Phaedra

HIPPOLYTUS

Go, ring the shady woods and the high mountain ridges, men of Cecrops! Range with swift foot, roving free, the places that lie beneath rocky Parnes, and those the river beats with rushing wave through the valleys of Thria; climb the hills ever white with Riphaean snow. This way, where the grove of Aegaleos is woven with tall alder, where the meadows lie which Zephyr, stroking with dew-bearing breeze, calls forth in spring with new grass; where light Ilissus glides sluggish through the slender fields and grazes the barren sands with its grudging stream. You, where Marathon by a leftward path opens its glades, where the dams, attended by their little flocks, seek by night their pasture; you, where hard Acharneus, lying beneath the warm south winds, softens its frosts. Let one tread the rock of sweet Hymettus, another the small Aphidnae: that quarter long lies free and untouched, where the curving shores of the sea press upon Sunium. If glory of the forest stirs anyone, Phlyus calls him: here ranges, the terror of the farmers, the boar, marked now by many a wound. But you, slacken the loose reins for the silent hounds; let the leash hold the keen Molossians, and let the fierce Cretans strain their tough collars on the worn cord. But the Spartans — a bold breed, greedy for the beast — bind carefully with a closer knot: the time will come when the hollow rocks shall ring with their baying; now, set loose with keen nostril, let them snuff the breezes and seek the lairs with lowered snout, while the light is dim, while the dewy earth still holds the prints of feet impressed. Let one make haste to carry on his heavy neck the wide-meshed nets, another the smooth snares. Let the painted cord with its reddening feather hem in the beasts with empty terror. You, brandish the hurling spear; you, with right hand and left at once, guide the heavy oak shaft with its broad iron; you, the rouser from ambush, will drive the headlong beasts with shouting; you, now victor, will loose their bowels with curved knife.

Be present, then, to your companion, divine warrior-maid, whose realm is the secret quarter of the lands set apart, whose sure shafts seek out the beast that drinks the icy Araxes and the one that sports on the frozen Hister. Your right hand hunts the Gaetulian lions, your right the Cretan hinds; now with a lighter hand you pierce the swift gazelles. To you the dappled tigers bare their breasts, to you the shaggy-backed bison, and the wild aurochs with their broad horns. Whatever feeds in lonely fields, whether the Arab knows it in his rich forest, or the destitute Garamant, or the ridges of fierce Pyrene, or the glens of Hyrcania hide it, and the wandering Sarmatian on his empty plains, fears your bow, Diana. If your devout worshipper has borne your favor into the glades, the nets have held the beasts fast, no feet have broken the snare; the prey is carried in a groaning wagon; then the hounds wear muzzles reddened with much blood, and the rustic throng returns to their homes in a long triumph. See, goddess, you favor me: the shrill-tongued hounds have given the signal. I am called to the woods; this way, this way I will go, by the road that shortens the long journey.

PHAEDRA, NURSE

PHAEDRA: O mighty Crete, mistress of the vast sea, along whose every shore countless ships have held the deep — whatever Nereus cuts, open to prows, as far as the Assyrian land — why do you force me, given as a hostage to a hated house and wed to my enemy, to spend my life in misery and tears? See, my husband is gone, a fugitive, and keeps the faith to his bride that Theseus is wont to keep: a brave soldier of his bold wooer, through the deep darkness of the lake from which there is no return he goes, to drag the queen, torn from the throne of the king of hell; he presses on, the comrade of madness; no fear, no shame held him back — debaucheries and forbidden beds the father of Hippolytus seeks in lowest Acheron.

But another, greater grief presses on me in my sorrow. No nightly rest, no deep sleep frees me from my cares: the evil is fed and grows and burns within, like the heat that wells up from the cavern of Etna. The webs of Pallas lie idle, and the wool slips from my very hands; it does not please me to honor the temples with votive gifts, nor among the altars, mingled with the Attic choirs, to wave torches privy to the silent rites, nor to approach with chaste prayers or with pious rite the goddess who guards this land assigned to her: it delights me to follow with the chase the startled beasts and to hurl the rigid javelin with my soft hand. Where do you turn, my soul? Why, mad, do you love the glades? I recognize the fatal evil of my wretched mother: our love knows how to sin in the woods. Mother, I pity you: seized by an unspeakable evil you boldly loved the savage leader of the wild herd; grim, impatient of the yoke, was that adulterer, the lord of the untamed herd — but he loved something. What god, or what Daedalus, could aid my wretched flames? Not though he himself returned, mighty in Mopsopian art, who shut up our monster in a blind house, could he promise any aid to our plight. Venus, hating the offspring of the hated Sun, through us avenges the chains of her Mars and his shame, and loads the whole race of Phoebus with abominable disgraces: no daughter of Minos has been quit of love lightly; ever is sin joined to it.

NURSE: Wife of Theseus, bright offspring of Jove, drive out at once these abominable things from your chaste breast, quench the flames, nor yield yourself compliant to a dire hope: whoever resists at the outset and repels love, has been safe and victorious; but he who by indulgence has nursed the sweet evil refuses too late to bear the yoke he has taken on. Nor does it escape me how harsh, and unused to truth, the royal pride is, unwilling to be bent toward the right; whatever outcome chance may give, I will bear it: nearing freedom makes an old man brave. The first thing is to wish for what is honorable and not stray from the path. The second virtue is to know the measure of sin. Where do you go, wretched one? Why do you weigh down your house with infamy and outdo your mother? Your crime is greater than the monster: for you may charge monsters to fate, but crimes to character. If, because your husband does not see the upper world, you believe your deed safe and free of fear, you err: suppose Theseus held, hidden in the depth of Lethe, and bearing the eternal Styx — what of him who presses the seas with his broad realm and gives laws to a hundred peoples, your father? Will he suffer so great a crime to lie concealed? Watchful is a parent's care. Yet grant we may cover so great a sin by craft and guile: what of him who pours his light upon things, your mother's father? What of him who shakes the world, brandishing the Etnaean bolt with his flashing hand, the begetter of the gods? Do you believe this can be done, that you lie hidden among grandsires who see all things? But suppose the gracious favor of the gods conceals your abominable unions, and to debauchery is granted the trust always denied to great crimes: what of the present penalty, the conscious dread of the mind, the soul full of guilt and fearing itself? Some have borne crime in safety, none in security. Quench the flames of impious love, I pray, and the wickedness that no barbarous land has ever committed — neither the Getae roaming the plains, nor the inhospitable Taurus, nor the scattered Scythian; drive the deed, horrid, from your purifying mind, and, mindful of your mother, fear strange unions. Do you prepare to mingle the beds of father and son, and to take in your impious womb a confused offspring? Go on, and overturn nature with abominable fires — why do monsters cease? Why does your brother's house stand empty? As often shall the world hear of unwonted prodigies, as often shall nature yield from its own laws, as the woman of Crete shall love.

PHAEDRA: What you tell, I know to be true, nurse; but frenzy compels me to follow the worse course. My soul goes knowingly to the brink and returns, vainly seeking sound counsel. So when the sailor drives his laden ship against the opposing wave, his labor yields to nothing, and the vessel, conquered, is borne off down the sloping tide. What can reason avail? Frenzy has conquered and reigns, and a mighty god is master of my whole mind. This winged one is strong over all the earth, ungoverned, and scorches Jove himself with untamed flames; warlike Gradivus has felt those torches, the god who forges the three-forked bolt has felt them, and he who ever turns the furnaces on Etna's raging ridges glows with so small a fire; and Phoebus himself, who guides his shafts from the string, the boy pierces with an arrow more surely sped, and flits through heaven and earth, grievous to both alike.

NURSE: That love is a god, base lust, favoring its own vice, has feigned, and, that it might be the freer, has given to its frenzy the title of a false divinity. Erycina, forsooth, sends her son wandering through all lands; he, flying through heaven, plies his wanton shafts with tender hand, and, least of the gods, holds so great a realm: these empty things a deranged mind has claimed for itself, and feigned the divinity of Venus and the god's bow. Whoever exults too much in prosperity and overflows with luxury, ever seeks the unwonted. Then, the dire companion of great fortune, lust steals in: the accustomed feasts do not please, nor the home of sober ways, nor the cheap cup. Why does this plague more rarely steal into humble dwellings, choosing the houses of the delicate? Why does holy Venus dwell in small homes, and the common crowd keep its passions sound and the moderate restrain themselves? But the rich, upheld by power, seek more than is right? He who has too much power wants to be able to do what he cannot. You see what becomes one set on a high throne: fear and revere the scepter of your returning husband.

PHAEDRA: I think love has the greatest realm in me, and I fear no return: never again shall he touch the upper vault who, once sunk, has entered the home that is silent in perpetual night.

NURSE: Do not trust Dis. Though he have shut his realm, and the Stygian dog keep the dread doors: Theseus alone finds the forbidden ways.

PHAEDRA: Perhaps he will grant pardon to our love.

NURSE: He was harsh even to a chaste wife: barbarian Antiope felt his savage hand. But suppose your angry husband could be bent: who will bend the unyielding spirit of this man? He, hating the very name of woman, flees it, harsh, dedicates his years to a celibate life, shuns wedlock: you would know him an Amazon's son.

PHAEDRA: It pleases me to follow him, as he clings to the ridges of the snowy hill and treads the rough rocks with nimble foot, through deep woods, over mountains.

NURSE: Will he stand still and give himself to be caressed, and put off his chaste ways for an unchaste Venus? Will he lay aside for you his hatred — by whose hatred, perhaps, he persecutes all women? He cannot be won by prayers.

PHAEDRA: He is wild? We have learned that the wild are conquered by love.

NURSE: He will flee.

PHAEDRA: Through the very seas, if he flees, I will follow.

NURSE: Remember your father.

PHAEDRA: I remember my mother too.

NURSE: He flees the whole sex.

PHAEDRA: Then I am free of the fear of a rival.

NURSE: Your husband will be at hand —

PHAEDRA: What, Pirithous' companion?

NURSE: And your father will be at hand —

PHAEDRA: Gentle, the father of Ariadne.

NURSE: By these splendid grey hairs of my old age, a suppliant, and by my breast worn with cares, and by my dear breasts I pray, stay this frenzy and help yourself: to wish to be cured has been part of the cure.

PHAEDRA: Not all shame has departed from my noble soul. I obey, my nurse. Let the love that will not be ruled be conquered. I will not let you, my good name, be stained. This is the only course, the one escape from evil: let me follow my husband; by death I will forestall the crime.

NURSE: Moderate, my child, the rush of your unbridled mind, restrain your passions: I judge you worthy of life for this very reason, that you declare yourself worthy of death.

PHAEDRA: Death is resolved on: the manner of my fate is sought. Shall I end my life with the noose, or fall upon the sword? Or, cast headlong from the citadel of Pallas, shall I fall?

NURSE: Shall my old age suffer you so to perish by a headlong death? Stay your frenzied onset.

PHAEDRA: No reasoning can keep back one resolved to die, when he has decided to die and ought to die. Therefore let us arm a hand to defend our chastity.

NURSE: Sole comfort of my weary years, mistress, if so wanton a frenzy presses upon your mind, despise reputation — reputation scarcely favors the truth, better to the worse-deserving, worse to the good. Let us try this sad and unyielding spirit. This is my task, to approach the wild youth and to bend the savage mind of the harsh man.

CHORUS OF CRETAN WOMEN

Goddess, born of the unkindly sea, whom twin Cupid calls his mother — that wanton, smiling boy, how surely he guides his shafts from his bow! The wound he deals has no broad outward mark, but devours the marrow deep within. There is no peace from that boy: through the world he scatters his arrows, swift, far-flung; and whatever shore sees the sun at its birth, and whatever lies toward the boundaries of Hesperia, whatever is set beneath the burning Crab, whatever endures the ever-wandering settlers of the icy Parrhasian Bear, knows these flames. He kindles fierce fires in the young, and in the weary old calls back again the cooled warmth; he strikes the breasts of maidens with an unknown fire, and bids the gods above leave heaven and dwell on earth with feigned faces.

Phoebus, herdsman of the Thessalian flock, drove the herd, and, laying aside his plectrum, called the bulls with an unequal reed-pipe. How often has he put on lesser shapes, he himself who leads the heaven and the clouds! Now as a bird he moved his white wings, sweeter of voice than the dying swan; now, a wanton bullock with lowering brow, he laid down his back for the maidens' sport, and through his brother's waters, his new realm, with hoof mimicking the slow oars, he tamed the deep with breast set against it, a fearful bearer, anxious for his prey. The bright goddess of the dim world burned, left the night and gave her shining car to her brother, to be driven otherwise: he learned to drive the team by night and to turn in a shorter circuit, while the axles trembled under a heavier car; nor did the nights keep their own season, and day returned with a slow dawning. The son of Alcmena laid aside his quiver and the threatening spoil of the vast lion, and suffered emeralds to be fitted on his fingers and a rule to be given to his rough hair; he bound his legs with patterned gold, his soles confined in a yellow slipper; and with the hand that lately bore the club he drew the threads with hurrying spindle.

Persia saw, and Lydia, fierce in its rich realm, the skin of the wild lion thrown off and from his shoulders, on which had rested the palace of high heaven, a fine mantle of Tyrian thread. Sacred is that fire — believe the wounded — and too mighty, wherever the earth is girt by the deep sea, and wherever through the heaven itself the bright stars run their course: this realm the unkindly boy holds, whose darts the king of the Nereids feels, passing through the lowest waves, and cannot relieve his flame in the sea. The winged race feels the fires; kindled by Venus, the bold bull takes up war for the whole herd; if they have feared for their mate, the timid stags demand battle. The Punic lions shake their manes when Love has stirred them, and with bellowing give signs of the frenzy conceived within them. Then dusky India dreads its striped tigers; then the boar whets his wound-dealing tusks and is all foam at the mouth; then the wood groans with savage roaring. The monster of the mad sea loves, and the Lucanian oxen: Nature claims all for herself, nothing is exempt from her, and hatred perishes when Love commands: old angers yield before the fires. Why sing more? Care overcomes even savage stepmothers.

Nurse, declare what news you bring; in what state is the queen? Is there any measure to her savage flames?

NURSE, PHAEDRA, CHORUS

NURSE: There is no hope that so great an evil can be softened, and there will be no end to the mad flames. She is scorched by a silent heat, and, though shut in and hidden, the frenzy is betrayed by her face; fire breaks from her eyes, and her weary cheeks refuse the light. Nothing pleases her wavering mind for long, and her pain, uncertain, tosses her limbs this way and that. Now, as if dying, she sinks with failing step and scarcely holds her head on her tottering neck; now she gives herself to rest and, forgetful of sleep, passes the night in laments; she bids her body be raised and laid down again, and her hair undone and dressed afresh: ever impatient of herself, her bearing is changed; no care for food or for her health now touches her; she walks with uncertain step, already failed in strength: not the same vigor, not the rosy blush tinging her bright face; and her eyes, which bore the signs of Phoebus' torch, gleam with nothing of their family or their father. Tears fall down her face, and her cheeks are watered with constant dew, as on the ridges of Taurus the snows grow wet, struck by a warm shower. But see, the roofs of the palace open. She herself, reclining on the couch of a golden seat, in her unsound mind rejects her wonted garments.

PHAEDRA: Take away, handmaids, the robes smeared with purple and gold; far from me be the redness of Tyrian dye, and the threads the distant Seres gather from the boughs: let a narrow girdle bind my folds, set free; let my neck be bare of necklace, nor let the snow-white stone, the gift of the Indian sea, weigh down my ears; let my hair, unscented, go free of Assyrian perfume. Thus let my locks, carelessly tossed, pour over my neck and the tops of my shoulders, and, stirred by swift running, follow the winds. My left hand shall hold the quiver, my right hand shall brandish the Thessalian shaft. Such as one of those who, leaving the lands of cold Pontus, drove their bands, beating the Attic soil, the daughter of Tanais or of Maeotis, and bound her hair in a knot and let it loose, her flank protected by a crescent shield: such will I go into the woods.

NURSE, HIPPOLYTUS

NURSE: Queen of the groves, who alone dwell in the mountains, and alone are worshipped, goddess, in the lonely mountains, turn the sad threats of the omens to a better issue, O great goddess among the woods and groves, bright star of heaven and glory of the night, by whose alternate turns the world shines forth, threefold Hecate, lo, be present, favoring my undertaking. Tame the rigid spirit of grim Hippolytus: let him give a willing ear, soften his fierce breast; let him learn to love, let him bear mutual fires. Bend his mind: let the grim, averse, ferocious one return to the laws of Venus. Hither bend your powers: so may bright faces bear you, and, the cloud snatched away, may you go with pure horns, so, as you rule the reins of the nightly heaven, may the spells of Thessaly never be able to draw you down, and may no shepherd win glory over you. Be present, invoked; now favor my prayers, goddess. I see the man himself revering the solemn rite, no companion at his side. Why do you hesitate? Chance has given the time and place: I must use my arts. Do we tremble? It is not easy to dare a commanded crime; but whoever fears the orders of his king must lay aside all honor and drive it from his soul: shame is a poor minister of a royal command.

HIPPOLYTUS: Why do you toil hither with aged steps, O faithful nurse, bearing a troubled brow and sad of face? Surely my father is safe, and Phaedra safe, and the yoke of her two children?

NURSE: Dismiss your fear, the kingdom is in a prosperous state, and the house, flourishing, thrives in a happy lot. But come you more gentle amid these blessings: for an anxious care troubles me on your account, that you yourself, hostile to yourself, tame yourself with heavy penalties. Whom fate compels, he is wretched with some excuse; but if anyone of his own accord, willingly, offers himself to evils and torments himself, he deserves to lose the goods he knows not how to use. Rather, mindful of your years, relax your mind: on festive nights raise the torch, let Bacchus unload your heavy cares; enjoy your age: it flees in a swift course. Now your heart is easy, now Venus is pleasing to a youth: let your spirit exult. Why do you lie in a widowed bed? Loose your sad youth; now seize the course, let go the reins, do not let the best days of life flow away. God has assigned proper duties and led our life through its stages: gladness becomes the young, a sad brow the old. Why do you restrain yourself and kill your true nature? That harvest will give a great return to the farmer, whatever, while tender, runs riot with glad shoots, and the tree will overtop the grove with its lofty crown which no grudging hand cuts down or prunes: noble natures bear themselves better to praise if a lively freedom nourishes the noble soul. Wild and woodland and ignorant of life, will you keep your youth sad, Venus forsaken? Do you believe this duty is laid upon men, that they should endure hardships, tame horses with running, and wage savage wars with bloody Mars? How many kinds of death drag down and pluck away the mortal throng — the sea, the sword, and treachery! That greatest parent of the world provided, when he saw the hands of the Fates so rapacious, that the loss should ever be repaired by new offspring. But suppose generation were lacking: thus would we seek the black Styx of our own accord; let a barren youth approve a celibate life: then whatever you see will be the throng of a single age, and rush upon itself. Come, let Venus depart from human affairs, who supplies and restores the exhausted race: the world will lie foul in squalid decay, the sea will stand empty without any fish, the bird will be lacking to the sky and the beast to the woods, and the air will be passable only to the winds. Therefore follow nature as the guide of life: frequent the city, cultivate the gathering of citizens.

HIPPOLYTUS: No other life is more free and free of vice, nor better cherishes the ancient ways, than that which, leaving the walls, loves the woods. No frenzy of a greedy mind inflames the man who has dedicated himself, innocent, to the mountain ridges, no breath of popular favor and the crowd faithless to the good, no pestilent envy, no fragile favor; he is not a slave to power, nor, threatening to seize power, does he pursue empty honors or fleeting wealth, free of hope and fear; no black, devouring spite assails him with degenerate tooth; nor does he know the crimes sown among peoples and cities, nor, conscious of guilt, dread every sound or feign his words; he does not seek to be roofed with a thousand columns in his wealth, nor, insolent, gild his beams with much gold; no copious gore floods his pious altars, nor, sprinkled with sacred meal, do a hundred snow-white oxen bow their necks: but he holds the open country and the clear air and wanders harmless; he knows only to set cunning snares for the beasts, and, weary with heavy toil, soothes his body in the snow-white Ilissus; now he skirts the bank of the swift Alpheus, now he measures the dense places of a high wood, where cold Lerna shines through with its pure shoal, and the silent dwellings: here the querulous birds murmur, and the ash-trees, lightly struck by the winds, tremble, and the old beeches. It pleases him to press the banks of a wandering stream, or on the bare turf to draw light sleep, whether a generous spring pours forth its swift waters, or a sweet sound murmurs through new flowers with a fleeing brook. The fruit shaken from the woods quiets his hunger, and strawberries plucked from low thickets furnish easy food. He has the impulse to flee far from royal luxury: the proud drink from anxious gold; how pleasant to have caught the spring with the bare hand! A surer sleep weighs down the limbs of him who turns on a hard couch secure. He does not, lawless, seek thefts in a retreat and a dark bed, nor, fearing, hide himself in a manifold house: he seeks the air and the light and lives with heaven for his witness. Thus, I think, those lived whom the first age poured forth, mingled with the gods. None of them had a blind greed for gold, no sacred boundary-stone in the field divided the lands as arbiter for the peoples; not yet did the trusting ships cleave the deep: each man knew only his own seas; not with vast rampart and frequent tower had cities drawn their flanks; no soldier fitted savage arms to his hand, nor had the twisted ballista broken closed gates with a heavy stone; nor did the earth, commanded to suffer a master, bear servitude with the yoked ox: but the fields, fruitful of themselves, fed the peoples who demanded nothing; the wood gave its native wealth, and the shady caves gave native homes. The impious frenzy of gain broke the bond, and headlong anger, and lust, which drives on the kindled minds; there came the bloody thirst of empire, and the lesser was made the prey of the greater: might took the place of right. Then first men warred with bare hand, and turned rocks and rough boughs into arms: there was no light cornel-spear armed with slender iron, nor a sword girding the side with a long blade, nor, from afar, the plumed crests of helmets: grief was making the weapons. Warlike Mavors invented new arts and a thousand forms of death; from this, blood stained all the lands, poured out, and the sea grew red. Then crimes, with no limit, went through every house, no wickedness was without its precedent: brother fell by brother, parent by the hand of his son, the husband lies dead by the sword of his wife, and impious mothers destroy their own young; but the woman is the leader of evils: she, artificer of crimes, besets men's minds; by her incestuous debaucheries so many cities smoke, so many nations wage wars, and so many overthrown realms crush their peoples to the depths. Let others be passed over: the wife of Aegeus alone, Medea, will prove women a dire race.

NURSE: Why is the crime of a few made the fault of all?

HIPPOLYTUS: I detest them all, I shudder at them, I flee, I curse them. Be it reason, be it nature, be it dire frenzy: it is my pleasure to hate them. You will sooner join water to fire, and the treacherous Syrtis will sooner promise kindly shoals to ships, sooner from her farthest gulf Hesperian Tethys raise up the bright day, and the wolves offer gentle faces to the does, than I, conquered, bear a gentle spirit toward a woman.

NURSE: Often Love has set the bridle on the obstinate and changed their hatreds. Look at your mother's realm: those fierce women feel the yoke of Venus; you bear witness to that, the only boy of your race.

HIPPOLYTUS: I bear one solace for my lost mother: that now I may hate all women.

NURSE: As a hard rock, unyielding on every side, resists the waves and sends back far the assailing waters, so he spurns my words. But Phaedra comes headlong, impatient. Whither will fortune give itself? Whither will frenzy incline? Suddenly her lifeless body falls to the earth and a color like death spreads over her face. Lift up your eyes, end the delay of your voice: see, my child, your Hippolytus himself holds you.

PHAEDRA, NURSE

PHAEDRA: Who gives me back to grief and lays again the heavy fires upon my soul? How well I had passed beyond myself!

HIPPOLYTUS: Why do you flee the sweet gift of light restored?

PHAEDRA: Dare, my soul, attempt it, carry through your charge. Let your words stand fearless: he who asks timidly teaches refusal. A great part of my crime was long ago accomplished; shame comes late to us: I have loved abominable things. If I follow what I have begun, perhaps I shall hide the crime with the marriage-torch: success makes certain crimes honorable. Come, begin, my soul! — Grant me a little, I pray, your private ear; if there is any companion, let him depart.

HIPPOLYTUS: See, the place is free, void of all witness.

PHAEDRA: But my lips deny passage to the words I have begun; a great force sends forth my voice, and a greater holds it back. I call you all to witness, gods of heaven — this that I wish —

HIPPOLYTUS: Can the soul, desiring, not utter something?

PHAEDRA: Light cares speak; mighty ones are struck dumb.

HIPPOLYTUS: Entrust your cares to my ears, mother.

PHAEDRA: The name of mother is proud and too powerful; a humbler name befits my feelings; call me either sister, Hippolytus, or handmaid, and handmaid rather: I will bear all servitude. If you should bid me go through the deep snows, I would not shrink from walking on the frozen ridges of Pindus; if to go through fires and hostile ranks, I would not hesitate to give my breast to the ready swords. Take the scepter entrusted to you, receive me as your handmaid: it is not a woman's part to guard the realms of cities; you, who flourish in the early bloom of your youth, rule the citizens, strong, by your father's command; take me, a suppliant and a slave, to your bosom and protect me. Pity a widow —

HIPPOLYTUS: May the highest god avert this omen; my father will be here, safe, forthwith.

PHAEDRA: The lord of the tenacious realm and of the silent Styx has made no road back to those above, once left: will he release the ravisher of his own bridal chamber? Unless, perhaps, even Pluto sits indulgent to love.

HIPPOLYTUS: Him indeed the just gods of heaven will give back returning; but while the god holds our prayers in doubt, I will cherish my dear brothers with due affection, and so deserve of you that you think yourself no widow, and I myself will fill for you a father's place.

PHAEDRA: O credulous hope of lovers, O deceitful Love! Have I said enough? I will press on with prayers applied. Pity me, hear the prayers of my silent mind — I long to speak, and shrink from it.

HIPPOLYTUS: What evil is this of yours?

PHAEDRA: An evil you would scarcely believe could fall upon a stepmother.

HIPPOLYTUS: You cast words perplexed in an ambiguous voice: speak out plainly.

PHAEDRA: A heat and a love scorch my maddened breast. A fierce fire seethes in my inmost vitals, sunk deep, and, hidden in my veins, runs like a nimble flame through high beams.

HIPPOLYTUS: With a chaste love for Theseus, surely, you are mad?

PHAEDRA: Hippolytus, it is so: I love the face of Theseus, that earlier face he wore once as a boy, when his first beard marked his pure cheeks and he saw the blind house of the Cnossian monster and gathered up the long thread by the winding way. How he shone then! The fillets had bound his hair, and a golden shame tinged his tender face: strong muscles were in his soft arms; he had the face of your Phoebe, or of my Phoebus, and rather your own — such, lo, such was he when he pleased his enemy; thus he bore his lofty head: in you more brightly shines an uncombed beauty; the father is wholly in you, and yet some part of your grim mother mingles its beauty in equal measure: in your Greek face a Scythian sternness appears. If you had entered the Cretan strait with your father, for you rather my sister would have spun our thread. You, you, sister, in whatever part of the starry sky you shine, I invoke to a like cause: one house has seized two sisters, you the father, but me the son. See, a suppliant lies prostrate at your knees, the offspring of a royal house. Sprinkled with no stain, untouched, innocent, I am changed for you alone. With set purpose I have stooped to prayers: this day shall make an end of my grief or of my life. Pity one who loves —

HIPPOLYTUS: O great ruler of the gods, do you hear crimes so slowly? See them so slowly? And when will you send your bolt forth with savage hand, if now the sky is clear? Let all the heaven, struck, fall in ruin and hide the day with black clouds, and let the stars, turned backward, drive their slanting courses, wrenched aside; and you, starry head, radiant Titan, do you look upon the wickedness of your stock? Sink your light and flee into darkness. Why is your right hand idle, ruler of gods and men, and why does the world not blaze with your three-forked torch? On me thunder, pierce me, let the swift fire burn me, driven through — I am guilty, I have deserved to die: I have pleased a stepmother. See, am I worthy of debaucheries? Did I alone seem to you easy material for so great a crime? Has my austerity earned this? O you who surpass in crime the whole race of women, worse than your mother! She defiled herself with debauchery alone, and yet, though the crime was long unspoken, her offspring exposed it with its twofold mark, and the ambiguous infant proved by its grim face the crime of its mother — that womb bore you. O thrice and four times given to a happy fate those whom hatred and treachery have drained and destroyed and given to death — father, I envy you: this is a greater evil, a greater, than the Colchian stepmother.

PHAEDRA: I too recognize the fate of our house: we seek what we should flee; but I am not mistress of myself. You I will follow through fires, through the mad sea, and over crags and rivers that the rushing flood sweeps away; wherever you set your steps, there will I, frantic, be driven — again, proud one, I fall prostrate at your knees.

HIPPOLYTUS: Remove far from my chaste body your shameless touch — what is this? She rushes even into my embrace? Let my sword be drawn, let it exact the deserved punishment. See, by her twisted hair I have bent back her shameless head with my left hand: never has juster blood been given to your altars, goddess of the bow.

PHAEDRA: Hippolytus, now you make me master of my wish: you heal my frenzy. This is more than my prayer, that, my honor safe, I should die at your hands.

HIPPOLYTUS: Begone, live, lest you win anything by entreaty, and let this sword, contaminated, leave my chaste side. What Tanais shall cleanse me, or what Maeotis with its barbarian waves, leaning on the Pontic sea? Not the great father himself, with all his Ocean, could expiate so much guilt. O woods, O beasts!

NURSE: The guilt is detected. My soul, why do you stand sluggish, dumb? Let us ourselves throw back the charge, and of our own accord accuse her of impious passion: crime must be cloaked with crime: it is safest to take the offensive when you have cause to fear. Whether we dared the wickedness first or suffered it, since the guilt is secret, what witness shall know? Be here, Athenians! Faithful band of servants, bring help! Hippolytus, ravisher of an abominable lust, presses and pursues, threatens the terror of death, frightens the chaste woman with the sword — see, headlong he goes and, stunned, in his trembling flight has left his sword behind. We hold the pledge of his crime. Revive first this grieving woman. Let the dragged hair and the torn locks remain as they are, the marks of so great a deed, carry her to the city. Now take up your senses again, mistress. Why do you tear yourself and flee the sight of all? The mind makes one unchaste, not chance.

CHORUS

He fled, like a mad tempest, swifter than the cloud the Corus piles up, swifter than the flame that snatches its course, when a star, driven by the winds, stretches out its long fires.

Let fame, the admirer of an older age, compare with you all the ancient glory: your beauty shines more fair by as much as the moon gleams more bright when, her orb full, she has joined her own fires with closing horns, and, all night long, in her hurrying car, ruddy Phoebe shows her face, nor do the lesser stars hold their own: such is Hesperus, bringing on the first darkness, the herald of night, newly bathed in the waves, and, the darkness driven off again, Lucifer the same. And you, Liber from thyrsus-bearing India, a youth with unshorn, ever-flowing hair, terrifying tigers with your vine-clad spear and binding your horned head with a turban, you will not surpass the rough locks of Hippolytus. Do not too much admire your own face: through all peoples the tale has spread whom Phaedra's sister preferred to Bromius.

A doubtful good is beauty to mortals, a brief gift of little time, how swiftly you glide on a quick foot! Not so does the heat of warm summer despoil the meadows fair in new spring, when at the solstice the noonday rages and the nights rush past on their short wheels. As the lilies grow faint with pale leaf, so the locks pleasing to the head fail, and the radiance that shines on tender cheeks is in a moment snatched away, and no day but has carried off the spoil of a beautiful body. Beauty is a fleeting thing: what wise man trusts in a frail good? Use it while you may. Time silently undermines you, and an hour ever worse than the one gone by steals on.

Why do you seek deserted places? Beauty is not safer in trackless spots: in a hidden grove, when Titan has set up the noonday, the wanton Naiad band, the lawless ones, will ring you, wont to shut up the beautiful in their springs, and they will lay ambush for your sleep, the Dryads who pursue the mountain-roving Pans; or, looking down on you from the starry pole, the star born after the ancient Arcadians will be unable to guide her shining car. And lately she blushed, and no cloud duller obscured her bright face: but we, anxious at the troubled deity, thinking she was being drawn down by Thessalian spells, gave forth our clashings: you had been the labor and you the cause of her delay; the goddess of the nights, while she gazed on you, held back her swift course.

Let the frosts vex this face more sparingly, let this face seek the sun more rarely: it will shine brighter than Parian marble. How pleasing is the face, grim with a manly grimness, and the stern weight of an old man's brow! Though you may compare your bright neck with Phoebus': him a mane, that knows not to be bound, adorns and covers, pouring over his shoulders; you a shaggy brow becomes, you a shorter hair lying by no rule; you, though you dared the rough and warlike gods in strength and to surpass them by the bulk of your vast body: for, though a youth, you equal the muscles of Hercules, broader of breast than warlike Mars, if it pleased you to ride on the back of a horse, nimbler with the rein than Castor's hand, you could guide Spartan Cyllarus. Stretch the thong on your foremost fingers and aim the javelin with all your strength: not so far, though skilled to fix their darts, will the Cretans send the slender reed. Or if it should please you to scatter your shafts in Parthian fashion into the sky, none without a bird will come down; lodged in the warm flesh, they will bring back their prey from the midst of the clouds. Rarely (look through the ages) has beauty in men gone unpunished. May a kinder god pass you by in safety, and may your noble beauty show the deformed image of a misshapen old age.

What will a woman's headlong frenzy leave undared? She prepares abominable charges against the innocent youth. See, the crimes! She seeks belief with torn hair, she throws all the adornment of her head into disorder, she wets her cheeks: the snare is fitted out with every womanly trick.

But who is that, bearing royal grace in his face and lifting his head on a high crest? How like in face he bears to young Pirithous, were not his cheeks white with a languid pallor and the unkempt squalor not standing in his upright hair. See, Theseus himself, restored to earth, is here.

THESEUS, NURSE

THESEUS: At last I have escaped the region of eternal night and the vast prison that shadows the pole for the shades, and scarcely do my eyes endure the longed-for day. Now the fourth time Eleusis reaps the gifts of Triptolemus and the Balance as often has made the day equal, since the doubtful toil of an unknown lot held me amid the evils of death and life. One part of life remained to me, though dead: the sense of evils. Alcides was the end, who, when he dragged the dog torn from Tartarus, bore me too at the same time to the upper seats. But my exhausted strength lacks its ancient force, and my steps falter. Ah, how great was the toil to seek the far-off heaven from lowest Phlegethon, and at once to flee death and follow Alcides! What tearful sound has struck my ears? Let someone tell me — grief and tears and pain, mournful lamentation on the very threshold? Omens worthy indeed of a guest from the underworld.

NURSE: Phaedra holds an obstinate purpose of death, and scorns our weeping and threatens death.

THESEUS: What is the cause of her death? Why does she die, her husband restored?

NURSE: This very thing brought on her hastened death.

THESEUS: Perplexed words cover I know not what great thing. Speak out plainly what grief weighs down her mind.

NURSE: She reveals it to none; sad, she hides her secret and has resolved to bear with her the evil by which she dies. Now go, I beg, go: there is need of haste.

THESEUS: Unbar the closed doors of the royal house.

THESEUS, PHAEDRA, NURSE, A SILENT WOMAN

THESEUS: O partner of my chamber, is it thus that you receive your husband's coming and the face of your longed-for consort? Why do you not free your right hand of the sword and restore your courage to me, and tell out whatever drives you from life?

PHAEDRA: Alas, by the scepter of your empire, great-souled Theseus, and by the promise of your children and by your return, and by my ashes now, permit me death.

THESEUS: What cause compels you to die?

PHAEDRA: If the cause of my death is told, its fruit is lost.

THESEUS: No other, save myself, shall hear it.

PHAEDRA: A chaste wife fears the ears of her husband alone.

THESEUS: Speak out: in a faithful breast I will hide your secrets.

PHAEDRA: What you would have another keep silent, first keep silent yourself.

THESEUS: No means of death shall be granted you.

PHAEDRA: To one who wishes to die, death can never be lacking.

THESEUS: Reveal what offence is to be atoned by death.

PHAEDRA: That I live.

THESEUS: Do not my tears move you?

PHAEDRA: It is best to die mourned by one's own.

THESEUS: She persists in silence. There is need of scourge and chains; and the nurse will betray whatever this one refuses to tell. Bind her with iron, let the force of the lash drag out the secrets of her mind.

PHAEDRA: I will tell it myself. Stay.

THESEUS: Why do you turn away your sad face and cover with your veil held before the tears suddenly springing on your cheeks?

PHAEDRA: You, you, creator of the gods of heaven, I call to witness, and you, gleaming radiance of the heavenly light, from whose rising our house depends: assailed by prayers, I resisted; to sword and threats my spirit did not yield: yet my body suffered violence. This stain on my honor our blood shall wash away.

THESEUS: Who, tell me, was the destroyer of my honor?

PHAEDRA: The one you would least suppose.

THESEUS: I demand to hear who he is.

PHAEDRA: This sword will tell — the one the ravisher, terrified by the tumult, left behind, fearing the citizens' rush.

THESEUS: What crime, ah me, do I behold? What monstrous thing do I see? The royal ivory of my father, rough with figures, gleams on the hilt — the glory of the Attic race. But where has he himself gone?

PHAEDRA: These servants saw him, trembling, driven in swift flight.

THESEUS: O holy Piety, O ruler of the pole and you who move the second realm with the waves, whence comes this plague of an abominable race? Did the Greek land nurse him, or the Scythian Taurus and the Colchian Phasis? The breed returns to its authors, and degenerate blood recalls its first stock. This is surely the frenzy of that warlike race, to hate the bonds of Venus and to prostitute a long-chaste body to the people. O foul breed, conquered by no law of a better soil! Even the very beasts shun the wickedness of Venus, and ignorant shame keeps the laws of kind. Where now is that face and the feigned majesty of a man, and the bristling bearing, affecting things ancient and old, and the sad austerity of his ways and his grave passions? O treacherous life, you bear hidden feelings and put a fair face on foul souls: shame hides the shameless, calm the bold, piety the abominable; the false praise truth and the soft feign hardness. The dweller of the woods, that wild man, chaste, untouched, unschooled, do you keep yourself for me? Did it please you to begin your manhood from my bed and so great a crime? Now, now I give thanks to the heavenly power that Antiope fell, struck by my hand, that, descending to the Stygian caverns, I did not leave a mother to you. A fugitive, run far off through unknown nations: though the earth, set apart at the world's end, divide you by Ocean's tracts, and you dwell on the globe turned opposite our feet, though, hidden deep in the farthest recess, you cross the horror-bearing realms of the high pole and, set above the winters and the white snows, leave behind the roaring ruins of icy Boreas raging after you, you shall pay the penalty for your crimes. A fugitive, relentless, I will press you through all hiding-places: far, closed, hidden, distant, trackless places we will traverse; no place shall stand in my way. You know whence I return; where weapons cannot be sent, thither I will send my prayers. My sea-god father granted me that I should conceive three prayers to the favoring god, and confirmed this gift with the Styx invoked. Come, perform the grim gift, ruler of the deep! Let Hippolytus see the bright day no more and go down to the shades, a youth, angry at his father. Bear now an abominable aid to your son, father: never would I spend the last gift of your divinity, were not great evils pressing me: amid the deep Tartara and grim Dis and the looming threats of the king of hell I spared the prayer; now render the pledged faith, father. Do you delay? Why are the waves still silent? Now, the winds driving them, weave black clouds into night, snatch away the stars and the sky, pour out the sea, rouse the watery throng and, swelling, call up the waves from lowest Ocean.

CHORUS

O great parent, Nature, of the gods, and you, ruler of fire-bearing Olympus, who whirl the stars scattered through the swift world and the wandering courses of the constellations and turn the poles on their swift pivot, why is it so great a care to you to drive ever the paths of the high heaven, so that now the frosts of hoary winter strip the woods bare, now the shadows return to the groves, now the neck of the summer lion cooks the harvest with great heat and the year tempers its powers? But why, you who govern such great things, beneath whom the weights of the vast world, balanced, lead on their orbits, are you absent, too careless of men, not anxious to benefit the good, to harm the bad? Fortune rules human affairs with no order, and scatters her gifts with a blind hand, fostering the worse; dire lust conquers the holy, fraud reigns in the lofty hall. The people delight to hand the fasces to a base man, and worship the same and hate him. Sad virtue has borne perverse rewards for the right: evil poverty attends the chaste, and the adulterer, powerful in his vice, reigns: O empty modesty and false honor!

But why does the messenger hasten with quickened step and water his mournful face with sad cheeks?

MESSENGER, THESEUS

MESSENGER: O bitter and hard lot, harsh servitude, why does chance summon me to an abominable message?

THESEUS: Do not fear to speak bravely of the harsh disasters: I bear a breast not unprepared for troubles.

MESSENGER: My tongue denies my grief its grievous voice.

THESEUS: Speak out what lot weighs down our shaken house.

MESSENGER: Hippolytus, ah me, lies dead by a tearful death.

THESEUS: That my son has perished I have long known: now the ravisher has perished. Tell the manner of his death.

MESSENGER: When, a fugitive, he left the city with hostile step, unfolding his swift course with quickened paces, he speedily yokes the steeds to the high car and binds their mouths, tamed, with the reins drawn tight. Then, having spoken much to himself and cursed his native soil, he often calls upon his father and, fierce, shakes the reins with the lash given loose: when suddenly the vast sea thundered from the deep and rose to the stars, though no wind breathes on the brine, no part of the sky resounds with a quiet sky, and its own tempest drives the placid sea. Not so great an Auster disturbs the Sicilian strait, nor so madly does the Ionian gulf rise up when Corus reigns, and the rocks tremble with the wave and the white foam beats topmost Leucate. The vast sea rises into a huge mound, nor is so great a plague built up against ships: it threatens the lands; the wave rolls forward with no light course: I know not what the heavy wave carries in its laden gulf. What new land shows its head to the stars? Does a new Cyclad rise up? While in amazement we ask this, behold, the whole sea bellowed, all the rocks on every side resound; the topmost peak drips with the brine cast forth, it foams and vomits the waters in alternate turns, as the great-bellied whale, borne through the deep straits of Ocean, pours back the wave from its mouth. The mass of waters, shaken, shuddered and broke itself apart and brought to the shore an evil greater than our fear: the sea rushed upon the lands and follows its own monster — a trembling shakes my lips. What was the form of that vast body! A bull, bearing aloft his sea-blue neck, raised a tall mane on his greening brow; his shaggy ears stand up, his eyes of varied color, both such as the lord of the wild herd might have had and such as one born beneath the waves: from this side his eyes vomit flame, from that they shine, marked with a sea-blue token; his rich neck lifts its towering muscles, and his open nostrils roar with gaping draughts; his breast and dewlap are green with clinging moss, his long flank is sprinkled with red weed; then behind, his hindmost shape joins into a monster, and the huge beast drags its boundless scaly part, such as the sea-monster at the farthest sea swallows or breaks the swift ships. The lands trembled, the stunned cattle fled this way and that through the fields, nor did the shepherd remember to follow his own bullocks; every beast fled from the glade, every hunter shuddered, bloodless with cold fear. Alone, free of fear, Hippolytus holds his horses with tight reins and rouses the frightened ones with the urging of his known voice. There is a high road to the fields where the hills are broken, touching the spaces near the sea that lies beneath; here that mass sharpens itself and prepares its rage. When it had taken courage and, testing itself, made enough trial of its rage, it flies forth in headlong course, scarcely touching the topmost ground with its swift step, and stood, grim, before the trembling chariot. Against it your son, threatening, rose up with fierce face, nor does he change his looks, and thunders loud: "This empty terror does not break my spirit: for it is my father's labor to conquer bulls." At once the disobedient horses snatched the car from his reins, and now, wandering from the road, wherever frightened madness bore them in their frenzy, this way they go on and drive themselves over the crags. But he, like a steersman on a stormy sea who holds back his ship, lest it give its flank aslant, and by art deceives the wave, no otherwise guides the swift car: now he draws their mouths with the reins drawn tight, now, constant, with twisted lash he checks their backs. The companion follows unceasing, now keeping equal spaces, now meeting them face to face, roaming, stirring terror on every side. He could flee no farther: for the horned horror of the sea ran in to meet him with its whole face. Then indeed the steeds, roused with terrified mind, loose the reins and struggle to tear themselves from the yoke, and, rearing on their feet, throw off their burden. Headlong, fallen face down, he entangled his body, in falling, in the tenacious noose, and the more he struggled, the more he bound the clinging knots. The beasts felt the deed — and, the light car with no driver, where fear bade them, they rush. So through the air, not knowing its own burden, and indignant at the day entrusted to a false Sun, the chariot shook off Phaethon from the wandering pole. Far and wide he stains the fields with blood, and his head, mocked, bounds back from the rocks; the brambles take his hair, and the hard stone ravages his beautiful face, and his ill-fated beauty perishes with many a wound. The swift wheels whirl on his dying limbs; and at last, as he is dragged, a tree-stump, with its scorched stake, holds him by the middle, the trunk driven through his groin, and for a little while the car stood still, its master fixed. The team halted at the wound — and at once they break both the delay and their master. Then, half-alive, the thickets cut him, the rough briars with sharp thorns, and every trunk took its part of his body. The mournful band of his servants wanders through the fields, through those places where Hippolytus, marked out, signs the long track with a bloody trace, and the grieving hounds track their master's limbs. And not yet has the busy toil of the mourners been able to fill out the body. Is this the glory of his beauty? He who lately, bright, the partner of his father's empire and sure heir, shone like the stars, is now gathered here and there for the last pyre and brought together for his funeral.

THESEUS: O too mighty Nature, by how great a bond of blood you hold parents! How we revere you, even against our will: I wished him slain, guilty; I weep for him lost.

MESSENGER: One cannot rejoice in what he himself has wished.

THESEUS: Indeed I think this the greatest heap of evils, if chance makes things to be wished for that should be abhorred.

MESSENGER: And if you keep your hatred, why are your cheeks wet with weeping?

THESEUS: Because I have destroyed him, not because I have lost him, I weep.

CHORUS

How great are the chances that turn human things! Less fierce on the small does Fortune rage, and more lightly does the god strike the lighter things; obscure quiet keeps the calm safe and the cottage gives untroubled old age. The roofs set near the heavenly seats receive the East winds, receive the South, the threats of mad Boreas and the rain-bearing Corus. The damp valley suffers rare strokes of the thunderbolt: huge Caucasus and the Phrygian grove of mother Cybele trembled at the bolt of high-thundering Jove: fearing for the high sky, Jupiter seeks the things near it; the lowly home, the dwelling of the common folk, never takes the great upheavals. The shifting hour flies on wavering wings, nor does swift Fortune keep faith with any. This man, who, leaving death, looks again on the stars of the bright world and the shining day, mourns his sad and sorrowful return and, more lamentable than Avernus itself, sees as a guest the welcome of his native seat. Pallas, to be revered by the Attic race, because your Theseus looks on the sky and the gods above and has fled the Stygian marshes, chaste one, you owe nothing to your rapacious uncle: the number to the infernal tyrant holds good.

But what tearful voice sounds from the high roofs, and what does frenzied Phaedra prepare with drawn sword?

THESEUS, PHAEDRA, CHORUS

THESEUS: What frenzy goads you, struck with grief? What means that sword, what the outcry and the beating of the breast over a hated body?

PHAEDRA: Me, me, savage lord of the deep sea, assail, and against me send the monsters of the blue main, whatever Tethys bears in her inmost gulf, whatever Ocean, embracing with its wandering waves, covers with its farthest flood. O Theseus, ever harsh, O never to your own returning without harm: your son and your father with their deaths have atoned for your returns; you overturn your house, ever harmful by love of your wives or by hatred. Hippolytus, do I behold your face thus, and have I made it thus? What savage Sinis, or what Procrustes, scattered your limbs, or what Cretan bull of double form, fierce with horned face, filling the Daedalean prison with vast bellowing, tore you asunder? Alas, whither has your beauty fled, and your eyes, our star? Lifeless do you lie? Be present a little while and hear my words — I speak nothing base: with this hand I will pay your penalty and plunge the sword into my abominable breast, and free Phaedra at once of her life and of her crime, and through the waves and through the Tartarean lakes, through Styx, through fiery rivers, frantic, I will follow you. Let us appease the shades: take the spoils of my head, and receive the shorn lock of my torn brow. We were not allowed to join our souls, but surely we may join our fates. Die, if you are chaste, for your husband; if unchaste, for your love. Shall I seek the bridal chamber of my husband, defiled by so great a crime? This wickedness was lacking, that, your bed avenged, you should enjoy it holy. O death, sole solace of the evil of love, O death, greatest glory of wounded modesty, we flee to you: open your peaceful bosom. Hear, Athens, and you, father, deadlier than a deadly stepmother: I told falsehoods and the wickedness which I myself, deranged, had drunk in my mad breast, I lyingly feigned. In vain you have punished, father, and the chaste youth lies by a charge of unchastity, modest, innocent — take back now your true nature. My impious breast lies open to the just blade, and my blood pays the offering due to the holy man.

THESEUS: What you ought to do, a parent, for your snatched son, learn from a stepmother: to bury yourself in the regions of Acheron. Jaws of pale Avernus, and you, Taenarian caves, wave of Lethe welcome to the wretched, and you, sluggish lakes, seize the impious one and plunge me, drowned, in perpetual evils. Now be present, savage monsters of the sea, now the vast main, whatever Proteus hides in the farthest gulf of the waters, and snatch me, exulting in so great a crime, into your deep eddies, and you, my father, ever an easy agreer to my anger, I am not worthy of an easy death, who by a strange slaughter scattered my son, dismembered, through the fields, and who, while as a stern avenger I pursued a false wickedness, fell into a true crime. I have filled the stars and the shades and the waves with my crime: no lot more remains; the three realms know me. Is it for this I returned? Did the road to heaven lie open that I might see two funerals and a twin death, that, widowed and childless, with a single torch I might burn the pyres of my offspring and my marriage-bed? Giver of the black light, Alcides, send back to Dis your gift; restore to me the shades snatched away. Impiously I invoke in vain the death I left behind. O cruel, contriver of death, plotting unwonted, savage destructions, now impose just punishments on yourself. Let a pine, its top bent down to touch the ground, released to the sky, split me into two beams, or let me be hurled headlong over the Scironian rocks. I have seen heavier things, which Phlegethon, girding the guilty in its fiery shoal, bids the imprisoned suffer: what penalty and what seat awaits me, I know. Guilty shades, give way, and on these, these shoulders, let a stone, set there, weigh down my weary hands, the everlasting toil of the Aeolian old man; let the river mock me, washing my neighboring lips; let the fierce vulture, leaving Tityos, fly over, and let my liver ever grow back for punishment; and rest you, father of my Pirithous: let the wheel, never resting on its turning circle, bear these limbs on its driving whirlwinds. Gape open, earth; receive me, dread chaos, receive me — this road to the shades is juster for me: I follow my son — fear not, you who rule the shades: we come chaste; receive me into an eternal home, never to depart. Prayers do not move the gods; but if I were to ask crimes, how ready they would be!

CHORUS: Theseus, for your laments eternal time remains: now pay the rites due to your son, and hide quickly the limbs scattered foully by savage mangling.

THESEUS: Hither, hither carry the relics of the dear body, and give the weight and the limbs heaped together at random. Is this Hippolytus? I recognize my crime: I destroyed you; and that I might not become guilty once only or alone, a parent about to dare a deed, I called upon a father. See, I enjoy a father's gift. O bereavement, grim evil to my broken years! Embrace the limbs, and what is left of your son, pitiable one, leaning on your sad breast, cherish.

CHORUS: Father, arrange the scattered limbs of the mangled body in order, and restore to their place the wandering parts: here is the place of the strong right hand, here the left hand, skilled to guide the reins, must be set: I recognize the marks of the left side. How great a part is still wanting to our tears!

THESEUS: Endure, trembling hands, in the mournful office, and you, dry cheeks, stay your copious weeping, while a father counts out the limbs for his son and shapes the body. What is this, lacking form and foul, broken on every side with many a wound? What part of you it is, I doubt; but it is a part of you: here, here lay it, not in its own, but in an empty place. Is this that face, gleaming with starry fire, bending its hostile eyes? Has your beauty fallen to this? O dire fate, O savage favor of the gods! Thus does a son return to a father from his prayer? See, take these last gifts of your father, you who must be borne to burial often; meanwhile let the fires bear these. Throw open the house, made deadly by mournful slaughter: let all Mopsopia resound with loud lamentations. You, prepare the flame of the royal pyre; but you, search through the fields for the wandering parts of his body. Let the earth press her, buried deep, and let the heavy ground lie on her impious head.