No More Learning

Phaedra was honoured by Theseus' breath in vain, 445
For myself, I'm prouder, and flee the glory gained
From homage offered to hundreds, and so easily,
From entering a heart thrown open to so many.
But to make an unyielding courage bend,
To make that unfeeling heart of his feel pain, 450
To fetter a captive astonished by his chains,
Fighting the yoke, that delights him so, in vain:
That's what I wish, that is what excites me.
To disarm Hippolytus counts for more than Hercules:
Often vanquished, and defeated more swiftly, 455
To the eyes that tamed him offering less glory.
But, alas, dear Ismene! How daring I am!
I'll be blocked indeed by profound resistance.
Perhaps you'll hear me, humbled then, in pain,
Lamenting that same pride I admire today. 460
Hippolyte might love? By what great happiness
Might I have altered. . .

Ismene

You'll hear him, himself, mistress:
He is coming to you.

Act II Scene II (Hippolytus, Aricia, Ismene)

Hippolyte

Madame, before I leave,
I thought to advise you what your fate shall be.
My father no longer lives. My true prescience 465
Anticipated the cause of his long absence:
Death alone, limiting his brilliant efforts,
Could hide him so long from the universe.
At last the gods delivered the friend, the comrade,
The heir of Hercules to the murderous Fates. 470
I imagine your hatred, denying him his virtue,
Without regret, hears all those names he's due.
Yet one hope now softens my mortal sadness:
That I might free you from a guardian's harshness,
I revoke laws whose rigour I deplored: you are 475
Free now to dispose of yourself, and your heart:
And in this Troezen, now my inheritance,
The legacy of my ancestor Pittheus once,
Which has made me king, unhesitatingly,
I set you free as well, freer than I can be. 480

Aricia

Moderate your kindness whose excess shames me.
By honouring my plight with care, so generously,
It binds me, my lord, more than you might see,
To those austere laws from which you free me.

Hippolyte

Athens, uncertain of its choice for the succession, 485
Speaks of you, names me, and also the Queen's son.

Aricia

Of me, my Lord?

Hippolyte

I don't deceive myself: I know
That its proud laws seem to reject me: even so
Greece reproaches me for my foreign mother.
But if the only competition were my brother, 490
Madame, over him I have essential claims,
That I could salvage from the law's domains.
A more legitimate curb arrests my boldness:
I cede to you, rather I return a title no less,
A sceptre your ancestors long ago received 495
From that famous mortal whom the earth conceived.
Adoption placed it in Aegeus' hands, there.
Athens, enriched, protected by my father,
Recognised, joyfully, a king so generous,
And sent your poor brothers to forgetfulness. 500
Athens now calls you back within her walls.
She's suffered long enough from those quarrels.
Too long has your blood, swallowed by its furrows,
Made that earth steam from which it first arose.
Troezen obeys me.