| |
SCENE: A high Tower overlooking the sea.
Phaedra. The singing women move about the streets | |
| With gold between their breasts, their garments sway | |
| About them with little murmurs—as a wind | |
| Murmurs through the deep heart of a forest, | |
| Broken and fugitive and soft. Their song | 5 |
| Is but the wind’s murmuring turned to song: | |
| Nurse, is it happiness that bids them sing, | |
| Who sing to welcome thus my lord’s return? | |
| The Nurse. Wilt thou not also greet King Theseus? | |
| Phaedra. Nay, for the heat lies heavily upon me— | 10 |
| The white heat, the intolerable heat, | |
| The heat which has sucked my soul away from me, | |
| Which melts the stone even. See it lies | |
| Palpitating along the balustrade. | |
| I cannot raise my head to sweep away | 15 |
| This lock which presses heavily on my forehead; | |
| I cannot turn my head, nor raise my eyes | |
| Beyond the shadow on the further wall. | |
| See the great golden banner, how it droops! | |
| There is no veil betwixt the earth and sun. | 20 |
| How should I rouse myself to meet the King? | |
| The Nurse. So shouldst thou show more fair in the King’s sight. | |
| Phaedra. Let thy shadow fall between me and the sun— | |
| Speak not to me of Theseus. Am I not | |
| Phaedra, God’s daughter? Is not my face white, | 25 |
| Consumed and wasted as a funeral pyre? | |
| Because the blood beneath it burns it to ashes? | |
| Like flakes of fire my days are falling from me, | |
| Visibly one by one, since God has wrought | |
| Fearfully his being into mine. | 30 |
| And what have I to do with mortal man? | |
| The Nurse. Yet art thou wedded to Theseus, and his wife, | |
| And meet it is thy soul should bend to him. | |
| Phaedra. Why did no god come to me? Am I then | |
| Less fair than my sister, who was loved of a god? | 35 |
| Is not my heart wild enough, and my love— | |
| Are not its wings strong and tempestuous, | |
| Wide reaching and far roaming o’er hill and sea, | |
| Enough to satisfy any god’s desire? | |
| Am I not too a goddess, half-revealed | 40 |
| Through a close clinging veil of irksome flesh, | |
| Which tortures me, till I would fly beyond | |
| The furthest barriers of the confined world? | |
| Does not sharp fire sting me in hands and feet? | |
| The Nurse. Thou art ever restless thus—yet turn thy gaze | 45 |
| From the proud heavens which have no care for thee. | |
| Phaedra. For me there is no comfort. I am wrought | |
| With doubtful blood; for me there is no rest— | |
| Not in heaven, nor yet among the shades; | |
| Certainly not on earth. How amongst men | 50 |
| Or gods shall such as I find comfort? How | |
| In whom the god’s wars with the woman’s blood, | |
| Who even in death shall be a twofold thing? | |
| The Nurse. Yet art thou Queen here; thy will made thee Queen. | |
| Phaedra. It was the will of Theseus made me Queen— | 55 |
| Who, being blind, loved me; and I was blind | |
| And saw only the gold shining round his brows, | |
| And saw the brow beneath was calm as death, | |
| And no ambiguous light in the calm eyes. | |
| And I said his calmness shall be to my soul | 60 |
| As twilight soothing with grave hands the sea; | |
| Now is my soul like a rag torn in shreds. | |
| The Nurse. Lovest thou not King Theseus? | |
| Phaedra. I can hate: | |
| I can no longer love. And who am I | 65 |
| To be bound thus to the slow wheel of earth? | |
| I can hate, as a god hates, whom men forget, | |
| All men—all gods—but mostly my lord the King, | |
| Who has brought me weary love and a dull heart. | |
| The Nurse. This cup is evil, drink thou not of it. | 70 |
| Phaedra. This cup is evil—I will drink deep of it: | |
| I am outcast from love. Let the sea rage | |
| And the rain beat on the brown earth pitilessly, | |
| It shall not rage nor be pitiless as I! | |
| The Nurse. Thou art a child, whose quick and petulant speech | 75 |
| Scatters thy soul like sparks. Do I not know thee, | |
| And how thou wert ever thus?—yea, and wouldst spurn | |
| With thy uneasy hands, even my breast! | |
| Phaedra. Oh peace! How weary am I of mortal speech! | |
| And of the gods who love me not—but I | 80 |
| Equally hate them. Nay, there is one I love, | |
| One goddess, Aphrodite; I have sought | |
| Her temples with white gifts and gifts of fire— | |
| Prayers which gushed forth like blood from a pricked wound. | |
| Yet she hears not—nothing she recks of me! | 85 |
| The Nurse. She is a dangerous goddess—speak not of her! | |
| Phaedra. Why wilt thou tarnish life with thy grey tongue? | |
| Her only do I worship. I will go | |
| At once and offer sacrifice. Prepare | |
| Wine and spiced cakes and myrtle wreaths and flowers, | 90 |
| For all my soul is eager to wait on her! | |
| The Nurse. Yet canst not meet the King? | |
| Phaedra. Let the King be: | |
| Nay but I am weary—nay I will not go. | |
| I tire of Aphrodite, even of her— | 95 |
| And of all things, and of my most impotent heart, | |
| Which dares not stop from beating. Would I were | |
| Strong like that fierce-limbed Queen Hippolyta | |
| The King once loved, who rules the clamorous tribe | |
| Of Amazons—gaunt women with one breast, | 100 |
| Who war with men and conquer. Yea and Theseus | |
| Brings, does he not, even now from that far land | |
| The son she bore him, grown a man to plague us?— | |
| The gods alone know wherefore! | |
| The Nurse. It may be | 105 |
| This son shall prove a son to thee and bring | |
| Unto thy manifold heart comfort and love! | |
| Phaedra. To me shall he bring no comfort. How should one | |
| Sprung from King Theseus bring me comfort? Yet | |
| Surely a strange soul must be his, conceived | 110 |
| In a womb not used to child-bearing, and reared | |
| With dangers for his play-fellows since birth, | |
| Among the forests and dark scattered rocks, | |
| The winds with wings like shadows, and the fierce | |
| Sun burning the highest pinnacles of the hills! | 115 |
| The Nurse. Behold, they come! and lo, King Theseus’ brow | |
| Is cloudy, seeing thee not: crane forth thy head! | |
Phaedra. [She advances to the balcony and looks over.]
Ah! he is straight as a young sapling, a tree | |
| Shining white in a dark wood! I have seen his eyes | |
| Once, in a wild dream I had once; and his lips | 120 |
| A little cruelly curved, like a drawn bow; | |
| His hand, which would not spare though it should smite | |
| Her he loved—yea deeper because he loved her | |
| Would he smite, and no pity dim those eyes of his. | |
| I hate him from the bottom of my soul! | 125 |
| The Nurse. Wilt thou not go to meet thy lord? | |
| Phaedra. I hate | |
| Him from the bottom of my soul. Give me | |
| My veil and crown—I go to meet my lord. | |
| |
