No More Learning

You see it, mistress, and start to hide once more:
Do you hate the daylight you were searching for?

Phaedra

Noble, glittering creator of a sad family,
You, whose daughter my mother dared claim to be, 170
Who blush perhaps on viewing my troubled mind,
Oh Sun, I come to look on you for one last time.

Oeneone

What! Will you never forget that cruel desire?
Am I always to see you renouncing life entire,
Making funereal preparations for your death? 175

Phaedra

Gods! Why am I not sitting in that dark forest?
When shall I follow the chariot with my eyes
Charging nobly on, through the dust that flies?

Oenone

What, lady?

Phaedra

Maddened, where am I! What did I say?
Where have I let my will and spirit go play? 180
I have lost them: the gods deny me their use.
Oenone, blushes cover my face, its truth:
I have let you see my sad shame too clearly,
And my eyes, despite myself, weep tearfully.

Oenone

Oh!
If you must blush, blush for your silence 185
That still embitters your sorrow's violence.
Rebelling against our care, deaf to our discourse,
Will you let your last days take this pitiless course?
What madness limits them in the midst of their force?
What spell, what poison has dried up their source? 190
Three times the shadows have obscured the sky,
Since sleep has entered in your saddened eye:
Three times has day driven night from the firmament,
While your body languished without nourishment.
By what fearful design are you being tempted? 195
By what right do you dare to let your life be ended?
You offend the gods, creators of your reality:
You betray the man to whom you pledged all loyalty:
You betray your children, those unfortunates,
Whom you drive beneath the yoke's harsh weight. 200
Think how that day will snatch away their mother,
And give hope to the son of that alien other,
To that proud enemy of yours, your race's doom,
That son an Amazon carried in her womb,
That Hippolytus. . .

Phaedra

Gods!

Oenone

You're moved by my censure? 205

Phaedra

Wretched woman, whose name do you dare to mention?

Oenone

That's good! Your anger rises for a reason:
I'm glad to see you shudder at her fatal son.