Phaedra | Page 6

the torch of life Holds out, and can be fann'd into a flame.
PHAEDRA Too long have I endured its guilt and shame!
OENONE Why? What remorse gnaws at your heart? What crime Can have disturb'd you thus? Your hands are not Polluted with the blood of innocence?
PHAEDRA Thanks be to Heav'n, my hands are free from stain. Would that my soul were innocent as they!
OENONE What awful project have you then conceived, Whereat your conscience should be still alarm'd?
PHAEDRA Have I not said enough? Spare me the rest. I die to save myself a full confession.
OENONE Die then, and keep a silence so inhuman; But seek some other hand to close your eyes. Tho' but a spark of life remains within you, My soul shall go before you to the Shades. A thousand roads are always open thither; Pain'd at your want of confidence, I'll choose The shortest. Cruel one, when has my faith Deceived you! Think how in my arms you lay New born. For you, my country and my children I have forsaken. Do you thus repay My faithful service?
PHAEDRA What do you expect From words so bitter? Were I to break silence Horror would freeze your blood.
OENONE What can you say To horrify me more than to behold You die before my eyes?
PHAEDRA When you shall know My crime, my death will follow none the less, But with the added stain of guilt.
OENONE Dear Madam, By all the tears that I have shed for you, By these weak knees I clasp, relieve my mind From torturing doubt.
PHAEDRA It is your wish. Then rise.
OENONE I hear you. Speak.
PHAEDRA Heav'ns! How shall I begin?
OENONE Dismiss vain fears, you wound me with distrust.
PHAEDRA O fatal animosity of Venus! Into what wild distractions did she cast My mother!
OENONE Be they blotted from remembrance, And for all time to come buried in silence.
PHAEDRA My sister Ariadne, by what love Were you betray'd to death, on lonely shores Forsaken!
OENONE Madam, what deep-seated pain Prompts these reproaches against all your kin?
PHAEDRA It is the will of Venus, and I perish, Last, most unhappy of a family Where all were wretched.
OENONE Do you love?
PHAEDRA I feel All its mad fever.
OENONE Ah! For whom?
PHAEDRA Hear now The crowning horror. Yes, I love--my lips Tremble to say his name.
OENONE Whom?
PHAEDRA Know you him, Son of the Amazon, whom I've oppress'd So long?
OENONE Hippolytus? Great gods!
PHAEDRA 'Tis you Have named him.
OENONE All my blood within my veins Seems frozen. O despair! O cursed race! Ill-omen'd journey! Land of misery! Why did we ever reach thy dangerous shores?
PHAEDRA My wound is not so recent. Scarcely had I Been bound to Theseus by the marriage yoke, And happiness and peace seem'd well secured, When Athens show'd me my proud enemy. I look'd, alternately turn'd pale and blush'd To see him, and my soul grew all distraught; A mist obscured my vision, and my voice Falter'd, my blood ran cold, then burn'd like fire; Venus I felt in all my fever'd frame, Whose fury had so many of my race Pursued. With fervent vows I sought to shun Her torments, built and deck'd for her a shrine, And there, 'mid countless victims did I seek The reason I had lost; but all for naught, No remedy could cure the wounds of love! In vain I offer'd incense on her altars; When I invoked her name my heart adored Hippolytus, before me constantly; And when I made her altars smoke with victims, 'Twas for a god whose name I dared not utter. I fled his presence everywhere, but found him-- O crowning horror!--in his father's features. Against myself, at last, I raised revolt, And stirr'd my courage up to persecute The enemy I loved. To banish him I wore a step--dame's harsh and jealous carriage, With ceaseless cries I clamour'd for his exile, Till I had torn him from his father's arms. I breathed once more, Oenone; in his absence My days flow'd on less troubled than before, And innocent. Submissive to my husband, I hid my grief, and of our fatal marriage Cherish'd the fruits. Vain caution! Cruel Fate! Brought hither by my spouse himself, I saw Again the enemy whom I had banish'd, And the old wound too quickly bled afresh. No longer is it love hid in my heart, But Venus in her might seizing her prey. I have conceived just terror for my crime; I hate my life, and hold my love in horror. Dying I wish'd to keep my fame unsullied, And bury in the grave a guilty passion; But I have been unable to withstand Tears and entreaties, I have told you all; Content, if only, as my end draws near, You do not vex me with unjust reproaches, Nor with vain efforts seek to snatch from