THE BOOK WAS DRENCHED - OUDL Home

NURSE
Peace, my child! I will do all things well; only be thou, queen Cypris,
ocean's child, my partner in the work! And for the rest of my purpose, it
will be enough for me to tell it to our friends within the house.
(The NURSE goes into the palace.)
CHORUS {singing)
strophe 1
0 Love, Love, that from the eyes diffusest soft desire, bringing on
the souls of those, whom thou dost camp against, sweet grace, O never
in evil mood appear to me, nor out of time and tune approach! Nor
fire nor meteor hurls a mightier bolt than Aphrodite's shaft shot by
the hands of Love, the child of Zeus.
antistrophe 1
Idly, idly by the streams of Alpheus and in the Pythian shrines of
Phoebus, Hellas heaps the slaughtered steers; while Love we worship
not, Love, the king of men, who holds the key to Aphrodite's sweetest
bower,—worship not him who, when he comes, lays waste and
marks his path to mortal hearts by wide-spread woe.
strophe 2
There was that maiden 2 in Oechalia, a girl unwed, that knew no
wooer yet nor married joys; her did the Queen of Love snatch from
her home across the sea and gave unto Alcmena's son, mid blood and
smoke and murderous marriage-hymns, to be to him a frantic fiend
of hell; woe! woe for his wooing!
antistrophe 2
Ah! holy walls of Thebes, ah! fount of Dirce, ye could testify what
course the love-queen follows. For with the blazing levin-bolt did she
cut short the fatal marriage of Semele, mother of Zeus-born Bacchus.
All things she doth inspire, dread goddess, winging her flight hither
and thither like a bee.
PHAEDRA
Peace, oh women, peace! I am undone.
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
What, Phaedra, is this dread event within thy house?
PHAEDRA
Hush! let me hear what those within are saying.