Racine: Phaedra

J56
RACINE
Of what the gods have left me, when my soul
Looks for full satisfaction in a sight
So dear, my only welcome is a shudder.
Embrace rejected, and a hasty flight.
Inspiring, as I clearly do, such terror.
Would I were still a prisoner in Epirus
Phsedra complains that I have suffer'd outragies._
Who has betray'd me ? Speak. Why was I not
Avenged ? Has Greece, to whom mine arm so oft
Brought useful aid, shelter'd the criminal ?
You make no answer. Is my son, mine own
Dear son, confederate with mine enemies ?
I'll enter. This suspense is overwhelming.
I'll learn at once the culprit and the crime,
And Phaedra must explain her troubled state.
Scene VI.
'Hippolytiis, Theramenes.
HiPPOLYTUS.—What do these words portend, which seem*d tO
freeze
My very blood ? Will Phsedra, in her frenzy^
Accuse herself, and seal her own destruction ?
What will the King say ? Gods ! What fatal poison
Has love spread over all his house ! Myself,
Full of a fire his hatred disapproves.
How changed he finds me from the son he knew.l
With dark forebodings is my mind alarm'd.
But innocence has surely nought to fear.
Come, let us go, and in some other place
Consider how I best may move my sire
To tenderness, and tell him of a flame
iVex'd but not vanquish'd by a father's blame.