HIPPOLYTUS. | |
Lay not thine hand upon me; let me go; | |
Take off thine eyes that put the gods to shame; | |
What, wilt thou turn my loathing to thy death? | |
PHÆDRA. | |
Nay, I will never loosen hold nor breathe | |
Till thou have slain me; godlike for great brows | |
Thou art, and thewed as gods are, with clear hair: | |
Draw now thy sword and smite me as thou art god, | |
For verily I am smitten of other gods, | |
Why not of thee? | |
CHORUS. | |
O queen, take heed of words; | |
10 | Why wilt thou eat the husk of evil speech? |
Wear wisdom for that veil about thy head | |
And goodness for the binding of thy brows. | |
PHÆDRA. | |
Nay, but this god hath cause enow to smite; | |
If he will slay me, baring breast and throat, | |
I lean toward the stroke with silent mouth | |
And a great heart. Come, take thy sword and slay; | |
Let me not starve between desire and death, | |
But send me on my way with glad wet lips; | |
For in the vein-drawn ashen-coloured palm | |
20 | Death’s hollow hand holds water of sweet draught |
To tip and slake dried mouths at, as a deer | |
Specked red from thorns laps deep and loses pain. | |
Yea, if mine own blood ran upon my mouth, | |
I would drink that. Nay, but be swift with me; | |
Set thy sword here between the girdle and breast, | |
For I shall grow a poison if I live. | |
Are not my cheeks as grass, my body pale, | |
And my breath like a dying poisoned man’s? | |
O whatsoever of godlike names thou be, | |
30 | By thy chief name I charge thee, thou strong god, |
And bid thee slay me. Strike, up to the gold, | |
Up to the hand-grip of the hilt; strike here; | |
For I am Cretan of my birth; strike now; | |
For I am Theseus’ wife; stab up to the rims, | |
I am born daughter to Pasiphae. | |
See thou spare not for greatness of my blood, | |
Nor for the shining letters of my name: | |
Make thy sword sure inside thine hand and smite, | |
For the bright writing of my name is black, | |
40 | And I am sick with hating the sweet sun. |
HIPPOLYTUS. | |
Let not this woman wail and cleave to me, | |
That am no part of the gods’ wrath with her; | |
Loose ye her hands from me lest she take hurt. | |
CHORUS. | |
Lady, this speech and majesty are twain; | |
Pure shame is of one counsel with the gods. | |
HIPPOLYTUS. | |
Man is as beast when shame stands off from him. | |
PHÆDRA. | |
Man, what have I to do with shame or thee? | |
I am not of one counsel with the gods. | |
I am their kin, I have strange blood in me, | |
50 | I am not of their likeness nor of thine: |
My veins are mixed, and therefore am I mad, | |
Yea therefore chafe and turn on mine own flesh, | |
Half of a woman made with half a god. | |
But thou wast hewn out of an iron womb | |
And fed with molten mother-snow for milk. | |
A sword was nurse of thine; Hippolyta, | |
That had the spear to father, and the axe | |
To bridesman, and wet blood of sword-slain men | |
For wedding-water out of a noble well, | |
60 | Even she did bear thee, thinking of a sword, |
And thou wast made a man mistakingly. | |
Nay, for I love thee, I will have thy hands, | |
Nay, for I will not loose thee, thou art sweet, | |
Thou art my son, I am thy father’s wife, | |
I ache toward thee with a bridal blood, | |
The pulse is heavy in all my married veins, | |
My whole face beats, I will feed full of thee, | |
My body is empty of ease, I will be fed, | |
I am burnt to the bone with love, thou shalt not go, | |
70 | I am heartsick, and mine eyelids prick mine eyes, |
Thou shalt not sleep nor eat nor say a word | |
Till thou hast slain me. I am not good to live. | |
CHORUS. | |
This is an evil born with all its teeth, | |
When love is cast out of the bound of love. | |
HIPPOLYTUS. | |
There is no hate that is so hateworthy. | |
PHÆDRA. | |
I pray thee turn that hate of thine my way, | |
I hate not it nor anything of thine. | |
Lo, maidens, how he burns about the brow, | |
And draws the chafing sword-strap down his hand. | |
80 | What wilt thou do? wilt thou be worse than death? |
Be but as sweet as is the bitterest, | |
The most dispiteous out of all the gods, | |
I am well pleased. Lo, do I crave so much? | |
I do but bid thee be unmerciful, | |
Even the one thing thou art. Pity me not: | |
Thou wert not quick to pity. Think of me | |
As of a thing thy hounds are keen upon | |
In the wet woods between the windy ways, | |
And slay me for a spoil. This body of mine | |
90 | Is worth a wild beast’s fell or hide of hair, |
And spotted deeper than a panther’s grain. | |
I were but dead if thou wert pure indeed; | |
I pray thee by thy cold green holy crown | |
And by the fillet-leaves of Artemis. | |
Nay, but thou wilt not. Death is not like thee, | |
Albeit men hold him worst of all the gods. | |
For of all gods Death only loves not gifts,1 | |
Nor with burnt-offering nor blood-sacrifice | |
Shalt thou do aught to get thee grace of him; | |
100 | He will have nought of altar and altar-song, |
And from him only of all the lords in heaven | |
Persuasion turns a sweet averted mouth. | |
But thou art worse: from thee with baffled breath | |
Back on my lips my prayer falls like a blow, | |
And beats upon them, dumb. What shall I say? | |
There is no word I can compel thee with | |
To do me good and slay me. But take heed; | |
I say, be wary; look between thy feet, | |
Lest a snare take them though the ground be good. | |
HIPPOLYTUS. | |
110 | Shame may do most where fear is found most weak; |
That which for shame’s sake yet I have not done, | |
Shall it be done for fear’s? Take thine own way; | |
Better the foot slip than the whole soul swerve. | |
PHÆDRA. | |
The man is choice and exquisite of mouth; | |
Yet in the end a curse shall curdle it. | |
CHORUS. | |
He goes with cloak upgathered to the lip, | |
Holding his eye as with some ill in sight. | |
PHÆDRA. | |
A bitter ill he hath i’ the way thereof, | |
And it shall burn the sight out as with fire. | |
CHORUS. | |
120 | Speak no such word whereto mischance is kin. |
PHÆDRA. | |
Out of my heart and by fate’s leave I speak. | |
CHORUS. | |
Set not thy heart to follow after fate. | |
PHÆDRA. | |
O women, O sweet people of this land, | |
O goodly city and pleasant ways thereof, | |
And woods with pasturing grass and great well-heads, | |
And hills with light and night between your leaves, | |
And winds with sound and silence in your lips, | |
And earth and water and all immortal things, | |
I take you to my witness what I am. | |
130 | There is a god about me like as fire, |
Sprung whence, who knoweth, or who hath heart to say? | |
A god more strong than whom slain beasts can soothe, | |
Or honey, or any spilth of blood-like wine, | |
Nor shall one please him with a whitened brow | |
Nor wheat nor wool nor aught of plaited leaf. | |
For like my mother am I stung and slain, | |
And round my cheeks have such red malady | |
And on my lips such fire and foam as hers. | |
That is that Ate out of Amathus | |
140 | That breeds up death and gives it one for love. |
She hath slain mercy, and for dead mercy’s sake | |
(Being frighted with this sister that was slain) | |
Flees from before her fearful-footed shame, | |
And will not bear the bending of her brows | |
And long soft arrows flown from under them | |
As from bows bent. Desire flows out of her | |
As out of lips doth speech: and over her | |
Shines fire, and round her and beneath her fire. | |
She hath sown pain and plague in all our house, | |
150 | Love loathed of love, and mates unmatchable, |
Wild wedlock, and the lusts that bleat or low, | |
And marriage-fodder snuffed about of kine. | |
Lo how the heifer runs with leaping flank | |
Sleek under shaggy and speckled lies of hair, | |
And chews a horrible lip, and with harsh tongue | |
Laps alien froth and licks a loathlier mouth. | |
Alas, a foul first steam of trodden tares, | |
And fouler of these late grapes underfoot. | |
A bitter way of waves and clean-cut foam | |
160 | Over the sad road of sonorous sea |
The high gods gave king Theseus for no love, | |
Nay, but for love, yet to no loving end. | |
Alas the long thwarts and the fervent oars, | |
And blown hard sails that straightened the scant rope! | |
There were no strong pools in the hollow sea | |
To drag at them and suck down side and beak, | |
No wind to catch them in the teeth and hair, | |
No shoal, no shallow among the roaring reefs, | |
No gulf whereout the straining tides throw spars, | |
170 | No surf where white bones twist like whirled white fire. |
But like to death he came with death, and sought | |
And slew and spoiled and gat him that he would. | |
For death, for marriage, and for child-getting, | |
I set my curse against him as a sword; | |
Yea, and the severed half thereof I leave | |
Pittheus, because he slew not (when that face | |
Was tender, and the life still soft in it) | |
The small swathed child, but bred him for my fate. | |
I would I had been the first that took her death | |
180 | Out from between wet hoofs and reddened teeth, |
Splashed horns, fierce fetlocks of the brother bull! | |
For now shall I take death a deadlier way, | |
Gathering it up between the feet of love | |
Or off the knees of murder reaching it. |