_Phaedra_ Wife of Theseus and stepmother of Hippolytus. _Theseus_ King of Athens. _Nurse_ Of Phaedra. _Messenger._ _Slaves and attendants._ _Chorus_ Of Athenian citizens. THE SCENE is laid throughout in the court in front of the royal palace at Athens; and the action is confined to the space of one day. _Theseus had wed Antiope, the Amazon, and of their union had been born Hippolytus. This youth grew up to love the chase, austere and beautiful, shunning the haunts of men, and scorning the love of women. Theseus had meanwhile slain Antiope, and married Phaedra, Cretan Minos' child._ _And now, for four years past, the king has not been seen upon the earth, for, following the mad adventure of his bosom friend, Pirithoüs, he has descended into Tartara, and thence, men think, he never will return._ _Deserted by her lord, the hapless Phaedra has conceived a hopeless passion for Hippolytus; for Venus, mindful of that ancient shame, which Phaedra's ancestor, Apollo, had exposed, has sent this madness on her, even as Pasiphaë, her mother, had been cursed with a most mad and fatal malady._ ACT I _Hippolytus_ [_in hunting costume, assigning duties and places to his servants and companions of the hunt_]: Up comrades, and the shadowy groves With nets encircle; swiftly range The heights of our Cecropian hills; Scour well those coverts on the slopes Of Parnes, or in Thria's vale 5 Whose chattering streamlet roars along In rapid course; go climb the hills Whose peaks are ever white with snows Of Scythia. Let others go Where woods with lofty alders stand 10 In dense array; where pastures lie Whose springing grass is waked to life By Zephyr's breath, dew laden. Go, Where calm Ilissus flows along The level fields, a sluggish stream, 15 Whose winding course the barren sands With niggard water laps. Go ye Along the leftward-leading way, Where Marathon her forest glades Reveals, where nightly with their young The suckling mothers feed. Do you, 20 Where, softened by the warming winds From southern lands, Acharnae melts His snows, repair; let others seek Hymettus' rocky slopes, far famed For honey; others still the glades Of small Aphidnae. All too long That region has unharried lain 25 Where Sunium with its jutting shore Thrusts out the curving sea. If any feels the forest's lure, Him Phlye calls, where dwells the boar Now scarred and known by many a wound, The farmers' fear. 30 Now free the dogs from straining leash, That hunt in silence; but the hounds Of keen Molossian breed hold fast In check; let the savage Cretans strain With chaffing necks upon their chains; The Spartans hold in strongest curb, 35