[Scene: the palace of Theseus at Trozen. Phaedra, lying in a sickbed
in front of the place, her old Nurse, and Chorus of Trozenian women.]
CHORUS: Madam, faithful servant of our queen,
that Phaedra's dangerously ill is clear,
but we have no insight into the cause.
Can you enlighten us? If so, please do.
NURSE: I wish I could. She won't tell even me.
CHORUS: She won't give any hint what started this?
NURSE: Not even that. She won't let slip a word.
CHORUS: She seems so weak, as though she'll melt away.
NURSE: No wonder, since it's three days since she's eaten.
CHORUS: Through madness, or deliberate suicide?
NURSE: Whichever it is, she'll starve herself to death.
CHORUS: I can't believe her husband isn't worried.
NURSE: He doesn't know. She keeps her sickness secret.
CHORUS: But can't he tell by looking at her face?
NURSE: He's had no chance. He's absent from the city.
CHORUS: But can't you somehow force her, make her say
how she's become so ill in body and mind?
NURSE: I've tried until I'm frantic. Nothing works.
Yet even now I won't give up. You'll see
what kind of loyalty this servant has
towards the family I've served so long.
Come, darling, let's not argue any more.
Let's both forget all that. Be calmer now,
and not so gloomy. Take another view.
I see I took the wrong approach before,
so now I'll find a better way to put it.
If something's wrong too delicate to mention,
well, we're all women here, and we can help.
But if it's something you don't mind being known,
then tell us, and we'll go to find you doctors.
Well, why don't you answer? My dear child,
you ought to answer, either to explain
just where I'm going wrong, or if I'm right
in giving this advice, to say you'll take it.
Speak to me. Look at me. Oh, what's the use.
Women, all our trying has been futile.
We've got nowhere at all. Just as before
my words just rolled right off, now she won't answer.
But let me tell you one thing: after that,
go on and be more wayward than the ocean.
If you die, then you will betray your children.
You'll make them orphans in their father's house,
and sure as that Amazon queen could ride a horse,
they'll be passed over for that smarmy bastard
she bore to be their master, and I mean
Hippolytos.
PHAEDRA: No!
NURSE: Aha, so
that hit home.
PHAEDRA: You're torturing me, nanny, by the gods
I beg you not to name that man again.
NURSE: You see? You understand quite well, but still
don't want to save your life and spare your children.
PHAEDRA: I love them. But I'm whirled beyond all hope.
NURSE: You talk like you've committed some blood crime.
PHAEDRA: My hands are clean: the stain is in my heart.
NURSE: An enemy has put some curse on you?
PHAEDRA: A friend brings doom that neither of us wishes.
NURSE: Then Theseus somehow has abused your faith?
PHAEDRA: May no one ever see me injuring him!
NURSE: Well, what then is this dread that rouses death?
PHAEDRA: Oh leave me in my sin. It's not toward you.
NURSE: I'll save you if I can, despite yourself.
PHAEDRA: What? Will you force me, holding to my arm?
NURSE: I'll beg here on my knees until I know.
PHAEDRA: You must not know – you'd bitterly regret it.
NURSE: What could I find more bitter than your death?
PHAEDRA: Your own. And yet, my course is honorable.
NURSE: Then why hide good I beg you to reveal?
PHAEDRA: To put disgrace in service of what's right.
NURSE: Won't telling it then make you honored more?
PHAEDRA: By all the gods, let go of my right hand!
NURSE: I won't, until you grant my supplication.
PHAEDRA: I will. I must respect you as a suppliant.
NURSE: I've had my say. The rest is up to you.
PHAEDRA: My mother, that sexual monster, she – she – she –
NURSE: We all know how the Minotaur was born.
PHAEDRA: Ariadne my sister abandoned herself to love.
NURSE: What's wrong, dear? Why bring up these family scandals?
PHAEDRA: And I, unlucky third, am ruined in turn.
NURSE: I am astonished. Where will all this end?
PHAEDRA: My fall is deeply rooted, not new grown.
NURSE: I still don't have the knowledge that I need.
PHAEDRA: If only you could speak what I must say.
NURSE: I'm not a seer to divine these secrets.
PHAEDRA: What do they mean, when people say, "in love?"
NURSE: The sweetest and most stinging honeyed pain.
PHAEDRA: Then I have found the sting without the sweet.
NURSE: You mean that you're in love, dear child? Who is it?
PHAEDRA: He's – he's – you know, the son of the Amazon …
NURSE: You mean Hippolytos?
PHAEDRA: You,
not I, have said it.
NURSE: No, no, child. What are you saying? This is disaster.
Women, I am crumbling, I can't bear
to live. The very light of day is stained.
I'll throw myself from some high cliff, I'll barter
life for death. Farewell. I am no more.
The noble now are forced to love the low.
Oh Aphrodite, you're no god at all.
You're something worse and greater than a god,
engulfing all this royal house, and me!
CHORUS: [sings, melody Alfonso X's Quem a omagem da virgen]
Did you hear, oh did you hear her
crying out her shamed desire?
Now we know why death is dearer
than life lived in such a fire.
Oh unhappy for your sorrow!
Human life is made of pain.
Who can tell before tomorrow
if today brings loss or gain?
All your family's life is draining,
all too clear the end is seen
whither Aphrodite's waning,
oh unhappy Cretan queen.
--
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Jon Corelis www.geocities.com/jgcorelis/
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