Hippolyte looks for me, wants to say
goodbye?
Racine - Phaedra
You belong to your son, left to you by that death,
A slave if you die, a king while you have breath.
On whom, in this trouble, would you have him depend? 345
His tears will find no hand to dry them, no friend:
His innocent cries, heard by the gods above us,
Will harm his mother, and anger his ancestors.
Live: you've nothing to condemn yourself for there:
Your passion becomes a commonplace affair. 350
Theseus, in dying, destroyed those complications,
That formed the crime, the horror of your passion.
Hippolyte's presence is less fearsome to you now,
And you can see him without guilt on your brow.
Perhaps, convinced of your profound aversion, 355
He'll make himself the leader of this sedition.
Disabuse him of his error: sway his bravery.
King of this happy land, Troezen's his destiny:
And he knows that the law will grant to your son
Those proud ramparts of Minerva's creation. 360
Both of you face the same true enemy:
Combine: oppose Aricia, in harmony.
Phaedra
Well! I will let myself be led by your advice.
Let us live, if they can bring me back to life,
And if love of a son, at this gloomy time, 365
Can re-animate what's left of my feeble mind.
Act II Scene I (Aricia, Ismene)
Aricia
Hippolyte wishes to see me here? And why?
Hippolyte looks for me, wants to say goodbye?
Ismene, is this true? Surely, you're incorrect?
Ismene
It's due to Theseus's death: the first effect. 370
My lady, be ready on every side to view
Those Theseus rejected, who'll flock to you.
Aricia's finally mistress of her fate,
And you'll soon see all Greece is at your feet.
Aricia
So it's not, Ismene, some ill-founded rumour? 375
I have no enemies: I'm a slave no longer?
Ismene
No, my lady, the gods no longer oppose it,
And Theseus goes to meet your brothers' spirits.
Aricia
Do they say what action has ended his days?
Ismene
Unbelievable tales of his ending circulate 380
They say that the waves have swallowed the faithless:
A husband, yet abductor of some fresh mistress.
They even say, and this rumour's widely spread,
That, with Pirithous, he went down among the dead,
Saw the Cocytus, and the shores of darkness, 385
Showed himself alive to infernal shades, no less:
But could not escape from that gloomy sojourn,
And re-cross the border we pass without return.
Aricia
Am I to believe a man, prior to his dying breath,
Could penetrate to the deep house of the dead? 390
What spell drew him to that formidable shore?
Ismene
You alone doubt, Madame: Theseus is no more:
Athens laments it, Troezen knows of it,
And has recognised Hippolytus already.
Phaedra, in the palace, trembles for her son's life, 395
From all her anxious friends she demands advice.
