Phaedra
complains
I've been offended.
Racine - Phaedra
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. 970
And now when I think to approach so joyfully
All that the gods have made most dear to me:
What do I find? When my soul, my own again,
Wants to drink its fill of so dear a vision,
There's only fear and trembling to welcome me: 975
They all refuse my embraces, and they flee.
And myself knowing the terror I produce,
Would prefer to be in that prison in Epirus.
Speak.
Phaedra complains I've been offended.
Who has betrayed me? Why am I not avenged? 980
Has Greece, to whom my arm has been so useful,
Given a sanctuary to this criminal?
You do not reply? My son? Is my own son
In complicity with my enemies then?
Enter. Too close a secret overwhelms me. 985
Let us swiftly know the guilt, and the guilty.
Let Phaedra explain the trouble I find her in.
Act III Scene VI (Hippolytus, Theramenes)
Hippolytus
What's the meaning of these words that chill me with fear?
Will Phaedra, always a prey to her deep emotion,
Destroy herself, by framing her own self-accusation. 990
You gods! What will the King say? What deadly poison
Has spread through his whole house with this passion!
