Main Body
Act Three
FIRST SCENE.
PHAEDRUS, OENONE.
PHAEDRA.
- Ah! that one carries elsewhere the honors which one sends to me:
- Importance, can you wish you could see me?
- What are you flattering my sorry mind about?
- Rather, hide me: I have spoken too much.
- My fury outside dared to spread:
- I said what you should never hear.
- Heaven! how he listened to me! By how many detours
- The insensitive has long evaded my speeches!
- How he breathed only a quick retreat!
- And how much her blush has redoubled my shame!
- Why did you hijack my fatal design?
- Alas! when his sword went to seek my breast,
- Has he paled for me? did he tear it from me?
- My hand just has to touch it once,
- I made her horrible in her inhuman eyes;
- And that unfortunate iron would desecrate his hands.
ŒNONE.
- So, in your misfortunes, thinking only of complaining,
- You are feeding a fire that you should put out.
- Wouldn’t it be better, worthy blood of Minos,
- In nobler cares, seek your rest;
- Against an ungrateful who pleases to resort to flight,
- Rule, and the state embrace leadership?
PHAEDRA.
- I reign! Me, put a state under my law
- When my weak reason no longer reigns over me!
- When I have abandoned the empire with my senses!
- When under a shameful yoke I hardly breathe!
- When I die!
ŒNONE.
- Run away.
PHAEDRA.
- I cannot leave him.
ŒNONE.
- You dared to banish it, you dare not avoid it?
PHAEDRA.
- The time is past: he knows my insane ardor.
- From austere modesty the limits have passed:
- I declared my shame in the eyes of my victor,
- And despite myself hope slipped into my heart.
- Yourself, recalling my failing strength,
- And my soul already on my wandering lips,
- By your flattering advice you were able to revive me:
- You gave me a glimpse that I could love her.
ŒNONE.
- Alas! of your innocent or guilty misfortunes,
- What was I not capable of to save you?
- But if the offense ever irritates your spirits,
- Can you wonderfully forget the contempt?
- With what cruel eyes his stubborn rigor
- Left you at his feet little by little prostrate!
- How odious his fierce pride made him!
- That Phèdre had my eyes at this moment!
PHAEDRA.
- Oenone, he can leave this pride that hurts you;
- Fed in the forests, it is rough.
- Hippolyte, hardened by savage laws,
- Hear about love for the first time:
- Perhaps his surprise caused his silence;
- And our complaints perhaps have too much violence.
ŒNONE.
- Consider that a barbarian in its midst formed it.
PHAEDRA.
- Although Scythian and barbarian, she nevertheless loved.
ŒNONE.
- He has a fatal hatred for all sex.
PHAEDRA.
- I will not see myself preferring a rival.
- Finally all your advice is no longer in season:
- Serve my fury, Oenone, and not my reason.
- He opposes an inaccessible heart to love;
- Let us seek to attack it some more sensitive place:
- The charms of an empire seemed to touch him:
- Athens attracted him, he could not hide from it;
- Already of his vessels the point was turned,
- And the sail floated in the winds abandoned.
- Go find this ambitious young man from me,
- Oenone; make the crown shine in his eyes:
- Let him put the sacred diadem on his forehead;
- I only want the honor of attaching it myself.
- Let us give him this power which I cannot keep.
- He will instruct my son in the art of commanding;
- Perhaps he will want to take the place of his father;
- I put under his power both the son and the mother.
- To finally flex it, try all means:
- Your speeches will find more access than mine;
- Press, cry, moan; paint her dying Phaedra;
- Do not blush to take a pleading voice:
- I will confess everything to you; I only hope in you.
- Go: I’m waiting for your return to dispose of me.
SCENE II.
PHAEDRUS.
- O you who see the shame in which I am descended,
- Implacable Venus, am I confused enough!
- You could not push your cruelty further.
- Your triumph is perfect; all your features have worn.
- Cruel, if you want new glory,
- Attack an enemy who is more rebellious to you.
- Hippolyte runs away from you; and braving your wrath,
- Never at your altars did your knees bend;
- Your name seems to offend her beautiful ears:
- Goddess, avenge yourself; our causes are the same.
- That he loves … But you are already retracing your steps,
- Œnone! They hate me; we don’t listen to you!
SCENE III.
PHAEDRUS, OENONE.
ŒNONE.
- Thought must be stifled with vain love,
- Mrs ; recall your past virtue:
- The king, who was believed dead, will appear before your eyes;
- Theseus has arrived, Theseus is in these places.
- The people, to see him, run and rush.
- I went out by your order, and looked for Hippolyte,
- When to the sky a thousand slender cries …
PHAEDRA.
- My husband is alive, Oenone; that’s enough.
- I have made the unworthy confession of a love which outrages her;
- He lives: I don’t want to know more.
ŒNONE.
- What?
PHAEDRA.
- I predicted it to you; but you didn’t want:
- Your tears have prevailed over my just remorse.
- I was dying this morning worthy of being mourned;
- I followed your advice, I die dishonored.
ŒNONE.
- You die ?
PHAEDRA.
- Good heaven ! what did I do today!
- My husband will appear, and his son with him!
- I will see the witness of my adulterous flame
- Observe with what front I dare to approach his father,
- His heart heavy with sighs that he did not listen to,
- The eye wet with tears by the ungrateful repulsed!
- Do you think that, sensitive to the honor of Theseus,
- Does he hide from him the ardor with which I am ablaze?
- Will he let his father and his king betray?
- Will he be able to contain the horror he has for me?
- He would be silent in vain: I know my treachery,
- Oenone, and am not one of those bold women
- Who, tasting a quiet peace in crime,
- Have known how to make a forehead that never blushes.
- I know my anger, I recall them all:
- It already seems to me that these walls, that these vaults
- Will speak, and ready to accuse me,
- Wait for my husband to disillusion him.
- Let us die: from so many horrors that death delivers me.
- Is it such a great misfortune to cease to live?
- Death to the unfortunate does not cause fear:
- I only fear the name I leave after me.
- For my sad children what a dreadful heritage!
- The blood of Jupiter must swell their courage;
- But some just pride inspired by such beautiful blood,
- A mother’s crime is a heavy burden.
- I tremble that a speech, alas! too real,
- One day does not blame them for a guilty mother.
- I tremble that oppressed by this odious weight
- Neither of them dare look up.
ŒNONE.
- There is no doubt about it, I pity them both;
- Never was fear more just than yours.
- But to such insults why expose them?
- Why are you going to file against yourself?
- It is over: we will say that Phèdre, too guilty,
- From her betrayed husband flees the dreadful aspect.
- Hippolyte is happy that at the expense of your days
- You yourself, breathing out, supporting his speeches.
- What can I say to your accuser?
- I will be too easy to confuse in front of him:
- I will see him enjoy his frightful triumph,
- And tell your shame to whoever wants to hear it.
- Ah! that rather from the sky the flame devours me!
- But, do not deceive me, is he still dear to you?
- How do you see this daring prince?
PHAEDRA.
- I see him as a frightful monster in my eyes.
ŒNONE.
- Why then give it an entire victory?
- You fear him: dare to accuse him first
- Of the crime he can charge you with today.
- Who will deny you? Everything speaks against him:
- His sword in your hands happily left,
- Your present trouble, your past pain,
- His father had long been warned by your cries,
- And already his exile by yourself obtained.
PHAEDRA.
- I, how I dare to oppress and blacken innocence!
ŒNONE.
- My zeal needs only your silence.
- Trembling like you, I feel some remorse.
- You would see me more quickly face a thousand dead.
- But since I am losing you without this sad remedy,
- Your life is for me a price to which everything yields:
- I will speak. Theseus, embittered by my advice,
- Will limit his revenge to the exile of his son:
- A father, when punishing, madame, is always a father;
- A light torture is enough for his anger.
- But, should innocent blood be shed,
- What does not your threatened honor ask for?
- It is too expensive a treasure to dare to commit it.
- Whatever law it dictates to you, you must submit to it,
- Mrs ; and to save your fought honor,
- Everything must be sacrificed, and even virtue.
- We come ; I see Theseus.
PHAEDRA.
- Ah! I see Hippolyte;
- In his insolent eyes I see my written loss.
- Do what you want, I surrender to you.
- In the trouble I am in, I can do nothing for myself.
SCENE IV.
THESEUS, PHAEDRUS, HIPPOLYTE, THERAMENES, OENONE.
THESEUS.
- Fortune to my wishes ceases to be opposed,
- Madam, and in your arms put …
PHAEDRA.
- Stop, Theseus,
- And do not desecrate such charming transports:
- I no longer deserve this sweet eagerness;
- You are offended. Jealous fortune
- Did not spare your wife in your absence.
- Unworthy to please you and to approach you,
- I must now think only of hiding.
SCENE V.
THESEUS, HIPPOLYTE, THERAMENE.
THESEUS.
- What is the strange welcome we give to your father,
- My son ?
HIPPOLYTE.
- Phèdre alone can explain this mystery.
- But if my ardent wishes can move you,
- Allow me, lord, not to see her again;
- Suffer that the trembling Hippolyte forever
- Disappear from the places where your wife lives.
THESEUS.
- Will you, my son, leave me?
HIPPOLYTE.
- I wasn’t looking for her;
- It is you who lead his steps on these shores.
- You deigned, lord, on the banks of Trézène
- When leaving Aricie and the queen:
- I was even charged with the care of keeping them.
- But what care can now delay me?
- Enough in the forests my idle youth
- On vile enemies showed his address:
- May I not, fleeing an unworthy rest,
- With more glorious blood to dye my javelins?
- You had not yet reached the age I touch,
- Already more of a tyrant, more of a fierce monster
- Had your arm felt the gravity;
- Already insolence, happy persecutor,
- You had secured the shores of the two seas;
- The free traveler no longer feared outrages;
- Hercules, breathing on the sound of your blows,
- Already of his work rested on you.
- And I, unknown son of such a glorious father,
- I am even still far from my mother’s footsteps!
- Let my courage finally dare to take care of:
- Suffer, if some monster could escape you,
- May I bring her honorable remains to your feet;
- Or that a lasting memory of a beautiful death,
- Eternating days so nobly ended,
- Prove to the whole universe that I was your son.
THESEUS.
- What do I see ? What a horror in these places spread
- Make my distraught family flee before my eyes?
- If I come back so feared and so unwanted,
- O heaven, from my prison why did you shoot me?
- I only had one friend: his reckless flame
- The tyrant of Epirus was going to delight the woman;
- I reluctantly served his amorous designs;
- But the irritated fate blinded us both.
- The tyrant surprised me helpless and unarmed.
- I saw Pirithoüs, sad object of my tears,
- Delivered by this barbarian to cruel monsters
- That he nourished the blood of unfortunate mortals.
- Himself he locked me in dark caves,
- Deep and neighboring places of the shadow empire.
- The gods, after six months, finally looked at me [3] :
- I knew how to deceive the eyes by which I was guarded.
- Of a perfidious enemy I have purged nature;
- For his monsters himself served as food.
- And when with transport I think to approach
- Of all that the gods have left me dearest;
- What did I say ? when my soul, restored to itself,
- Comes to be satisfied with such a dear sight,
- I have nothing for any reception but tremors;
- Everything flees, everything refuses my embraces.
- And myself feeling the terror that I inspire,
- I would like to be still in the prisons of Epirus.
- Speak. Phèdre complains that I am outraged:
- Who betrayed me? why am I not avenged?
- Greece, to whom my arm was so often useful,
- Has she granted the criminal some asylum?
- You do not answer! my son, my own son,
- Is he understanding with my enemies?
- Let us enter: it is too much to keep a doubt that overwhelms me.
- Let us know both the crime and the culprit;
- May Phèdre finally explain the turmoil in which I see her.
SCENE VI.
HIPPOLYTE, THERAMENES.
HIPPOLYTE.
- Where was this speech that froze me with fear?
- Phèdre, still in the grip of his extreme fury,
- Does she want to blame and lose herself?
- Gods ! what will the king say? What a disastrous poison
- Love has spread all over her house!
- Myself, full of a fire that his hatred condemns,
- What he saw me once, and what he finds me!
- Black forebodings come to frighten me.
- But finally innocence has nothing to fear:
- Let’s go: let’s look elsewhere by what happy address
- I will be able to touch my father’s tenderness,
- And tell him a love he may want to disturb,
- But that all his power cannot shake.