Dear hope now
snatched
from me!
Racine - Phaedra
His whole body was one vast wound.
1550
And the plain echoed to our sorrowful cries.
At last they slowed their impetuous flight.
They stopped not far from the ancient sepulchres,
Where lie the cold relics of our ancestral rulers.
Sighing I ran to him, and his guards followed. 1555
The track of his noble blood ran on ahead.
The rocks were stained with it: the cruel brambles
Were strewn with his hair, in blood-wet tangles.
I reached him, called: stretching out his hand to me
He opened his dying eyes: and closed them suddenly. 1560
Saying: 'From me, Heaven claims an innocent life.
Take care of my dear Aricia, after I die.
Dear Friend, if my father's eyes are ever opened,
And he pities the fate of a falsely maligned son,
And wants to appease my blood, my shade so restless, 1565
Tell him to treat his captive with tenderness,
And give back to her. . . ' The hero was no more,
Leaving in my arms only his disfigured corpse,
Sad object of the god's triumphant anger,
Unrecognisable, even to his own father. 1570
Theseus
O my son!
Dear hope now snatched from me!
Inexorable gods, who served me all too surely!
To what mortal regret my life will now be given!
Theramenes
Then Aricia, frightened, arrived on the scene.
She came, my Lord, fleeing from your anger, 1575
In the gods' sight having taken him to husband.
She came, and saw the grasses' red steam rise.
She saw (what a vision for a lover's eyes! )
Hippolyte, lying there, robbed of colour and form.
For some time she doubted her own misfortune, 1580
And no longer recognising the hero she adored,
She asked for Hippolytus, whom indeed she saw.
But, realising he was before her eyes, at last,
She accused the heavens with one sad glance,
And cold, grieving, almost inanimate, 1585
Fell, at her lover's feet there, in a faint.
Ismene, bathed in tears, Ismene, by her,
Recalled her to life, or rather to sorrow.
And I, hating the light, I have come, my Lord,
To relate to you the hero's final word, 1590
And acquit myself of the painful duty,
That his dying breath committed to me.
But I see that his mortal enemy comes.
Act V Scene VII (Theseus, Phaedra, Theramenes, Panope, Guards)
Theseus
So! My son is lifeless, and you triumph.
Ah!
And the plain echoed to our sorrowful cries.
At last they slowed their impetuous flight.
They stopped not far from the ancient sepulchres,
Where lie the cold relics of our ancestral rulers.
Sighing I ran to him, and his guards followed. 1555
The track of his noble blood ran on ahead.
The rocks were stained with it: the cruel brambles
Were strewn with his hair, in blood-wet tangles.
I reached him, called: stretching out his hand to me
He opened his dying eyes: and closed them suddenly. 1560
Saying: 'From me, Heaven claims an innocent life.
Take care of my dear Aricia, after I die.
Dear Friend, if my father's eyes are ever opened,
And he pities the fate of a falsely maligned son,
And wants to appease my blood, my shade so restless, 1565
Tell him to treat his captive with tenderness,
And give back to her. . . ' The hero was no more,
Leaving in my arms only his disfigured corpse,
Sad object of the god's triumphant anger,
Unrecognisable, even to his own father. 1570
Theseus
O my son!
Dear hope now snatched from me!
Inexorable gods, who served me all too surely!
To what mortal regret my life will now be given!
Theramenes
Then Aricia, frightened, arrived on the scene.
She came, my Lord, fleeing from your anger, 1575
In the gods' sight having taken him to husband.
She came, and saw the grasses' red steam rise.
She saw (what a vision for a lover's eyes! )
Hippolyte, lying there, robbed of colour and form.
For some time she doubted her own misfortune, 1580
And no longer recognising the hero she adored,
She asked for Hippolytus, whom indeed she saw.
But, realising he was before her eyes, at last,
She accused the heavens with one sad glance,
And cold, grieving, almost inanimate, 1585
Fell, at her lover's feet there, in a faint.
Ismene, bathed in tears, Ismene, by her,
Recalled her to life, or rather to sorrow.
And I, hating the light, I have come, my Lord,
To relate to you the hero's final word, 1590
And acquit myself of the painful duty,
That his dying breath committed to me.
But I see that his mortal enemy comes.
Act V Scene VII (Theseus, Phaedra, Theramenes, Panope, Guards)
Theseus
So! My son is lifeless, and you triumph.
Ah!
