With what cruel glances his harsh severity
Left you well nigh submissive at his feet!
Left you well nigh submissive at his feet!
Racine - Phaedra
760
When I've abandoned control of my senses so!
When I can scarce breathe beneath a shameful yoke!
When I am dying!
Oenone
Take flight.
Phaedra
I cannot leave him.
Oenone
You dared to banish him: you daren't avoid him?
Phaedra
No longer. He knows my ardent ecstasy. 765
I've passed the bounds of cautious modesty.
In my conqueror's sight I declared my shame,
Yet hope glides to my heart now all the same.
You yourself, defeating my powers' eclipse,
Recalling my soul, already hovering on my lips, 770
You revived me with your flattering advice.
Made me see, that I might love him, with your eyes.
Oenone
Alas! Innocent of your misfortune, or culpable,
To save you still, of what would I not be capable?
But if ever its offence distressed your mind, 775
Can you forget the scornfulness of his pride?
With what cruel glances his harsh severity
Left you well nigh submissive at his feet!
How odious his savage pride has made him!
If Phaedra only had my eyes to see him! 780
Phaedra
Oenone, he may quench this pride that wounds you.
Raised in the forests, he has their wildness too.
Hippolytus, hardened by their savage laws,
Hears love's language he never heard before.
Perhaps his astonishment explains his silence, 785
And our complaints perhaps show too much violence.
Oenone
Think: a barbarian formed him in her womb.
Phaedra
Scythian, and barbarian, she's known love too.
Oenone
He has a deadly hatred for all our sex.
Phaedra
Then I'll suffer a dearth of rivals, I expect. 790
Your advice, in short, is out of season.
Serve my madness, Oenone, not my reason.
His inaccessible heart is opposed to love:
Let's find a weaker spot that he might be moved.
The charms of Empire appeared to stir him: 795
He could not conceal it: Athens attracts him:
His ships are already turned that way I find,
Their fluttering sails abandoned to the wind.
Seek out for me this youth and his ambition,
Oenone.
When I've abandoned control of my senses so!
When I can scarce breathe beneath a shameful yoke!
When I am dying!
Oenone
Take flight.
Phaedra
I cannot leave him.
Oenone
You dared to banish him: you daren't avoid him?
Phaedra
No longer. He knows my ardent ecstasy. 765
I've passed the bounds of cautious modesty.
In my conqueror's sight I declared my shame,
Yet hope glides to my heart now all the same.
You yourself, defeating my powers' eclipse,
Recalling my soul, already hovering on my lips, 770
You revived me with your flattering advice.
Made me see, that I might love him, with your eyes.
Oenone
Alas! Innocent of your misfortune, or culpable,
To save you still, of what would I not be capable?
But if ever its offence distressed your mind, 775
Can you forget the scornfulness of his pride?
With what cruel glances his harsh severity
Left you well nigh submissive at his feet!
How odious his savage pride has made him!
If Phaedra only had my eyes to see him! 780
Phaedra
Oenone, he may quench this pride that wounds you.
Raised in the forests, he has their wildness too.
Hippolytus, hardened by their savage laws,
Hears love's language he never heard before.
Perhaps his astonishment explains his silence, 785
And our complaints perhaps show too much violence.
Oenone
Think: a barbarian formed him in her womb.
Phaedra
Scythian, and barbarian, she's known love too.
Oenone
He has a deadly hatred for all our sex.
Phaedra
Then I'll suffer a dearth of rivals, I expect. 790
Your advice, in short, is out of season.
Serve my madness, Oenone, not my reason.
His inaccessible heart is opposed to love:
Let's find a weaker spot that he might be moved.
The charms of Empire appeared to stir him: 795
He could not conceal it: Athens attracts him:
His ships are already turned that way I find,
Their fluttering sails abandoned to the wind.
Seek out for me this youth and his ambition,
Oenone.
