No More Learning

I waited for the moment of extinction,
Feeding myself on venom, quenched with tears, 1245
Too closely watched in my suffering to dare
To allow myself to drown with weeping:
Tasting that deadly pleasure, with trembling,
And disguising my pain behind a calm brow,
Often my own tears I refused to allow. 1250

Oenone

But what will the fruit be of their hopeless love?
They will never meet again.

Phaedra

They will always love.
Ah, deadly thought, as I speak, at this moment, here,
They brave the fury of a maddened lover!
Despite the same exile that will separate them, 1255
They swear a thousand times nothing will part them.
No, I cannot endure a happiness that galls me,
Oenone. In this jealous rage, take pity on me.
Aricia must perish. We must rouse the enmity
Of my husband against that odious dynasty. 1260
No light punishment should be the sister's:
Her crime exceeds that of all her brothers.
I'll implore him now in my jealous rage.
What am I doing? How has my reason strayed?
I, jealous!
And Theseus is to be implored! 1265
My husband lives, and yet I burn the more!
For whom? Whose is the heart that claims my prayers?
Every word lifts the horrid tresses of my hair.
Now my crimes have overflowed the measure.
I breathe incest and deceit, twins together. 1270
My murderous hands, eager for vengeance,
Burn to plunge in the blood of innocence.
Unhappy! And I live? And endure the sight
Of that sacred Sun from whom I take my life?
I have, for ancestor, the gods' king and father: 1275
The sky, the universe is filled with my ancestors.
Where can I hide myself? Flee to infernal night.
What am I saying? My father, there, holds tight
To the fatal urn: Destiny placed it in his hands:
Minos, in Hell, judges the ghosts of these humans.