No More Learning

Dazed, obsessed by a deadly memory,
I'd banish myself from this world completely.
Everything seems to rise against my ill ruling.
The splendour of my name adds to my suffering. 1610
Less known to men, I could hide more easily.
I even hate the kindness the gods have shown me:
And now I must weep at their murderous favours,
Wearying them no longer with useless prayers.
Whatever they did for me, their fatal love 1615
Cannot restore what they have robbed me of.

Phaedra

No, Theseus, I must break my unjust silence:
And to your son I must restore his innocence.
He was in no way guilty.

Theseus

Ah! Wretched father!
I condemned him because you were his accuser. 1620
Cruel one, do you think to be forgiven. . . .
Phaedra

Each moment's precious to me, Theseus, listen.
It was I who cast my eyes, profane, incestuous
On that son of yours, so chaste and virtuous.
Heaven lit the fatal flame within my breast: 1625
That detestable Oenone managed all the rest.
She feared lest Hippolytus, learning of my ardour,
Might reveal a passion that filled him with horror.
The traitress, profiting from my profound weakness,
Hurried to you to denounce him to your face. 1630
She has punished herself, and escaped my anger,
By seeking in the waves a far gentler torture.
A blade would have already ended my fate too:
But I wished to let virtue, suspected, cry to you.
I wished, in exposing my remorse to you, 1635
To go down to the dead by a slower route.
I have taken. . . I have spread through my burning veins,
A poison that Medea brought to Athens.
Already the venom flows towards my heart,
An unaccustomed chill pierces my dying heart: 1640
Already I see as if through a clouded sky,
Heaven, and a husband my presence horrifies.
And Death, from my eyes, stealing the clarity,
Gives back to the day, defiled, all his purity.

Panope

She dies, my Lord.

Theseus

If only the memory 1645
Of so black a crime could die with her entirely!