No More Learning

Phaedra

Stop, Theseus,
And don't profane your feelings of joyfulness. 915
I no longer deserve this gracious tenderness.
You have been wronged. Fortune in her jealousy
Has not spared your wife, in your absence from me.
Unworthy of pleasing you, or approaching you,
I must only think now of hiding from you. 920

Act III Scene V (Theseus, Hippolytus, Theramenes)

My son, what is this strange welcome for your father?


Hippolyte

The mystery can only be explained by Phaedra.
But if my ardent prayers can move you at all,
Permit me, my Lord, never to see her more.
Allow your trembling Hippolyte to vanish 925
Forever from the place your wife inhabits.

Theseus

You are leaving me, my son?

Hippolytus

I did not seek her.
It was you who led her footsteps to this shore.
You, my Lord, deigned to entrust in parting,
To Troezen's coast, Aricia and your Queen: 930
I was even charged with the duty of protection.
But what duty holds me from this moment on?
My idle youth has plied its skills long enough
Against the insignificant prey of the woods.
Should I not, fleeing idleness that's worthless, 935
Dip my javelins in blood more meritorious?
You had not yet achieved my tender age,
When many a tyrant, and many a savage
Monster had felt the full force of your strength:
Already, the triumphant scourge of insolence, 940
You'd secured the shores of the two seas:
Fearing no violence the traveller felt free.
Hercules, hanging on rumours of those labours,
Was already resting from his, in favouring yours.
And I, the unknown son of a famous father, 945
Lag far behind even the footsteps of my mother.
Let my courage, in short, dare to be occupied.
Let me, if some monster has escaped your eye,
Set at your feet the honoured spoils I'll bring:
Or let the memory of a glorious ending, 950
Immortalise my days, a death so nobly won,
And prove to the whole world I was your son.

Theseus

What is this? What horror spreading through this place
Makes my distraught family flee my face?
If there's so much fear so little joy at my return 955
O heaven, why did you release me from my prison?
I had but the one friend. His insolent passion
Sought to abduct the wife of Epirus' tyrant:
Reluctantly I served his amorous intent:
But we were both blinded by an angry fate. 960
The tyrant surprised me unarmed, defenceless.
I saw the sad object of my tears, Pirithous,
Thrown to cruel monsters by that barbarian,
Those he fed on the blood of wretched men.
For myself, he shut me in a gloomy cavern, 965
A deep place, near to the realm of shadows.
The gods relented, when six months had passed,
I tricked the eyes of those who guarded me, at last.
I freed Nature from a treacherous opponent:
He served as food for that monstrous regiment.