How your
impudence
excites my passion!
Racine - Phaedra
No, this is a crude deception.
You pretend to this crime as a justification.
Hippolytus
My Lord, for six months I've shunned and loved her.
Trembling to speak to you myself I came here. 1130
What! Can nothing disabuse you of your error?
What fearful vow, in reassurance, must I swear.
By heaven, and earth, and all that Nature sees. . .
Theseus
Rogues always have recourse to perjuries.
Cease, cease, and spare me idle discourse, 1135
If your false virtue has no better recourse.
Hippolytus
It seems false to you and full of artifice.
Phaedra, in her heart's depths, grants me more justice.
Theseus
Ah!
How your impudence excites my passion!
Hippolytus
What place is set for my exile, what duration? 1140
Theseus
If you were beyond the pillars of Hercules,
I'd still think one traitor far too near to me.
Hippolytus
Charged with the dreadful crime you suspect,
What friend will pity one whom you reject?
Theseus
Go and seek out those friends whose fatal respect 1145
Honours adultery, and praises incest:
Traitors, without law, honour, gratitude,
Worthy to shelter criminals like you.
Hippolytus
You always speak of incest and adultery!
I'll be silent. But Phaedra's of a dynasty, 1150
Phaedra has a mother, my Lord: you know her line
Is more replete with these horrors than is mine.
Theseus
What! Your madness with me loses all sense?
For the last time, take yourself from my presence.
Leave, traitor. Don't wait till a father's anger 1155
Sees you taken, in disgrace, from these shores.
Act IV Scene III (Theseus)
Wretch, you are rushing now to certain death.
Neptune has sworn to me, by Stygian depths
Dreadful even to the gods, and will not fail.
An avenging god pursues you: you'll not escape.
You pretend to this crime as a justification.
Hippolytus
My Lord, for six months I've shunned and loved her.
Trembling to speak to you myself I came here. 1130
What! Can nothing disabuse you of your error?
What fearful vow, in reassurance, must I swear.
By heaven, and earth, and all that Nature sees. . .
Theseus
Rogues always have recourse to perjuries.
Cease, cease, and spare me idle discourse, 1135
If your false virtue has no better recourse.
Hippolytus
It seems false to you and full of artifice.
Phaedra, in her heart's depths, grants me more justice.
Theseus
Ah!
How your impudence excites my passion!
Hippolytus
What place is set for my exile, what duration? 1140
Theseus
If you were beyond the pillars of Hercules,
I'd still think one traitor far too near to me.
Hippolytus
Charged with the dreadful crime you suspect,
What friend will pity one whom you reject?
Theseus
Go and seek out those friends whose fatal respect 1145
Honours adultery, and praises incest:
Traitors, without law, honour, gratitude,
Worthy to shelter criminals like you.
Hippolytus
You always speak of incest and adultery!
I'll be silent. But Phaedra's of a dynasty, 1150
Phaedra has a mother, my Lord: you know her line
Is more replete with these horrors than is mine.
Theseus
What! Your madness with me loses all sense?
For the last time, take yourself from my presence.
Leave, traitor. Don't wait till a father's anger 1155
Sees you taken, in disgrace, from these shores.
Act IV Scene III (Theseus)
Wretch, you are rushing now to certain death.
Neptune has sworn to me, by Stygian depths
Dreadful even to the gods, and will not fail.
An avenging god pursues you: you'll not escape.
