Of a race whose
remorseless
torments she desires.
Racine - Phaedra
Oenone
Hippolyte! You gods!
Phaedra
Yes, him, you are not wrong.
Oenone
Just heaven! All the blood's frozen in my veins. 265
O despair! O crime! O you race without shame!
Unfortunate voyage! O, miserable shore!
Why did you come then to this place of danger?
Phaedra
My pain goes further back. I was scarcely tied
To Aegeus' son, by those laws that make a bride, 270
My false peace and happiness secured to me,
When Athens showed me my glorious enemy.
I saw him, I blushed: I paled at the sight:
Pain swelled in my troubled heart outright:
My eyes saw nothing: I couldn't speak for pain: 275
I felt my whole body frozen, and in flame.
I recognised Venus and her fearsome fires.
Of a race whose remorseless torments she desires.
I thought I could prevent grief by ceaseless prayer:
I built her a temple, adorned it with all care: 280
Surrounding myself with victims at all hours,
I sought my lost reason in those bloody dowers,
The powerless remedy for a love without a cure!
In vain I burnt incense at her altars, impure:
When my mouth called on the name of the goddess, 285
I adored Hippolytus: my vision of him endless,
Even at the altars' foot where I lit the flame,
I offered all to that god I dared not name.
I avoided him everywhere. O height of misery!
My eyes sought him in his father's reality. 290
At last I dared to rise against my own being:
I roused my courage to persecute, with feeling.
To banish the enemy who made me an idolater,
I feigned my grievance, an unjust stepmother:
I urged his exile, and my eternal cries, 295
Made him unwelcome to his father's eyes.
I breathed Oenone, then, and given his absence
My days, less troubled, were spent in innocence.
Submitting to my husband, hiding pain instead,
Caring for the fruits of our fatal marriage bed. 300
Useless precaution! Cruel destiny!
Brought by my husband to Troezen, only to see,
Once more, the enemy that I'd sent away:
My wound, still living, quickly bled again,
It's no longer an ardour hidden in my veins: 305
It's Venus fastening wholly on her prey.
For my crime I now conceive a perfect terror:
I view my life with hatred, my love with horror.
Dying, I wish to protect my name by that act:
And conceal from the light a flame so black. 310
I could not endure your tears: your questioning:
I've confessed it all: and I repent of nothing,
Provided you respect my death's approach,
Without afflicting me with unjust reproach,
And that you cease to recall by your vain aid, 315
This remnant of life I'm ready to breathe away.
