Racine - Phaedra - College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

i OENONE
PHAEDRA. ACT I. SCENE 3 j 167
Since you, though starving, -have refused to eat.
What frightful evil does your heart intend?
What right have you to plot your own life's end?
. You thereby wrong the Gods who authored you; 45
Betray the spouse to whom your faith is due;
Betray your children by the selfsame stroke,
And thrust their necks beneath a heavy yoke.
Yes, on the day their mother's life is done,
Proud hopes will stir in someone else's son­ 50
Your foe, the foe of all your lineage, whom
An Amazon once carried in her womb:
Hippolytus ...
PHAEDRA Gods!
My words strike home at last.
PHAEDRA Oh, wretched woman, what was that name which passed
Your lips?
OENONE Ah, now you're roused to anger. Good. ,3
That name has made you shudder, as it should.
Live, then. Let love and duty fire your spirit. I I
Live, lest a Scythian's? son should disinherit
Your children, lest he crush the noblest fruit
Of Greece and of the Gods beneath his boot. 60 .
But lose no time; each moment now could cost I I
Your life; retrieve the strength that you have lost,
While still your feeble fires, which sink so low, !
Smoulder and may be fanned into a glow.
PHAEDRA Alas, my guilty flame has burnt too long. 65
OENONE Come, what remorse can flay you so? What wrong
Can you have done to be so crushed with guilt?
There is no innocent blood your hands have spilt.
PHAEDRA My hands, thank Heaven, are guiltless, as you say.
Gods! That my heart were innocent as they! 70
OENONE What fearful notion can your thoughts have bred
So that your heart still shrinks from it in dread?
PHAEDRA I've said enough, Oenone, Spare me the rest.
I die, to keep that horror unconfessed.
OENONE Then die, and keep your heartless silence, do; 75
But someone else must close your eyes for you.
Although your flickering life has all but fled,
I shall go down before you to the dead.
There are a thousand roads thattravel there;
I'll choose the shortest, in my just despair. 80
o cruel mistress! When have I·failed or grieved you?
Remember: at your birth, these arms received you.
For you I left my country, children, kin:
Is this the prize my faithfulness should win?
PHAEDRA What can you gain by this? Why rant and scold? 85
You'd shake with terror if the truth were told.
5. Scythia, home of the Amazons, was, to the Greeks, associated with barbarians. '