Iphigenia; Phaedra; Athaliah (Translated by John Cairncross 1963) by Jean Racine

Author:Jean Racine [Racine, Jean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature, Plays
ISBN: 9780141909349
Google: 9zegcOEcqD8C
Publisher: Penguin Books; Penguin Group
Published: 1674-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

ACT TWO

Scene One

ARICIA, ISMENE

ARICIA

Hippolytus has asked to see me here?

Hippolytus wishes to say farewell?

Ismene, are you not mistaken?

ISMENE

No.

370 This is the first result of Theseus’ death.

Make ready to receive from every side

Allegiances that Theseus filched from you.

Aricia is mistress of her fate,

And soon all Greece will bow the knee to her.

ARICIA

375 This was no rumour then, Ismene. Now

My enemy, my tyrant is no more.

ISMENE

Indeed. The gods no longer frown on you,

And Theseus wanders with your brothers’ shades.

ARICIA

By what adventure did he meet his end?

ISMENE

380 The tales told of his death are past belief.

They say that in some amorous escapade

The waters closed over his faithless head.

The thousand tongues of rumour even assert

That with Pirithous he went down to Hell,

385 Beheld Cocytus and the sombre shores,

Showed himself living to the shades below,

But that he could not, from the house of death,

Recross the river whence is no return.

ARICIA

Can mortal man, before he breathes his last,

390 Descend into the kingdom of the dead?

What magic lured him to that dreaded shore?

ISMENE

You alone doubt it. Theseus is no more.

Athens is stricken; Troezen knows the news,

And now pays tribute to Hippolytus.

395 Here in this palace, trembling for her son,

Phaedra takes counsel with her anxious friends.

ARICIA

But will Hippolytus be kinder than

His father was to me, loosen my chains,

And pity my mishaps?

ISMENE

I think he will.

ARICIA

400 Do you not know severe Hippolytus?

How can you hope that he will pity me,

Honouring in me alone a sex he spurns?

How constantly he has avoided us,

Haunting those places which he knows we shun!

ISMENE

405 I know the tales of his unfeelingness;

But I have seen him in your presence, and

The legend of Hippolytus’ reserve

Doubled my curiosity in him.

His aspect did not tally with his fame;

410 At the first glance from you he grew confused.

His eyes, seeking in vain to shun your gaze,

Brimming with languor, took their fill of you.

Although the name of lover wounds his pride,

He has a lover’s eye, if not his tongue.

ARICIA

415 How avidly, Ismene, does my heart,

Drink in these sweet, perhaps unfounded words!

O you who know me, can it be believed

That the sad plaything of a ruthless fate,

A heart that always fed on bitterness,

420 Should ever know the frenzied pangs of love?

Last of the issue of Earth’s royal son,

I only have escaped the scourge of war.

I lost, all in their springtime’s flowering,

Six brothers, pride of an illustrious line.

425 The sword swept all away and drenched the earth,

Which drank, unwillingly, Erechtheus’ blood.

You know that, since their death, a cruel law

Forbids all Greeks to seek me as their wife,

Since it was feared my marriage might some day

430 Kindle my brothers’ ashes into life.

But you recall with what disdain I viewed

These moves of a suspicious conqueror,

For, as a lifelong enemy of love,

I rendered thanks to Theseus’ tyranny,

435 Which merely helped to keep me fancy free.

My eyes had not yet lighted on his son.

Not that my eyes alone yield to the charm

Of his much vaunted grace, his handsomeness,

Bestowed by nature, but which he disdains,

440 And seems not even to realize he owns.

I love and prize in him far nobler gifts –

His father’s virtues, not his weaknesses.

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