Oedipus of Lucius Annaeus Seneca - Softcover

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865164592 ISBN 13: 9780865164598

Publisher: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1999

Synopsis

Frank Corsaro, Artistic Director, Juilliard Opera Center

It is astonishing to me that one could still be excited by so venerable a text as Seneca's Oedipus. Such was the case with my encounter with Michael Rutenberg's rendition of this masterwork. Highly imaginative, eminently actable, and obviously a work of fine scholarship and devotion. It is my hope that it will be performed in theatres worldwide.

Leon Golden, Florida State University

The translation itself is admirably fluent and contemporary in idiom. It should be very effective as a vehicle for performances and should be easily comprehensible to audiences whether they hear or read it. Rutenberg's translation and the discussion he provides on staging the play in his introduction facilitate the possibility of an exciting stage performance of Seneca's play.

Robert Emmet Meagher, Hampshire College

Michael Rutenberg's Oedipus is a skilled, shattering translation of one of the most haunting dramas of the Roman corpus. I have watched Rutenberg's text leap form page to stage and reclaim there in its native habitat a dark, elemental, utterly compelling energy. As an added bonus, his learned and illuminating introduction casts appreciated light into even the corners of this often overlooked masterpiece.

Book Description

Rutenberg's adaptation of Seneca's Oedipus is the first translation of this Roman tragedy to interpolate excerpts from Seneca's moral philosophies into the text. This juxtaposition of Seneca's calm, rational thought with the passionate, highly theatrical language of his play creates an exciting synergy of powerful emotional and intellectual appeal. Seneca believes that human beings live at the whim of blind chance or divine will. He is interested in how we face a tragedy not of our own making, how we respond to something beyond our control. His central tenet is that we must try to accept suffering with dignity, grace, and mercy. This philosophy is as relevant today, in a world filled with repeated horrors against innocents, as it was in ancient times.

Special Features

* Introduction to Seneca, with a comparison of ancient Greek and Roman drama, and approaches to presenting the play for modern audiences
* Text of Seneca's Oedipus in English adaptation
* Appendix I: Senecan Sources for the New Choral Odes
* Appendix II: Original Choral Odes * 5 photographs from the production of the play at Manhattan's Loewe Theatre by the Dept. of Theatre, Hunter College of the City University of New York

Also available:

Rest Lightly: An Anthology of Latin and Greek Tomb Inscriptions - ISBN 0865163553
Roman Verse Satire: Lucilius to Juvenal -- A Selection - ISBN 0865164428

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About this title

From the Author:

Seneca believes that human beings live at the whim of blind chance or divine will. The Roman playwright does not place blame for misfortune on human imperfection as did Sophocles, his Greek predecessor. For Seneca, we may not always be in control of what happens to us, but we have the capacity to control our response to it. His central tenet is that we must try to find the strength to accept suffering with dignity, courage and mercy. This philosophy seems as relevant today as it was in ancient times.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Excerpt (pages 54-56) CREON I will yield, but prepare yourself, Oedipus.

[Pause] Outside the city there is a dark ilex grove. In the center overshadowing the entire wood stands a mammoth cypress tree. Next to it lie two ancient oaks gnarled and crumbled with the scars of age. The blackberry laurel grows there. Through this undergrowth flows a freezing stream still untouched by the surrounding plague. Here the sun never shines. Adjacent to this flowing stream is a stinking slime pit slowly oozing its putrid contents into a muddy swamp not far away. It is to this secluded spot that Tiresias, Manto, and the other priests brought me. As soon as we arrived the incantations began, because here it is always dark. A pit was dug, and burning wood brought from funeral pyres was thrown within. Then Tiresias donned his black funereal robe and wreathed his long, white hair with the poisonous yew. Black oxen and black sheep were driven live into the searing flames. The screams those animals made still sound in my ears. With horrific tones he called upon the spirits of the dead while pouring blood on the fire as it consumed the burning beasts. Then wine and milk he added to these libations. His sightless eyes fixed steadily on the ground, once more he called upon the earth to vomit up its buried dead. A tremor shook the ground beneath our feet.

Trees began to bow, trunks suddenly split apart, and the whole forest seemed to quake. 'They hear me,' the old man shouted. And with that,

the ground cracked open beneath the funeral pyre, and those charred, sacrificial beasts disappeared into some bottomless pit, some empty sickly void, and in their place stood the viper's brood. A horrible roar rose up from what seemed to be the very bowels of Hades as if Cerberus, that triple-headed hound of Hell, had angered at our intrusion. I saw Plague, the killer of us all. Then the dreadful shrieks of Horror and blind Fury filled the air. There Grief stood, tearing at her hair. Disease, hardly able to stand at all, stumbled forward. Age, bowed under its own small burden, looked around for a place to hide from Fear, menacing us with its frightful form. I saw each miserable creature. The blood stopped still in my veins, and like a spike stuck into the earth, I could not move. Even Manto was stunned despite, her knowledge of these divinations. Tiresias had no fear. His blindness made him brave. He continued to invoke the insubstantial shapes of those departed. And they came, shivering and crowding in the shelter of our grove. First to emerge was mighty Zethus with Amphion, his despised twin. Amphion was still holding the very lyre whose music charmed the stones of Thebes. Behind him was his wife Niobe turned to stone, but somehow moving, trying vainly to gather up her children, dead around her. Next came mad Agave, followed by the rout who tore their king to pieces. Pentheus was among them too, form no longer human, but still as arrogant as ever. One creature tried to remain unseen, but Tiresias pressed on, and many times summoned up that hidden specter until its face looked up and it was Laius. It was an awful sight! Blood still gushing from his limbs, his hair matted with filth. And then, like one deranged, he cursed this house. This is what he said: 'Murderous house of Cadmus, you will never stop butchering each other until the last of you is dead. Maternal love is Thebes' great sin. It is not because the gods are angry that you are dying. You bring it on yourselves. Your plague has not been brought by the South Wind's noxious scourge, but by a king who claims a throne as recompense for murder. But the worst crime of all is hers. Her belly swollen with unholy issue gotten there by incestuous rape! My country rots because this pretend-king defiles his father's marriage-bed. Violates the very womb that gave him birth. Begets from his own mother his own brothers and sisters. I shall destroy his house. I shall bring Erinys as bridesmaid to this incestuous bond, and she will crack her whip and cleave this royal house of shame. I shall overturn and crumble it to dust, set the sons to slaughtering each other until not one of the blasphemous lineage remains.' There is more. Perhaps you've heard enough.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0865164592
• ISBN 13: 9780865164598
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 103