No More Learning

245

Phaedra

You wish it so. Rise.

Oenone

Speak: I am listening.

Phaedra

Heaven! What shall I tell her? Begin, but where?

Oenone

Don't offend me with these idle hints of terror.

Phaedra

O Venus' hatred! O fatal anger!
To what distraction did love not drive my mother! 250

Oenone

Forget those things, and in future, my lady,
Let eternal silence hide their memory.

Phaedra

Ariadne, my sister! Wounded by what passion
Did you die on the shore, where you were abandoned?

Oenone

Why this, my lady? What mortal misery 255
Excites you today against your family?
Phaedra

Because Venus wills that of this dreadful race
I shall perish the last, and the most disgraced.

Oenone

Do you love?

Phaedra

I feel all the furies of desire.

Oenone

For whom?

Phaedra

You shall know all my deepest fire. 260
I love. . . . At the deadly name I tremble, shudder.
I love. . . .

Oenone

Whom?

Phaedra

The son of that Amazon mother:
You must know that prince I myself oppressed so long?