Jean Racine (1639–1699). Phædra.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Act III
Scene VIHIPPOLYTUS, THERAMENES
Hippolytus
Hippolytus
What do these words portend, which seem’d to freeze
My very blood? Will Phædra, in her frenzy
Accuse herself, and seal her own destruction?
What will the King say? Gods! What fatal poison
Has love spread over all his house! Myself,
Full of a fire his hatred disapproves,
How changed he finds me from the son he knew!
With dark forebodings in my mind alarm’d,
But innocence has surely naught to fear.
Come, let us go, and in some other place
Consider how I best may move my sire
To tenderness, and tell him of a flame
Vex’d but not vanquish’d by a father’s blame.