PHAEDRA

A monologue from the play by Jean Racine


  • NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from The Dramatic Works of Jean Racine. Trans. Robert Bruce Boswell. London: George Bell and Sons, 1911.
  • PHAEDRA: My wound is not so recent. Scarcely had I
    Been bound to Theseus by the marriage yoke,
    And happiness and peace seem'd well secured,
    When Athens show'd me my proud enemy.
    I look'd, alternately turn'd pale and blush'd
    To see him, and my soul grew all distraught;
    A mist obscured my vision, and my voice
    Falter'd, my blood ran cold, then burn'd like fire;
    Venus I felt in all my fever'd frame,
    Whose fury had so many of my race
    Pursued. With fervent vows I sought to shun
    Her torments, built and deck'd for her a shrine,
    And there, 'mid countless victims did I seek
    The reason I had lost; but all for naught,
    No remedy could cure the wounds of love!
    In vain I offer'd incense on her altars;
    When I invoked her name my heart adored
    Hippolytus, before me constantly;
    And when I made her altars smoke with victims,
    'Twas for a god whose name I dared not utter.
    I fled his presence everywhere, but found him--
    O crowning horror!--in his father's features.
    Against myself, at last, I raised revolt,
    And stirr'd my courage up to persecute
    The enemy I loved. To banish him
    I wore a step-dame's harsh and jealous carriage,
    With ceaseless cries I clamour'd for his exile,
    Till I had torn him from his father's arms.
    I breathed once more, Œnone; in his absence
    My days flow'd on less troubled than before,
    And innocent. Submissive to my husband,
    I hid my grief, and of our fatal marriage
    Cherish'd the fruits. Vain caution! Cruel Fate!
    Brought hither by my spouse himself, I saw
    Again the enemy whom I had banish'd,
    And the old wound too quickly bled afresh.
    No longer is it love hid in my heart,
    But Venus in her might seizing her prey.
    I have conceived just terror for my crime;
    I hate my life, and hold my love in horror.
    Dying I wish'd to keep my fame unsullied,
    And bury in the grave a guilty passion;
    But I have been unable to withstand
    Tears and entreaties, I have told you all;
    Content, if only, as my end draws near,
    You do not vex me with unjust reproaches,
    Nor with vain efforts seek to snatch from death
    The last faint lingering sparks of vital breath.

    BROWSE MORE MONOLOGUES BY PLAYWRIGHT