Stasimon 1
[Episode]
And woe to thee! my sister,Ariadne, deserted by Theseus in the isle of Naxos, where Dionysus found her. bride of Dionysus.
Nurse
What ails thee, child? speaking ill of kith and kin.
340
Phaedra
Myself the third to suffer! how am I undone!
Nurse
Thou strik’st me dumb! Where will this history end?
Phaedra
That love has been our curse from time long past.
Nurse
I know no more of what I fain would learn.
Phaedra
Ah! would thou couldst say for me what I have to tell.
345
Nurse
I am no prophetess to unriddle secrets.
Phaedra
What is it they mean when they talk of people being in love?
Nurse
At once the sweetest and the bitterest thing, my child.
Phaedra
I shall only find the latter half.
Nurse
Ha! my child, art thou in love?
350
Phaedra
The Amazon’s son, whoever he may be,—
Nurse
Mean’st thou Hippolytus?
Phaedra
’Twas thou, not I, that spoke his name.
Nurse
O heavens! what is this, my child? Thou hast ruined me. Outrageous! friends; I will not live and bear it;
hateful is life, hateful to mine eyes the light. This body I resign, will cast it off, and rid me of existence by my death. Farewell, my life is o’er. Yea, for the chaste have wicked passions, ’gainst their will maybe, but still they have. Cypris, it seems, is not a goddess after all,
355
but something greater far, for she hath been the ruin of my lady and of me and our whole family.
360
[Episode 1]
O, too clearly didst thou hear our queen uplift her voice to tell her startling tale of piteous suffering. Come death ere I reach thy state of feeling,Or before thou accomplish thy purpose. loved mistress.
Chorus
O horrible! woe, for these miseries! woe, for the sorrows on which mortals feed! Thou art undone! thou hast disclosed thy sin to heaven’s light. What hath each passing day and every hour in store for thee?
365
