She stared a moment; then she started to laugh. It was low at first; then it rose wild and screeching, peal on peal. I called her women, and left her. I knew, when I married her, that she came of old rotten stock, given to all extremes. But I had to think for the kingdom.
Hippolytos was out, as usual. It was not till dusk he came plodding home, limb-weary as a field hand, his clothes stained from the forests, green and brown. He greeted me with courtesy, which did not make up for his neglect; yet, remembering he had borne patiently, for my sake, his stepmother’s scoldings, I told him without anger that we were going home.
He began to say something; stammered and broke off; then knelt and put my hand to his forehead. He was down there so long that I told him to get up. Slowly he rose. His eyes were streaming. He stood still, taking deep breaths, while great silent tears ran down his cheeks. At last he muttered, “I am sorry, Father. I don’t know what it is… I am sorry you are going.” His voice choked and he said, “Forgive me,” and hurried out. Turning, I saw young Akamas, who had hung about for him (often lately he had shaken off the boy to go out alone), stare after him in horror, and run out another way. He thought too much of him not to be ashamed at seeing him unmanned.
That day passed, and the night, and the next morning. I don’t know how I spent the time; the memory has been swept away. But a little before noon, I went out to the stables, to see what shape the horses were in for the journey. The rain held off; but gray clouds covered the sky and the breeze was moist, blowing from the sea.
Suddenly I heard a woman’s high yelling scream. For a moment, I only felt it go through my head; I had not noticed till then an ache beginning. Then the sound broke into shrill jerking spurts, as if the woman herself were shaking, and I thought, “Her husband is knocking her about.” Then came a great shriek, “A rape! A rape!” And I knew the voice. The eyes of my charioteer met mine. Like one man we started forward.
He unhitched two horses and we leaped up. The cries came from the olive grove beyond the barns. It was sacred to Mother Dia, with a little old altar where my mother used to sacrifice in spring, to bless the trees. We rode as near as we dared to the sacred precinct, dismounted, and ran.
Between the trees, not far from the altar-stone, sat Phaedra, on the ground, wailing and sobbing, flinging her body to and fro, beating her clenched fists first on the earth and then upon her breast. Her hair hung wild, her bodice and skirt gaped open at every clasp; her shoulders and arms and throat were covered in great red finger-weals, whose shape could be clearly seen.
I ran up to her. She clutched and clawed at my arms, gabbling and gasping; I could not make out the words. When I tried to raise her, her clothes began falling off; she pulled away her hands to grab her belt about her, her breath heaving and shivering; then scrambled up, her skirt bunched in one hand, and pointed with the other through the grove. Her voice broke in a rough caw like a raven’s. “There! There!”
I heard men’s voices, running footsteps, rattling arms. The outcry had brought the Guard. They were still coming up; but the foremost had heard her words and were off through the trees already, like hounds with the quarry in full sight. They called to one another; then their voices changed. And looking along the grove, I saw the man.
He was running out to the hill-slopes, clambering over the boulders, wild as a stag. The light caught his hair as the sea-wind lifted it. In all Troizen, there was not such another head.
I stood still. A great sickness swept down from my head into my body. There seemed room in me for nothing else.
All round me went the din of the hue and cry. My temples throbbed with it. Only the foremost understood, yet, whom they were after. But when the word spread back, they would all run on. There are laws bred into the very bones of men, older on earth than princes.
I sent someone to fetch the Queen’s women. To the rest I said, “Stand back. Leave us alone.”
She had fixed her skirt-clasp somehow. Now she stood wringing her hands, round and round each other, as if she were washing and could not get them clean. “Quickly!” I said. “No one can hear. In the name of Zeus, what happened? Speak.”
She stood panting; with each breath came a rattle from her chattering teeth, and nothing more. Still I kept hold upon myself, from the habit of doing justice. “Speak up, hurry, before they bring him here.” But she only rocked about, washing her hands. A sudden hot light flashed before my eyes; I came and stood over her and shouted, “Speak, woman! Did he get it done, or not?”
“Yes!” she cried, and left her mouth open, gaping. I thought she would scream again; but now at last came the words.
“In Athens it began, he started then to come after me, but he said it was to cure my head. In Athens I didn’t know. It was here he told me, here in Troizen; I have been almost dead with fear. I dared not tell you; how could I tell you of your son, what he was, what he meant? He wanted me, oh yes! But it was more, it was more. This is the truth, Theseus. He has taken a vow to the Goddess, to bring back Her rule again.”
We were alone in the grove, beside the ancient altar. The men I had sent away had followed after the chase. Great hands seemed to press my head, crushing it down into the earth.
“He said he had had omens, that he must marry Minos’ daughter and make her Goddess on Earth. Then the power would return and we should rule the world. I swear it, Theseus, I swear by this holy stone.” A great shiver shook her body. “‘Let me reign with you,” he said, ‘and love you; and when She calls me, it will be nothing for me to die. For we shall be as gods, remembered forever.’ That was what he said.”
The sounds of pursuit had sunk. The crowd was coming back towards the grove. He must have stopped to wait for them. “Not yet!” I thought. “Can’t they give me time?” My brow felt bursting. I longed to be alone as a wounded man wants water. But her voice rushed on.
“I said to him, ‘Oh, how can you say so when your father lives?’ and he answered, ‘He is under Her curse and the land is sick with it. She calls men and sets them by, and he has had his time.’”
Through the beating in my head I heard men’s low muttering voices, broken with their heavy breathing from the run. He was walking among them, free, looking straight before him, like a man led to his death.
The women had come up from the Palace. They hovered among the trees, like scared birds, flustered and twittering, each urging another forward, exclaiming in whispers at her bruises and torn clothes. Suddenly she grabbed my arm again. “Don’t kill him, Theseus, don’t kill him! He could not help it, he was mad as the maenads are.”
I thought of Naxos; of the bloody hands, torn flesh; the sleeping girl draggled with blood and wine. Blood seemed everywhere; it was the color of the buzzing sky. “It is like the earthquake warning,” I thought, and then the thought passed by. Her hands on my arm were like her sister’s hands. I pulled them off, and signed for the women. The squat old altar looked at me, each crack in the stone a grinning mouth and every hole an eye.
They were here. He stood before me. His hair was all dishevelled; there was a bleeding place, where it had been torn. His tunic was split along the shoulder. His eyes met mine. So a stag will stand, when you have run it down and it can go no longer, looking at you as if it saw some vision, waiting for the spear.
The women crept up to Phaedra; one wrapped her in a cloak, another held a flask to her lips; they waited my leave to take her away. Her bruises were darkening; she might have been a beaten slave. The sickness, the noises in my head, were making me almost mad; I found my hand on my dagger. There was a scream of birds, above the birdlike cries of the women, a lowing of cattle from the byres, a dog’s long-drawn howl. They were the sounds of earth; all this was true. I pointed to my wife, huddled shivering into the cloak, and said to my son, “Did you do this?”