No More Learning

Phaedra

I cannot leave him.

Oenone

You dared to banish him: you daren't avoid him?

Phaedra

No longer. He knows my ardent ecstasy. 765
I've passed the bounds of cautious modesty.
In my conqueror's sight I declared my shame,
Yet hope glides to my heart now all the same.
You yourself, defeating my powers' eclipse,
Recalling my soul, already hovering on my lips, 770
You revived me with your flattering advice.
Made me see, that I might love him, with your eyes.

Oenone

Alas! Innocent of your misfortune, or culpable,
To save you still, of what would I not be capable?
But if ever its offence distressed your mind, 775
Can you forget the scornfulness of his pride?
With what cruel glances his harsh severity
Left you well nigh submissive at his feet!
How odious his savage pride has made him!
If Phaedra only had my eyes to see him! 780

Phaedra

Oenone, he may quench this pride that wounds you.
Raised in the forests, he has their wildness too.
Hippolytus, hardened by their savage laws,
Hears love's language he never heard before.
Perhaps his astonishment explains his silence, 785
And our complaints perhaps show too much violence.

Oenone

Think: a barbarian formed him in her womb.

Phaedra

Scythian, and barbarian, she's known love too.

Oenone

He has a deadly hatred for all our sex.

Phaedra

Then I'll suffer a dearth of rivals, I expect. 790
Your advice, in short, is out of season.
Serve my madness, Oenone, not my reason.
His inaccessible heart is opposed to love:
Let's find a weaker spot that he might be moved.
The charms of Empire appeared to stir him: 795
He could not conceal it: Athens attracts him:
His ships are already turned that way I find,
Their fluttering sails abandoned to the wind.
Seek out for me this youth and his ambition,
Oenone. Make the crown glitter to his vision. 800
Let him place the sacred diadem on his brow:
The honour of setting it there's all I wish now.
Let's cede the power we can't hold to this man.
He'll teach my son how to exercise command.