Faust: Part Two by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe & David Luke

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe & David Luke [Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von & Luke, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780192826169
Amazon: 0192826166
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1994-06-23T07:00:00+00:00

ACT THREE

11.IN FRONT OF THE PALACE OF MENELAUS IN SPARTA*

[Enter HELEN and the CHORUS of captive Trojan

women, PANTHALIS, leader of the Chorus.]

HELEN. So much admired and so much censured, Helena,

Now from the sea I come; we are not long ashore,

And drunken still with rocking upon the lively waves

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Which on their high-uptossing backs, from Troy’s wide plain,

By great Poseidon’s favour and by the east wind’s force

Brought us once more to harbours of our fatherland.

Down there the king, my husband Menelaus, now

With his most valiant fighters feasts his homecoming.

But you must bid your queen here welcome, noble house

Built by my father Tyndareus on his return,

Nearby the slopes of Pallas Athene’s lofty hill:

Here with my sister Clytemnestra and the twins

Castor and Pollux happily playing I grew up, 8500

While he adorned it like no other in the land.

All hail to you now, mighty doors of bronze! You once

Stood open wide in hospitable welcome, when

It came about that Menelaus, the elect

Of many wooers, shiningly appeared to me.

Let them once more be opened! for as a loyal wife

I must fulfil an urgent bidding of the king.

So let me enter, and let all the storms of fate

That have been raging round me now be left behind.

For since I crossed this threshold last, as duty bade,

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All unsuspecting, visiting Cythera’s shrine,

And there was ravished by an adventurer from Troy,

Much has befallen: far and wide men tell the tale

And take their pleasure in it. But no tale can please

One round whose name long legend spins its false report.

CHORUS. Most noble lady, do not despise

What is yours with honour, this highest of gifts!

For supreme good fortune is yours alone

In the fame of beauty, excelling all.

A hero’s name before him resounds,

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And he walks with pride.

But even the most stiff-necked of men

Before all-conquering Beauty will bow.

HELEN. Enough! My husband brought me back in his own ships

And to his city sends me now ahead of him:

But what his purpose may be, that I cannot guess.

Do I come here as wife? Do I come here as queen?

Or will the king avenge on me his bitter grief

And all these long misfortunes that the Greeks have borne?

I am a prize of war, perhaps a prisoner!

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For by heaven’s will, my reputation is two-edged

As is my fate—and both, the ambiguous followers

Of beauty, even now beset me with their dark

And menacing presence, on this threshold of my home.

For on the hollow ship, indeed, my husband looked

Askance at me and seldom; no good word he spoke,

But sitting opposite me, seemed to brood on evil things.

Then, when the first ships’ prows advanced into the deep

Eurotas estuary and had scarcely touched the land

In greeting, then he spoke, as if divinely moved:

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‘Here in due order all my men will disembark

And on the sea’s shore stand for me to muster them.

You, for your part, proceed up-river, ride along

Sacred Eurotas’ fruitful banks, and travel on,

Guiding the horses through the rich moist meadowlands,

Until you reach the city in its noble plain:

Here Lacedaemon, once a wide and fertile field,

Was built in our grave mountains’ far-surrounding shade.

Enter the high-towered

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