Main Body
Act Two
FIRST SCENE.
ARICIE, ISMENE.
ARICIA.
- Hippolyte asks to see me in this place?
- Hippolyte is looking for me, and wants to say goodbye?
- Ismene, are you telling the truth? Are you not deceived?
ISMENE.
- This is the first effect of the death of Theseus.
- Prepare yourself, lady, to see all around
- Fly to you hearts by Theseus spread apart.
- Aricie, in the end, of her fate is mistress,
- And soon at his feet will see all of Greece.
ARICIA.
- Is it not then, Ismene, an ill-established noise?
- I stop being a slave and have no more enemies?
ISMENE.
- No, madame, the gods are no longer against you;
- And Theseus joined the spirits of your brothers.
ARICIA.
- Do we say which adventure ended its days?
ISMENE.
- Incredible speeches are sown about his death.
- They say that, kidnapper of a new lover,
- The waves have swallowed up this unfaithful husband.
- It is even said, and this noise is widespread everywhere,
- That with Pirithoüs in hell descended,
- He saw the Cocytus and the dark shores,
- And showed himself alive to the infernal shadows;
- But that he could not get out of this sad stay,
- And iron the edges that we pass without returning.
ARICIA.
- Will I believe that a mortal, before his last hour,
- Can the dead penetrate the deep abode?
- What charm drew him to these dreaded shores?
ISMENE.
- Theseus is dead, madame, and you alone doubt it:
- Athens moans; Trézène is informed of it,
- And already for its king recognizes Hippolyte;
- Phèdre, in this palace, trembling for her son,
- From his troubled friends asks for advice.
ARICIA.
- And you think that for me more human than his father,
- Hippolyte will make my chain lighter;
- That he will pity my misfortunes?
ISMENE.
- Madam, I believe him.
ARICIA.
- Is the insensitive Hippolyte known to you?
- On what frivolous hope do you think he pities me,
- And respect in me only a sex he disdains?
- You see how long he has avoided our steps,
- And look for all the places where we are not.
ISMENE.
- I know of its coldness everything that is recited;
- But I saw this superb Hippolyte near you;
- And even, seeing him, the sound of his pride
- Redoubled my curiosity for him.
- His presence at this noise did not seem to answer:
- From your first glances I saw it merge;
- His eyes, which in vain wanted to avoid you,
- Already full of languor, could not leave you.
- The name of lover perhaps offends his courage;
- But he has the eyes, if he does not have the language.
ARICIA.
- May my heart, dear Ismene, listen eagerly
- A speech which perhaps has little basis!
- O you who know me, did it seem believable to you
- That the sad toy of a pitiless fate,
- A heart always nourished with bitterness and tears,
- Must have known love and its crazy pains?
- Remains of the blood of a noble king son of the Earth,
- I am the only one escaped from the fury of war:
- I lost, in the flower of their young season,
- Six brothers … What hope for an illustrious house!
- Iron reaped everything; and the damp earth
- Reluctantly drank the blood of the nephews of Erechteus.
- You know, since their death, what a severe law
- Forbid all Greeks to sigh for me:
- It is feared that the reckless flames of the sister
- One day do not revive the ashes of his brothers.
- But you also know well with what disdainful eye
- I watched this care of a suspicious victor:
- You know that at all times with love opposed
- I often gave thanks to the unjust Theseus,
- Whose happy rigor seconded my contempt.
- My eyes then, my eyes had not seen her son.
- Not that by the eyes alone cowardly enchanted,
- I love his beauty in him, his much vaunted grace;
- Presents whose nature wanted to honor him,
- That he himself despises, and that he seems to ignore:
- I love, I take in him nobler riches,
- The virtues of his father, and not his weaknesses;
- I love, I will admit , this generous pride
- Who has never bowed under the yoke of love.
- Phèdre was honored in vain by the sighs of Theseus:
- For me, I’m more proud, and run away from easy fame
- To snatch a tribute from a thousand others offered,
- And to enter a heart open on all sides.
- But to bend an inflexible courage,
- To carry pain in an unfeeling soul,
- To chain a captive in his chains astonished,
- Against a yoke which pleases him vainly mutinous;
- This is what I want, this is what irritates me.
- Hercules to disarm cost less than Hippolytus;
- And overcome more often, and sooner overcome,
- Less prepared glory for the eyes that tamed him.
- But, dear Ismene, alas! what is my imprudence!
- There will be too much resistance to me:
- You may hear me, humble in my boredom,
- To moan with the same pride that I admire today.
- Hippolyte would like! By what extreme happiness
- Could I have flexed …
ISMENE.
- You will hear him himself:
- It comes to you.
SCENE II.
HIPPOLYTE, ARICIE, ISMÈNE.
HIPPOLYTE.
- Madam, before leaving,
- I believed your fate should warn you.
- My father no longer lives. My just distrust
- Foretold the reasons for his too long absence:
- Death alone, limiting its brilliant labors,
- Could the universe hide it for so long.
- The gods finally deliver to the Homicidal Parque
- The friend, the companion, the successor of Alcide.
- I believe that your hatred, sparing its virtues,
- Listen without regret to these names which are due to him.
- Hope softens my mortal sadness:
- I can free you from austere tutelage.
- I revoke laws of which I have complained the rigor:
- You can dispose of yourself, your heart;
- And in this Trézène, today my share,
- From my ancestor Pittheus, once inherited,
- Who, without hesitation, recognized me for his king,
- I leave you as free, and more free than me.
ARICIA.
- Moderate kindnesses whose excess embarrasses me.
- With such generous care to honor my disgrace,
- Lord, it’s tidy me up, more than you think,
- Under these austere laws from which you exempt me.
HIPPOLYTE.
- Of the choice of a successor Athens uncertain
- Talk about you, name me, and the queen’s son.
ARICIA.
- From me, Lord?
HIPPOLYTE.
- I know, without wanting to flatter myself,
- That a superb law seems to reject me:
- Greece blames me for a foreign mother.
- But if for a competitor I had only my brother,
- Madam, I have real rights over him
- That I could save from the whim of the laws.
- A more legitimate brake stops my daring:
- I yield to you, or rather I give you a place,
- A scepter that your ancestors once received
- Of that famous mortal that the earth conceived.
- The adoption put him in the hands of Aegean.
- Athens, by my father increased and protected,
- Recognized with joy such a generous king,
- And left your unhappy brothers in oblivion.
- Athens within its walls now reminds you:
- Enough she moaned from a long quarrel;
- Enough in its furrows your engulfed blood
- Made the field from which he had come to smoke.
- Trézène obeys me. The campaigns of Crete
- Offer the son of Phèdre a rich retirement.
- Attica is your property. I go, and go, for you,
- Gather all the wishes shared between us.
ARICIA.
- From all I hear, astonished and confused,
- I am almost afraid, I am afraid that a dream will deceive me.
- Am I awake? Can I believe such a design?
- What god, lord, what god has put it in your bosom?
- May your glory be sown everywhere!
- And may the truth pass fame!
- You yourself want to betray yourself in my favor!
- Wasn’t it enough not to hate me,
- And to have been able to defend your soul for so long
- From this enmity …
HIPPOLYTE.
- I hate you, madame!
- With a few colors that my pride has been painted,
- Do you think that a monster carried me in its flanks?
- What savage manners, what hardened hatred
- Could, seeing you, not be softened?
- Was I able to resist the disappointing charm …
ARICIA.
- What! Lord…
HIPPOLYTE.
- I got involved too much before.
- I see that reason gives way to violence:
- Since I started to break the silence,
- Madam, we must continue; you must inform you
- Of a secret that my heart can no longer contain.
- You see before you a deplorable prince,
- Of a reckless pride, a memorable example.
- I who, against proudly revolted love,
- To the irons of his captives I have long insulted;
- Who, weak mortals lamenting shipwrecks,
- I always thought from the edge to contemplate the storms;
- Enslaved now under common law,
- By what turmoil do I see myself carried away from me!
- A moment overcame my reckless audacity:
- This beautiful soul is finally dependent.
- For nearly six months, ashamed, desperate,
- Carrying everywhere the line I am torn apart,
- Against you, against me, in vain I experience myself:
- Present, I run away from you; absent, I find you;
- In the depths of the forests your image follows me;
- The light of day, the shadows of night,
- Everything traces to my eyes the charms that I avoid;
- Everything gives you up to the rebel Hippolyte.
- Myself, for any fruit of my superfluous care,
- Now I am looking for myself, and can no longer find myself:
- My bow, my javelins, my chariot, everything annoys me;
- I no longer remember the lessons of Neptune;
- My only moans ring out the woods,
- And my idle couriers have forgotten my voice.
- Maybe the story of a love so wild
- Listening to me, makes you blush at your work?
- From a heart that offers itself to you what fierce conversation!
- What a strange captive for such a beautiful bond!
- But the offering in your eyes must be more expensive:
- Consider that I am speaking a foreign language to you;
- And do not reject ill-expressed wishes,
- That Hippolytus would never have trained without you.
SCENE III.
HIPPOLYTE, ARICIE, THERAMÈNE, ISMÈNE.
THERAMENE.
- Lord, the queen is coming, and I went before her:
- She’s looking for you.
HIPPOLYTE.
- Me ?
THERAMENE.
- I ignore his thought;
- But you have come to ask from him:
- Phèdre wants to talk to you before you leave.
HIPPOLYTE.
- Phaedra! What will I tell him? And what can she expect …
ARICIA.
- Lord, you cannot refuse to hear it:
- Although too convinced of his enmity,
- You owe his tears a shadow of pity.
HIPPOLYTE.
- However you go out. And I leave: and I ignore
- If I do not offend the charms that I adore!
- I do not know if this heart that I leave in your hands …
ARICIA.
- Go, prince, and follow your generous designs:
- Make Athens tributary of my power.
- I accept any donation you want me to make.
- But this empire finally so great, so glorious,
- Is not your dearest gift in my eyes.
SCENE IV.
HIPPOLYTE, THERAMENES.
HIPPOLYTE.
- Friend, is everything ready? But the queen comes forward.
- Go, that for the departure everything is armed in diligence.
- Give the signal, run, order; and come back
- To deliver me soon from an unfortunate interview.
SCENE V.
PHÈDRE, HIPPOLYTE, ŒNONE.
PHAEDRUS (to Oenone, at the back of the theater).
- Here it is: towards my heart all my blood is withdrawing.
- I forget, when I see him, what I have come to say to him.
ŒNONE.
- Remember a son who hopes only in you.
PHAEDRA.
- They say that a speedy departure takes you away from us,
- Lord. To your pain I come to add my tears;
- I come to you for a son to explain my alarms.
- My son no longer has a father; and the day is not far away
- Who of my death still must witness it.
- Already a thousand enemies are attacking his childhood:
- Only you can embrace his defense against them.
- But a secret remorse stirs my spirits:
- I fear I closed your ear to his cries;
- I tremble that on him your just anger
- Do not soon pursue a hateful mother.
HIPPOLYTE.
- Madame, I do not have such low feelings.
PHAEDRA.
- When you hate me, I won’t complain,
- Lord: you have seen me attached to harming you;
- In the bottom of my heart you couldn’t read.
- To your enmity I took care to offer myself:
- On the banks where I lived I could not endure you;
- In public, in secret, against you declared,
- I wanted by seas to be separated from it;
- I even defended, by an express law,
- Let people dare to pronounce your name in front of me.
- If, however, we measure the penalty for the offense,
- If hatred alone can attract your hatred,
- Never was a woman more worthy of pity,
- And less worthy, lord, of your enmity.
HIPPOLYTE.
- The rights of her children a jealous mother
- Rarely forgives the son of another wife;
- Madam, I know it: unwelcome suspicion
- The most common fruits of a second hymen.
- Anyone else would have taken the same shade for me,
- And I might have suffered more outrage.
PHAEDRA.
- Ah, lord! May heaven, I dare to attest here
- From this common law wanted to exclude me!
- May a very different care disturb and devour me!
HIPPOLYTE.
- Madam, it is not time to trouble yourself again:
- Perhaps your husband is still born;
- Heaven can grant our tears its return.
- Neptune protects him; and this tutelary god
- Will not be implored by my father in vain.
PHAEDRA.
- You do not see the shore of the dead twice,
- Lord: since Theseus saw the dark edges,
- In vain do you hope that a god sends him back to you;
- And the miser Acheron does not let go of his prey.
- What did I say ? He is not dead, since he breathes in you.
- Still in front of my eyes I think I see my husband:
- I see him, I speak to him; and my heart … I digress,
- Lord; my mad ardor in spite of myself is declared.
HIPPOLYTE.
- I see the prodigious effect of your love:
- Dead as he is, Theseus is present to you;
- Always with his love your soul is ablaze.
PHAEDRA.
- Yes, prince, I am languishing, I am burning for Theseus:
- I love her, not as hell saw it,
- Volage worshiper of a thousand different objects,
- Who goes from the god of the dead to dishonor the bed;
- But faithful, but proud, and even a little fierce,
- Charming, young, dragging all hearts after oneself,
- As we depict our gods, or as I see you.
- He had your bearing, your eyes, your language;
- This noble modesty colored her face,
- When from our Crete he crossed the waves,
- Worthy subject of the wishes of the daughters of Minos.
- What were you doing then? why, without Hippolyte,
- Did the heroes of Greece assemble the elite?
- Why, too young still, can’t you then
- Enter the vessel that put him on our edges?
- By you would have perished the monster of Crete,
- Despite all the detours of his vast retirement:
- To develop the uncertain embarrassment,
- My sister with the fatal thread would have armed your hand.
- But no: in this design I would have anticipated it;
- Love would at first have inspired my thoughts.
- It’s me, prince, it’s me, whose useful help
- You would have taught the detours of the labyrinth.
- How much care this charming head would have cost me!
- One thread would not have reassured your lover enough:
- Companion of the peril that you had to seek,
- I myself would have liked to walk in front of you;
- And Phaedra to the labyrinth with you descended
- Would be with you found or lost.
HIPPOLYTE.
- Gods ! what do I hear? Madam, do you forget
- That Theseus is my father, and that he is your husband?
PHAEDRA.
- And what do you think I am losing my memory about,
- Prince? Have I lost all care for my glory?
HIPPOLYTE.
- Madam, forgive: I confess, blushing,
- That I was wrongly accusing innocent speech.
- My shame can no longer support your sight;
- And I will…
PHAEDRA.
- Ah, cruel! you heard me too much!
- I’ve told you enough to get you out of there.
- Well ! therefore know Phèdre and all his fury:
- I love ! Don’t think that when I love you
- Innocent in my eyes, I approve of myself;
- Nor that mad love that troubles my reason
- My cowardly complacency fed the poison;
- Unfortunate object of heavenly vengeance,
- I hate myself more than you hate me.
- The gods are my witnesses, these gods who in my side
- Have lit the fire fatal to all my blood;
- These gods who made themselves a cruel glory
- To seduce the heart of a weak mortal.
- Yourself in your mind recalls the past:
- It is little to have fled from you, cruel, I chased you away;
- I wanted to appear to you odious, inhuman;
- To better resist you, I sought your hatred.
- What have I benefited from my unnecessary care?
- You hated me more, I loved you no less;
- Your misfortunes still lent you new charms.
- I languished, I dried in the fires, in tears:
- Your eyes are enough to convince you,
- If your eyes could look at me for a moment …
- What did I say ? this confession that I have just made to you,
- This confession so shameful, do you believe it to be voluntary?
- Trembling for a son I dared not betray,
- I came to ask you not to hate him:
- Weak projects of a heart too full of what he loves!
- Alas! I could only talk to you about yourself!
- Avenge yourself, punish me with an odious love:
- Worthy son of the hero who gave birth to you,
- Free the universe from a monster that irritates you.
- The widow of Theseus dares to love Hippolyte!
- Believe me, this dreadful monster must not escape you;
- This is my heart: this is where your hand should strike.
- Already impatient to atone for his offense,
- In front of your arm I feel it coming forward.
- Strike: or if you think him unworthy of your blows,
- If your hatred envies me such a sweet torment,
- Or if your hand is soaked with too vile blood,
- In the absence of your arm, lend me your sword;
- Given.
ŒNONE.
- What are you doing, madam! Righteous gods!
- But we come: avoid odious witnesses!
- Come, come home; flee from certain shame.
SCENE VI.
HIPPOLYTE, THERAMENES.
THERAMENE.
- Is it Phaedrus fleeing, or rather being dragged away?
- Why, Lord, why these marks of pain?
- I see you without a sword, forbidden, without color.
HIPPOLYTE.
- Theramenes, let’s run away. My surprise is extreme.
- I cannot look at myself without horror.
- Phèdre… But no, great gods! that in a deep oblivion
- This horrible secret remains buried!
THERAMENE.
- If you want to go, the sail is prepared.
- But Athens, lord, has already declared itself;
- Its chiefs have taken the voices of all its tribes:
- Your brother wins, and Phèdre has the upper hand.
HIPPOLYTE.
- Phaedra?
THERAMENE.
- A herald in charge of the wills of Athens
- From the State in its hands comes to hand over the reins.
- His son is king, lord.
HIPPOLYTE.
- Gods, who know her,
- So is it his virtue that you reward?
THERAMENE.
- However, a dull noise wants the king to breathe:
- It is claimed that Theseus appeared in Epirus.
- But I, who looked for it there, Lord, I know too well …
HIPPOLYTE.
- Anything ; let us listen to everything, and let us not neglect anything.
- Let’s examine this noise, let’s go back to its source:
- If he doesn’t deserve to interrupt my race,
- Let’s go; and whatever price it may cost,
- Let us put the scepter in hands worthy of carrying it.