No More Learning

A companion in the danger you had to go through,
I myself would have wished to walk ahead of you: 660
And Phaedra, plunging with you into the Labyrinth,
Would have returned with you, or herself have perished.


Hippolytus

You gods! What do I hear? Madame, do you forget
That Theseus is my father, your husband yet?

Phaedra

And what makes you think I forget his memory 665
Prince? Have I lost all care for my own glory?

Hippolytus

Madame, forgive me. I blush at my confession
I've wrongly judged an innocent expression.
My shame can no longer endure your vision:
And I go. . .

Phaedra

Ah! You've listened too long, cruel one. 670
I've told you enough for you to be undeceived.
Well!
Contemplate Phaedra then in all her fury.
I love. But don't think at the moment of loving you
I find myself innocent in my own eyes, or approve,
Or that slack complacency has fed the poison, 675
Of this wild passion that troubles all my reason.
I, the wretched object of divine vengeance,
Loathe myself much more than you ever can.
The gods are my witnesses, those gods who placed
The fire in my breast, so fatal to all my race, 680
Those gods whose glory it is, always cruel,
To seduce the heart of a weak mortal.
You yourself can bring the past the mind, too,
It was not enough to avoid you: I exiled you.
I wished to seem odious, inhuman to you. 685
I sought your hate, the better to resist you.
How have those useless efforts brought success?
You hated me more: I did not love you less.
Your misfortune even lent you fresh dimension.
I languished, withered, in tears, and in passion. 690
You only needed eyes to be persuaded,
If your eyes had looked at me, not been dissuaded.
What? This confession that I so shamefully,
Make to you, do you think it voluntary?
Trembling for a son I did not dare betray, 695
To beg you not to hate him I come today.