Chapter Text
Episodos III
[enter CHORUS.]
[enter HERALD.]
HERALD:
All is lost! The kingdom is in ruins; our new king did not last the day.
CHORUS:
What? How could this be?
HERALD:
I come as a herald of pain.
[enter BARON KALLICERTES.]
BN.KALL.
Robbed of the rich resources of thought,
I am at a loss for an idea
Which way to turn, now my house has fallen.
Earth, earth, if only you had received me
Before I saw my son lying
In the lowly deathbed of the floor beneath the feast-table!
Must his father bury him?
Must he sing his own child’s lament?
Oh! May a flash of lightning pierce my head!
What profit any longer for me in life?
Aie, aie! May I find my rest in death
And leave behind my hateful life!
For life without life’s joys is living death.
CHORUS:
Aie, Aie, no father should have to bury his son!
By what scythe was your young shoot felled?
[ATTOLIA exits the palace, covered in blood.]
ATTOLIA:
The kind by which kings are usually trapped: their own hard-won prizes.
CHORUS:
What trickery could there be in them?
HERALD:
His own hand did it. I saw it all, and will tell you all. The feast was in full swing, the king cheerful at his newfound fortune.
He had thanked his guests for their splendid gifts, had watched the dancing girls with eager eyes,
and was singing along to light-heartening songs when his voice suddenly fell away.
Then the king broke out in piercing cries, his throat in sudden agony.
He drank more and more, leaned on the table to find his strength.
Yet with each gulp his life escaped him further, until blood spurted from his mouth and eyes,
as Hephestia’s sacred mountain had once poured out boiling rock.
Oh, ruin to the king, ruin to the land!
Ruin to his poor father and family, whose shining hope has been destroyed.
BN. KALL.:
Aie, Aie!
CHORUS:
Disaster in the royal house, and the guilt of it on living heads!
ATTOLIA :
One day took a world away.
BN. KALL.:
Aie, Aie!
L. CHORUS:
Stand up. Uncover your poor head.
This is nobility in a man:
To bear what falls from the gods on his frail shoulders.
A new king must arise.
BN. KALL.:
Unendurable. Death is better.
CHORUS:
We go in pity, we go in tears. But we must go on.
[Exit BARON KALLICERTES. Exit CHORUS. Exit HERALD.]
ATTOLIA:
What shall I cry? What howl shall I howl?
I move from death to death, and yet I live, rich with ruin, drenched in the blood of all I touch.
Whenever they decide what my fate shall be, it is I who seals their fates.
Over whom shall I cast my shadow next?
[Exit ATTOLIA.]
[NIGHT.]
[Enter CHORUS. Enter BARON KALLICERTES.]
L. CHORUS:
All present here are aware of the judgement of the barons’ council and how the vote went.
We assembled Attolian barons act with integrity and efficiency; among us, through hard-won compromise, we always come to a resolution which suits all.
I ask of Kallicertes that he confirm the outcome.
BN. KALL.:
How can I speak, when it condemns my son to what is past?
How can I declaim a future void of him?
L. CHORUS:
Your grief clouds your mind.
But as agreed, I will take up the burden of kingship now.
You’ll soon learn to acquiesce.
CHORUS:
When blood has fallen to the ground, who can call it back?
Fate is grinding these good Attolian men to nothing.
May misfortune go no further than it has.
Let the girl in, for she must face the altar once again.
[Enter CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD. Enter ATTOLIA.]
L. CHORUS.:
There you are.
My my, girl, you face us still dressed in your bridegroom’s blood.
Do not mourn him; he never turned husband.
[ATTOLIA crosses the room and sits on the THRONE.]
[LEADER OF THE CHORUS laughs.]
L. CHORUS.: [To CHORUS:]
A little decorum is all that’s asked of royal women.
This one seems to possess none, as graceless as a newborn foal.
Soon, she will learn to walk in step.
[To ATTOLIA:]
Be ready to marry me in the morning.
[ATTOLIA nods.]
[At her signal, THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD shoots THE CHORUS LEADER through the heart with a crossbow.]
L. CHORUS:
Aie, aie!
ATTOLIA:
I stand where I struck, my work accomplished.
CHORUS:
What madness is this! Aie aie, what ruin!
What have you done?
What is your meaning?
Who will marry himself to murder?
ATTOLIA:
Long have I used silence to protect myself against harm.
Finally, finally the light reaches all, all shadows ripped away.
See me as I am; the torch that lights all pyres.
Peace, come at last, by two sacrifices of my hand.
I did it. I make no denial.
BN. KALL.:
Your mouth is amazing.
Who would boast like this over their own bridegroom?
ATTOLIA:
Whether you praise or blame me I don’t care.
CHORUS:
Your mind turned toward unholiness, your nerve turned cold as stone.
How did you turn your hands to such a thing, how did you accomplish such a vile act?
ATTOLIA:
Simple. I poisoned my own cup.
CHORUS:
A deed most reprehensible!
ATTOLIA:
I did it this way – I admit it – so he could neither escape death nor defend himself.
He reached for my cup, as he was wont to do;
So I indulged him in what I have tasted all this time.
But when people endure severe wounds in silence, with patience and composure, they are able to repay them.
That was the only taste he got of my lips, and I wish him joy of it.
He would have bid me, last of the House of Attolia,
come to the marriage bed; I laid him down in the bed of death.
CHORUS:
You killed your own bridegroom, him who was to be your husband?
ATTOLIA:
It could not be otherwise. It was the only way to exterminate all rot,
rip out the blight branch and root.
He filled this house like a mixing bowl to the brim with evils,
now he has drunk it down.
No stone unturned.
He would lead me from a house of kings to a life of slavery.
I resolved to remain a king’s daughter still.
CHORUS:
And for you to become the most wretched of women.
ATTOLIA:
Bah!
Thus, having fallen, he forced out his own soul. He lay there, gasping, splurting his blood out, spraying me with his dark blood-dew,
at which I rejoiced no less than the growing corn rejoices at the blessing of gentle Alyta.
In it, I was reborn like a summer morning.
That is the situation, you assembled Attolian barons.
Rejoice in it or not, as you please.
I glory in it!
BN.KALL.
I am stricken by your exclamations,
As if by a bloody bite, I cry and whimper
In a way that shatters me to hear.
Breathing out his life in such an impious death!
Aie, aie!
Laid low in treacherous murder by the hand of your bride.
CHORUS:
My soul panics and shudders; we are amazed at your language
- the audacity of it-
uttering boastful words like these over your lord and husband!
ATTOLIA:
You are making trial of me as if I were stupid.
But I say to you, with undaunted heart, what you know to be true; that I am indifferent to whether you praise or condemn me.
This was the work of this right hand of mine, a vehicle of justice.
The grace of gods is one that comes by violence.
BN. KALL.:
You could have kept this land and this house by patiently bearing with your superiors’ arrangements.
Now, you will now suffer because of your own foolishness!
ATTOLIA:
A prosperous life that causes pain is no wish of mine, nor do I want any wealth that torments my heart!
The gifts of base men bring no benefit.
Once I would have gladly welcomed a king to my bed, yielded sovereignty.
Welcomed him home at the end of the day, led the court in dances of joy.
But integrity, right, honour, loyalty, faith are lost, and shame, which once lost, cannot return. Not by your hands.
CHORUS:
All decency abandoned!
The order of all things is reversed: men's thoughts have become deceitful and their oaths by the gods do not hold fast.
Women's ways will enjoy good repute.
All order relinquished to anarchy.
ATTOLIA:
Oh, now you pull out your code of justice- call me accursed, demand my obeisance!
Now you judge me to have incurred the hatred of the people!
But you didn’t show any opposition at all to this man, when he poisoned his own prince and king.
I do not think my groom had an unworthy death;
and it was through Justice that he died by treachery;
Did he not bring lies and ruin on this house?
That was not boldness or courage, but the worst evil that mortal tongue can speak, that of shamelessness.
Oh shades of Attolia, gone down into the dark House of Death!
I am the last of these; It was I that washed you with my own hands, and adorned you and lit your pyres, cried out the lamentations and poured libations.
Oh father! Oh brother! And then to marry the man whose hand drove them below?
To be led to the altar like some sacrificial lamb?
Shouldn’t you have driven him from this land in punishment for that unclean deed?
But when you are a spectator of my actions, you judge them harshly.
Well, I tell you, if you make such threats, make them on the understanding that I am prepared to fight the matter out.
I am content for you to rule, if you defeat me by force in fair fight; but if the gods judge differently, then you will be taught, and learn, good sense–though rather late in the day.
CHORUS:
Stop your hateful tongue, refrain from threats now, you manic woman, and subdue your spirits; it is right to bend to your fate.
ATTOLIA:
Fortune cannot take away one’s spirit; anyone who has nothing to hope for can despair of nothing;
with nothing left to lose, fear dies away in the human mind.
BN. KALL.:
You are a she-wolf, not a woman, with a nature more savage than a storm.
ATTOLIA:
The hand the fed me bit me first.
A wolf, eater of raw flesh, at night leaped over the walls and licked its fill of royal blood.
Shed a flow of warm blood to the ground.
BN. KALL.:
You, girl, are stiff as iron. But iron is a brittle metal, and this will break you.
ATTOLIA:
Funny how you presume to know my nature, yet could not predict my scheme, see into my heart.
I am steel, my lord, and if you desire to try your metal against mine, I invite you to.
I would sooner stand at the forefront of battle three times than enter the marriage bed the once.
Atté, Atté! Who will take me?
Be warned, for you must also take my generals.
BN KALL.:
What I see before me here is madness!
ATTOLIA:
What you see before you is a ruler, my lord.
A bloom of the house of Attolia who will steer this ship, gods willing, into calmer waters after the storm of your scheming and warmongering.
Let it be known!
The next choice for king of Attolia shall be mine, and mine alone!
CHORUS:
I don’t know what to think or what to do or what to say.
Polluting a father’s hand with streams of a slaughtered son’s blood.
How does one address the sky when he is on his knees?
I am at a loss how it will end.
ATTOLIA:
Attolis you could kill. Attolia lives on.
BN. KALL.
Mark my words, you paragon of pride.
I shall bury this house in deep ash; a black plume driven up by flames will be seen from Thegmis,
whose curving coast causes easy mooring for ships.
In time you must pay the price and, stripped of friends, suffer stroke in return for stroke.
When you sow corpses you reap battle, little girl.
ATTOLIA:
Any price is enough for me if I can remove
The madness of mutual slaughter from this court.
Any enemy against me I shall annihilate, root and branch.
[Exit ATTOLIA.]
CHORUS:
Made manifest to future generations
Is the ruin that comes from daring what should not be dared,
When men indulge themselves more than is right,
When a house has abundance in excess, overreaches,
Beyond what is best. Every remedy is in vain;
There is no defence
Against surfeit of fortune for a man
Who has kicked the great altar
Of Justice into oblivion,
And inflicts unendurable harm on his community.
What of all this is not divinely ordained?
For though they dwell far off in the sky
The gods of heaven look on mortal doings.
Our life is short: this being so
A man who pursues great things
May miss what lies at hand.
But good fortune is nurtured
Season by season, year by year,
Like the silver blessings of an olive grove.
That fruit great Klimun harvested
By shunning moon promises
And keeping an honest heart.
When his tongue tried to turn him to deceit
And great oaths all but turned to lies,
This king was saved by his own righteousness.
Had he not grown trust in the heart of Gerosthenes
And nourished love like a sweet summer fruit,
His city would have been razed, his life forfeit.
But Gerosthenes, friend to friend,
Saved his king and blessed his fate.
Good sense is by far the chief part of happiness,
And we must not offend the gods.
The great words of boasters are always punished
With great blows,
And as they grow old teach them wisdom.
BN. KALL.
Aie, Aie!
Lead me out of the way, destroyed man that I am,
Who killed you, my son, though not by my own will.
I do not know who to look on, which way to lean;
For all that was in my hands has gone awry,
And fate hard to deal with has leapt upon my head.
What is now left to me but my throbbing, hurting heart?
Exodos
[ATTOLIA appears on top of the skene in a GOLDEN CHARIOT.]
ATTOLIA:
Had you heeded Attolia, you would not have come to any harm.
You thought to consume me whole for your own satisfaction.
Now, I ask you, how does it feel to have my teeth in your heart?
[to THE AUDIENCE:]
Attolia is what is left. The lily and the olive.
Here you see sea and land, iron and fire, gods and thunderbolts.
[ATTOLIA puts on her iconic crown of rubies.
She is become ATTOLIA. THE GODS are pleased.]