Three plays by Frederic Hebbel

by Friedrich Hebbel

ACT IV

The Queen’s Apartment. Rhodope alone.

Rhodope.

Oh for one moment of oblivion!

Why toss the riddle ever and forever?

’Tis solved—I know how soon! I should be busy

Even as my maids who slack the drag of time

By hearkening every tone and vying guesses

Which bird it was that sang each note, and whether

’Twas red and whether green. Pah, what a din!

Is Karna there with him? Still—all is still!

’Twas naught—I could have known. How am I altered!

When other have I asked a sound its whence?

I quailed at naught, I quailed not even before

The glow of fire, all one to me how red

It streamed at heaven, all one to me how threatening

It spread its yawn of blaze; I knew a ring

Of trusty watchers sightless round me set,

I knew they gave the King’s beloved daughter

Buckler of blood and bones. At last—a step!

’Tis they! Ha, Karna is as shrewd as valiant.

Always I heard so; this day sees it proved.

Not yet! Nor ever, maybe! Nay, ye gods,

So hard of heart ye cannot be. My will

Is never that you reach me out the hand

To firm my footing on the abysm’s brink,

My will is but to see who thrusts me down.

The more I ply my thought the less my power

To comprehend my lord. Sooth, I have heard

From veriest youth that the polluted woman

Is barred from life, and if through all the child

It sent its shudders, now I have the ground

For such a law; in my own heart I found it.

She cannot live, ay and she wills it not!

Has this for him alone no force, or will he

Slay the Accursed stealthily in hopes

Still to encloak from me his damned act?

Be thanked, Eternal Ones, that too may be.

If Karna then should find him flown and dead,

Should find the poniard cold in his hot breast,

I’ll know whose hand it was that struck him earthwards

And nevermore shall ask where Gyges tarried.

[Enter Lesbia.

Lesbia.

O Queen, he comes!

Rhod.

I am prepared, and wait him.

Lesbia.

And ranged behind him like a bolt of iron

A weaponed troop snaps to and locks him tight.

Rhod.

I can believe that Karna knows his work.

Lesbia.

And must it be?

Rhod.

Or he or I; perchance

Both at a sweep.

Lesbia.

Oh, oh, you make me dumb!

Rhod.

Bid Karna now send message to the King

I beg him hither for a single word.

[Exit Lesbia.

Rhod.

Now, ye of Underneath, that put no outrage

In check, and yet avenge each several one,

Up, up, I say! Mount guard upon this hearth!

Be certain here of bloody sacrifice.

[Gyges has meanwhile entered.

Gyges.

You sent to bid me to your presence, Queen.

Rhod.

And you know why—you know it, for you tremble.

Can you deny the word? Your colour alters,

The heart that knocks your breast is plain to hear.

Gyges.

Your lord—has he not, too, before you trembled?

Has not his colour, even as mine, been altered?

Has not his heart been stirred like mine and knocked?

Recall the moment of the great permission,

The first time that he dared behold your face,

Then ask—did he not all resemble me?

Rhod.

You?

Gyges.

Queen, I mean my words. His brain was dimmed,

He stood there in a dazzle, and as sense

Returned upon him, utterance went dumb,

And tearing crown from head as ’twere a wreath

Turned to a sudden wither in his hair,

He tossed it o’er his shoulder in disdain.

Rhod.

He! Ah!

Gyges.

You looked on him with kindly smile

At this; then came on him such boldened heart

He would have come anear by half a pace,

But lo, his knees were loosened under him,

They felt their homage owed a nobler service,

And ere you guessed he lay before you—thus!

[Kneels down.

Rhod.

You dare?

Gyges.

And what? Why thus it was. Scarce knowing

Your act’s import, half with repelling motion,

And half perchance with the uplifter’s gesture,

You stretched the hand which, tentatively, shyly,

He grasped; which then, e’en then, to tip of finger

Was short—withdrawn or ere he came to touch.

Did you not thus? Oh speak!

Rhod.

Rise, rise, I say!

Gyges (rising).

But him it smote like the heaven’s thundery burst;

He felt that he had been until that hour

A shade of Erebus, cold, thinly-passioned,

A mere estray among the Things of Life

Quicked now with its first blood even as themselves.

He felt that all their laughing, all their weeping,

Their joying and their sighing—yea, their breathing

He had but aped nor ever dreamt wherefore

The breast of man forever swells and sinks.

Then burned he with desire for equal life

And sucked your darling image in with eyes

That else glassed all with level apathy

In changing drift, like a still sheet of water,

And scarcely now forgave the lids their quiver.

Thus as he lay before you drinking beauty

He took the gradual glow of softened fire,

Even as your own white hand what time at evening

You hold it to a flame—ah, but you leapt

Aback before your reddening countershine!

Rhod.

No further!

Gyges.

Ah, no further! Know I more?

All that he felt I understand and feel,

And that as full and flaming as himself.

But how he wooed and how the quest was won,

That is his mystery—one alone can have it

And this sole one is he and never I.

Now, then, you know why I was in a tremble,

A shiver of rapture ’twas that held me gripped,

A quake of holy dread that shook my frame

When thus I stood so sudden in your sight

And saw that Aphrodite has a sister.

Now say—for what end have you summoned me?

Rhod.

For death.

Gyges.

How say you?

Rhod.

Is it not deserved?

Gyges.

If you adjudge the doom—so must it be.

Rhod.

And in this very hour.

Gyges.

I am prepared.

Rhod.

Not seized with shudders such as come on all men,

Such as must come on youth with double power?

Think you perchance this is not bitter earnest

Because a woman speaks your bloody sentence

And you’ve ne’er yet known woman but as mother?

Oh, do not hope that even the mildest-souled

Will alter it. The murder she can pardon,

Nay more, can for her murderer raise petition

If he has deigned her so much remnant breath;

Ay, but a shame, a blasting sacrilege

That fills her from the crown to the toe top-full

Of self-recoil—blood only blots that shame!

The more whole woman else, mere shrinking woman,

The more man bruises just that womanhood.

Gyges.

Oh horror!

Rhod.

Comes the shudder? Hear me out.

Stood you not now before me judged and doomed,

Guarded by shining swords before the door,

And, if you will or not, sure sacrifice

To Them of Underneath whom I’ve conjured,

Then would I ope, though with reluctant hand,

My very veins ere yet the sun had sunk

And wash myself in my own lustral blood.

For lo, the gods all stand with eyes avert

Though with a pity filled; the golden threads

Are snapped—those threads that knit me to the stars

And held me upright. Direly draws the dust

And if I wait and waver my new sister,

The toad, hops cosily into my chamber.

Gyges.

O Queen, there’s many a word that I could say,

Much fouling sand could shake from out my locks

That’s flown thereon but in the stress of storm.

I will not do it. Believe but this alone—

Now, now, I see what I have done, and yet

It scarce was done before I felt the urge

To make atonement. If your lord, the King,

Had stood not in the path that points to Orcus

I long had been a shadow among shadows

And you been cleansed if yet unrecompensed.

Rhod.

My lord baulked your intent although he knew——

Gyges.

’Twas naught. The unwonted crisis that beset him

Cost me the service of a free-willed death

But did not cheat you of your sacrifice.

Farewell; there’ll be no sword of yours unclean.

Rhod.

Stay—not by your own hand nor yet by murder,

But by your paramount arbiter you fall.

The King comes speedily to fix your fate.

Gyges.

To dying men, no matter who they be,

One last request is granted free. You will

Be loath t’ abridge my dead man’s beggar-right,

I know you cannot do it. Then let me go!

[Rhodope makes a gesture of refusal.

I have done all that in me lay. Then come

What is to come. I bear no whit of blame.

[Enter Kandaules.

Rhod. (to Kandaules).

I did not err. There was i’ the sleeping chamber

A man concealed.

Gyges.

Yes, King—the truth that I

But shadowed to you since the courage broke

To make confession. Now the veil is raised

And worthy death I stand before you here.

Kan.

Gyges!

Gyges.

Even so. With both these eyes of mine

I did a nameless thing such as my hands here

Could never overpass, could never equal,

Though I should draw the sword on you and her.

Rhod.

’Tis so.

Gyges.

In sooth I knew not, ay, can swear it.

Women to me are strange; but as the boy

Thrusts at some wondrous bird a clutching hand

Rough with its crush, because its tender nature

He knows not, though his will was to caress,

E’en so I brought the Jewel of this world

To ruin, all unwitting what I did.

Rhod.

His word is noble. Woe to him and me

That it is vain!

Gyges.

When the Castalian fount,

Which god-delighting men have for their drinking,

And which from shuttling colours takes a glance

As though culled blossoms from a rainbow-garden

By Iris’ very hands thereon were strown,

When in this fount, that from Parnassus springs,

A troubling stone is flung, it falls to boiling

And starts in wheeling turmoil hilly-high.

Then sings no more on earth the nightingale

Nor evermore the lark, and in the heights

A dumbness holds the Muses’ holy choir,

And never knows the harmony returning

Till a grim stream wraps the foolhardy flinger

Gnashing him down into its lightless deeps.

Thus is it also with a woman’s soul.

Kan.

Gyges, I am no villain!

Gyges.

Lord, you are

Rhodope’s husband, shield and shelter both,

And must be her avenger.

Kan.

More than all

I’m Man, and for the sacrilege myself

Committed, suffer no man else to die.

Gyges.

King, what is saved by this?

Kan.

Myself.

Gyges.

He raves;

Give him no hearkening ear.

Rhod.

My Lord and Consort,

What word was that? I scarce believe myself

If you repeat it not.

Kan.

You speak for me.

You shall not plead excuse for me—you shall

Tell all just as it came.

Rhod.

’Tis so? Ye gods,

Be merry! I have railed, yet knew not this.

Kan.

Speak, Gyges.

[Exit.

Gyges.

Queen, if you but had the knowledge

How he extolled you ever, and how dull,

How brutish dull, each flaming word I heard

Because the birds that from the bushes rustled

Scaping my arrow’s range the while he spoke

Allured my eyes—if you should tell yourself

How sorely such a listless childlike bearing

He took for signal of a hid mistrust

And a half-given belief, although it sprang

From vagrant mood—how sore it must have stung him;

Had you but seen us both—nay only once,

When side by side we roamed and loitered on

Amid the forest, he in all his glow,

I in my chill indifference staring stockish

For coloured pebbles scattered on the earth

The while his fingers pointed to a sunrise;

Oh! sure I know your look again were mild,

For he was like a priest in whom a flame

Irradiant burns, and who, his god to honour,

Would kindle it within another’s bosom,

And when o’ermastered, passionately heedless

He bares of veil the Holy Mysteries

That stupored senses thus more swiftly waken

And idols false meet surer disenthronement,

Fails he so sore that he be not reprieved?

Rhod. (with a gesture of repulse).

He gave his right of husband to your keeping?

Gyges.

Name it not thus!

Rhod.

No need then at your wine

To seize upon his hand and in the act

To draw therefrom the ring, as I had thought it—

He gave you back the ring himself; you came,

Perchance so bold, along with him?

Gyges.

How can

Your heart believe it, Queen?

Rhod.

Your years are youthful—

Your thought’s too noble——

Gyges.

Was I then his villein,

And has he e’er required that such I be?

Nay, nay, O Queen, nothing extenuate;

Your word of doom stands fast; and deem it not

A heartless word, ’tis mild. I took the way

That deep I feel I never should have taken,

But I have borne my curse with me as well.

I was grown ripe for death because I knew

That every good which life can e’er bestow

Was squandered waste, and if it chanced that night

I found him not, and o’er the hearth’s pollution

My swift-let blood poured not its cleansing wash,

The blame is not on me—I courted him.

Oh, had I borne my purpose through and dared him,

Naught but an echo in your soul would now

Recall a dying shudder at the murderer

And make your breathing all the sweetlier drawn!

Ay, but your lord had stood revealed as saviour

Nor ever been before so fiery-kissed.

Rhod.

And things had happened that would fearfully

Uplift the veil and show us that the gods

Lean not upon the arm of man for vengeance,

When such a guilt as never finds atonement,

Being a thing of darkness, stains the world.

But they are gracious, for this hell-deed has

In vain enwrapped itself in utter blackness;

’Spite all, it blazes through. Water will seek

No fiery transmutation when the mouth

Of thirst is stretched to drink it, nor will fire

Wane in extinction when the breath of hunger

Blows o’er it on the hearthstone—nay, oh nay,

The elements need not to tell the tidings

That Nature to her wrathful depths is fevered

Since in a woman she has suffered hurt.

We know the thing that happed!

Gyges.

We know as well

What is to happen still. Only forgive!

[Is about to go.

Rhod.

Stop! That no more!

Gyges.

What other can I do?

Rhod.

You must now slay him.

Gyges.

Ha!

Rhod.

You must—and I——

I must thereafter be your wife.

Gyges.

O Queen!

Rhod.

Now go.

Gyges.

What, slay him?

Rhod.

When you say to me,

“You are a widow now,” I answer you

“You are my husband now.”

Gyges.

Have you not seen

How he departed hence, not for himself

Spoke any word, but gave the charge to me?

And I—I am to——No!

Rhod.

You must do this

As I must make demand. We both can make

No question if the task be hard or light.

Gyges.

But if he were not husband he is friend,

None stands his better there. And can I kill him

For being friend in all too dear degree?

Rhod.

YOU struggle still, but all in vain.

Gyges.

What should

Compel me if your charm could not compel?

I love you; I am strange-subdued as though

I came to earth seized with a stiffening cramp

That bent to suppleness before your gaze.

My senses, erewhile numb like drowséd watchmen,

Had never seen nor heard; now they arouse

Each other’s life, o’ermastered with their bliss

And clambering upon you; round about you

All forms are merged and melted, once so sharp

And boldly-lined they almost tore the eye

Like clouds before the radiant lines of morning,

And like a dizzied man who sees the abysm

And fears the sucking fall, I could outstretch

My hand for yours, yea, cling around your neck

Ere gulped into unbottomed nothingness.

But with no drop, no smallest, of his blood

Could I be won to buy that loftiest seat—

In rapture’s maddest height I’d not forget him!

Rhod.

’Tis true you can refuse what I desire—

Then leave me!

Gyges.

Queen, what’s in your heart?

Rhod.

A work

Of silent resolution and more silent

Fruition—Go!

Gyges.

You mean—you mean——-

Rhod.

Perchance.

Gyges.

You could?

Rhod.

Misdoubt it not. I can and will.

Gyges.

Now by the gods who hold their thrones aloft

And the Erinnyes, Listeners of the Depths,

That may not be and ne’er shall come to pass!

Rhod.

Ho, thus you speak?

Gyges.

You’ll wake me out of slumber—

Tell me you will—when he appears in dreams

And mocks his death-wound, ever, ever smiling

Till my hair starts on end?

Rhod.

No more! No more!

Gyges.

And you will press a kiss upon my lips,

That in my anguish come no sudden stab

To tell me why I did it—You turn away

As though the very thought set you to shudders?

Swear first that oath!

Rhod.

I swear to be your wife.

Gyges.

Pah! Why the question? I’m not conqueror yet.

Rhod.

It means a combat then?

Gyges.

A combat, Queen.

You hold me not so light to think I’d murder?

I challenge him to fight unto the death.

Rhod.

And if you fall?

Gyges.

Send no curse after me,

I can naught else.

Rhod.

Do I not fall with you?

Gyges.

But if I come again?

Rhod.

Beside the altar

You find me, and prepared for either chance,

Prepared as well to lay my hand in yours

As grasp the dagger and dissolve the bond

That holds me knit unto the conqueror

If it be he.

Gyges.

Before the sun is sunk

It is decided. Then farewell.

Rhod.

Farewell—

And if it give you joy learn one thing more:—

You never had allured me from my home

To wrong me thus.

Gyges.

Rhodope! Ah, you feel it?

That means I had known hotter jealousy

And keener envy, had been given more

To fear, since I’m a lesser man than he.

And yet it gives me joy that thus you feel,

And is enough for me, more than enough.

[Exit.

Rhod.

Now bridal garb and deathly shroud—come on!

[Lesbia rushes in and throws herself at Rhodope’s feet.

Lesbia.

O Gracious One—forgive! My thanks, my thanks!

Rhod. (lifting her up).

I think you will not thank me, hapless child,

Yet—in the end! Yes, Lesbia, in the end!