus.

Shall not our supplication turned away Displease the god such supplicants entreat?

First Votary The priestess of Apollo knows your plaint Before the thought was fashioned for the lip.

Second Votary The season has not come; what power then Have you to move the stars to make it so?

Prophetess I know the question that you’d put to me: If she should be destroyed by Menelaus, Or have protection in your father’s house.

Hector I’ve pledged to Helen that I will obey, The prophecy you make.

Prophetess And for her sake I’ll breathe whatever fumes the god exhales.

He may yet bid me speak to give some answer.

This night encamp, in morning you will know The answer Phoebus makes, or none at all.

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Hector Then, priestess of the god, as you command.

[Exit Hector.]

Prophetess Tomorrow they return; what can I be But liar bearing falsehood’s prophecy?

[Exeunt.]

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[Scene 6] The scene is the Omphalos.

Enter Helen and First Votary.

HELEN Dear votary, sweet servant of Apollo.

I must entreat with him.

First Votary Then kneel before The omphalos, where Phoebus first appeared And mated her, the mistress of this shrine.

[Exit First Votary.]

[Helen kneels at the omphalos. Enter ghost.]

Helen What fog of frigid air alights the ground?

Diaphanous and delicate—a cloud Cast down from heavens’ bosom to the earth Arrays its lure before my waking eyes, And bids me follow it; I know not where, If marble sepulcher, or stone or tomb, . . . . Or in an open pit?

Unburied, unredeemed? For shades are lost Who fain to walk among such mortal haunts.

You spectral fantasy, pray slip away.

[Helen collapses. Exit ghost.]

[Enter Prophetess.]

Prophetess O loveliest of women, Zeus’ child, Arise for me that I may speak with you.

And make no sound, but hear this friendly voice That hates to lay this vision at your door.

Helen What fancies does your vision offer me?

Prophetess Last night I dreamt a wanderer, a girl, A spectral child unanchored and adrift, By loyalty undone, and bones for dogs, Unsanctified, unwept, but dearly loved.

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Act 2. SC 6

She found my bed; and as on frigid wind Such woeful words to me did she exhale.

Helen I saw her; at some distance on this mount, But moments now; or maybe it was dream.

Tell me, dear Prophetess, who was this girl Whose specter haunted you that mournful night? [aside] Yet asking I am hesitant to hear Why she need bring this cheerless tale to me.

Prophetess The girl gave not her name, nor any sign Revealed; her darkest eyes, her hair in rings As black as raven’s plume, and every limb Had marked on servant’s clothes of ghostly blue A splash of red as fresh as butcher’s work.

And then she spoke.

Helen What words did she transpire, Which you with living breath reveal to me?

Prophetess She swore me to a vow I cannot keep, That I must prophesy as she commands, Apollo’s voice and vision set aside.

Helen To disobey a god?

Prophetess To falsely prophesy That Hector should convey you hence to Troy, And bring you then before his father’s throne, To speak with Priam and with Hecuba.

At Zeus’ temple then to sacrifice, To set her free who loved you as a bride.

Helen O father Zeus, these were Oenone’s words!

She sacrificed her honesty. She lied That I might make escape from him I hate Who was my husband, king, and torturer.

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O shade appear! O let your spectral voice Accuse your murderer!

Ghost Menelaus!

Helen Let woman’s savage nature rend his breast, And hurl him from his throne into abyss!

You vile abhorrent king, arraign yourself To feel your soul unfastened from your flesh Dissolving both in dust that will reveal You as you are, and were, and will forever be In life, and damned in death’s sure agency!

[Exeunt Helen and Prophetess.]

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Act 2. SC 7

[Scene 7] The scene is the Temple of Apollo (exterior).

Enter Hector, Aeneas and the Votaries.

First Votary Now morning, come to hear the Prophetess.

What she predicts, whatever she commands Must be obeyed; for fate makes slaves of us.

Second Votary The god behind the veil in vaporous breath Brings joy to some, to others bitter tides For trading what is meant for what is wished.

This simple warning’s offered only once To those who seek from her such potent words That fully will predict what days must come.

[Exeunt First Votary and Hector.]

Aeneas Be likewise warned, if Hector is but gamed With prophecies imagined and contrived To favor what disfavors him, my prince Will place my mark upon the Prophetess.

Second Votary What mark of blasphemy is this, That you would threaten favorites of the god?

Aeneas Your fickle god prefers the chaste, untouched, The choicest of the flesh that I will spoil.

No more shall prophecies be minted here To trade for Greek and Trojan treasuries By her whose stainless womb is thus profaned, Whose favor with Apollo is unmade.

Second Votary How is your Trojan honor not undone So openly, in presence of the god?

Apollo will avenge his Prophetess.

Have you the power to avert his wrath?

Aeneas Have you yourself the power to command The god? Apollo will dispense with her.

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How many pretty girls, untouched by men Give him delight? The Prophetess but one Who swiftly he would set aside for her Whose beauty is more fresh and sweetly turned.

Unnumbered are the beauties he’d prefer.

[Exeunt.]

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Act 2. SC 8

[Scene 8] The scene is the Temple of Apollo (interior) Enter Prophetess and Helen.

Prophetess Soon Hector comes and must I find the words To falsely testify to send you hence In safety to the shores of storied Troy?

Yet if I do not answer or am fair, The phantom’s curse shall fall upon this fane; Yet if I lie and make false prophecy, Then Phoebus’ fire shall burn the fane to ash.

Helen You need not disobey the god you serve Nor falsify the prophecies he forms With sulfured breath from chthonian abodes.

For Hector swore a promise to discharge No prophecy, but only your command, If not avowed by gods, at least by shades.

His promise being made must still be kept.

[Enter Hector.]

Hector Perform your witchery; reveal some vision Not of the past or present turns of woe, But of the unknown future yet to come.

Prophetess I’ve called upon the god of wolf and plague.

I’ve sipped the weakened fumes, but no reply Was granted me to satisfy your frain.

I know at least some prophecy for Troy: The city shall be saved for what she bears In memory for ages yet to come Remembered by the greatest and the wise.

They’ll speak of Troy with awe and trembling.

Hector These words are answer for another’s question But not for mine. Will you not speak of mine?

Prophetess You seek a firm command that bids you act?

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Hector I will obey, if from my ask, reply Is made aloud—­a firm and clear decree.

Prophetess I heard from ghostly mouth a firm command.

Go quickly then to Troy with all you freight, And carry Helen then before your king.

By this command shall Troy be fashioned great.

As prophecies have promised and foretold.

Hector How can I honor this poor prophecy Delivered by the mouths of feckless ghosts?

I came to hear the words of him, the god Of wolf and plague, his arrows tipped with truth.

Instead you’ve patched a tale of ghostly speech.

But errant shades who wander unredeemed Are anchored still to memories long past, And histories unmoored from modern ports.

What could they know of future storms and tides If bearing Helen there might ravage Troy?

Prophetess You swore an oath to Helen, faithless prince.

Did you declare that words that did not please Would be forsaken, readily ignored?

Deliver her to death on Spartan soil, And be acclaimed for your dishonesty, Betraying both the girl and oaths you pledged.

I need not ask Apollo for this proof That you will be accursed, your honor fouled Except that you fulfill the vows you made.

[Exit Prophetess.]

[Enter Aeneas.]

Hector [To Helen] Because a ghost has willed it so, The Prophetess has rendered her decree, And for my clumsy pledge, I must submit That you will go to Troy, and to the king.

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Aeneas This course seems ill-­advised and dangerous, And ghosts’ demands are never prophecies.

Hector In truth I know not what to do. I fear The king my father may not send her back.

His weeping rusts the metal of his plate.

The cruelty that kings must often wield, That sword he cannot lift, his conscience gored.

The madness of his wife and in his bed Has bled his love of Troy; he may yet wish To watch it burn, much as he burned his son!

I did not bring this on, this wicked theft Of wife from husband and from sovereign lord.

[To Aeneas] Go then into her chamber, make your mark [Exit Aeneas.]

Helen Where hides your honor now, ignoble prince That you would ruin her who disappoints Your fervent hope that I should be destroyed?

Hector Give no thought to her, but only to yourself, And pray my hidden honor keeps my oath.

Whatever comes, the fault I’ll fix on you.

I did not want you girl, Achaean queen, Who stole herself and stowed away unseen.

[Exeunt.]

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[ACT 3]

[Scene 1] The scene is Hades.

Enter Tiresias.

Tiresias What sights I once beheld, but none the likeness Of this great city rising from the sea Above the waves that washed the prize ashore.

Proud Troy, if you should shelter her, how long Survive you both afflicted by the Greeks?

With loveliness alike, shall both be spoilt?

For Menelaus counsels with his peers, With brother Agamemnon and such lords Who swore the oath, defending fortune’s choice, Which was the choice of lots they jointly drew To win as wife a maiden at her bloom.

If any might offend against that vow Or steal the beauty from the house of him Who drew the lot that won her to his bed, The rest, by might of arms, redress that crime.

Now vengeful Menelaus calls these lords To honor what they swore, to sail with him Resolved to war, reclaiming what is his.

But in the Trojan court, Andromache Contends with madness haunting sovereign queen, With playfulness corrupt; who frantically Goes chasing through the halls to glimpse the child, Her son two decades dead. The mother wild.

[Exit Tiresias.]

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[Scene 2] The scene is Priam’s palace.

Enter Hecuba and Andromache.

Hecuba Who calls? An infant’s wailing, or the child Now older, playing, laughing, then in tears From tumble on the tile, or running hence Away from me, my lovely boy, my son!

[Hecuba runs through the hall.]

Andromache [aside] This phantom of her vain imaginings.

Is coin of madness spent on counterfeits.

Where do you haste, you tearful queen of Troy?

Hecuba You hear him, do you not, Andromache?

Your brother, by the marriage bond, performs A miracle from blazes yet alive!

Dear loving Paris, come to mother’s arms!

Andromache The boy is lost, at least for eighteen years; The child is gone; will you not mourn him dead?

Hecuba No, this is not true; the kindled fire Left not a mark; he walks the corridors!

Andromache My sweet, how are you twisted in these chains That bind you to a shadow for a child, Yet spare no joy for noble Hector’s sake— The father of my son, both heirs to Troy?

His trireme tied at last upon the harbor, Be pleased with him. As mother to a king, Pray throw a ray of warmth upon his breast.

[Enter Priam.]

Hecuba My Paris, are you hiding in these halls?

Have pity for the one who brought you forth, Who bore you in discomfort. Play no more Your cruel tricks upon my burning eyes.

[Exit Hecuba.]

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Priam What does she see when chasing through the corridors Who is but lost on Ida’s icy summits And mingled with the fury of its winds?

Am I, the hated murderer?

Andromache She will not say.

Whatever murder done, the queen denies, And resurrects his ghost before her eyes.

Priam Her madness grows apace for tearing him From nursing at her breast, from loving arms.

She is each day more neighbored to that death.

[Enter Callimachus.]

Priam What word have you?

Callimachus Your son, the prince, returns.

Priam How potent this report; which prince is this?

Callimachus Your eldest son, Prince Hector at the beach.

He disembarks to give the full account Of all he did encounter while at sea.

Priam At fall of night bring Hector to my throne, And find the queen, that we might greet him both, As parents, and as king and queen of Troy.

Callimachus My noble king, I will fulfil your charge.

[Exit Callimachus.]

Priam In manhood’s fullest flush, her firstborn son May calm the queen, may temperate the wits Of her who has made bed with lunacy And, mated with her madness, cuckolds me.

Andromache My husband now returns, do honor him Who hazarded the sea to make the peace.

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Priam No robe of honor is as your embrace, Nor kingly praises fit for its replace.

[Exeunt.]

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[Scene 3] The scene is a Trojan port.

Enter Hector, Helen, and Aeneas.

Hector At selfish ghosts’ command, I’ve freighted you, A woman bearing danger and dishonor, And treason and disloyalty to king.

Helen Your harsh opinion is not much concealed.

Hector But why should I conceal that you become A cancered lip upon embodied Troy?

I went to sea, to friend Atreides, Yet now I’ve stolen treasure from their house.

Helen I’ve pled my case; yet you would have me run With dash towards impalement on a spear. aeneas Do spare us, golden Helen, from our share Of your disgrace.

Hector Reboard the ship, and yield To give yourself to Menelaus’ hands And swear with dying breath that I am honest.

Helen By life’s inconstancies, I’m trampled on With curses dressed as blessings that afflict My innocence; for who would fault the fawn That flies with haste from wolfish appetites?

I’ll not return to Menelaus’ house, Nor bear the gross injustice you defend As opposite of what you’ve seen of it.

If Greeks should come for me and fire Troy, I will not mourn nor alter what I’ve done.

So kill me here, or take me to your king.

Aeneas [draws his sword] This viper must be slain!

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I’ll keep the oath As reckless and as careless as it was.

I’ll bring her to the king and pray that he Is shrewd enough and wise in his decree.

[Exeunt.]

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[Scene 4] The scene is Priam’s court.

Enter Priam.

Priam My queen gone mad, myself on madness’ cusp, I’ve fear that I shall fall in likewise straits, Or living have my sins revealed and made Alive to torment waking memory, To smell the flesh I furnished for the feast.

“All for the good of Troy!” the infant son Delivered by my hand into the fire.

My spirit chained and collared to the crime.

Oh that I were extinct; my flame put out!

My son is dead, and I am roused to find In life my crimes in ranks that stand arrayed Beneath the blazing banners of the field Against the single soldier of my soul.

“All for the life of Troy!” in sacrifice Brought from the marriage bed; I killed my son And stole away the mind of her I loved.

This cost! This grievous cost! What I would pay; I’d empty out the treasury and watch The city I command be spent away To naught; if I might never have been born, For that I am the ruin of a man!

But living, I must live, and raise from death Some comfort to the queen I have betrayed.

[Enter Andromache with Hecuba.]

Hecuba I’ve glimpsed the boy again at Hector’s side, The child he brought to us, that we might hear His voice as honeyed wine; our perfect son!

[Enter Hector, Helen, and Aeneas.]

Priam Hail Hector, eldest son and noble heir In health returned from Sparta over seas As dark as wine, and deadlier to drink.

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Hector I have returned to country and to king, Discharging your commands as to the law.

Priam But come, let us now speak upon the Argives.

What word of Menelaus do you bring?

Pray, is that Spartan despot satisfied With brother’s bonds I ordered you to swear With comity? Were kingly gifts exchanged Enough to calm the passions of the Greeks?

Or has your voyage ventured brought us war?

The priests refuse to say, or do not know.

Hector I do not know myself; we made the peace But woman’s treachery has intervened.

Priam Yet here you bring a boy, a comely child, Perhaps a darling slave, a queenly gift, Debauched by men, yet beauty not undone.

Hecuba My haunted soul! By gods and charities!

His beauty is more fetching than the moon, His station more exalted than a slave’s.

Have you not sight to see the son restored To us from exile after countless years?

Priam This is a slave, unwashed in tattered clothes.

Hector This is not prince or slave, but Helen, wife And fugitive from Menelaus’ bed!

Hecuba [To Priam] The infant that you took has now come home In form and figure, loveliness of youth.

This is his face, his curling lip, his eyes That glint like stars. His color like to snow From Ida’s mounts. His sweetness is the milk That warmed in my embrace. We gently dozed, His face forever recognized, my son.

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Hector This one you think a boy is truly queen To Menelaus, won to him by lots.

Helen I am a renegade from Spartan shores And was most like a slave to wrathful whim And murderous design of him who prides Himself a noble king, wicked though he is.

I seek shelter from his homicidal beck.

Priam I’ve no authority if you belong The property of the Atreides.

Hecuba How strange this edict from a father’s mouth To send his son to wander without friend Enslaved to Greeks to suffer without end.

Hector [To Helen] Pray speak the truth that you are Sparta’s queen, Who fled in this disguise, a stowaway!

Helen I am not as I was—­I come unranked.

If king, or prince, or queen, I am not still.

All titles I have held are sacrificed.

Hecuba This mother’s love cannot be sacrificed.

You are my dearest child, my youngest son.

Your honeyed breath reprieves my troubled soul And in my aching breasts the milk flows forth A bowl for you, sweet boy, for one who died Who now returns from parting, vivified.

Priam The darkness draped his eyes; that son is dead.

Hector She is not son, but cunning queen, the wife Who Menelaus lost, and will demand.

Hecuba [To Priam] Proud king, my love and husband of my youth Do not divide me from my youngest child, 55

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Who now a youth has been restored to me, And thus redeems my honest love for you.

Priam [aside] 90 I am unmanned; for how can I refuse My troubled queen whatever she may ask?

Helen Most august king, I seek a single boon.

Pray let me sacrifice for one much loved, Much loved and lost, to cease her wandering 95 Without the coin to cross the river Styx, Or drink of sweet forget, at last relieved Of burdened death, of life too soon cut quick Unjustly and without the proper rites.

She was my maid, my trusted loving friend.

Hector [aside, bitterly] 100 As ghosts command! If Menelaus slew The girl she loved, then Menelaus knows!

Priam Go then in loyal friendship to your friend.

I’ll furnish both the lamb and kindled fire To ease a passage for the one you loved.

105 Andromache will bring you to the fane.

Cassandra will perform the sacred rites.

And when she makes the holy offering, The spirit of your friend shall be consoled.

Helen I am in honest debt, high-­minded king.

[Exeunt Helen and Andromache.]

Hector 110 She must be sent away, returned to Greece!

Hecuba [To Priam] Why wish the treasure disinterred be sunk Again beneath the earthly vault or sent Away forthwith and never be returned?

Don’t steal my child again as you have done.

Priam 115 The gift twice given, twice can’t be withdrawn.

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Act 3. SC 4

Hecuba With care, my love, that I may be appeased.

Priam It will not be withdrawn.

[Exit Hecuba.]

Hector Be warned, the Greeks know now the present state Of her whom Menelaus lost to Troy.

Priam What matters it? Achaeans will not come.

Hector You think forbearance shall be their reply, Forgiveness be their single meek retort?

They’re savages, I’ve seen them at their play And she is treasure lost and, in their sight By subterfuge and theft; she must go back!

Priam I am disabled; loathsome your demand, When Helen is a treasure to the queen.

Rejoicing in the vision of her son Is not delusion I will have undone.

Hector How can you keep her here, what weighs A plaything to the queen against a war?

Must you, for love, then hasten to destroy The house inheritance entails to me?

Priam I’ve spoken! I am king; I am obeyed!

Hector Pray do not give asylum to this queen!

Priam I’ll honor her with fitting robes, and make A Trojan prince of her, her mother’s most beloved.

A counterfeit made closest to the coin.

Hector Though Helen’s not the child you gave to blazes, She is a burning torch alike the same.

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Priam Bring Helen here, that I may make of her The boy won back, a solace to the queen.

Hector I hurled the spear of truth and flashed its sword But nothing will avail; you will not quit 145 The field of weakness, nor be ever swayed From havoc, or from overthrow, or harm, From death or from the sight of Troy ablaze.

Priam You’ve said enough! Go then as I command!

If I cannot restore your mother’s wit, 150 I’ll sacrifice some truth to comfort it.

[Exeunt.]

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Act 3. SC 5

[Scene 5] The scene is the Temple of Zeus.

Enter Helen, Andromache, and Cassandra.

Andromache [To Cassandra] My sister, will you make the sacrifice Desired by my friend; for losing her, The girl beloved, and keeping lover’s faith?

Helen Such torment I endure for her I loved And lost—­that love I offer up and pray The gods accept the torrent of my tears And scent the smoke from this my burning heart.

Cassandra I will prepare the fire, and slay the lamb.

Helen Pray make for me these rites when I am dead That likewise I might cross and see the girl And roam with her as shadow to her shade.

[Exit Cassandra.]

Helen [To Andromache] Your king shall send me back; this is his right.

As with this sacrifice, when it is done, I’ll likewise be delivered into darkness.

And doubly dark, for she and I rejoined Will own no recollection of the taste From love’s ambrosial font together we enjoyed.

And darkest still that I will drink the draught That I would have her drink to be forgot.

And we are not avenged, the Spartan king Still breathes this air and stands astride this earth.

Andromache Is he the cause, your husband Menelaus?

Helen He is the wicked instrument of this, And I the willing exile from his hands, Friendless and abandoned as I am.

Andromache Do not despair, for were we not both born To rise as queens to thrones, yet not to rule?

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Is not our world more shared than any state Exalted among women? Then we are As wives to one another to defend Our honor and our lives against such men.

Helen Yet Hector is more noble, what is he Compared to Menelaus whom I’ve wed, Where one would kill me, one just wants me dead.

Andromache My Hector is half-­beast. He is a man So governed by man’s nature that excludes My wisdom and his sister’s prophecy.

To be a queen are chains that weigh us down.

Once captured and encaged, the lioness is pet.

But you, you have escaped from direst catch.

Think not you were our unexpected guest Cassandra did foretell that you would come.

And seeing you, I knew that I was born Your ally in the court and trusted friend.

[Enter Cassandra.]

Cassandra I’ve made the rite and offered sacred prayer In kindled fire. I sacrificed the lamb, With blood’s libation from its spotless throat.

The roasted flesh, and cuts that I’ve dispersed Have wafted scent to reach the deathless gods.

The girl you love, her wandering is done.

She drinks the draught, her spirit now at rest Unburdened by remembrances of life.

Helen [aside] I know not how Oenone is avenged, Yet, like the patient spider I will wait.

Let Menelaus come with all his strength That war might weave the web, cocooning him And liquefy for feast his villained soul.

Andromache [To Cassandra] Now tell us both, good daughter of the king As priestess of the lyre, what tides you bring.

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Cassandra No man believes the futures I predict, For Phoebus cursed the prophecies I make To go unheeded or in arrogance ignored.

Andromache We are not men, but women by misfortune, Yet still the minds we have are ours alone.

Your divination’s never proven false.

Nor any spoken portent unfulfilled.

Cassandra [To Helen] Priam has resolved to artifice That you may be protected by his house As Paris made replacing Paris lost.

With armor and the herald of the prince, A man he’ll make of you, his son Belovéd by the mother, Hecuba And cherished by the father, as the gift Of lunacy transmuted into love.

Andromache Such happiness and joy I feel for you!

Helen Andromache, I think the king’s deceit May ruin us.

Cassandra I’ve not the heart to say.

[Enter Hector.]

Hector [To Helen] Your fortunes are restored, Achaean queen, Who now as prince named Paris has relit The burning torch again within our halls.

Rejoin the king, your shelter is assured By madness twice. Your costume is prepared.

[To Cassandra] Dark sister, bear her to the king’s report.

[Exeunt Helen and Cassandra.]

Andromache How cruel you seem, but gentle is the heart Of him I love, his son in cradled arm.

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Do pity her, the girl who fled her king.

Is she not guest deserving shelter here?

Hector She flew from husband. Any nest we make For that unfaithful kite is but a sin.

Andromache Has she not cause?

Hector 90 Enough to ruin us.

She fled the husband by deceiving me; And will deceive us all in Paris’ guise.

With Priam’s blessing and authority, She is made forgery, a faithless form.

95 What alchemy! From lead transformed to lead, A specious gold that has bewitched the queen To see her son! But does my father see The war the Greeks will make that murders me?

Andromache Your mother’s mind undone; would you prefer 100 The queen bewitched by phantoms of the son That chases through the chambers of her mind?

Hector Am I not son enough? I’d not affix Upon this girl a princely robe or arms That mock the soldiers’ pride, or heroes taunt.

Andromache 105 He’s borne the burden years; all strength is spent To watch the wife he loves enrapt by ghosts, To take her lunacy into his bed.

Let Paris be restored in Helen’s place.

What harm can come of it?

Hector The worst to grieve!

110 I know of her for whom you sacrificed.

I saw her living there in Menelaus’ house Attending Helen in the Spartan court.

I need not have account to guess the rest!

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Act 3. SC 5

Was slain and mutilated by the Greeks For knowing Helen’s flight and where she fled No doubt divulging it in final agonies To Menelaus. Dangerous and cruel He curses me, I think, and calls me thief.

You think the Argives will not come to claim Their errant queen and fix me with the blame?

Andromache Why would they come? What reason do they have?

Reveal to me their character, omitting Not a word but plainly without sparing me That I, unquestioning, might understand How Helen, wounding one of them, might lure The rest across the sea to venge that hurt?

Hector They style themselves the heroes of the world, But barely clad, they’re barbarous and cruel, And but a generation out of caves.

The gods they love are savages like them, Capricious, with a taste for sacrifice Of innocents and children on the pyre.

Such gods so treacherous and wicked well reflect Their worshippers in every brutal crime That they commit with relish, joyously.

The Greeks will come for Helen, but will seek The treasures of a conquered Ilios, And concubines and slaves among the best Of wives and daughters weeping over bones Of husbands, fathers, dead upon the wall And sons thrown down from highest parapets.

Andromache Can fate yet be unmade, and war forestalled?

Hector I do not know, but if we offer Helen And a bribe, this may appease these savage tribes.

Yet if we keep this woman in our midst, Dishonoring the justice of their claim, And offer her our shelter in these walls, 63

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How many Trojan dead will be enough To wake my mother from her witless dream Imagining that Helen is her son?

Andromache Then what you say must surely come to pass.

But Priam is your king, you must accept That his command is lawful and is right, 155 Nor should you question him in his decree As you would not be questioned were you king.

Hector I faithfully obey his will and charge, But need not in his presence praise it right, Where dotage and his queen have sovereignty.

160 I am obliged by station and by birth To speak the truth and not in silence yield.

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[Exeunt.]

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Act 3. SC 6

[Scene 6] The scene is the Gate of Troy.

Enter Callimachus and soldiers.

Callimachus Who’s there in darkness nearing this my post?

And name yourself if friend or enemy!

Anaxis It is Anaxis, watch of western shore, A friend, but short of breath from hasting here.

Callimachus Anaxis, but too early for relief.

[Enter Anaxis.]

Anaxis I come with speed; I have most urgent news.

Callimachus Enough to leave your post?

Anaxis As in the worst enough.

I’ve stood among the breakers of the shore Transfixed by what my disbelieving eyes Beheld beneath a moonless vault of sky.

Callimachus What wretched scene did stars unveil to you?

Anaxis Our sentries, by Achaean swords, are dead.

To bear a message, I alone was spared.

They spoke to me, their breath upon my face.

Callimachus What did they say? What message do you bring?

Anaxis A threat to Troy, and object murderous.

Before my fallen friends, they bound my limbs, And yet my body trembled without cease, At this their threat presented by their kings.

My flesh awash, and yet my mouth so dry, The soil of rich response was rendered sand.

And nodding my assent, I was set free, And dumbly took my leave to bear their words 65

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At once to Priam’s ear . . . .

But faint I hear the Argives making sport On Trojan soil, where Trojan blood’s been spilt.

And I but spared, a craven messenger.

Callimachus [To soldiers] Relieve my watch and keep alert tonight.

For now, make Troy secure behind the walls, And guard the gate with Trojan soldiers armed In numbers meant to warn the Greeks away.

[Exeunt soldiers.]

Callimachus [To Anaxis] Be braced, we must recount this to the king.

[Exeunt Callimachus and Anaxis.]

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Act 3. SC 7

[Scene 7] The scene is Priam’s palace.

Enter Andromache and Helen.

Helen This part performed, I feel most like the fool In borrowed clothes that do not fit my sex, While playing as a son to Hecuba.

And who but Paris could relieve my post—­ A boy made ashes mingled in the mud?

Andromache Dear girl, this precious service you provide, For queen and king, restores their ruined love, Transmuting years of madness into bliss With speed that makes the decades seem a day, And lunacy a fever quickly spent.

They stake their happiness upon this play.

You’ve bought asylum in this house, the price, But clothes, while we your sisters cherish you, Our brother and his bride in single form, The son restored and queen both bound to you.

Is this not recompense enough, sad child?

Helen I am in debt, and in my banishment Much loved. I have no right to be aggrieved.

[Enter Cassandra.]

Cassandra The sentries have been killed, their bodies strewn Along the shore and in the temple of the god.

The Greeks have come, their soldiers making camp Supporting Menelaus and his claim On you, poor Helen, self-­abducted girl.

Helen My friends, shall you now be my enemies?

Cassandra No judgment do I cast. If I predict What comes by vision and by perfect augury, My imperfections rest upon the why.

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Andromache Did we not know the Greeks would surely chase The comet’s tail, my silver-­footed queen?

Yet you remain our guest, what hazards come, A friend, a guileless child, an innocent Who suffered under men, as women do.

Cassandra A sentry nears. The luckless tale will out Within the court. Let us not be at hand.

[Exeunt.]

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Act 3. SC 8

[Scene 8] The scene is Priam’s court.

Enter Priam and Hector.

Priam Be confident, my son, the threat predicted Has not yet come to pass. By now, at least, Would they not reach our shores; would they not be Upon our necks to wrest the prize away?

Hector My king, but several weeks have passed, and this Reluctance to admit the cost that artifice Demands is never sign the Greeks will not collect.

[Enter Aeneas.]

Aeneas Good king and sovereign lord, I have report From sentries at the gates that you must hear.

Hector [aside] He thought it wouldn’t come, and yet so soon.

[To Aeneas] Let them be brought to give the king account.

[Enter Callimachus and Anaxis.]

Hector Callimachus, this eve how do you fare?

What news with you, stout captain of my guard?

Callimachus I am, my lord, in disposition grave.

Anaxis has report from western shores.

Hector Anaxis, we have made our altar here.

Unveil the bride of misery we’ve wed.

Anaxis Great armies have appeared, my noble prince, From long black ships that beach upon our shores, Half-­visible to our imperfect eyes.

They overran the temple to the god Apollo, lord of bow and wolf and plague.

They slew my startled comrades where they stood, 69

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And sacked the temple, killed the keeper there, But I survived, their message to impart.

Priam What did they say to you?

Anaxis Their dialect Was Greek but still the meaning evident.

Go now, they said, and bring this tale to Troy, To Priam, king, and his lieutenants there, And to the Trojan prince who broke his vow.

Priam How many were the ships that ported there?

What cities did they represent, if Greek?

How many soldiers has each ship disgorged?

How large is their encampment on our shores?

What purpose have they here if not for war, To breach our barricades and ruin Troy?

Anaxis As countless were their vessels as the reeds.

The soldiers disembarked were without count.

As needles in the pines, a thousand ships, A dozen kings, and each with armies vast That Greece itself is emptied now of souls.

The fires of their camps make evening glow, As though they caused the stars themselves to flee.

Their purpose on these shores, they made most clear—­ Return the girl, the wife of Sparta’s king.

Priam [To Callimachus] Go back upon the walls; be posted there In ranks upon the watch, that if the Greeks Should spy our gate, a steadied gaze Of Trojan soldiery shall make reply.

And if they speak at all, or are but beasts That growl their terms or bay beneath our stars, Give them this answer to their base demands: If they will resurrect our Trojan dead

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Transforming fatal wounds to perfect health, Then I may yet relent and treat with them.

[Callimachus turns to Hector.]

Priam Look not to him! I am your sovereign king.

My word alone, not his, must be obeyed!

[Exeunt Aeneas, Callimachus, and Anaxis.]

Hector What woeful news, the tardy Greeks at last Have conjured their resolve and come to take The prize you keep. Agree to send her back!

Priam She is not theirs to claim or keep, her life Not theirs to ruin or dispose. Once lost They have not right to call it theirs.

Hector What madness are these words that yield to war?

Am I not son enough? This coin is true.

Priam If cowardice betrays your fighting heart, I’ll stand myself to face their insolence!

Hector How will you fight with staff in place of spear, With royal robe for shield, enfeebled arm, No helmet but the braided thinning gray Nor plated armor but your trembling?

Priam In youth I served Laömedon my father And, soaked in blood, I gave him matchless fame!

Young Hector, prince and heir, shame not your fathers, Nor bring disgrace upon inheritance, But lead my armies, vanquishing the Greeks.

Let not their many-­leggéd darkness crawl To throw its filth upon the walls of Troy.

Defend your king, and push them to the shore And hurl them to their ships and send them on

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Their passage home across Poseidon’s realm Without a prize to mollify their rage.

Hector I will obey, and in obedience Destroy myself and all that I have loved.

However strong you were, you are unwise.

[Exeunt.]

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[ACT 4]

[Scene 1] The scene is Hades.

Enter Tiresias.

Tiresias Like fair Persephone, some months in spring Reprieved, and ages spent in the abyss Abducted and unwilling to his bed; She is by marriage rites the grieving queen To rule in Hell with her abhorrent king.

However wicked his commands, he is A king whose every uttered word is law; So Helen steals herself and is not free.

Like Oedipus, who learnt his fate instead Made every measured step along his path To turn away from what the gods decreed.

Yet children by the womb of mother’s love, Despite evasion, was his final turn.

The vision of his fate could not forestall His self-­inflicted blindness at the end; So Hector’s innocence has conjured war.

What tragedy is hers is likewise his, For tragedy what touches one, the rest Alike are touched; does not the body quake And shudder losing hand, or eye, or tongue?

Does not the shaken ground unloose the sea When deepest mantle breaks beneath the earth?

Thus Helen’s tragedy embraces his And touches those who come to hear it played.

Our stage submits, with many months of war

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Act 4. SC 1 Helen, Queen of sparta

Our Helen watches, sees the cost men pay, Arraigns herself against that dearest price.

See now upon the rampart comes the queen Bedecked in Paris’ splendor for the scene.

[Exit Tiresias.]

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Act 4. SC 2

[Scene 2] The scene is Priam’s palace.

Enter Andromache and Helen.

Helen I disappointed Menelaus’ threats And flew from him, as prey from predator.

I could not yield my beating heart nor give The bird of life its freedom from my breast.

But I watch war from walls and parapets.

I see the thousands clash. They spend away Their lives without complaint. Decamped, they glut The halls that Hades has prepared for them.

And fearless Hector if not always right Is right in this, that I’m the single cause Of ruin and of wreckage loosed on Troy, And rightly blame myself for wanting war.

Andromache You are not blamed, nor yet deserve reproach For bringing war that destiny decreed—­ For who are we to turn aside the Fates, Or keep the thread uncut where death awaits?

Helen When Argives first made camp upon the beach I welcomed it; the crisis come at last!

I longed for it, that Menelaus fight And die, his savage lust made shroud. But still He lives! I dreamt of Menelaus slain, That Hector would confront him on the beach.

But bold Achilles fights, and bars the way Aborting every selfish hope I bear, For still he lives, the villain I despise.

Andromache That war would come, if sooner than we hoped, It was to come, why else was Hector sent But to postpone arrival of this fated turn?

Helen [aside] They risk their all, it cannot be repaid Nor lives restored. What can I pay in kind 75

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But live my life ashamed that I but live While others die preserving me alive?

Andromache The sorrows of the heavens touch us all, Both high and low alike, touch every head.

Your raining eyes add thimblefuls to these To fall upon this excrementious field.

Helen My life has not such merit that the wise Would recommend to Troy this sacrifice.

Andromache But we are bound in fated play, what purpose Has your misery accomplished, lovely girl?

[Exit Andromache.]

Helen [aside] If I should flee through catacombs beneath The city walls, in darkness to depart, What then? To age a thousand mournful years?

Or shall I die both beautiful in aspect and in deed?

For Hector will return to hear my plea To rid him of the Greeks, or rid of me.

[Exit Helen.]

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Act 4. SC 3

[Scene 3] The scene is the Gate of Troy.

Enter Aeneas, Callimachus, Hector, with Soldiers.

Aeneas [shouting] Secure the gates at once; we are pushed back!

Callimachus We drive them to the breakers of the beaches Beneath the shadow of their anchored fleet, But lose again that ground to their attack.

And we are overmatched, and quit the field!

Aeneas At least Achilles fell beneath the sword Relieving us at last of his assualts.

Hector He did not die; Achilles lives.

Aeneas But prince We saw his bowels wet upon your boot!

Hector I stripped his golden plate, to see the face Of him, above all Greeks, I had so feared.

Achilles was not there, but Patroclus In cousin’s armor dressed, his life destroyed Which is the fitting end of one disguised.

[Enter Helen in armor.]

Aeneas [To Callimachus] Go now, and license soldiers for the watch.

[Exit Callimachus with Soldiers.]

Hector [To Aeneas] Cousin, stay a moment here, I yearn To hear the form my mother’s madness takes While even as the stench of burning flesh Is sacrificed to mollify her wits.

Helen [To Hector] Dear brother, yield to me the honest state, As I would hear the standing of the war Unalloyed from your lips with fantasy.

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Hector So long at war, we’ve battles yet to fight, And countless dead among the Trojan host.

Troilus and Evander by the sword, Polymus by the spear, these sons of Priam, True heroes of my line, are now destroyed.

Aeneas We gave their ghosts release upon the pyre, And passage to the netherworld as shades To wander without mind or memory.

Hector How fortunate are they at last to leave Behind their living cares, and all they loved?

What bitter fate that we should envy them.

Helen How long will Troy endure if words like these Of coming tides are all that wash ashore?

Aeneas Our numbers are depleted and the war Goes worse for Troy with every havoc met.

Blockaded by the Greeks, we have no aid With barely food to feed the soldiers left Who cannot fight half-­starved nor well support A constant ceaseless war against these foes.

One city fights the cities of all Greece.

Helen What must I do? How can I aid this cause?

Hector What help are you at all, with every hurt That you inflict, dear daughter of the swan?

Will you not give yourself to Menelaus?

Or call upon your father to disperse These savages assaulting Ilios?

Helen But I do wish myself as father Zeus, The Thunderer, to shake the heavens loose.

Or born like sister Pallas fully armed, My aegis would transform the Greeks to stone.

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Act 4. SC 3

Or naked sprung from shell and ocean’s wash, I would bring jealousy to slay their own.

I’d hunt the Greeks, like Artemis, the girl, And haunt your beaches, never touched by man.

Or soar above the heavens’ diamond stars, Like Phoebus in his chariot of fire, And set aflame the warships of the Greeks.

Hector You wish too well, for wishes have no worth, While now you live to watch us sacrifice With pyres that roast to ash insensate flesh The men who died for you, which is to say for naught.

Helen Upon the barricades and killing fields, Those innocents surrender life for me.

I have no stomach for this blood-soaked fare.

Call out to the Achaeans for a truce.

Hector They want but you, O beautiful disguise.

But will you give yourself up to their care, As wife to Menelaus and his wrath?

Will you give battle from the rampart’s reach Or intercept the rage of Menelaus, Which you have conjured in your faithlessness To home and country, birth and sovereign king?

Helen Let me be Paris, not as Priam dreams, Nor as the ghost mad Hecuba pursues.

Let me be Paris, but as champion, A credit to the house of my adoption.

And red-­haired Menelaus I will fight In trial of single combat to decide The outcome of this catastrophic war.

In Paris’ guise I’ll win myself from him, Or die between the lists upon his spear.

Aeneas What in your plaint is ours to grant to you?

You are a woman, leave this work to men 79

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For if you fight I do not doubt you will Before us all, fall dead upon the dirt.

No, Menelaus is well trained and skilled, An equal to the fiercest warriors, 90 While you are as a virgin on the field.

You lack the prowess of the Amazon.

Your armor does not make you well-­equipped.

And your disguise at closest range is poor.

And if your wager is your very self, 95 How can we resurrect the prize they’ll claim?

Helen To Menelaus, I am better dead, And slain by him, his rage is amply served.

Hector Is that enough to satisfy the Greeks Who fought and died to steal your beauty back?

Helen 100 Then offer recompense if I should fall To satisfy the Greeks; they’ll have my corpse.

And tribute and rich treasure brought from Troy.

They’ll leave your shores and sail the wine-dark sea.

Hector You fled from Sparta’s court, betrayed your king, 105 Yet now you’d fling yourself upon his wrath.

Are these the vagaries of demi-­gods Or whims and fancies of a thoughtless child?

Helen Upon my vow, let none alive deny, To slay the beast or failing that, to die.

Hector 110 I will not make this wager for our sake, Nor offer to the Greeks your worthless stake.

[Exeunt.]

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Act 4. SC 4

[Scene 4] The scene is the Greek camp.

Enter Menelaus, soldier and captive.

Menelaus [To captive] You are a boy most beautiful to see.

A son of noble Trojan blood, and fair.

You saw horrific slaughter on the beach.

You saw my cruelty, my naked rage.

Yet truly that for every hour passed In violence on the field, I am reprieved, Exchanging savagery for dalliance, And fond appreciation of a youth Much as your own. For it is sweet to touch Your hair, or yet caress your beardless cheek.

And here, within my arms, you will be safe From thoughtless whim of battle, blood, and death, And crying to your mother in their throes.

But here you will be safe; it is your choice.

Let me unlock your chains, and free your hands.

For I have other work that they might do.

Captive I am a son of Troy; I will not be A mistress to your pestilential spear, Nor will I pack the sore that you present.

Menelaus [To soldier] Return him to the gates of Ilios, But leave his severed head within the camp.

[Exeunt soldier and captive guarded.]

[Enter Agamemnon.]

Agamemnon Capricious as the gods, you have their taste In lusty boys. You ought not linger there When we have butcher’s work to do, as much As we, the sons of Atreus, could want.

Menelaus What butchery is this? The field is clear, And enemies are hid behind their walls.

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Agamemnon The Trojans sent us word; they’ll hear our terms.

Perhaps we’ll have your wife this very night.

Will you depart with her, your errant bride?

Or will you take her head before the eyes Of those who offered shelter for her crime?

Menelaus It’s true, my dearest brother, son of kings, I will do violence upon that frail.

What other use is she who fled to Troy?

The sons of Hecuba have had their turn With her, astir in thickest honey’s sweet.

Let Aphrodite’s whore be given up.

And taken then, uncoupled in her bed, To take the bronze where she has taken men.

Agamemnon Then come with me; put pretty boys aside.

Perhaps this war will speedily resolve And you will have your vengeance on the girl.

[Exeunt.]

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[Scene 5] The scene is the Battlefield.

Enter Hector and Aeneas.

AENEAS As tides have washed our bootprints from the sand, As scattered bones bleach white beneath the sun, So wretched war, the wicked sweep of time Have vanished all endeavor into void.

Blood-­salted earth but offers sour fruits, Unripened after nine cruel months of labor. hector No sweetness will we taste until the Argives Are thrown together back into the sea.

Aeneas How will we throw them back, defeat their host, Or burn their ships, and watch them flee in dread?

What energies remain not yet exhausted, Depleted and denied by endless siege?

It baffles me, this parley with the Greeks, For what have we to say, except to yield?

Hector Yield only to my judgment in our cause, Let me rely upon your silent faith That I may bring this war to swiftest cease.

[Enter Agamemnon and Menelaus.]

Hector Before these gates, I stand without defense.

I came in embassy to hear your terms To heal the sickness driving us to war.

Agamemnon The terms you know; they are not well-­concealed.

Restore to us the wife of Sparta’s king, For Helen is the single prize we seek.

But you refuse, and we redress by arms The simple terms that you do not fulfill.

Menelaus Just bring the girl, and let us end it here.

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Hector [aside] She’s bound herself to Paris; who would want A faithless wife restored to Sparta’s court?

Yet who can blame these two their grievances, 30 An infant dead, or wedded to a Greek?

[To Agamemnon] Although our blood has mingled on these sands, Our heroes dead who couple with the dust, My queen won’t give her up; she’s Paris’ prize, And Paris is her son, too well much loved, 35 And Helen’s life alike, their flesh entwined, Their state is one, now paired they are not two.

Agamemnon Why make such riddles of our just demands?

Why so offend the justice of our claim, Denying that you must restore the wife 40 To him, her rightful husband and her king?

Hector No justice here remains that I offend.

I’ve seen how he behaves, his senseless rage.

For if the queen of Sparta is returned To him, who is her husband and insane, 45 I do not doubt he’ll put the girl to death.

Menelaus Nor should you doubt. For if she is restored Tonight, she’ll never come to see the morning rise.

Hector So all this ruin, all this darkness thrown Upon my city, done to glut your rage Against a woman!

Agamemnon 50 Still, he has that right.

We kings of Greece, for want of Helen, swore Our holy vows and drew the sacred lots.

Whoever fairly won and wed the girl, We would defend the honor of the oath 55 That none may claim what Menelaus won.

If Helen’s rightful husband should put off 84

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Her robe of life, that is his privileged right.

Then honored oaths dissolve and we are free.

Hector I know a way to staunch the bleeding wound.

Let Menelaus’ grievance take the field Against the one who wears the feathered plume In Helen’s colors armored and arrayed.

This battle is not ours; let these two fight For honor or for wealth; for one restored To him his pride, or one to keep her own.

Let death decide between these two at war.

Agamemnon We Greeks shall swear to peace if Troy shall be Then likewise sworn and bitter war might end.

Let Menelaus fight and claim his prize In golden Helen’s form, and gifts of wealth From Trojan treasuries; yet if he falls Keep Helen, and Achaean kings shall part From Troy as friends, and never to return.

Hector And will Achilles likewise swear this oath?

Agamemnon I am his king! Achilles will be sworn, His vengeance set aside at my command.

Hector Then swear the oath with me, Achaean king.

Discard the shield, lay down the sword and spear, And pledge with me a vow no more to fight But be true friends; in faith to trust in Zeus That fated death shall now resolve this war Between these two; we’ll honor him who wins And let the vanquished rot beneath the sun!

Menelaus No! You came a guest, I welcomed you a friend, And gave you kingly gifts to bear to Troy.

Within my halls we swore to brotherhood, And yet the harlot stole away with you!

I will not make this vow, nor be put off 85

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When oaths you make have not such honesty That I would, once betrayed, again believe A second set of oaths you’d violate.

Hector I did not violate my former pledge, Nor steal your golden prize. She slipped aboard, Well-­costumed and disguised, among my crew, A refugee from you.

Menelaus 95 Into your bed!

Aeneas She prised herself, and fled a fearsome foe, A savage who dares call himself a king.

If you accuse us, son of Atreus, Then stand we two to fight beneath the sun 100 And with your wretched end redeem my claim.

Menelaus Bite, bite, you gnat, and drive the horses wild.

But hush among your masters, do not buzz Of fighting or of killing better men.

A menial should not dare threaten kings.

Aeneas [drawing his sword] 105 Speak again, Achaean, craven as a dog, I’ll send you howling to the gates of hell.

Hector Sheath your sword; we come in embassy.

Agamemnon I am contented with your innocence But seek from you what rightly is our own.

110 Let Menelaus face the one who wronged him.

Hector My brother’s armor bears her champion Agreeing to the fight, to kill, to claim her life.

Is that not vow enough for Troy to give, One death to balance life, the rest to live?

Menelaus 115 Appease me with that sacrifice, the one Who struts upon the sands and stole the wife 90

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Who rightly was my own, and fairly won.

The blood upon my sword shall be my vow.

My victim slain shall be my solemn pledge.

The gore-­wet sand will quench my savage rage.

The corpse shall warrant all that you declare, When Helen’s armored champion is dead And Helen dead which follows fast upon.

Agamemnon When shall they fight?

Hector At dawn upon these sands, Between our lines, if we are pledged in peace.

Agamemnon It is agreed, O Hector, prince of Troy.

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[Exeunt.]

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[Scene 6] The scene is Priam’s court.

Enter Hecuba and Priam.

Hecuba Tell me, in truth, where is my youngest child?

Please fetch him here, that I may see his face, More beautiful than Ganymede who bears The cup for Zeus, a mortal loved by gods.

For rumor fields a tale much overheard, That Paris trains tonight to fight at dawn Against the Greeks.

Priam What did you say to me?

Who said these words, that Paris goes to fight?

[Enter Hector.]

Priam [To HeCTOR] What do you know of this, that Paris fights?

Hector To fight between the lines, to kill a king.

Priam By whose command? And, purposed to what end?

Hector Of course, to spare proud Ilios from overthrow.

For this your Paris faces Sparta’s bronze.

And Paris chose, I did not make the choice, To combat Menelaus with the dawn.

Aeneas will instruct with spear and sword, That Paris might at last have made a show.

Priam Are you your father’s king, commanding me Or in my place in parley with the Greeks?

This double-­suicide that you have tendered Was not by my command, you must withdraw.

You must retract the offer treasonously made.

Hector I’ll not rescind the offer they’ve accepted.

For if this war continues as it has They’ll torch the city, put the girl to death And violate the queen before your eyes.

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Whatever power I possess as heir I still apply at every fated hazard To save the lives that you would cast away.

Priam Your every word is treachery and treason!

Hector What stratagem remains to expiate Your guilt for murder and deceit you’ve worked Upon our family, the wicked end Of once esteemed a race of mighty kings?

To salve your guilt for cruel infanticide You condescend to call this woman prince, And in deceit, you murder countless more, When foul Achaeans shortly finish us!

So search no fault in me; I did not choose.

I only made the offer at the gate.

If I am charged with disobedience, Upon my soul, my treason is transformed To honor and fidelity to you!

What you call treachery is love and loyalty And filial devotion to a dotard.

The offer is accepted. When it’s played I will have saved your kingdom, and your life.

[Exit Hector with mocking flourish.]

Priam [aside] I am unmade; authority is his, And he is right, as always he has been.

Hecuba Let me be never parted from the child I bore with love and cannot bear to lose.

Appeal to Hector that he must obey.

He must reject the foolish pledge he made And save my darling Paris from the blade.

Priam I cannot bar the way, the war must end, And if your lunacy returns, then know Whatever may befall, I loved you still.

[Exeunt.]

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[Scene 7] The scene is the Battlefield.

Enter Helen in Paris’ armor, Aeneas and Hector with drums and attendants in a broad space between the armies of the Trojans and the Greeks.

Aeneas [To Helen] Keep the helm affixed in your display, That they won’t hesitate to keep their pledge.

Helen If you would gamble, supplicate with Zeus And place the bet on me; for I was wronged And justice is not served if I am slain.

Aeneas I would not take that wager, pretty girl.

Hector [To Helen] Too often have we wagered for your sake, But I will wager either end suffices.

Let this be played, that Trojan eyes might gaze Upon that single husk that held at once A shadow of my brother, and a queen.

Let this be played, and I without regret Will celebrate the wretched end of each Awash in blood by Menelaus’ hands.

I need not waste a dove to supplicate That two upon the field will thricely fight, Yourself, your lie, and Menelaus’ might.

[Enter Menelaus.]

Menelaus [To Helen] Are you the Paris who from ramparts watched The work I’ve done, and will now do for you?

Young princeling, in your armor, fit to die, Are you the champion that I would fight To win again the wife I’ve won before?

You barely wear the armor of a man, With hands that tremble holding shield and spear.

Are you the thief that bids my wife to stay, Who takes her in his bed, disgracing me?

You’re but a child; against a king you stand And, with my sword, incarnidine the sand.

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Helen [aside] Stand fast, O daughter of the swan, stand fast.

Let not your courage slip or dissipate, Transmuting heart to blood, and bile to milk.

Remember how Aeneas bid you fight.

When he shall cast the spear, I’ll turn aside, Or swing his bronzéd sword, I’ll fall away.

Let him enraged exhaust himself with rage.

Menelaus A word, perhaps, upon your shaking lips, But fear has no response but cowardice.

What then are you, who spirits wives away?

Helen She flew from you, you beast, you monstrous blight!

You are unfit a king, or even man.

That gods should suffer you to draw a breath Is proof enough that gods do not exist!

Menelaus You have your brother’s tongue, but not his strength.

Be still for me, that I may make retort.

[Menelaus thrusts his spear forward, which glances off Helen’s breastplate and knocks her down; Helen promptly regains her feet and casts her spear, but the throw is knocked easily away by Menelaus’ shield. Tossing his spear aside, Menelaus approaches, his sword drawn.]

Menelaus Be still, I said, and I may still your heart.

[Menelaus swings his sword, and Helen falls back.

Menelaus toys with her. He knocks the sword from her hands and pushes her to the ground. Menelaus then grasps her by the horsehair crest and drags her across the stage, laughing.

The strap breaks and the helmet comes off in Menelaus’ hand. Helen turns and regains her sword. Menelaus kicks the helmet aside, but within her reach. Menelaus now, much closer, sees her face as she grasps her helmet, placing it again over her head.]

Menelaus What sorcery is this, how is it so That counterfeit is coin, that lead is gold?

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How is it that the foe is also prize?

You have bewitched my eyes; I know your face!

[Helen strikes Menelaus below his breastplate. Menelaus falls back, fatally wounded.]

Helen I am the thorn’s perfection, with this sting Remember her, while still you draw a breath!

She forded rivers you will never ford And found the comfort you will never find!

Now die that I might hear your final gasp!

Menelaus My bowels spill out here upon my hands!

[Menelaus falls back, collapsing.]

Helen As you foretold, with blood you’ve dyed the sands.

Menelaus [To Agamemnon] My brother, I am dead.

[Menelaus dies. Hector steps between the Greeks and Helen.]

Agamemnon [anguished] What snake is this that struck the Spartan king, And gutted him who glowed before the dawn Near victory? How was it done, by what Enchantment killed the better man?

Reveal yourself to us as you revealed The same to him who, stunned, defenseless, died.

Helen Upon the Aegis Menelaus looked, And turned to stone, which then the Gorgon broke.

Achilles Athena, have you lost your love for us?

Hector Is not the war decided by the vows We all together took and jointly swore?

Who fought for Helen’s life? The choice was ours, If we had made it yours, Achaean king You would but choose the weakest from our ranks As sacrifice to Menelaus’ spear.

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But parting from our shores, you’ve weighed your ships With others’ armor stripped upon these sands.

Now king, the war is done, you must depart, Well-­satisfied in honor and in wealth, Without disgrace, and every oath fulfilled.

Agamemnon We shall depart; that promise will be kept.

[Exeunt.]

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[ACT 5]

[Scene 1] The scene is Hades.

Enter Tiresias.

Tiresias How can we speak of these unknowable, Unloosed, and disconnected ages past?

And if in judgment, what does judgment make of her Who flies unjustly from an unjust end?

Our agency, like all that we perceive Came not with us, and will not follow hence.

Your freest choice is bound, declawed, unfanged.

It is the baited bear that roars in chains.

It is the snake, with colors wild and bright, With markings made to warn against its threat.

With broken neck, it is no threat at all.

The fierce display is counterfeit of threat.

It is the trick of life that we do bay Beneath a moon that does not ever rise, And sport with choices fate already made Before we players stepped upon the stage.

If Helen’s end fulfilled is proof enough, I’ll muster it upon the theater’s field.

Let this be braved, and honestly performed.

Calliope, let me unweave the veil, Or rend the pall enshrouding Helen’s tale.

[Exit Tiresias.]

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[Scene 2] The scene is the Greek camp.

Enter Agamemnon, Odysseus, Achilles, and Nestor.

Agamemnon While we prepare our ships to take to sea, I need to comprehend this vexing turn, That but a child struck down my fearsome brother, Dispatching Menelaus to the worm?

Achilles Where did he send our hope of sacking Troy?

That acquisition bought with brutal work Still stands, a guarded fortress out of reach, And vengeance owed to Hector twice now spoilt.

Agamemnon What was the craft that killed the Spartan king?

[To Odysseus] You have professed that Pallas taught this art To you, O king of Ithaca, so speak At once. Reveal the manner of the trick That planted Menelaus in the dust.

Odysseus What matters in the craft that trick was done?

Though gifted artful trickery it was, And Hector was complicit in the lie.

Our vows were cast attesting all were fair.

And Hector pledged before we jointly swore, In combat, reckless Paris would confront The mighty Menelaus in the lines.

Yet Menelaus fell upon the sword Of falsity; let us not likewise fall.

The gods themselves took witness of them both; That Hector lied to us annulled our oath.

Achilles [To Agamemnon] The slender youth who spilt your brother’s blood Was neither man nor boy, but deity So awesome in her power, though she stumbled, She stunned your luckless brother by some spell That left him gibbering his helpless plight.

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Agamemnon She blinded Menelaus to the blow That sent my brother slumping in the dirt.

Nestor [To Agamemnon] Then heed the heartfelt counsel of the wise.

With you and bold Achilles reconciled, You are the first among Achaean kings, And master now of this your brother’s war.

But Helen cannot be restored to him Who lies a sleeper prone upon the field.

Odysseus Did we for Menelaus come to Troy?

For Helen have we taken Trojan lives?

I’ve come to breach the walls, to ravish Ilios, My object never Helen, then or now.

Achilles O hear me proud Achaeans, we must fight And toss aside the oaths!

Odysseus For earnest fools Are judged more by their trusting honesty, And we were true and honest, if unwise.

Nestor Yet if we fight again, what will we gain?

The walls of Troy for countless months unscaled?

Or sight of Trojan towers still untaken?

Not Helen nor their treasuries await Without some passage through their guarded gate.

Odysseus The oath we took may serve our crooked cause.

We must embark, and thus fulfill our promise.

Yet we will take our port beyond their view On southern shores of Troy and hold unseen.

But first we’ll break one ship for beams and planks, And craft a wooden horse as offering To her who knows the balance of this war.

The horse a tower’s height yet hollow with deceit, For Troy will drag the beast behind the walls, 97

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While well-­concealed within that specious gift Let soldiers of the Greeks in silence wait.

Nestor But how, Odysseus, is Troy deceived To take the horse, to drag it from the beach, To place it then behind their mighty walls?

Odysseus Leave every craft to me. I have the means To bear such lies to Priam’s ancient ears To blind his eyes, and draw the dotard’s tears.

Agamemnon I’ll hunt the god immortal or the child, And shall avenge my brother’s shameful death!

Achilles And I my love’s, and dress in Hector’s gore.

Odysseus [aside] O momentary race of Ilios, Your monuments of bronze shall be made Greek.

Your men shall be the slaughter of the field.

Your wives shall be our slaves and concubines Whose bodies shall make cradle to our sons To bear Achaean boys with doubled claim As men of Greece and rightful kings of Troy.

[Exeunt.]

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[Scene 3] The scene is Priam’s court.

Enter Priam and Hecuba.

Hecuba Come, Priam, husband, sweetness of my heart.

Let’s sing with joy, let’s celebrate, and dance.

With night’s sweet savor, let us then remake In passionate embrace the bed we share.

In victory, am I not owed this boon Whose son expelled the Greeks from Ilios?

Priam Yes. All you ask is granted, yours by right.

Declare for me, dear wife, a second wish That any Asian potentate would grant With all delight, if even half his kingdom Were the forfeit by bestowal of the gift.

Hecuba The crowd acclaims my Paris, youngest son, And dearest to his mother’s aching womb.

He put away, with but a single stroke This annihilating war; will you not place Upon his blesséd head your crown and make Of him a worthy king in Hector’s stead?

Priam [aside] I am eclipsed such that the princely moon Appears to wear the sun’s candescent crown Because his wisdom has made darkness of my own.

And true I was his king who ventured kingdom For love; I hurried recklessly to war Against the Greeks, with every Argive foe Both feared and fabled, summoned then to battle.

It was my right, my every breath is law.

Hecuba You hesitate. Have I not been so loved By you as when our passions dress our sleep?

Are you unsatisfied? Have I been wanting In your eyes for wisdom’s white should grace Below as so above? O look upon the face 99

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Of honest love, perfumed with freesia’s scent Imported here for me at your command.

Will you not also scent this longing wish?

Priam Have I at any moment spurned your wants, Or left your hopeful longings disappointed?

I do not hesitate to plight this vow And will fulfill your wish, but know not how.

Hecuba With Paris crowned, you will remain my king, And I obey your every whim and charge.

[Enter Hector, Helen, Cassandra, Callimachus, and Aeneas followed by attendants.]

Callimachus O victor king, a menace to your foes, A terror to Achaean soldiery.

The broken Argive armies have decamped.

Hector They burned their tents, and swiftly all embarked Upon their ships that vanished with the sun.

Aeneas The breakers of the shores are brought again Beneath the sway of Trojan sword and crown.

But in the sands they left a kingly gift, A wooden horse of splendid height and girth.

Hector And fearsome Ares, lord of horses would but long To mount the wondrous beast were it alive.

Callimachus This knight upon the board in sacrifice Was fashioned by the Greeks, a tribute worthy Of our race; an idol of the faultless victory.

And as we gazed in awe and disbelief A naked Greek well-­hidden in the reeds Whose back was striped and bloodied by the lash Surrendered and renounced his countrymen.

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Aeneas We dressed his wounds and bring him to your throne That you, in royal judgement, may decree To give him death or grant him liberty.

Priam Then bring him forth that I may judge his case.

[Enter Sinon.]

Priam What is your name, if you would have our aid?

Sinon My name is Sinon, soldier of the Greeks From distant shores where Menelaus kinged, And honest; I have nothing to conceal.

Yet I am sunk in grief, ill fortune at my hip For all I am is spent, my thread is bare.

I fought in Menelaus’ ranks, but was A freeborn man enslaved to soldiery.

Priam How came you here, abandoned by your friends?

Sinon They are no friends of mine, but enemies to all.

They rarely put away their fratricide, Except when joined in theft of others’ riches.

And thus we sailed across the wine-dark sea.

For only Menelaus sought the bride Who shamed him when she quit his marriage bed.

The rest but sought the treasury of Troy.

I came, a fellow voyager, with them Yet I opposed the war, and was unwise to let My voice unpack my cargo of opinion: Not wishing to take arms against a foe Who did no wrong to me, nor shook their spears Upon my shore, nor sought to sack my home.

Although I fought, I was compelled to fight, Or forfeit up my life to him I served.

But Menelaus fell upon the dust,

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My master dead and ruined by the gods, My bond to him and his to me was cut.

But, still a slave, I merely did exchange 90 One tyrant for another doubly cruel, For I was made Odysseus’ property. hector That you were made a slave does not excuse The foe you played when making war on us.

Sinon O honored prince, your foes have fled the land.

95 Your country is at peace; and I’m no enemy But supplicant who stakes his skin with truth.

And if your anger at the Argive race Goes unredressed except to take my life, Odysseus would be much pleased by this.

Priam 100 Why should the Ithacan demand your life?

Sinon In service to Odysseus I bore His torments and his tortures daily made.

He taunted me a woman and a whore And proved the charge by using me as such, 105 Debasing me. And when I swore revenge, He laughed, and scourged my back, and sought my life As blood oblation to Athena’s thirst.

Yet as they made the rites, I slipped my bonds And fled into the marsh, the mud, and reeds.

110 And when my countrymen embarked their ships, I kept unseen and was not ever sought.

Priam O Sinon, wretched friendless Greek, rejoice.

We will acclaim you Trojan if you speak About the wooden horse they left behind.

115 Now loose the bonds that drag upon my thoughts If I must burn the thing or keep it close.

Sinon I overheard the King of Ithaca So drunk with wine, he spoke imprudently 102

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Of how the horse might ruin Ilios.

The horse they built to taunt, and left for you to burn That you might draw with flame Athena’s hate For wrecking what was made to honor her.

And if you burn the horse, so Troy shall burn.

Yet if you draw the horse behind the walls, The Greeks shall never come again, nor make Such war that threatens you, for Ilios, With Pallas’ aid, will tame the savage Greeks.

This is the reckless risk they take, that in your rage You would destroy the sacred horse they made For her, the unwed virgin child of Zeus.

Priam I grant you freedom as a Trojan and a friend.

Take this my robe, I give to honor you And this my sword, I give to ally you More closely to our bond.

[Sinon receives Priam’s sword and robe.]

Sinon O Priam, king, I am your subject, drawing breath but to obey.

[Exit Sinon.]

Cassandra [aside] If from an honest dish, you taste no lies, The carcass that is spiced is but disguised.

[To Priam] Destroy the horse they made!

Priam This is absurd, The Greeks have fled, did you not hear it so?

Nor was there trace of falsehood in our friend, Whose wounds were true, and given by our foes.

Their trickery unraveled in my court; The horse is tamed if we but bring it here.

Cassandra That he might think it true, and be sincere Does not thus make it true; the horse is made 103

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From rigging and from planks. It was a ship From which our peril will yet disembark.

Priam [To attendant] Command that it be brought behind the gate, Where we might gaze upon their offering, 150 And sacrifice to gods with gratitude.

[Exit Attendant.]

Cassandra That horse must burn; the idol best for fire Must be destroyed, not brought behind our walls!

And if unburned, the fire shall instead Be kindled by the Greeks.

Priam 155 O daughter, conjure not these fantasies From dark imagination, promising Both dread and ruin in the midst of joy.

Be glad at least that triumph has been won.

Don’t frown as Hector does, dishonoring 160 His father who delights to be at peace.

Hector Don’t be at peace or glorify yourself.

Your victory by luck or miracle, I neither know nor care, but am relieved The maladies you brought are remedied, 165 Yet even with the sickness on the throne.

Priam I think you jealous of my victory.

But drink, so injured pride be promptly put away, For wine does alchemy to bitter words.

Hector So drunk do you not know this wicked war 170 Was here begotten by such fair a hand?

Men great and small endured the wounds she dealt.

She dawdled safe until their company Was countless, stacked upon the flaming pyre That lapped their wasted flesh and rendered ash.

Priam 175 Whatever she has brought, she lately took Upon the lines, as noble as a man 104

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And slew our enemy, without your aid Or any source of comfort by your word.

This is our honored guest, reprieving queen Of torment, and is brave as stoutest men.

Hector Capricious king, remind me once again Of lies your cringing heart has entertained.

Your offering’s undone; the murdered child You burnt to save the city from the fire, Your son, a dream of burning torch, put out.

How is it now in freshest oil annointing, Rekindling it and threatening again?

In womanly display, this counterfeit, Your Paris magicked for a mourner’s eyes, I’d promptly put to death.

Hecuba What does this mean?

What words will satisfy your jealousy and spite?

Have you not at least a brother’s faithful love?

Hector [To Hecuba] This lie, must I endure, the sickened sweet?

You cringe and dote upon this falsest form.

Am I not eldest prince and living son Of Priam, born by you? Yet still you lisp And gambol with your ghosted son. You are A lunatic! Your mind is lost, diseased!

Priam Withdraw, and make apology at once.

Hector To her, whose madness you have ratified?

Or her, who brought a war upon our house?

Priam To me! If you must disobey your king Your father still commands your fealty.

Hector [aside] Aye, this, my troubled furtherance of grief Within the court, will beggar their belief.

Priam Speak at once, before I judge your case.

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Hector As fate is truant, likewise I shall be And will not step aside who charges me.

Priam Thus, likewise do I find you lack restraint And have not temperament to be a king!

Hector How bold you have become when Argive threat Upon the shore, is quieted by hap.

I am twice loyal to the crown and state Than you who whined to bear their double weight.

Priam Let Paris be my heir; you are disowned!

For with the morning light, you are cast out, A prince stripped both of rank and parentage.

I brand you as a stranger, not a son.

Hector But Paris will not ever be the king, For Paris lost can never mount your throne.

My son has right if mine is unredeemed, The diadem will rest upon his head, With madness overthrown and Helen dead.

[Exit Hector with mocking flourish; Aeneas and Callimachus follow him.]

Helen Majesty, pray call him back. Make peace.

Priam This victory, his father’s worthy feat Of love for queen, for country, fit for Hector’s heirs, Met his retort, his venomous contempt Well-­seasoned with his hateful threatening And served with his seditious disesteem.

His words are carcass for a feast and richly spoilt; The wine he pours is brine and vinegar.

This celebration sours in my cup, But slumbering, my soul will find its ease Enwrapped together with sweet Hecuba Whose love you have restored and fully fixed 106

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Within her tender heart. It’s right that you Become love’s heir and wear my diadem.

Tonight I sleep, and morrow make you king.

[Exeunt.]

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[Scene 4] The scene is Priam’s palace.

Enter Hector, Aeneas, and Callimachus.

Callimachus My worthy prince, how shall you be revenged, Your crown returned, your honor then restored?

The people know the king is running mad, His wife a lunatic, and Paris false.

Hector Let not another word of treason spring From fetid mouth, nor speak seditious words Against the king, or set your soul in order, For I redress his grievences with blood!

I fought for him, lost men who died for him!

Aeneas Dear prince of Ilios, my noble cousin, How does wet kindling set your heart afire?

Why threaten those who serve you loyally, Who fought with you, who watched with loving eyes Your bravery against the Argive host?

The war is won. That victory is yours, Not Helen’s. She was lucky in the lists.

Hector Ten months were not enough? A year too much?

The Greeks were gaining distance on our flight.

Were we the hare Achilles dared to chase By halves, and then the Greek gave up the race?

Sweet wounded soul, what yet must follow on When truant fate and blackest prophecies Go unfulfilled?

Aeneas What prophecies, my prince?

Your victory is won, and celebrants Run joyous riot paid by sacrifice.

Hector And yet I feel no certainty, no princely pride That Ilios endures or can endure.

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Aeneas Your dread persists, untempered and impolitic, That facing certain conquest, we prevailed.

This was the gods’ decree. hector My mind unmoored By endless war, how now unmoored by peace?

I conjured war; it plucks and piths my heart As much as birds upon the Spartan king Are feasting; I am food for Troy’s deceit.

And now, that I am heir no longer here, And Helen in my place, I am unmanned.

My wife and son abandoned and disgraced.

Farewell to them I love as dear as life, My infant son, my gentle honest wife.

She has no beauty like to Helen’s radiance, But has such spark one hundred Helens lack.

Sounds of distant battle grow louder.

Callimachus How hearty they rejoice, our Trojan brothers.

Aeneas [listening] I think that not rejoicing; I but hear Their revelry transforming into slaughter, And distant shouting like in dialect The grunting moaning language of the Argives.

What horror if those voices sound in Troy.

Hector Go hence Aeneas, see the curse unfold That Greeks are in the city, And reveal Cassandra’s fashioned prophecies made real.

Go hence and bring report!

Aeneas As you command.

[Exit Aeneas.]

Hector Give me the moment, friend Callimachus Tonight my world will die and all I love undone,

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Every comfort left in wreckage and in ruin.

Though neither heir nor king, I’ll arm my grief For still I have appointment with a thief.

[Exeunt.]

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[Scene 5] The scene is Priam’s palace (exterior).

Enter Sinon with haste.

Sinon Did I not see Achilles at the walls, And damned Odysseus beside the gate, Where soldiers of the Greeks were streaming in?

I am deceived. The barricades of Troy, Those mighty walls of adamantine stone Once by Poseidon mined beneath the sea And mortared by the god of wolf and plague Are breached and set ablaze by Argive torches!

Odysseus, the king of cunning wiles, That student of the lyre played me well, That I might bring false words to Priam’s ears.

Unwitting, I was used to glut with lies Such dreamy tales to Troy, they closed their eyes.

[Enter Helen.]

Sinon O radiant Athena, fully armored!

O Zeus’ daughter bathed in dazzling light!

Impossible these eyes to bear your face.

The moon itself, ashamed, is but a shadow Beside the goddess, blazing and at war.

Helen I am my father’s daughter, but have not The light of Pallas, nor the terror of her shield, Nor yet have I the gorgon’s severed head, Nor armor fashioned from the skull of Zeus.

Sinon Yet were you not the champion of her For whom the war we’ve fought was first begun?

And were you not the hero or the goddess Who slew the king of Sparta where he stood?

I watched among the ranks, I saw you fight.

I saw you next again in Priam’s court, The goddess clad in princely Trojan armor.

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I gazed at you with fear and furtively When my account transpired my trembling lip.

Helen Foul soldier of the Greeks, you knew me not.

Yet I knew you before in Sparta’s court For say, am I no more the queen you serve?

[Helen removes her helmet; Sinon cries out.]

Sinon He asked how it was so, and now I ask— Will you avenge Oenone with my blood?

Helen What is this you confess?

Sinon What I regret; A child whose cries still haunt my mournful conscience.

Like her, let me be likewise torn and butchered.

Helen Give me in truth the reason you should die, Or give defense that I might spare my sword The shame of tasting your unworthy blood.

Sinon I was the arrow, tipped with venom’s spite, But not the archer taking careful aim, For Agathe was ally to my crime.

And I, rejected by the girl you loved, Became the weapon Agathe did wield To cleave your heart, to wash your eyes with blood.

Yet justice came when Menelaus cooled, He doubted us; for that we’d known his queen Had sailed with Hector’s cargo quietly, But sounded no alarm, nor warning made, Concealing your escape from Sparta’s king.

With silence our response, he tortured me, And pressed me to this lowly soldiery.

The Lady Agathe he likewise beat And mutilated her who loved him so, Such that her minor beauty was destroyed.

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Helen I have not means to punish Agathe.

Sinon I was the thoughtless villain to the act, But Menelaus killed the girl you loved.

Helen If not the archer, still were you the dart That struck the girl, and likewise pierced my heart.

[Helen raises her sword to strike, but hesitates.]

Enough have died for Menelaus’ sake.

I’ve not the thirst to add your blood to theirs.

Sinon I live by your command, I am your slave.

[Helen points her sword at Sinon’s throat.]

Helen That honor I forego; I set you free!

Now leave, I will not march with you to hell.

[Exit Sinon.]

[Enter Hector and Callimachus.]

Hector I see that Sinon lives; how strange a turn.

And stranger still that Menelaus died And that the work of wife, how wonderful!

[To Callimachus] Go find that perjurer, and take his head.

[Exit Callimachus.]

Helen How now, Prince Hector, have you come to me To take your crown, my life and liberty?

Hector There’s rumor that the Greeks have breached the gate.

Exactly as they should, and rightly done.

My pride is gored, my famous glory dimmed By you, who wrecked inheritance and crown.

I cannot set the stars aright to spare The city’s fate, which ends this line of kings.

And yet one noble service now remains

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That sweetens my disgrace.

[Hector draws his sword.]

Helen Do not despair, the crown will come to you And I myself shall set it on your brow.

Hector 85 What crown is this that will be left to wear?

What did you say? Recall the words you said.

How fitting they are now; how perfect true: What offering of food is thus received, Devoured by a dog and then disgorged?

[Helen draws her sword. Hector laughs and approaches; Helen backs away.]

[Enter Aeneas.]

Aeneas 90 O prince of Troy, I bring such grim report That I would wrench the tongue from out my mouth And bless that agony, to be reprieved From speaking of the tragedy that’s come.

The Greeks uncounted gain the citadel.

95 As hacking through the brush, they cut us down.

And rushing to our arms, we are thrown back, Cascading in retreat and overmatched!

Hector The Greeks grow ever near, our fated end Has dawned, and cast its light upon our slumber.

Helen 100 How did they gain the gate or breach the walls, When lately they had nothing but the view?

Aeneas In pitch of night, they disembarked the horse, The peril we delivered by our hands, Where carefully and silently they’d hid.

They took the gate, and opened it.

Helen 105 What force remains?

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Aeneas [To Helen] No force remains; our drunken soldiers flee.

[To Hector] Dear prince of Troy, it is an ugly rout; Achilles was a moment from my throat.

Would that he had slain me ere to this report.

I hesitate to speak; I came at once Yet would that I had never come at all To lay these bleakest words upon your hearing.

Hector What tale more evil than the fall of Ilios Is left that you would hesitate to tell?

What mockeries remaining would you hide?

Aeneas I saw your wife enchained.

Hector You saw my son?

Aeneas Upon his mother’s breast, she bore his lifeless form, His shattered body ghostly white, no milk Upon his lip, but blue, unmoving dead.

His brains dashed out against a Trojan wall And given to his naked mother’s care.

Helen [aside] Andromache! Am I not blamed for this?

Aeneas Take not this tragedy to claim your own.

You are most like the horse we freely dragged Behind our walls, a second gift of Greece; Both wondrous in make and dark within Dispatching death, yet beautiful to see.

Hector With hatred thick as waves upon the sea, With rage, I will rain ruin on the Greeks!

O Agamemnon die upon your bed,

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With Clytemnestra’s blade against your throat!

Achilles, let a woman cleave your foot, Be crippled, Thetis’ son; your armor stripped, And worn by men who mock the hero dead!

135 Odysseus, for countless years be lost Upon the seas, your crew but heaps of bone, Your wife grown weary, faithless in despair!

Let Troy befouled with ash be swept away, But Greece be subject to our Trojan sons!

[Enter Achilles.]

Achilles 140 Pray curse us if you must, but die as well.

My cousin Patroclus demands your life, For him I loved, more precious than my plate.

I am a son of heroes and of gods, afire With anger that you slew him on the field 145 And in your pride had hoped that I was slain, And you will not deny my vengeance here!

Hector O fiercest of the Greeks, make your approach.

[Achilles pushes Helen to the ground and stands between Aeneas and Hector. They fight. Achilles is a match for both together.]

Hector If death is due to me for what I’ve done, Then death is likewise due to you. Now come 150 And die, that I may speed your race to him.

[Helen, fallen, swings her sword and strikes Achilles’ ankle. Achilles falls. As Hector prepares to strike his opponent on the ground, Achilles thrusts his sword up, delivering a mortal blow to Hector. As Hector stumbles and collapses, Aeneas drives his sword into Achilles.

Achilles Let darkness fold us both in her embrace.

[Achilles dies.]

HECTOR [To Aeneas] O cousin, I am slain; the bestial wound 116

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Is ravenous and feasts upon my living flesh; It scents my dying breath.

Aeneas My prince, what must I do? Give me command.

Hector Take flight into the catacombs and quit The dying citadel, that still a prince Of noble Trojan blood survives. My death Shall make a king of you.

Aeneas How can I flee?

Hector What use to stay with me and die with me?

Dear cousin, let me go for I am gone.

And if you ever pledged me loyal love Convey your son and father, make escape.

It is my wish; it is my last command!

Aeneas [kissing Hector’s brow] My prince, my cousin, heir to dying Troy, I am your slave. Your charge I will obey.

[Exit Aeneas.]

Helen [To Hector] You came to slay me, now that you are slain, Exchange with me forgiveness for this turn And for the wrongs I’ve innocently brought To those I loved and enemies alike.

Hector What exchange is this that I would make?

Whatever wrongs are done are much outweighed By devastating war. You are absurd To think we have equivalence of blame.

You witch of our misfortune! I arise With final aching breath, to spit at you, For all who fell for nothing in your name!

Helen Such honor you once had, but now in dust You set dishonored slanders on your tongue.

I bear my weight of fault; do bear your own.

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Hector Then go to them, the king and queen you blighted.

The dotard and the lunatic now kneel Before the temple and the altar made to Zeus.

185 Were you not named the heir? Go then at once!

[Hector dies.]

Helen While bold Aeneas flees, I’ll rescue them Who sheltered me, and loved me as a son.

[Exit Helen.]

[Enter Agamemnon and Odysseus, with soldiers.]

Odysseus Achilles dead. I’ll think his anger quenched As mighty as he was alive, in death 190 He has not might enough to conquer hell.

With Hector slain, his infant son destroyed, We’ve cut the line of noble Trojan kings.

Agamemnon But Paris and his father we’ve not found Nor Hecuba, nor Helen in whose name 195 We came to ravage ill-­protected Ilios.

Too many disappointments I’ve endured To watch my brother felled upon the dust By perjurers. But I will draw their cries.

I’ll find their king, I’ll violate their queen, 200 And dress in Paris’ gore before their eyes.

[Exit Agamemnon.]

Odysseus Prepare the pyre, and every holy rite, For Hector and Achilles, both debased; Once blessed by fickle gods, abandoned quite By fortune’s loving touch, and then defaced.

[Exeunt Agamemnon and soldiers carrying the bodies of Hector and Achilles.]

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[Scene 6] The scene is the Temple of Zeus.

Enter Priam in robes soaked with blood, and Hecuba.

Priam Is this the mocking answer I deserve From gods whom I entreat with loving oaths?

What I have conjured takes a wicked form And Cerberus I’ve summoned for my sins!

O Paris, I have fouled your sacrifice Pretending one alive whom I destroyed.

O gods, if I had never seen that face!

[Enter Helen.]

Helen My noble king! You bleed upon the altar.

Priam The lowly Greek who struck had not the strength Enough to spear my plate, or slay a king.

I cut him down; his comrades fled with fear.

My every drop of blood is offering To Zeus. I was but lightly touched.

[Priam collapses to the ground.]

Helen Bring not your honesty to bear this lie Of wishes miracled. Your heart is pierced!

Priam O let me go, accurséd queen of Greeks.

Helen No, speak to me again, for Zeus’ love Was not the half of yours, and silent most.

Priam What love have I to give? I perished when Your perfect face appeared within my court; A second time struck dumb by Paris’ guise.

I’m doubly slain to mimic you a son.

You are the flaming torch I did not quench.

[Priam dies.]

Hecuba [To Helen] The spell is broken, girl. You are not Paris I bore within the womb. My infant son 119

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Delivers his revenge upon the man Who tore him from my breast and roasted him.

No more is Priam father or a king.

What matters then if every life we make For fool, for slave, for sovereign ends the same— All gathered now as equals in the flame?

[Enter Agamemnon. Helen fastens her helmet.]

Agamemnon [To Helen] Stand fast and fight that I may know the truth If you are god or goddess or but child!

[They fight. Agamemnon strikes the sword from Helen’s hand.]

Agamemnon Is this the weakling’s arm that killed my brother?

Give up all hope, you are but easy prey.

Helen What fear had you when I, adorned as now In shining armor, stood upon the field, And shook the spear, and set my helmet low, While Menelaus slavered for my blood?

What hope had I? Yet when my moment came, As narrow as the waist upon the wasp, I shed his bowels, soaking and disgorged.

Agamemnon O Paris, look upon me with despair.

[Helen retrieves her sword. Again they fight. Agamemnon thrusts his sword into Helen. Helen doubles over, fatally wounded.]

Agamemnon How perfect, how divine, as honeyed sweet This vengeance tastes upon the bronzéd tongue That waters with each splash of Trojan blood.

But hush! Your throes are pleasing like to song.

If Helen is not found, this will suffice For what you’ve done, O Paris, prince of Troy.

Helen You will not find a Paris in these halls.

[Helen weakly removes her helmet.]

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Agamemnon [startled] O Helen, monstrous wife to Sparta’s king!

I cast you into blazes, into deepest Depths of Tartarus, your vile and faithless crime Unexpiated. Don your immortality Which is forever in the furnace and the fire That roasts away the beauty of your flesh For Tantalus to feast on you alive.

Your treachery’s exposed, your wicked lie, To free you from a ghost, we came to die!

Helen I’ll face the furnace; I who was the sun!

My atoms made from stars fear no decay.

From selfsame atoms, millions rise anew.

A million Helens live their million lives And from my dust, a million more delivered.

The ages now will know my offering Was Menelaus’ death. This is my gift To memory and womanhood alike.

[Helen, gasping, struggles to stand. Hecuba runs to her as Helen collapses.]

Hecuba If not a prince, you were a fearsome queen.

Agamemnon Your foolish words are wasted on this girl.

[To Helen] If fading sense or relic soul recall, Pray witness Agamemnon’s hallowed pledge.

Your woman’s wickedness and foul deceit Won’t weigh upon the crown of Sparta’s king, Nor yet befall the house of Atreus.

No, we shall leave your corpse upon the dust.

Your false esteem shall be your cerement, Your disobedience shall be disguised, For into legend we shall hoist your shroud.

With plaudits shall we dress your chronicle, That in your faithlessness, they’ll plight your faith.

And all who know your tale will yearn to tell 121

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How, loving and each loved, these parted two, Helen was restored to Menelaus.

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[Helen dies.]

[Enter soldiers.]

Agamemnon [To soldiers] Bear Priam to the flame; leave Paris where he lies, And take his weeping mother as a slave.

[Exeunt soldiers carrying Priam’s body and leading Hecuba in chains.]

Agamemnon [turns, facing audience] Your history is glutted in account With ignorance and bad intent alike.

Two hours played, by my deceit deformed, You braved these lies, dishonestly performed.

[Exit Agamemnon with flourish.]

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When Homer’s wondrous epic strain is sung, No commerce has the truth with vaunted verse, For history is glutted in account With ignorance and bad intent alike.

Be not deluded by the ancient tales, Nor yet bewitched by arts of their reciting; But put aside your books and learning’s lore Of all you have assumed about the war They made on Troy in golden Helen’s name.

1.1.6–14

ISBN 9781734890914

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