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