The Cretan Labyrinth – Act Two

Scene 1. Enter Teseo, prisoner.

Teseo: When the little bird sits on her nest through the long angry nights of winter, and waits for the dawn to bathe the mountains in an icy ray, she sees the fields: the straw of the pleasant fields changed to a rich crown of hyacinth and amethyst, as the sun’s rays change the sad night. I have a different destiny: in the cold dark night, in this prison which is my fate, I have no place for hope. Unhappy he who is in a prison so strong that he does not hope for the dawn of day, for it is the night of his death!

Enter Fineo.

Fineo: It would be good if you could give me some glad tidings in this evil time.

Teseo: I do not know, Fineo, of whom you speak in this style. The entrance of the murderous Minotaur draws near. Whoever in their life found glad tidings to give in going to their death!

Fineo: May this unjust sadness leave you, and in this prison you will see more than the sun; mark my words, more: two most beautiful sun. Your situation, or I should say your good fortune (since there is no situation you would wish to engage in that was so miserable), is that there are two beautiful Ladies who are obliged to to see if it possible for you to live or not. At the end of your night you will see two dawns: for coming to see you are the most beautiful Ariadna, daughter of this King Cumin-os, who with such crazy ideas smooths over the insult you have had; and Fedra, her beautiful sister.

Teseo: To see me?

Fineo: Yes.

Teseo: Who told you that my star favours me so?

Fineo: Tonight there are two, after the two there will even be three, and I know the third is love, which is blind and a God. It is true that I moved them with a most illustrious speech, as in the Spanish fashion of the province where I was born. Because serious authors write, they say, that there the greater part of the inhabitants trample over the truth. Ariadna was moved with pity for you, and this has caused her sister to feel the same affection. Now here come the two. They will tell you the rest.

Teseo: Notable news you give me.

Enter Fedra, Ariadna, and a Warden.

Ariadna: Is he here?

Warden: Yes, my Lady.

Ariadna: Why is he in such a dark place?

Warden: The king commanded it, as he is being given to death.

Ariadna: Get out.

Fineo: They are coming to talk to you.

Ariadna: Are you the Duke?

Theseus: Angel, I am the Duke Teseo. No longer a prisoner, because I see that I am in a different heaven. I am free, only captive of your rare beauty, my lady. Here in this night of sadness, that I should receive no lesser glory.

From where, beautiful Ariadna, have you come as the true sun, without any news of the morning reaching me first? It is no longer possible to come to a bothersome death, nor budge good fortune, now that you hold the wheel.

And you, heavenly Fedra, who accompany her beauty, into this dark cell you have made a window to the east. Can you understand how right it is for me to thank you, if only because you have thought to speak to me in my distress? The Gods, who would make you so adventurous, should reward your pity.

Fedro: One who suffers such a severe imprisonment without guilt, surely has hope that heaven will release him.

Teseo: Hope and consolation have reached me at the same time.

Ariadna: Duke, pity and piety, and seeing your illustrious person, most worthily crowned name of your city, has moved my affectionate heart to attempt your rescue, placed as you are in the middle of a well-known danger.

All tonight I have thought about how you could enter and leave that place of so many closed doors. And as always, love is the teacher, and it is usually more subtle in women, I found the best solution. I will give you a golden thread, which you must tie to the doors, for then you able to return following the same path. You cannot lose the door if you follow the thread, and you will end up at the horrific monster, and vanquish it. To do this you must carry three loaves, poisoned so that the beast will lose it senses in that place. Then, with a mace I will give you, long and strong, give that beast death, bathing that uncultivated field in blood.

But because my father will know who gave you the skill to do this thing, and in his angry raving will take vengeance on my love, you must give us your word to take us to your land. If he wishes revenge, and tries war, there it will be possible for you to defend us.

Teseo: I give my word to heaven that you will be, and you are today, my dear, my queen, and my wife. And it is a little prize to give to such as you, when you have given a man life, and yourself a name famous among women. Trust my commitment as a man of good birth, who has come here to face death for the good of his nation: I will not be ungrateful for the good I have received of your hands, my Lady, if I leave alive.

Ariadna: The heavens give you life.

Teseo: You will be Duchess of Athens if I come out of the dark maze alive, and I swear to serve your serene lights, which are like clear arrow-slits through which the Gods of heaven show themselves for mortals to see, as through a golden lattice: and may all heaven fail me if these words of mine should fail.

Ariadna: May heaven protect your life and return you to your native soil.

Theseus: The ship that brought me is only waiting to return with news of what has happened to me; the same ship must take us from here secretly.

Ariadna: I would not want the king to form an evil misconception. Let us go, Fedra, I will see to providing Teseo with the weapons.

Teseo: Already I desire to see the danger.

Fedra: Courage, valiant Duke!

Fedra: Just that voice, beautiful Fedra, is like the sound of the trumpet that gives the warhorse courage.

The two sisters leave.

Teseo: What are you waiting for, fierce tyrants? Come for me.

Fineo: Little by little.

Teseo: With so many crazy favours, I have the world in these hands.

Fineo: Well, do not let it fall. Hold it steadily because it is in a delicate state, and you might break it. Ladies break easily, all daintinesses and annoyances, and feminine things, like Phoenixes from their own flames. They will break with a thousand discretions, purely circumscribed, by exquisite words they go to look at ideas, they will break a thousand times when they are scheming to get the gold of foreign blood, a treasure they once paid for, and they will break… we must shut up, there is great danger in talking.

Teseo: We need to figure out how to get the ship away.

Fineo: Then you count on defeating this fierce Minotaur?

Teseo: I count on having the green laurel of victory girded on my forehead.

Fineo: They tell me that this animal does not stand on protocol, and much evil is to be feared from something that is both man and bull. This beast, which has contempt both for the sky and for the abyss, is like a knight in itself, as fools often are: because it is also a man above the neck, and a bull below, as in Spain the Tagus is very much like both grass and glass. I assure you that myself, I am trembling with fear.

Teseo: And I cannot fear after seeing Ariadna?

Fineo: And the two you have to take with you?

Teseo: Needs must.

Fineo: My god, the two of them make a wild cargo, and who can complain about the sea! But because you are able to lead and are not scared of the weight, they can go in the saddlebags, one in the back, and the other in front.

They go.

***

Scene 2. Outside the Labyrinth of Crete. Enter prince Oranteo and Lauro.

Oranteo: The king of Crete writes me, seeing that my army has sallied forth.

Lauro: He is troubled by fear.

Oranteo: That is because of my vengeance. Fame, which interprets all things, anticipated the day of my departure, so it was destined that even as he first saw my ships, she would persuade him to grave fears. No flag would flutter in the wind, no pennant would threaten the water, nor would the reeving set the topsail high, nor the pilot plot our path to when the echo of the bellicose instrument would sound on the Cretan beach: and fear would returns to the backs of the people who would lead there.

Seeing his letter, in which he offered to give me the beautiful Ariadna in marriage, I have joyfully returned to Crete to be married. Sometimes the soft peace, that does not attempt war, is the best policy. Love dismantles the strongest armour, because from its first birth it is as naked as a child, and blind. Laying down the club, we may cry: long live peace and quiet. It is true that before I surrender to Minos I want to know if the wily fellow, made ill-tempered by the royal bastard, has plotted tricks here in Crete; if it is deception, then the carved masts, and the canvas by the restless waves, will grasp the sea with a new armada, and with two grievances I will draw the sword.

Lauro: My Lord, you have done well to go secretly to know if he has cheated you, beaten by your sedulous fame and your threatening forethought.

Oranteo: There is the Labyrinth shining resplendently in the middle of the field, the work of Daedalus, which you can see surpasses the work of the celebrated Archimedes; in it the Minotaur is imprisoned, who is sustained by defeated Athens, ever since it surrendered the presumption of its battlements to Minos, crowned with laurels. No satyr, faun or centaur has been seen, no monster of the Libyan sands, so terrible and of such prodigious fame.

Lauro: Sad the Greeks who are named to such a fate!

Oranteo: See how, through grilles and from balconies, the people look at the well-formed man who has entered the Labyrinth.

Lauro: If you sit here, my Lord, you may look upon him with pity fair.

Oranteo: He enters armed.

Lauro: At such a time, how can bronze or even diamond arm a man?

Oranteo: I pity his person and his bravery. Let us leave, Lauro, to see to the challenge.

Teseo and Fineo, with a mace, enter alongside.

Teseo: Show the mace, Fineo, and favour me to Mars.

Fineo: I am trembling to see you in such danger, Teseo.

Teseo: What a strange destiny of war: but it little irks me, if I have vanquished my fortune, which is the greatest monster on the earth.

Fineo: I have not seen this beast except in pictures, my Lord, but with your heroic courage, what monster out of Libya could make you fear? Apollo, the God so skilled and valiant, killed the snake named Python with bow and arrows; Hercules, because Jupiter gave him strength, killed the fierce Hydra, which was honoured afterwards in the sphere of fixed stars. But if those two here saw this fierce monster, they would surrender arrows and steel to the courage I see in you.

Teseo: If from this challenge I emerge a man equal to Hercules, to Jason, to the Greek Telamon, how much should the homeland owe me thanks?

Fineo: What an animal that has put you in such a spot!

Teseo: Love sends me audiciously to face this.

Fineo: What is born of a woman like this beast! Moreover, of who could it be born but a being of the same kind? There is just as much to be surprised by in those born to anger, flattery, lies, and in a monster to cause trouble. By God! That is not more strange than the character of one who serves two, and will deceive them both. If you have seen the monster of jealousy, believe me, bellicose Duke, it makes the Minotaur look as beautiful as the heavens. If you saw ingratitude, you would say it was the greater monster, and it is not a small love that makes the eternal soul uneasy.

Teseo: I want to tie the golden thread here.

Fineo: Jupiter go with you: I cannot go on to witness your courage. I feel sorry and I cry.

Teseo: Holy deities, favour me; Mars, favour me; please, I ask, and to you I pray, my love, because you have overcome all the Gods of love. Favour me, beautiful Ariadna,you who gave me these weapons, because you say that you will conquer like a sovereign deity! If I get out of the snares here where I contemplate my death, I will make your neck a temple, and garland it with my arms.

Theseus goes.

Oranteo: Has the Athenian entered?

Lauro: He entered to the applause of the people.

Oranteo: And already my sun has left his balcony from the east. Come on, Lauro, let us see if we can see amyhting without being found out; for in our absence I fear the things we do not know.

Lauro: Love, my Lord, everything is fear.

Fineo: Already the people, hurting for the brave Teseo, leave their windows and grilles; all are assured of his death. But I think he has arrived at the square that is at the centre of the labyrinth, and is there with the other valiant Greeks.They will not go meekly through the corridors to be fodder for this half-man, half-bull, no matter how barbarous and fierce!

Oh heaven, to lose my good master to the hands of a bull! I am about to go in. Will I? I guess I am not afraid, so long as I don’t lose the golden thread. If I lose the gold, it is not possible, because a woman’s monster without gold is a thing out of fairy stories. Even in business here, we will never guess right, we will never be able to do anything right, if we lose the thread of gold that has gone with the women. No noise can be heard now.

Oh, Pasife of Hell, whyever did you make a bullman, and not a manstag! Because deer are cowards, and although armed, they will flee; but bulls are brave, more so than men who are a mixture of many things. The night is deep, and his lights ignite the moon in the sky, and now two shapes are coming here: If they are the shadows of fear! But now, what can I fear?

Fedra and Ariadna enter, dressed as men, with capes and swords.

 

Fedra: He went in good spirits.

Ariadna: I come in the spirit of hope, which sustains my body.

Fedra: With this costume, we will go to await safely at the door of the Labyrinth, until we see what heaven decides.

Ariadna: Is someone there?

Fedra: There is something – Ariadna, it moved.

Ariadna: It must be Fineo.

Fedra: We are nearly there.

Ariadna: Fineo!

Fineo: My name has been called.Woe! Good spirits: I am glad you have arrived! Who goes?

Ariadna: You don’t know?

Fineo: I know your voice, and I think if it were known that you were at the same door as Teseo, it would be part of causing a most glorious defeat.

Ariadne: I am sorry I was not here earlier.

Fineo: I sense a noise within the gates.

Ariadne: If there is noise in there, then the monster is dead.

Fedra: I think so.

Teseo emerges.

Teseo: Thanks be to the high gods that I have come out alive from the blind Labyrinth! Who goes there?

Fineo: Two angels and Fineo.

Teseo: Ariadna and Fedra?

Fineo: Yes.

Teseo: Beautiful lights of heaven!

Fineo: Softly, do not speak of lights: for this darkness is better.

Ariadna: Teseo, to see you alive has placed me in as much glory, as I was placed in sorrow and torment by my fear; I want to give my arms to you as my husband.

Teseo: I cannot yet answer you with joy.

Fedra: Though I am the least of those that have augmented your fortune, Teseo, instead of thanks I ask for your arms.

Teseo: In them, beautiful Fedra, you hold the heart of its owner.

Ariadne: How did your bliss come about?

Teseo: I tied the golden thread, and entering the Labyrinth, I went around a thousand streets by infinite detours; when I would think I would be in the centre of the labyrinth, I would be most far from it, and near when I was far. Finally, I arrived at a place where there was a little square, where the Minotaur was lying between various bones. There I saw a corpse, and I imagined that within a short time my own dead body would join it. But my soul cheered within me, and I approached the horrible monster, which put itself on all fours and looked at me, dreadful and fierce; then I threw those loaves to him, and he, given them, began to swallow his death in the enciphered venom. Spiritedly I raised my mace, and with the first blows, with two horrendous bellows, I knocked the monster to the ground. I left the grass bathed in foam and blood, and seizing the tip of the thread, followed it back to the door.

Ariadna: Thanks to the high Gods! But, gallant Teseo, there is great danger, and need for great audacity. We must go to the sea. My proud father will certainly sense that we are not at home, and there will be no apology or remedy that will let us get away with our lives.

Teseo: The ship stays in port with my friends and servants.

Fedra: Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get going.

Teseo: Come, my Lady. And you, Fedra, take the hand of Fineo.

Fineo: I will be the Morning Star today, leading the sun with my hand!

They leave.

 

Minos, Oranteo, Lauro and Polineces enter.

Minos: A remarkable affront has been given.

Oranteo: My Lord, I did not think, that I would come here without anyone knowing, until in Crete I found it was known that my absence had cause t to be forgotten, but, as I am here already, sir, you know how I am yours; give me your hand to kiss.

Minos: By the sovereign Gods, I give infinite thanks for our peace, Oranteo.

Oranteo: I only wish to serve you.

Minos: Today Ariadna will be your wife; for that is a good use of my daughter. I will console Feniso by giving him Fedra.

Oranteo: And I will take your honest hand.

Feniso enters.

Feniso: Write of fame in stone, steel or in gilded bronze, a deed of great valour.

Minos: What are you talking about, Feniso my friend?

Pheniso: It is Teseo, my Lord. He has the victory that heaven wanted: he is Teseo, victor.

Minos: Well, how did he get in?

Feniso: I do not know how he entered. I know that Daedalus begged to come in, and came, and saw that his industry had been in vain, because in the middle of the square he found the dead Minotaur.

Minos: By Mars, who has plotted this deception!

Feniso: If it was a conspiracy, threaten his invidious life, and he will tell you the truth.

Minos: Call Teseo, too.

Soldiers: He has not reached the city; he thinks that this trophy is not likely to win your friendship.

Minos: The Greek has done well to flee and not to try my wrath.

Oranteo: To help you in your sorrow, I pray, that my love may be of merit.

Minos: Call to my daughters, for today Fedra will have in Feniso a noble husband, and Ariadna must be Oranteo’s.

Oranteo: May the powerful heaven increase your power!

Feniso: May your dominion spread from the south to the cold north!

Minos: With such sons-in-law, I hope to make war on the world.

Oranteo: Today I wish to tell you my intent: You have no son, king Minos, and for this reason your successor must be named from the husbands of your two daughters.

Minos: I wish you two to govern this realm together.

Oranteo: If I may ask, it would be better served whole, whether it is yours or mine. If divided, I despair of pleasure and peace, because love and lordship do not permit company.

Feniso: Neither would I like it: I have enough mettle to govern all of Crete.

Oranteo: And I for the government of the world, if it were subject to my valour.

Minos: Move on, sons-in-law! I am alive, so what is your trouble?

Polineces enters.

Polineces: There is no sign of your daughters in the palace.

Minos: What do you say?

Polineces: Things have gone very badly, if what they say about him coming was true.

Minos: Be warned well, Polineces, there is my death in what you say.

Polineces: I say, my Lord, that the weddings these two expect, are turned completely into unhappy tragedies, because it appears that Teseo has carried the girls away by sea.

Minos: How does it appear to you, Oranteo?

Oranteo: It is not possible to promise anything without the will of heaven.

Minos: Was there ever such great audacity? He came to avenge Athens; but I feel it is impossible he meant well regarding my daughters, considering his origin. Pasife, mother of a bull, how is it possible that you bred these girls who go with such dignity and royal decorum? I go to follow him, though the sea is heavy, by Mars who I worship! I am Minos; the ways of the sea I know well, though they are uncertain. Look out, Teseo thief!

He goes.

Feniso: I have lost the kingdom, but not the desire.

Oranteo: Aiee, Lauro, I have made blunders!

Lauro: That Ariadna has forgotten you, and goes with Teseo!

Oranteo: If Fedra is in love, which is the thing that I believe most likely – to ease my fear- and she takes Ariadna with her, then we do not blame Ariadna. But if she is moving with her… Oh, my vain hope! Oh, my contrary star! Love may not give him the things of love, but I will think that in his love they will accomodate great shortcomings, because to fear the worst is a sensible condition. Come with me, that we may make war on Athens for vengeance.

Lauro: You think there is something to fear from a woman?

Oranteo: Yes, Lauro, for at the centre of this whole thing is a woman.

They leave.

***

 Scene 3. The Isle of Lesbos.[1] Teseo and Fineo enter, disembarking.

Teseo: The sea has treated us badly.

Fineo: The sea, who does it ever treat well? I don’t know who in the world it has not given sorrow.

Teseo: I took harbour in these islands because they look toward the land.

Fineo: Well, , it was well advertised that they are not warlike here.

Teseo: I am fearful to enter Lesbos.

Fineo: It was right to land here; it appears the sea is the judge, of what is cast within it.

Teseo: Pretend that you are the judge, and make me confess.

Fineo: What are we afraid of?

Teseo: Having no peace.

Fineo: Why?

Teseo: Because there are two women.

Fineo: Two men and one woman are often seen; but it is astonishing to see two women and one man, because that is not usually seen.

Teseo: Enamoured married men, don’t they serve two women?

Fineo: Yes, but their pleasures are empty and taste of water.

Teseo: We have to leave one.

Fineo: Where?

Teseo: In these islands.

Fineo: Good!

Teseo: Good, or bad, I am full of love, and do not have time to argue.

Fineo: Why should it matter if you are full of love, seeing who you have become? To forsake women is not a decent thing for men of your worth; and Fedra does not deserve to be abandoned.

Teseo: You are a fool, not understanding how I am going to deal with the problem.

Fineo: Fedra?

Teseo: Fedra, well.

Fineo: What are you saying?

Teseo: That I adore Fedra. Fineo, and that it is not right to be scandalised of a righteous desire. On the road of the sea, I fell in love with Fedra.

Fineo: If righteous or unrighteous it was to fall in love, I do not want to dispute; but to leave Ariadna: this is a vile deed, my Lord, unworthy of your status, and a villainous ingratitude. Ariadna gave you your life on a remarkable occasion, and it is not right that you repay her so.

Teseo: You talk to me in such a way?

Fineo: I am your servant, but I am a honourable Athenian.

Teseo: Villain, I would give you death.

Fineo: You will not kill me as a monster of ugly flattery, but as honest Fineo, who was born in your house; and if I flee your fury, it is only out of respect of the bread I ate with your father, and my Lord: otherwise I am glad to stay for such an occasion of honour.

Teseo: Watch out.

Fineo: You have passion, and you will regret killing me.

Fineo flees, and Ariadna and Fedra enter, with two or three servant Musicians.

Ariadna: What is it, my dear?

Teseo: Here I asked an islander what cities or what towns adorned this district; and for some reason or other, he said many arrogant things to me, about how he would take our lives and how we should not turn our backs.

Ariadna: Well how, being a foreigner, were you to know that travellers were supposed to be humble here?

Fedra: Teseo might not have remembered that we had left the sea.

Teseo: This green meadow is adorned with many flowers, inviting the eye and making the soul rejoice; sit down here, and listen to the sound of water falling, to give an instant tribute from these high rocks to the sea. They will sing something for Ariadna to sleep to, because the sea has treated her so poorly.

Ariadna: Jealousy has treated me worse.

Musicians: What songs should we play, my Lord?

Ariadna: You can sing of jealousy.

Fedra: Jealousy is not for singing, but for crying.

Ariadna: Some cry and others sing.

They sit and the Musicians sing.

Musicians: A bad night has given me jealousy; such as she has who I have made jealous.

What a bad night that has given me your jealousy! Filida mine!

Oh, God, if ever arrived the day when I see that you have decieved me!

All the night has passed with a thousand dreams and sleeplessnesses;

The jealousies woke me, and I commanded love,

Like the love she has who I gave love to.

Teseo: Is Ariadna asleep?

Fedra: She sleeps.

Teseo: Fedra, so adored of my soul and of my eyes, get up.

Fedra: What words are these?

Teseo: Soon you will see the love you owe me: get up. Ahoy, noble-hearted greeks! Hie, to the beach!

Fedra: What are you saying?

Teseo: That you will go from here in my arms.

Fedra: Sister, sister, Ariadna!

He takes her in arms, and Ariadna wakes.[2]

Ariadna: It seems that I hear my name, and I am glad, because otherwise I would be alone with a thousand heartaches from the dream that pierced my soul. I dreamed that a brown goshawk drew a dove from the nest where I was sleeping, and that it took her in its wings over the waters of the seato a distant shore. Oh, my dearest Teseo! Oh, my Lord, my hope, my husband! He does not respond? Where is he? No-one speaks to me? No-one is with me here? Aiee, it was not for nothing that my heart was fearful! He has taken my sister, he has left me sleeping, but has awakened my anxieties.

From this rock I will see if my suspicions have deceived me: there is the boat. Oh, heavens! Already it is far out over the sea, all the sails extended with the wind of my hope – though it should not be necessary, the wind of my sighs is enough! Oh, cruel Greek! Oh, betrayer! How well, ingrate, you have repaid me for the life you owe me! Oh, Fedra, also ingrate! Although I cannot believe that you are complicit in the cause of my death. If Teseo takes you by force, sister, I am going to throw curses, and they will stop you from going with him, because they would not catch you like they catch betrayers. More, may God grant that on the day he disembarks in his homeland, his greatest friend will kill him in your his own house! I do not know what I shall do. What I see makes me lose heart; what I leave destroys me; what I feel unmans me.

Fineo enters.

Ariadna: Someone comes.

Fineo: I hear voices. Have Fedra and Ariadna gone to the beach? Oh, heaven! Beautiful Lady Ariadna!

Ariadna: Who calls my name in my misery?

Fineo: You, my Lady, miserable?

Ariadna: Miserable, because Teseo has left me, and taken away my sister.

Fineo: I am furious to here that. I tried to stop him from doing such a vile deed, and he drew his sword on me. I turned my face to him, and with justice, because to turn your back to a traitor is to face him, in as much as they have a face. He carried out his wish: do not cry, beloved Lady. That, in short, is mother Earth, stepmother of the Sea. It is the island of Lesbos.

Ariadna: Of Lesbos?

Fineo: What scares you?

Ariadna: A man I was so unjustly ungrateful to, just as Teseo has been to my love and my hope.

Fineo: You will be in disguise, my Lady, and will have the power, disguised and with me at your side, to find a remedy, with confidence secure that you have the help of heaven.

Ariadna: There they see some houses of badly hewn pine logs, covered with dry straw.

Fineo: Without doubt they are fishermen, who laugh at fortune with their small boats. Blessed is he who fishes for little fishes with dark nets, and does not command the world full of sad cares!

Ariadne: In those poor huts we will think of a remedy – or at least, for those who can find no help for pain, a quick death. Decree no memorials, no requests, remove sorrows, cure without medicines, and without fondness give gifts.

Fineo: Teseo has been very Greek.

Ariadne: They are famed throughout the world as betrayers.

Fineo: By good luck, your misfortune was not greater… Thanks be to high heaven!

Ariadna: So many miseries I have given myself, that a body leaves with honour for where the soul rises.

 

***

[1] In all the traditional stories, the abandonment of Ariadne happens on Naxos, not Lesbos.

[2] This words were attributed to Fedra, but I think they have to be a stage directions.