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[Enter Artemis]

ARTEMIS:  Hear me, Theseus, king
of royal ancestry.  I,
Artemis, virgin daughter
of Zeus, have come to you.
How can you, wretched man, find satisfaction
in what has happened to your innocent child,
whom you have murdered sinfully, accepting
the unconfirmed and lying testimony
left by your wife?  It's brought you total ruin.
Why don't you hide yourself in earth's black depths
or fling yourself beyond the shining sky,
seeking to escape this deed of crime
which shuts you out forever from good men?
Now, Theseus, you will hear the truth of things,
and it will be a bane and not a blessing.
This is my purpose here:  to make you know
your son was righteous, lest he die in shame,
and that your wife was acting from obsession,
or, in a strange way, from her sense of honor.
That goddess who is hateful past all others
to all of us who cherish chastity
had stung her with a passion for your son.
At first, she tried to conquer Aphrodite
with self-control, but her resolve was weakened
by her old Nurse, who, going to your son,
revealed all to him under oath of silence,
and he, of course, repelled by the suggestion,
refused to listen;  then, accused by you,
his reverence for his oath veiled truth in silence,
but Phaedra, dreading she would be exposed,
wrote out false accusations, thus devising
your son's destruction, since you believed her lies.

THESEUS:  Ah!

ARTEMIS:  This story stings you, Theseus?  There is more,
and what remains will give you yet more grief.
Your father gave you three sure curses: one
of these you hurled in sinful rage against
you child, though they were meant for enemies,
and yet your sea-god father could not fail
to keep his word, and gave you what you asked.
But you have manifestly sinned against
both him and me:  not waiting for confirmation
from oracles or oath bound witnesses
or calm investigation, you instantly
unleashed your curse against your guiltless son.

THESEUS:  My lady, I am destroyed.

ARTEMIS:                                             You have done wrong,
but there are still extenuating factors,
since Aphrodite willed all this to happen,
to glut her rage.  The laws of Zeus forbid
that any god should thwart another's will,
but we must stand aside.  Had I not feared
the wrath of Zeus, I'd never have endured
the shame of seeing this one mortal man
I loved beyond all others put to death.
As for your crime, your ignorance of the facts
provides some mitigation;  then too your wife
forestalled investigation by her death,
which led you to accept a false conclusion.
Though this is your disaster, do not think
it is not also mine.  Gods also grieve
when reverent mortals die, but on the evil
we send a plague consuming all their line.

CHORUS:  But now the ruined man
arrives, fair flesh and hair
all smeared with dirt and blood.
O sorrow for the house,
sorrow on sorrow, falling from the gods.

[enter Hippolytos, supported by attendants]

HIPPOLYTOS:  O I am wretched, murdered
by my father's curse.  I die
a death of agony, it leaps
in spasms through my flesh and brain.
Stop and let me ease
my pain seared limbs.  O cruel
steeds, my nurslings, now
you have destroyed, ruined, killed me.
Ah, gently by the gods! you men,
gently handle my lacerated body.
Who stands there on my right?
Carefully, carefully lift me,
hold me up, the victim of my father's
unholy sinful curse.  Do you see this, Zeus?
To reverence the gods was all my pride,
and purity the only prize I claimed,
and now I'm flung headlong to death's dark halls,
destroyed, an utter ruin, with all the faith
I kept with gods and men a useless aid.
The pain, the pain:  again it leaps and sears.
Let me go, let death the healer come,
kill me and kill me again, get some sharp blade
to cut me apart and cradle me in death.
O my father's curse, my father's curse!
Some ancient evil stains the generations
of all our house, blindly striking down
an innocent such as I:  why do the gods
inflict such torment on the innocent?
Only death is freedom now, so kill me,
lull me in death's sweet night-dark sure embrace.

ARTEMIS:  Unhappy man, and O unhappy fate.

HIPPOLYTOS:  Ah!
This air is suddenly suffused with light.
Through death and pain I feel the presence here
of Artemis, and agony recedes.

ARTEMIS:  Yes, I am here, beloved, whom you love.

HIPPOLYTOS:  O lady, look what they have done to me.

ARTEMIS:  I see it.  But the gods cannot shed tears.

HIPPOLYTOS:  Your huntsman and companion is no more.

ARTEMIS:  No more:  you die the dearest man who lived.

HIPPOLYTOS:  No more, your charioteer and worshipper.

ARTEMIS:  No more, no more.  All this is Aphrodite.

HIPPOLYTOS:  Ah, ah!  And now I know who has destroyed me.

ARTEMIS:  Greedy for honor, enraged at chastity.

HIPPOLYTOS:  Then by herself she's caused a triple ruin.

ARTEMIS:  Destroying you, your father, and his spouse.

HIPPOLYTOS:  And now I grieve too for my father's ruin.

ARTEMIS:  He was deluded by a pitiless goddess.

HIPPOLYTOS:  Father, my poor father, I mourn your grief.

THESEUS:  It's over for me, my son:  there's no more life.

HIPPOLYTOS:  I grieve for your mistake more than myself.

THESEUS:  My son, if only I could die for you.

HIPPOLYTOS:  Your father Poseidon gave a bitter gift.

THESEUS:  If only I could never have invoked it.

HIPPOLYTOS:  What use?  You would have killed me in your rage.

THESEUS:  Well, men must fall when heaven makes them stumble.

HIPPOLYTOS:  If only mortal men could curse the gods.

ARTEMIS:  Leave that to me.  Not even among the dead
beneath the earth will you walk unavenged
for all this suffering which Aphrodite
has sent on you in anger at your virtue.
There will come a day when one she loves,
a mortal man she cherishes in her heart,
will be cut down by these unerring shafts,
and that will be my vengeance.  But for you,
my ruined worshipper, I will decree
the honor of a divinity here in Trozen.
Through all the future, virgins when they wed
will dedicate their girlhood locks of hair
upon your altar, singing a honeyed dirge
for maiden purity's sweet perishing,
and Phaedra's love for you will not be lost
in the endless depths of time's oblivious ocean.
Now Theseus, lord of Trozen and of Athens,
take up your child and hold him in your arms.
In ignorance you killed him:  mortal men
will make mistakes when deities cross their path.
Hippolytos, I bid you not to hate
your father.  What has happened had to be.
And now farewell.  It is not right that I,
immortal, should allow a dying breath
to stain my vision's brightness, and I see
the darkness of your ending fast draws near.

HIPPOLYTOS:  And may you fare well too, beloved queen.
Serenely you must leave our long communion,
and I release my father from all blame,
obedient now and always to your will.
The shadows come:  they're folding over my eyes.
Hold me, father; lift my body up.

THESEUS:  O my child, what will you do to me?

HIPPOLYTOS:  I die:  I see death's portal open wide.

THESEUS: Abandoning me and my guilty hands?

HIPPOLYTOS:  No, no:  I free you from all taint of crime.

THESEUS:  What – can you free me from bloodshed's pollution?

HIPPOLYTOS:  I swear by Artemis of the silver bow.

THESEUS:  O dearest, your father has a noble son.

HIPPOLYTOS:  Pray that your lawful sons may be the same.

THESEUS:  I mourn your virtue, reverence, and purity.

HIPPOLYTOS:  Father, goodbye: father, a long goodbye.

THESEUS:  Don't leave me, child:  endure, endure to live.

HIPPOLYTOS:  I'm done with my enduring:  it is death.
Now hurry, hide my face behind my cloak.

[Hippolytos is carried into palace]

THESEUS:  O Trozen, glorious Athens, you have lost
the finest man you've seen.  O Aphrodite,
your punishment will never leave my life.

[Exit Theseus into palace]

CHORUS:  This sudden grief has come upon the city
unlooked for, and we mourn it, since the fall
of mighty houses causes special pain.

[exit Chorus]


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   Jon Corelis     www.geocities.com/jgcorelis/

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