Racine
Phaedra
A. S. Kline ã2003 All Rights Reserved
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Contents
Act I Scene I (Hippolytus, Theramenes.)
Act I Scene II (Hippolytus, Oenone, Theramenes)
Act I Scene III (Phaedra, Oenone)
Act I Scene IV (Phaedra, Oenone, Panope)
Act I Scene V (Phaedra, Oenone)
Act II Scene I (Aricia, Ismene)
Act II Scene II (Hippolytus, Aricia, Ismene)
Act II Scene III (Hippolytus, Aricia, Theramenes, Ismene)
Act II Scene IV (Hippolytus, Theramenes)
Act II Scene V (Phaedra, Hippolytus, Oenone)
Act II Scene VI (Hippolyte, Theramenes)
Act III Scene I (Phaedra, Oenone)
Act III Scene III (Phaedra, Oenone)
Act III Scene IV (Theseus, Hippolytus, Phaedra, Oenone, Theramenes)
Act III Scene V (Theseus, Hippolytus, Theramenes)
Act III Scene VI (Hippolytus, Theramenes)
Act IV Scene I (Theseus, Oenone)
Act IV Scene II (Theseus, Hippolyte)
Act IV Scene IV (Phaedra, Theseus)
Act IV Scene VI (Phaedra, Oenone)
Act V Scene I (Hippolytus, Aricia)
Act V Scene II (Theseus, Aricia, Ismene)
Act V Scene III (Theseus, Aricia)
Act V Scene V (Theseus, Panope)
Act V Scene VI (Theseus, Theramenes)
Act V Scene VII (Theseus, Phaedra, Theramenes, Panope, Guards)
Theseus, son of Aegeus, King of Athens.
Phaedra, wife of Theseus, daughter of Minos and Pasiphae.
Hippolytus, son of Theseus and of Antiope, Queen of the Amazons.
Aricia, princess of the royal blood of Athens.
Oenone, nurse and confidante to Phaedra.
Theramenes, tutor to Hippolytus.
Ismene, confidante to Aricia.
Panope, lady in waiting to Phaedra.
Guards.
The scene is Troezen, a city of the Peloponnese.
My plans are made, dear Theramenes, I go:
I’ll end my stay in pleasant Troezen so.
Gripped as I am by deadly uncertainty
I’ve grown ashamed of my inactivity.
For more than six months, far from my father, here, 5
I’m unaware now of the fate of one so dear.
I’m unaware, even, in what place he might be.
Where would you look for him, my lord? Already
To ease your concerns, which may yet be justified,
I’ve rounded the two seas Corinth’s heights divide: 10
I sought Theseus among those by the roadstead,
Where Acheron’s seen to flow towards the dead:
I visited Elis, and on leaving Taenarus,
Sailed the waves that saw the fall of Icarus.
What gives you fresh hope, in what happy depths 15
Do you think to discover traces of his steps?
Who even knows if the king your father, would
Wish the mystery of his absence understood?
Or if, though like you we’ve trembled for his safety,
The hero, hiding some new love affair, may be 20
Merely waiting till his betrayed lover, as yet….
Stop, dear Theramenes, show Theseus some respect.
Free of his youthful errors now, returning,
No unworthy obstacle would there delay him:
Ending his fatal inconstancy by her prayers, 25
Phaedra no longer has any such rival to fear.
Yet, seeking him I’ll go and fulfil my duty,
Leaving these shores I no longer wish to see.
Theramenes
My lord, since when did you fear the proximity,
Of peaceful scenes, so dear to you from infancy, 30
Whose haunts I’ve often seen you prefer before
The tumultuous pomp of Athens and her court?
What risk, or rather what sorrow, drives you away?
Glad times are no more. All’s changed since the day
That, to our shores, the gods despatched the daughter, 35
Of Minos King of Crete: Pasiphae her mother.
I see. The reason for your pain is known to me.
Phaedra, grieves you, here, offends you deeply.
A dangerous stepmother, who scarcely saw you
Before she signalled her wish to banish you. 40
But the hatred that she then turned your way
Has either lessened, now, or seeped away.
And what danger can she offer you, besides:
A dying woman: and one who seeks to die?
Phaedra, touched by illness her silence covers, 45
Tired at last of herself, and the light around her,
What designs could she intend against you?
Her fruitless enmity’s not what I have in view.
Hippolyte, in leaving, flees someone other.
I flee, I confess, from young Aricia, 50
Last of a deadly race that conspires against me.
What! Are you persecuting her, my lord, indeed?
Has that sweet sister of the cruel Pallantides
Ever been involved in her brothers’ perfidies?
Can you bring yourself to hate her innocent charms? 55
If I hated her I would not flee her arms.
Am I allowed to explain this flight to us?
Can it be you’re no longer proud Hippolytus,
Implacable enemy of the laws of love,
Of that yoke Theseus so often knew above? 60
Could Venus whom your pride so often scorned,
Wish to justify Theseus, after all?
And placing you in the ranks of other mortals,
Force you now to light incense at her altars?
Do you love, my lord?
Friend, what is it you dare say? 65
You who’ve known my heart since my first day,
Do you ask me to deny, when it would be shameful,
The feelings of a heart so proud, and so disdainful?
With her milk, an Amazon mother once fed me
On that pride you seem, now, so amazed to see: 70
Then, when I myself achieved a riper age,
I knew and approved my thoughts at every stage.
Attached to me then, with eager sincerity,
You told me all about my father’s history.
You know how my soul, attentive to your voice, 75
Was warmed by the noble story of his exploits,
As you revealed that intrepid hero to me,
Consoling us mortals for lost Hercules,
Monsters choked, and robbers punished,
Procustus, Cercyon, Sciron, and Sinis: 80
Epidaurus, and the giant’s bones flung abroad,
Crete, smoking with the blood of the Minotaur.
But when you told me of less glorious deeds,
His word in a hundred places pledged, received,
Helen in Sparta stolen from her parents, 85
Periboea’s tears witnessed by all Salamis,
So many others whose names he’s forgotten,
Credulous spirits deceived by his passion:
Ariadne telling the rocks of those injustices,
Phaedra won, at last, under better auspices: 90
You know how, regretfully hearing that discourse,
I often urged you to abridge its course:
Happy if I could erase in memory
The unworthy chapters of so fine a story!
And am I myself entangled in my turn? 95
Is my humiliation the gods concern?
My cowardly sighs are the more contemptible,
Since glory renders Theseus excusable:
Because as yet myself I’ve tamed no monsters,
I’ve acquired no right to imitate his failures. 100
And even if my pride could be sweetened more,
Would I choose Aricia as my conqueror?
Is my mind so lost it no longer remembers
The eternal obstacle that separates us?
My father disapproves: and laws most severe 105
Prevent him granting nephews to her brothers:
He fears the offspring born of a guilty strain:
He’d like to bury their sister and their name,
Submit her to his guardianship till the grave,
Ensure that for her no wedding torches blaze. 110
Should I flaunt her rights against an angry father?
Shall I set an example in my rashness, rather?
And let my youth embark on a mad affair…
Oh! My lord, once our fate is written there,
Heaven knows not to inquire into our reasons. 115
Theseus opened your eyes so he might close them,
Yet his hatred, exciting a rebellious flame,
Lends new grace to his enemy all the same.
Why be frightened of a love, though, that’s so chaste?
If it possesses sweetness, won’t you dare to taste? 120
Will these awkward scruples always hold you back?
Do you fear to lose yourself on Hercules’ track?
Of what brave men has Venus not been conqueror!
Where would you be, now, you who fight against her,
If Antiope, opposed to her laws forever, 125
Hadn’t burnt for Theseus with modest ardour?
But what use is it to affect a proud display?
Confess, and all will change: for many a day
We’ve seen you infrequently, unsociable, proud,
Now driving your chariot along the coast road, 130
Now, skilled in the art Neptune himself made plain,
Breaking an untamed stallion to the rein.
The forests ring out less often to our cries.
Filled with secret fire, there’s heaviness in your eyes.
There’s no longer any doubt: you love, you burn: 135
You are dying of an illness you disguise in turn.
Or has lovely Aricia pleased you, rather?
Theramenes, I am leaving, to seek my father.
Will you not see Phaedra again, before you go,
My lord?
That’s my intent: you may tell her so. 140
I’ll see her, since my duty demands of it me.
(Oenone enters.)
But what new trouble disturbs dear Oenone?
Alas! My lord, what misfortune could equal mine?
The Queen is near to the ending of her life.
I’ve kept watch over her, in vain, day and night: 145
She’ll die in my arms of this illness that she hides.
Eternal disorder reigns now in her spirit.
She’s torn from her bed by sorrowful unquiet.
She wishes to see the light: yet with deep sadness
Orders the world outside to be dismissed… 150
She is here.
Enough: I’ll leave this place to her,
And show my odious face to her no longer.
Let’s go no further. Stay, dear Oenone.
I can’t support myself: my strength has left me.
My eyes are dazzled, on seeing the light of day, 155
My knees, trembling beneath me, have given way.
Alas!
(She sits down.)
All-powerful gods! If tears could but appease.
How these vain ornaments, these veils burden me!
What irksome hand, weaving these knots around,
Has gathered my hair with such care on my brow? 160
All afflicts, and harms, and conspires to harm me.
Your wishes thwart one another, alternately!
You yourself, condemning your unjust intent,
Urged our hands to prepare you for this instant:
You yourself, recalling your former strength, 165
Wished to rise again, and see the light at length.
You see it, mistress, and start to hide once more:
Do you hate the daylight you were searching for?
Noble, glittering creator of a sad family,
You, whose daughter my mother dared claim to be, 170
Who blush perhaps on viewing my troubled mind,
Oh Sun, I come to look on you for one last time.
What! Will you never forget that cruel desire?
Am I always to see you renouncing life entire,
Making funereal preparations for your death? 175
Gods! Why am I not sitting in that dark forest?
When shall I follow the chariot with my eyes
Charging nobly on, through the dust that flies?
What, lady?
Maddened, where am I! What did I say?
Where have I let my will and spirit go play? 180
I have lost them: the gods deny me their use.
Oenone, blushes cover my face, its truth:
I have let you see my sad shame too clearly,
And my eyes, despite myself, weep tearfully.
Oh! If you must blush, blush for your silence 185
That still embitters your sorrow’s violence.
Rebelling against our care, deaf to our discourse,
Will you let your last days take this pitiless course?
What madness limits them in the midst of their force?
What spell, what poison has dried up their source? 190
Three times the shadows have obscured the sky,
Since sleep has entered in your saddened eye:
Three times has day driven night from the firmament,
While your body languished without nourishment.
By what fearful design are you being tempted? 195
By what right do you dare to let your life be ended?
You offend the gods, creators of your reality:
You betray the man to whom you pledged all loyalty:
You betray your children, those unfortunates,
Whom you drive beneath the yoke’s harsh weight. 200
Think how that day will snatch away their mother,
And give hope to the son of that alien other,
To that proud enemy of yours, your race’s doom,
That son an Amazon carried in her womb,
That Hippolytus…
Gods!
You’re moved by my censure? 205
Wretched woman, whose name do you dare to mention?
That’s good! Your anger rises for a reason:
I’m glad to see you shudder at her fatal son.
Live then. As love and duty shall drive you on,
Live, and don’t allow that child of a Scythian, 210
Crushing your children in despised embrace,
To command the gods’ and Greece’s noblest race.
But don’t delay: each moment now is killing you.
Quickly then, your waning strength needs rescue,
While the flame of your life, almost dwindled, 215
Still endures, and can even yet be rekindled.
I’ve already prolonged its guilty thread too far.
Oenone
How! By what remorse are you being torn apart?
What crime could have brought about such fierce pain?
Your hands have no innocent blood on them, no stain? 220
Thanks to heaven, my hands are not criminals.
Would the gods my heart were innocent as well!
Oenone
And what fearful project have you tried,
That it still leaves your heart so terrified?
I’ve talked to you enough. Now, spare me the rest. 225
I die to evade this disastrous urge to confess.
Well die: and so protect that inhuman silence:
But seek another hand to close your eyes, and
Though scarcely a feeble ray of light is left you,
My spirit will descend to the dead before you. 230
A thousand roads ever open lead us on,
And my true grief will choose the shortest one.
Cruel one, when has my faith ever betrayed you?
Think: when you were born my arms received you.
For you, I left everything, my land: my children. 235
Is this the reward that loyalty shall be given?
What benefit do you hope for from this violence?
You’ll shudder with horror if I break my silence.
Oenone
Great gods, what could you tell me that wouldn’t yield
To the horror of seeing you die, my eyes unsealed? 240
If you knew my crime, my fate that crushes the will,
I would die no less: I would die more guilty still.
Madame, by the tears for you that wet my face,
By your faltering knees that I here embrace,
Free my spirit from dreadful questioning. 245
You wish it so. Rise.
Oenone
Speak: I am listening.
Heaven! What shall I tell her? Begin, but where?
Don’t offend me with these idle hints of terror.
O Venus’ hatred! O fatal anger!
To what distraction did love not drive my mother! 250
Oenone
Forget those things, and in future, my lady,
Let eternal silence hide their memory.
Ariadne, my sister! Wounded by what passion
Did you die on the shore, where you were abandoned?
Why this, my lady? What mortal misery 255
Excites you today against your family?
Phaedra
Because Venus wills that of this dreadful race
I shall perish the last, and the most disgraced.
Do you love?
Phaedra
I feel all the furies of desire.
For whom?
Phaedra
You shall know all my deepest fire. 260
I love….At the deadly name I tremble, shudder.
I love….
Oenone
Whom?
The son of that Amazon mother:
You must know that prince I myself oppressed so long?
Hippolyte! You gods!
Phaedra
Yes, him, you are not wrong.
Just heaven! All the blood’s frozen in my veins. 265
O despair! O crime! O you race without shame!
Unfortunate voyage! O, miserable shore!
Why did you come then to this place of danger?
My pain goes further back. I was scarcely tied
To Aegeus’ son, by those laws that make a bride, 270
My false peace and happiness secured to me,
When Athens showed me my glorious enemy.
I saw him, I blushed: I paled at the sight:
Pain swelled in my troubled heart outright:
My eyes saw nothing: I couldn’t speak for pain: 275
I felt my whole body frozen, and in flame.
I recognised Venus and her fearsome fires.
Of a race whose remorseless torments she desires.
I thought I could prevent grief by ceaseless prayer:
I built her a temple, adorned it with all care: 280
Surrounding myself with victims at all hours,
I sought my lost reason in those bloody dowers,
The powerless remedy for a love without a cure!
In vain I burnt incense at her altars, impure:
When my mouth called on the name of the goddess, 285
I adored Hippolytus: my vision of him endless,
Even at the altars’ foot where I lit the flame,
I offered all to that god I dared not name.
I avoided him everywhere. O height of misery!
My eyes sought him in his father’s reality. 290
At last I dared to rise against my own being:
I roused my courage to persecute, with feeling.
To banish the enemy who made me an idolater,
I feigned my grievance, an unjust stepmother:
I urged his exile, and my eternal cries, 295
Made him unwelcome to his father’s eyes.
I breathed Oenone, then, and given his absence
My days, less troubled, were spent in innocence.
Submitting to my husband, hiding pain instead,
Caring for the fruits of our fatal marriage bed. 300
Useless precaution! Cruel destiny!
Brought by my husband to Troezen, only to see,
Once more, the enemy that I’d sent away:
My wound, still living, quickly bled again,
It’s no longer an ardour hidden in my veins: 305
It’s Venus fastening wholly on her prey.
For my crime I now conceive a perfect terror:
I view my life with hatred, my love with horror.
Dying, I wish to protect my name by that act:
And conceal from the light a flame so black. 310
I could not endure your tears: your questioning:
I’ve confessed it all: and I repent of nothing,
Provided you respect my death’s approach,
Without afflicting me with unjust reproach,
And that you cease to recall by your vain aid, 315
This remnant of life I’m ready to breathe away.
I wished to hide the sorrowful news from you,
My lady: but now I must reveal it to you.
Death has taken your invincible husband,
You only were unaware that it has happened. 320
Panope, what are you saying?
That the Queen betrayed
Would demand Theseus’s return from heaven in vain,
And that Hippolyte his son has learned of this before,
From those vessels that have lately come to shore.
You Heavens!
Athens is split over the choice of leader. 325
One gives his vote to your son the Prince: another,
Madame, forgetting the laws of his country,
Dares grant support to the son of your enemy.
They even say that an insolent intrigue
Would crown Aricia and the Pallantides. 330
I thought this peril might be turned from you.
Even now Hippolyte prepares to leave us too:
And I fear that if he appears, in that storm,
The fickle crowd will follow him in swarms.
Oenone
Panope, that’s enough. The Queen who’s listening, 335
Will not neglect to heed your vital warning.
My lady, I’d ceased to urge you to live on:
I’d already decided to follow you to the tomb:
I had thought to seek to deter you no longer:
But this new trouble forces new duties on you. 340
Your fate has altered, and shows another face:
The King’s no more. Madame must take his place.
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.
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.
Hippolyte wishes to see me here? And why?
Hippolyte looks for me, wants to say goodbye?
Ismene, is this true? Surely, you’re incorrect?
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.
So it’s not, Ismene, some ill-founded rumour? 375
I have no enemies: I’m a slave no longer?
No, my lady, the gods no longer oppose it,
And Theseus goes to meet your brothers’ spirits.
Do they say what action has ended his days?
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.
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?
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.
And you think Hippolytus, kinder than his father,
Being more humane, will make my chains lighter?
That he’ll pity my troubles?
Ismene
Madame, I think so.
Is unfeeling Hippolytus known to you though? 400
What shallow hope makes you think he’ll pity me,
And respect a sex he treats disdainfully?
You see he’s evaded us for some time now,
And seeks the places where we never go.
I know all that they say about his coldness: 405
But I’ve seen proud Hippolytus in your presence:
And, even as I watched, the rumours of his pride
Redoubled my curiosity, I find.
His reality didn’t quite match the rumour:
At your first glances I found him someone other. 410
His eyes, that wished in vain to evade you,
Already, filled with yearning, could not leave you.
A lover’s name perhaps would slight his courage:
But he has the eyes of one, if not the language.
Dear Ismene, my heart hears it so eagerly, 415
Your speech that owes so little to reality!
O you who know me does it seem believable
That the sad plaything of a fate so pitiable,
A heart fed always on tears and bitterness,
Could still know love, and its sad foolishness? 420
Born of a king, a noble prince of this world,
I alone escaped the furious wars unfurled.
I lost six brothers in the flower of their youth,
And the hopes of an illustrious house in truth!
The sword took them all: and the clinging mud, 425
Drank with regret Erectheus’ nephews’ blood.
You know, since their death, what law’s severity
Forbade any of those Greeks to sigh for me:
They fear lest the sister’s reckless passions
Will one day re-animate the brothers’ ashes. 430
But you also know with what a scornful air
I regarded the suspicious conqueror’s care.
You know that, ever resistant to all lust,
I often gave thanks to Theseus the unjust,
Whose fine severity supported my contempt. 435
Yet my eyes, my eyes had not seen his son yet.
Not through the eyes alone, shamefully enchanted,
Do I love the beauty of him, his grace so vaunted,
Gifts with which nature wished to honour him,
Which he himself disdains, ignores it seems. 440
I love I find, in him, the noblest riches,
His father’s virtues, and not his weaknesses.
I love, I must confess, that generous pride,
Which has never bent beneath a yoke of sighs.
Phaedra was honoured by Theseus’ breath in vain, 445
For myself, I’m prouder, and flee the glory gained
From homage offered to hundreds, and so easily,
From entering a heart thrown open to so many.
But to make an unyielding courage bend,
To make that unfeeling heart of his feel pain, 450
To fetter a captive astonished by his chains,
Fighting the yoke, that delights him so, in vain:
That’s what I wish, that is what excites me.
To disarm Hippolytus counts for more than Hercules:
Often vanquished, and defeated more swiftly, 455
To the eyes that tamed him offering less glory.
But, alas, dear Ismene! How daring I am!
I’ll be blocked indeed by profound resistance.
Perhaps you’ll hear me, humbled then, in pain,
Lamenting that same pride I admire today. 460
Hippolyte might love? By what great happiness
Might I have altered…
You’ll hear him, himself, mistress:
He is coming to you.
Madame, before I leave,
I thought to advise you what your fate shall be.
My father no longer lives. My true prescience 465
Anticipated the cause of his long absence:
Death alone, limiting his brilliant efforts,
Could hide him so long from the universe.
At last the gods delivered the friend, the comrade,
The heir of Hercules to the murderous Fates. 470
I imagine your hatred, denying him his virtue,
Without regret, hears all those names he’s due.
Yet one hope now softens my mortal sadness:
That I might free you from a guardian’s harshness,
I revoke laws whose rigour I deplored: you are 475
Free now to dispose of yourself, and your heart:
And in this Troezen, now my inheritance,
The legacy of my ancestor Pittheus once,
Which has made me king, unhesitatingly,
I set you free as well, freer than I can be. 480
Moderate your kindness whose excess shames me.
By honouring my plight with care, so generously,
It binds me, my lord, more than you might see,
To those austere laws from which you free me.
Athens, uncertain of its choice for the succession, 485
Speaks of you, names me, and also the Queen’s son.
Of me, my Lord?
Hippolyte
I don’t deceive myself: I know
That its proud laws seem to reject me: even so
Greece reproaches me for my foreign mother.
But if the only competition were my brother, 490
Madame, over him I have essential claims,
That I could salvage from the law’s domains.
A more legitimate curb arrests my boldness:
I cede to you, rather I return a title no less,
A sceptre your ancestors long ago received 495
From that famous mortal whom the earth conceived.
Adoption placed it in Aegeus’ hands, there.
Athens, enriched, protected by my father,
Recognised, joyfully, a king so generous,
And sent your poor brothers to forgetfulness. 500
Athens now calls you back within her walls.
She’s suffered long enough from those quarrels.
Too long has your blood, swallowed by its furrows,
Made that earth steam from which it first arose.
Troezen obeys me. The countryside of Crete 505
Offers the son of Phaedra a rich retreat.
Attica is yours. I leave now, and go too
To unite all our scattered votes for you.
I’m astonished and confused by all I hear,
I fear lest a dream deceives me, yes I fear.