Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1894) v1.djvu/162

126 Upon Hippolytus this day: the path

Well-nigh is cleared; scant pains it needeth yet.

For, as from halls of Pittheus once he sought

Pandion's land, to see and to be sealed

In the Great Mysteries, Phædra, high-born wife

Of his own father, saw him; and her heart

Of fierce love was enthralled by my device.

And, ere she came to this Trœzenian land,

Hard by the Rock of Pallas, which looks down

On this land, built she unto me a shrine

For love of one afar; and his memorial

That fane divine she named for days to be.

But since from Kekrops' land forth Theseus passed

Fleeing the blood-guilt of the sons of Pallas,

And unto this shore with his wife hath sailed,

From his land brooking one year's banishment,

Thenceforward, sighing and by stings of love

Distraught, the hapless one wastes down to death

Silent: her malady no handmaid knows. Ah, but not so shall this love's issue fall.

Theseus shall know this thing; all bared shall be:

And him that is my foe his sire shall slay

By curses, whose fulfilment the Sea-king

Poseidon in this boon to Theseus gave,

That, to three prayers, he should ask nought in vain.

She, how high-born soe'er, yet perisheth,

Phædra:—I will not so regard her pain

That I should not exact such penalty Of them which hate me as shall do me right.

But,—forasmuch as Theseus' son I see

Yonder draw near, forsaking hunting's toil,

Hippolytus,—forth will I from this place.

And a great press of henchmen following shout,