No More Learning

Of a race whose remorseless torments she desires.
I thought I could prevent grief by ceaseless prayer:
I built her a temple, adorned it with all care: 280
Surrounding myself with victims at all hours,
I sought my lost reason in those bloody dowers,
The powerless remedy for a love without a cure!
In vain I burnt incense at her altars, impure:
When my mouth called on the name of the goddess, 285
I adored Hippolytus: my vision of him endless,
Even at the altars' foot where I lit the flame,
I offered all to that god I dared not name.
I avoided him everywhere. O height of misery!
My eyes sought him in his father's reality. 290
At last I dared to rise against my own being:
I roused my courage to persecute, with feeling.
To banish the enemy who made me an idolater,
I feigned my grievance, an unjust stepmother:
I urged his exile, and my eternal cries, 295
Made him unwelcome to his father's eyes.
I breathed Oenone, then, and given his absence
My days, less troubled, were spent in innocence.
Submitting to my husband, hiding pain instead,
Caring for the fruits of our fatal marriage bed. 300
Useless precaution! Cruel destiny!
Brought by my husband to Troezen, only to see,
Once more, the enemy that I'd sent away:
My wound, still living, quickly bled again,
It's no longer an ardour hidden in my veins: 305
It's Venus fastening wholly on her prey.
For my crime I now conceive a perfect terror:
I view my life with hatred, my love with horror.
Dying, I wish to protect my name by that act:
And conceal from the light a flame so black.
310
I could not endure your tears: your questioning:
I've confessed it all: and I repent of nothing,
Provided you respect my death's approach,
Without afflicting me with unjust reproach,
And that you cease to recall by your vain aid, 315
This remnant of life I'm ready to breathe away.

Act I Scene IV (Phaedra, Oenone, Panope)

Panope

I wished to hide the sorrowful news from you,
My lady: but now I must reveal it to you.
Death has taken your invincible husband,
You only were unaware that it has happened. 320

Oenone

Panope, what are you saying?

Panope

That the Queen betrayed
Would demand Theseus's return from heaven in vain,
And that Hippolyte his son has learned of this before,
From those vessels that have lately come to shore.


Phaedra

You Heavens!

Panope

Athens is split over the choice of leader. 325
One gives his vote to your son the Prince: another,
Madame, forgetting the laws of his country,
Dares grant support to the son of your enemy.
They even say that an insolent intrigue
Would crown Aricia and the Pallantides. 330
I thought this peril might be turned from you.
Even now Hippolyte prepares to leave us too:
And I fear that if he appears, in that storm,
The fickle crowd will follow him in swarms.

Oenone

Panope, that's enough. The Queen who's listening, 335
Will not neglect to heed your vital warning.

Act I Scene V (Phaedra, Oenone)

Oenone

My lady, I'd ceased to urge you to live on:
I'd already decided to follow you to the tomb:
I had thought to seek to deter you no longer:
But this new trouble forces new duties on you. 340
Your fate has altered, and shows another face:
The King's no more. Madame must take his place.