Is it such great
misfortune
to cease to be?
Racine - Phaedra
Dying this morning I would have been wept for:
I followed your counsel: I die without honour.
Oenone
You die?
Phaedra
Just heavens! This day, what have I done?
My husband will appear: with him is his son. 840
I'll see the witness to my adulterous amour
Noting the manner in which I greet his father,
My heart full of the sighs he would not embrace,
My eyes wet with the tears scorned by that ingrate.
Do you think that he, conscious of Theseus' honour, 845
Will conceal what I am burning with, this ardour?
Will he let his king and father be betrayed?
Can he contain the horror he's displayed?
He'd be silent in vain. I know my transgression,
Oenone, and I'm not one of those bold women 850
Who enjoy their crimes in peace and tranquillity,
And know how to show their faces unblushingly.
I know my madness, and recall it completely.
Already it seems these walls, and these ceilings
Will speak aloud, and are ready to accuse me, 855
Await my husband, to disabuse him of me.
Let me die. From what horrors death sets me free!
Is it such great misfortune to cease to be?
Death, to the wretched, is no cause for terror.
The name I leave behind is all I have to fear. 860
What a fearful inheritance for my poor children!
Let the blood of Jupiter swell their courage then:
Yet despite the true pride pure blood may occasion,
A mother's guilt is still a heavy burden.
I tremble lest words that speak their truth 865
Some day reproach them for a mother's guilt.
I tremble lest, oppressed by so odious a weight,
Neither will ever dare to lift their gaze.
Oenone
It cannot be doubted: I pity both together:
Nothing was ever more justified than your fear. 870
But why expose them to such confrontation?
Why bear witness against yourself in this fashion?
It's done: Phaedra, only too guilty, they'll say,
Fled the fierce gaze of the husband she betrayed.
Hippolytus is happy: by ending your days, 875
You yourself, in dying, endorse what he says.
And how can I respond when you're accused?
Face to face with him I'd be utterly confused.
I'll see him rejoice in triumph now, I fear,
Speaking your shame to whoever will give him ear. 880
Ah!
