No More Learning

Hippolyte

Glad times are no more. All's changed since the day
That, to our shores, the gods despatched the daughter, 35
Of Minos King of Crete: Pasiphae her mother.

Theramenes

I see. The reason for your pain is known to me.
Phaedra, grieves you, here, offends you deeply.
A dangerous stepmother, who scarcely saw you
Before she signalled her wish to banish you. 40
But the hatred that she then turned your way
Has either lessened, now, or seeped away.
And what danger can she offer you, besides:
A dying woman: and one who seeks to die?
Phaedra, touched by illness her silence covers, 45
Tired at last of herself, and the light around her,
What designs could she intend against you?

Hippolyte

Her fruitless enmity's not what I have in view.
Hippolyte, in leaving, flees someone other.
I flee, I confess, from young Aricia, 50
Last of a deadly race that conspires against me.

Theramenes

What! Are you persecuting her, my lord, indeed?
Has that sweet sister of the cruel Pallantides
Ever been involved in her brothers' perfidies?
Can you bring yourself to hate her innocent charms? 55

Hippolyte

If I hated her I would not flee her arms.

Theramenes

Am I allowed to explain this flight to us?
Can it be you're no longer proud Hippolytus,
Implacable enemy of the laws of love,
Of that yoke Theseus so often knew above? 60
Could Venus whom your pride so often scorned,
Wish to justify Theseus, after all?
And placing you in the ranks of other mortals,
Force you now to light incense at her altars?
Do you love, my lord?

Hippolytus

Friend, what is it you dare say? 65
You who've known my heart since my first day,
Do you ask me to deny, when it would be shameful,
The feelings of a heart so proud, and so disdainful?
With her milk, an Amazon mother once fed me
On that pride you seem, now, so amazed to see: 70
Then, when I myself achieved a riper age,
I knew and approved my thoughts at every stage.
Attached to me then, with eager sincerity,
You told me all about my father's history.
You know how my soul, attentive to your voice, 75
Was warmed by the noble story of his exploits,
As you revealed that intrepid hero to me,
Consoling us mortals for lost Hercules,
Monsters choked, and robbers punished,
Procustus, Cercyon, Sciron, and Sinis: 80
Epidaurus, and the giant's bones flung abroad,
Crete, smoking with the blood of the Minotaur.
But when you told me of less glorious deeds,
His word in a hundred places pledged, received,
Helen in Sparta stolen from her parents, 85
Periboea's tears witnessed by all Salamis,
So many others whose names he's forgotten,
Credulous spirits deceived by his passion:
Ariadne telling the rocks of those injustices,
Phaedra won, at last, under better auspices: 90
You know how, regretfully hearing that discourse,
I often urged you to abridge its course:
Happy if I could erase in memory
The unworthy chapters of so fine a story!
And am I myself entangled in my turn? 95
Is my humiliation the gods concern?
My cowardly sighs are the more contemptible,
Since glory renders Theseus excusable:
Because as yet myself I've tamed no monsters,
I've acquired no right to imitate his failures.