Main Body
Act One
LIST OF CHARACTERS
- THESEUS, son of Aegeus, king of Athens.
- PHAEDRUS, wife of Theseus, daughter of Minos and Pasiphae.
- HIPPOLYTE, son of Theseus, and Antiope, queen of the Amazons.
- ARICIA, princess of the royal blood of Athens.
- THERAMENE, governor of Hippolyte.
- ŒNONE, nurse and confidante of Phèdre.
- ISMENE, confidante of Aricie.
- PANOPE, wife of the suite of Phèdre.
- Guards .
The scene is in Trézène, a town in the Peloponnese.
ACT ONE
FIRST SCENE.
HIPPOLYTE, THERAMENES.
HIPPOLYTE.
- The plan is taken: I am leaving, dear Theramene,
- And leave the stay of the amiable Trézène.
- In the mortal doubt by which I am agitated,
- I begin to blush at my idleness.
- For more than six months away from my father,
- I do not know the fate of such a dear head;
- I don’t know until the places that can hide it.
THERAMENE.
- And in what places, lord, are you going to look for it?
- Already to satisfy your just fear,
- I have sailed the two seas that separate Corinth;
- I asked Theseus to the peoples of these shores
- Where we see Acheron getting lost among the dead;
- I visited Elis, and leaving Tenara,
- Passed to the sea which saw Icarus fall:
- On what new hope, in what happy climates
- Do you think you are discovering his footsteps?
- Who even knows, who knows if the king your father
- Want that of his absence we know the mystery?
- And if, when with you we tremble for his days,
- Quiet, and hiding from us new loves,
- This hero does not wait for an abused lover …
HIPPOLYTE.
- Dear Théramène, stop and respect Theseus.
- From his young mistakes now back,
- By an unworthy obstacle he is not held back;
- And fixing his vows on the fatal inconstancy,
- Phèdre no longer fears a rival for a long time.
- Finally, looking for him, I will follow my duty,
- And I will flee these places, which I no longer dare to see.
THERAMENE.
- Hey! since when, lord, do you fear the presence
- From those peaceful places so dear to your childhood,
- And whose stay I saw you prefer
- To the pompous tumult of Athens and the court?
- What danger, or rather what grief chases you?
HIPPOLYTE.
- This happy time is over. Everything has changed face,
- Since on these shores the gods sent
- The daughter of Minos and Pasiphaé.
THERAMENE.
- I hear: the cause of your pain is known to me.
- Phaedrus here grieves you, and hurts your sight.
- Dangerous stepmother, she barely saw you,
- That your exile first signaled its credit.
- But his hatred, on you once attached,
- Either passed out, or relaxed.
- And besides, what dangers can you run?
- A dying woman, and who seeks to die?
- Phèdre, afflicted with an illness that she persists in keeping silent,
- Finally tired of herself and of the day that illuminates her,
- Can she form some designs against you?
HIPPOLYTE.
- His vain enmity is not what I fear.
- Hippolyte, on leaving, flees another enemy;
- I flee, I will admit, this young Aricie,
- Remains of a fatal blood conjured against us.
THERAMENE.
- What! yourself, lord, are you persecuting her?
- Never the loving sister of the cruel Pallantides
- Did she dabble in the plots of her treacherous brothers?
- And must you hate his innocent charms?
HIPPOLYTE.
- If I hated her, I wouldn’t run away from her.
THERAMENE.
- Lord, am I allowed to explain your flight?
- Could you no longer be this superb Hippolyte
- Implacable enemy of loving laws,
- And of a yoke that Theseus suffered so many times?
- Venus, by your pride so long despised,
- Would she want to justify Theseus in the end?
- And putting you in the ranks of the rest of the mortals,
- Did she force you to incense her altars?
- Would you like, lord?
HIPPOLYTE.
- Friend, what dare you say?
- You who know my heart since I breathe,
- Feelings of a heart so proud, so disdainful,
- Can you ask me for the shameful disavowal?
- It is little that with her milk an Amazon mother
- Made me suck again this pride which astonishes you;
- In a more mature age I myself have come,
- I applauded myself when I got to know myself.
- Tied to me by sincere zeal,
- You told me then the story of my father.
- You know how much my soul, attentive to your voice,
- Warmed up to tales of his noble exploits,
- When you portrayed me this fearless hero
- Comforting mortals for the absence of Alcide,
- Monsters suffocated, and brigands punished,
- Procruste, Cercyon, and Sciron, and Sinis,
- And the scattered bones of the giant of Epidaurus,
- And Crete smoking the blood of the Minotaur.
- But when you recited less glorious facts,
- His faith offered everywhere, and received in a hundred places;
- Hélène to her parents in Stolen Sparta;
- Salamis, witness to Peribea’s tears;
- So many others, whose names even escaped him,
- Too credulous minds that his flame has deceived!
- Ariadne aux Rochers recounting her injustices;
- Phaedrus finally removed under better auspices;
- You know how, reluctantly listening to this speech,
- I often urged you to shorten the course.
- Happy if I could have stolen from memory
- This unworthy half of such a beautiful story!
- And I, in turn, would see myself bound!
- And the gods until then would have humiliated me!
- In my cowardly sighs all the more contemptible,
- That a long mass of honors makes Theseus excusable,
- That no monsters tamed by me until today,
- Have not won me the right to fail like him!
- Even though my pride might have softened,
- Should I have chosen Aricie as the winner?
- Would he no longer remember my lost senses
- Of the eternal obstacle that has separated us?
- My father disapproves of her, and by severe laws,
- He forbids giving nephews to his brothers:
- With a guilty stalk he fears a shoot;
- He wants to bury their name with the sister;
- And that, up to the tomb under his tutelage,
- The hymen fires never light up for her.
- Should I marry his rights against an angry father?
- Shall I set an example for recklessness?
- And in mad love my youth embarked …
THERAMENE.
- Ah, lord! if your time is once marked,
- The sky of our reasons does not know how to inform itself.
- Theseus opens your eyes by wanting to close them;
- And his hatred irritating a rebellious flame,
- Lend his enemy new grace.
- Finally with a chaste love why frighten you?
- If it has any sweetness, don’t you dare to try it?
- Will you still believe a fierce scruple?
- Are we afraid of getting lost in the footsteps of Hercules?
- What courage has Venus not mastered?
- Yourself, where would you be, you who fight her,
- If always Antiope to his laws opposite
- Would it not have burned with modest ardor for Theseus?
- But what is the use of affecting a superb speech?
- Admit it, everything is changing; and in recent days,
- We see you less often, proud and wild,
- Sometimes fly a tank on the shore,
- Sometimes, learned in art by invented Neptune,
- To make an untamed steed docile to the brake;
- The forests of our cries resound less often;
- Charged with a secret fire, your eyes grow heavy;
- There is no doubt about it, you love, you burn;
- You perish from an evil that you conceal:
- Did you like the charming Aricie?
HIPPOLYTE.
- Theramenes, I’m leaving, and I’m going to find my father.
THERAMENE.
- Will you not see Phèdre before you go?
- Lord?
HIPPOLYTE.
- This is my plan: you can tell him.
- Let us see it, since thus my duty orders it to me.
- But what new misfortune troubles her dear Oenone?
SCENE II.
HIPPOLYTE, THERAMENE, OENONE.
ŒNONE.
- Alas! Lord, what trouble can mine be equal?
- The queen is almost at her fatal end.
- In vain to observe it day and night I attach myself;
- She dies in my arms from an illness that she hides from me.
- Eternal disorder reigns in his mind;
- His worried grief tears him from his bed:
- She wants to see the light of day: and her deep pain
- However, orders me to remove everyone …
- She comes.
HIPPOLYTE.
- It is enough: I leave it in these places,
- And do not show him an odious face.
SCENE III.
PHAEDRUS, OENONE.
PHAEDRA.
- Let’s not go any further, let’s stay, dear Oenone.
- I no longer support myself; my strength abandons me:
- My eyes are dazzled by the day that I see again,
- And my trembling knees buckle under me.
- Alas!
(She sits down.)
ŒNONE.
- Almighty gods, may our tears appease you!
PHAEDRA.
- How heavy these vain ornaments, how heavy these veils!
- What a troublesome hand, forming all these knots,
- Took care on my forehead to put my hair together?
- Everything grieves me, harms me, and conspires to harm me.
ŒNONE.
- How we see all his wishes destroying each other!
- Yourself, condemning your unjust designs,
- Sometimes to adorn you you excited our hands;
- Yourself, recalling your original strength,
- You wanted to show yourself and see the light again.
- You see her, madame; and, ready to hide,
- You hate the day you came for!
PHAEDRA.
- Noble and brilliant author of a sad family,
- You that my mother dared to boast of being a girl,
- Who perhaps blushes at the confusion in which you see me,
- Sun, I am coming to see you for the last time!
ŒNONE.
- What! you will not lose this cruel desire?
- Will I still see you, giving up on life,
- Make your death the disastrous preparations?
PHAEDRA.
- Gods ! why am I not sitting in the shade of the forests!
- When can I, through a noble dust,
- Watching a fleeing tank in the quarry?
ŒNONE.
- What, ma’am?
PHAEDRA.
- Insane! where am I ? and what did I say?
- Where do I let my vows and my mind stray?
- I lost it: the gods have robbed me of its use.
- Oenone, the redness covers my face:
- I let you see too much my shameful pains;
- And my eyes in spite of myself fill with tears.
ŒNONE.
- Ah! if you have to blush, blush with silence
- Who of your evils still embittered violence.
- Rebel to all our care, deaf to all our speeches,
- Do you want to let your days end without mercy?
- What fury limits them in the middle of their race?
- What charm or what poison has dried up its source?
- Shadows three times have darkened the skies
- Since sleep entered your eyes;
- And the day has thrice chased the dark night
- Since your body languishes without food.
- What dreadful design do you indulge in?
- What right do you dare to attack yourself?
- You offend the gods who are the authors of your life;
- You betray the husband to whom faith binds you;
- You finally betray your unhappy children,
- That you throw under a severe yoke.
- Consider that the same day their mother will delight them
- And will restore hope to the stranger’s son,
- To this proud enemy of you, of your blood,
- This son that an Amazon carried in her side,
- This Hippolyte …
PHAEDRA.
- Ah! gods !
ŒNONE.
- Does this reproach affect you?
PHAEDRA.
- Unhappy! what a name came out of your mouth!
ŒNONE.
- Well ! your anger bursts with reason:
- I love to see you shudder at this fatal name.
- Live then: may love and duty excite you.
- Live; do not suffer that the son of a Scythian
- Overwhelming your children with a hateful empire,
- Order from the most beautiful blood of Greece and the gods.
- But do not differ; every moment kills you:
- Quickly repair your broken strength,
- While your days ready to be consumed
- The torch still lasts and can be rekindled.
PHAEDRA.
- I have prolonged its culpable duration too much.
ŒNONE.
- What! are you torn from some remorse?
- What crime could have produced such pressing trouble?
- Your hands haven’t soaked in innocent blood?
PHAEDRA.
- Thanks be to heaven, my hands are not criminal.
- Would to the gods that my heart were innocent like them!
ŒNONE.
- And what awful project have you given birth to
- Whose heart still must be terrified?
PHAEDRA.
- I’ve told you enough: spare me the rest.
- I am dying, so as not to make such a fatal confession.
ŒNONE.
- Die therefore, and keep an inhuman silence;
- But to close your eyes seek another hand.
- Although you have barely a dim light left,
- My soul among the dead will descend first;
- A thousand open paths always lead there,
- And my just pain will choose the shorter ones.
- Cruel! when did my faith disappoint you?
- Do you think that when I was born my arms received you?
- My country, my children, I left everything for you.
- Did you reserve this price for my loyalty?
PHAEDRA
- What fruit do you hope for from so much violence?
- You will shudder with horror if I break the silence.
ŒNONE.
- And what will you say to me that does not yield, great gods!
- To the horror of seeing you expire in my eyes?
PHAEDRA.
- When you know my crime and the fate that overwhelms me,
- I will die none the less: I will die more guilty.
ŒNONE.
- Madam, in the name of the tears I shed for you,
- By your weak knees that I hold embraced,
- Free my mind from this fatal doubt.
PHAEDRA.
- You want it ? get up.
ŒNONE.
- Speak: I am listening to you.
PHAEDRA.
- Heaven! what am I going to tell him? and where to start?
ŒNONE.
- By vain fears stop offending me.
PHAEDRA.
- O hatred of Venus! O fatal anger!
- Into what madness love threw my mother!
ŒNONE.
- Let’s forget them, madam; and that in the future
- Eternal silence hides this memory.
PHAEDRA.
- Ariane, my sister! what love hurt
- You died at the edges where you were left!
ŒNONE.
- What are you doing, lady? and what a deadly boredom
- Against all your blood drives you today?
PHAEDRA.
- Since Venus wants it, with this deplorable blood
- I am the last and the most miserable.
ŒNONE.
- Do you like to ?
PHAEDRA.
- I have all the fury of love.
ŒNONE.
- For who ?
PHAEDRA.
- You will hear the height of horrors …
- I love… At this fatal name, I tremble, I shiver.
- I love…
ŒNONE.
- Who?
PHAEDRA.
- You know this son of the Amazon,
- This prince so long oppressed by myself …
ŒNONE.
- Hippolyte? Great gods!
PHAEDRA.
- You named him!
ŒNONE.
- Good heaven ! all my blood in my veins is freezing!
- O despair! O crime! O deplorable race!
- Unfortunate trip! Unhappy shore,
- Should we approach your dangerous shores!
PHAEDRA.
- My pain comes from further away. Barely to the son of Aegean
- Under the laws of the hymen I was committed,
- My rest, my happiness seemed to be strengthened;
- Athens showed me my superb enemy:
- I saw him, I blushed, I turned pale at the sight of him;
- A disturbance arose in my distraught soul;
- My eyes could no longer see, I could not speak;
- I felt my whole body and sweating and burning:
- I recognized Venus and its formidable fires,
- With blood she pursues inevitable torments!
- By assiduous wishes I thought I was diverting them:
- I built a temple for it, and took care to adorn it;
- Of victims myself surrounded at all times,
- I searched their flanks for my lost reason:
- From an incurable love of powerless remedies!
- In vain on the altars my hand burned incense!
- When my mouth cried out for the name of the goddess,
- I adored Hippolyte; and seeing him constantly,
- Even at the foot of the altars that I used to smoke,
- I offered everything to this god whom I dared not name.
- I avoided it everywhere. O height of misery!
- My eyes found him in his father’s features.
- Against myself finally I dared to rebel:
- I excited my courage to persecute him.
- To banish the enemy of whom I was idolatrous,
- I affected the sorrows of an unjust stepmother;
- I hastened his exile; and my eternal cries
- Tore him from his father’s breast and arms.
- I was breathing, Oenone; and, since his absence,
- My less restless days flowed in innocence:
- Submitted to my husband, and hiding my troubles,
- I cultivated the fruits of his fatal marriage.
- Vain precautions! Cruel destiny!
- By my husband himself brought to Trézène ,
- I saw the enemy I had driven away:
- My too sharp wound immediately bled.
- It is no longer an ardor in my veins hidden:
- It is all Venus to its attached prey.
- I have conceived just terror for my crime;
- I hated life, and my flame in horror;
- I wanted to take care of my glory while dying,
- And steal from the light of such a black flame:
- I could not support your tears, your struggles;
- I confessed everything to you; I don’t regret it.
- Provided that, of my death respecting the approaches,
- You no longer afflict me with unjust reproaches,
- And that your vain help ceases to remind
- A remnant of heat ready to be exhaled.
SCENE IV.
PHÈDRE, OENONE, PANOPE.
PANOPE.
- I would like to hide sad news from you,
- Madame: but I must reveal it to you.
- Death has robbed you of your invincible husband;
- And this misfortune is no longer ignored by you.
ŒNONE.
- Panope, what are you saying?
PANOPE.
- That the queen abused
- In vain ask Heaven for the return of Theseus;
- And that, by vessels arriving in the port,
- Hippolyte his son has just learned of his death.
PHAEDRA.
- Heaven!
PANOPE.
- For the choice of a master Athens is shared:
- To the prince your son one gives his suffrage,
- Mrs ; and the state, the other forgetting the laws
- To the stranger’s son dares to give his voice.
- It is even said that at the throne an insolent ploy
- Wants to place Aricia and the blood of Pallante.
- I thought I should warn you of this peril.
- Even Hippolyte is already quite ready to go;
- And we fear, if he appears in this new storm,
- Let him not drag a whole fickle people after him.
ŒNONE.
- Panope, that’s enough: the queen who hears you
- Will not neglect this important advice.
SCENE V.
PHAEDRUS, OENONE.
ŒNONE.
- Madame, I ceased to urge you to live;
- Already even at the tomb I thought of following you;
- To turn you away, I no longer had a voice:
- But this new misfortune prescribes other laws for you.
- Your fortune changes and takes another face:
- The king is no more, madame; you have to take her place.
- His death leaves you with a son to whom you owe yourselves;
- Slave if he loses you, and king if you live.
- On whom, in his misfortune, do you want him to lean?
- Her tears will no longer have a hand that wipes them away;
- And her innocent cries, carried to the gods,
- Will go against his mother to irritate his ancestors.
- Live; you no longer have to blame yourself:
- Your flame becomes an ordinary flame;
- Theseus breathing out has just broken the knots
- Who made all the crime and horror of your fires.
- Hippolyte for you becomes less formidable;
- And you can see it without being guilty.
- Perhaps, convinced of your aversion,
- He will give a leader to the sedition:
- Reconsider his mistake, flex his courage.
- King of these happy shores, Trézène is his share;
- But he knows the laws give your son
- The superb ramparts that Minerve built.
- You both have a true enemy:
- Both unite to fight Aricie.
PHAEDRA.
- Well ! to your advice I let myself be carried away.
- Let’s live, if we can bring me back to life,
- And if the love of a son, at this fatal moment,
- Of my weak spirits can revive the rest.