Yet can it be?—Is this th' incestuous villain? How great his presence, how erect his look, How every grace, how all his virtuous mother Shines in his face, and charms me from his eyes! Oh Neptune! Oh, great founder of our race! Why was he fram❜d with such a godlike look? Why wears he not some most detested form, Baleful to sight, as horrible to thought; That I might act my justice without grief, Punish the villain, nor regret the son?

HIPPOLITUS.

May I presume to ask, what secret care Broods in your breast, and clouds your royal brow? Why dart your awful eyes those angry beams, And fright Hippolitus, they us'd to cheer?

THESEUS.

Answer me first: when call'd to wait on Phædra, What sudden fear surpris'd your troubled soul? Why did your ebbing blood forsake your cheeks? Why did you hasten from your father's arms, To shun the queen your duty bids you please?

HIPPOLITUS.

My lord, to please the queen, I'm forc'd to shun ber,

And keep this hated object from her sight.

THESEUS.

Say, what's the cause of her inveterate hatred ?

HIPPOLITUS.

My lord, as yet I never gave her cause.

THESEUS.

Oh were it so! [Aside.] When last did you attend her?

And bless your age with trophies like your own. Gods! How that warm'd me! How my throbbing heart

Leapt to the image of my father's joy,
When should strain me in your folding arms,
you
And with kind raptures, and with sobbing joys,
Commend my valour, and confess your son!
How did I think my glorious toil o'er-paid?
Then great indeed, and in my father's love,
With more than conquest crown'd? "Go on, Hip-
politus,

Go tread the rugged paths of daring honour;
Practise the strictest and austerest virtue,
And all the rigid laws of righteous Minos;
Theseus, thy father Theseus, will reward thee."

Is there no way, no thought, no beam of light? No clue to guide me through this gloomy maze,

To clear my honour, yet preserve my faith?
None! None, ye powers! And must I groan be-

neath

This execrable load of foul dishonour ?

Must Theseus suffer such unheard-of torture!
Theseus, my father! No, I'll break through all;
All oaths, all vows, all idle imprecations,

I give them to the winds. Hear me, my lord!
Hear your wrong'd son. The sword-Ob fatal

vow!

Ensuring oaths; and thou, rash thoughtless fool,
To bind thyself in voluntary chains;
Yet to thy fatal trust continue firm!

Beneath disgrace, though infamous yet honest.
Yet hear me father, may the righteous gods
Shower all their curses on this wretched head.
Oh may they doom me!-

THESEUS.

Yes, the gods will doom thee. The sword, the sword! Now swear, and call to witness

Heaven, Hell, and Earth. I mark it not from one, That breathes beneath such complicated guilt.

HIPPOLITUS.

Was that like guilt, when with expanded arms
1 sprang to meet you at your wish'd return?
Does this appear like guilt? When thus serene,
With eyes erect, and visage unappall'd,

Fixt on that awful face, I stand the charge;
Amaz'd, not fearing: Say, if I am guilty,

Then to my bed to force your impious way;
With horrid lust t' insult my yet warm urn;
Make me the scorn of Hell, and sport for fiends!
These are the funeral honours paid to Theseus,
These are the sorrows, these the hallow'd rites,
To which you'd call your father's hovering spirit.
Enter Ismena.

ISMENA.

Hear me, my lord, ere yet you fix his doom. [Turning to Theseus. Hear one that comes to shield his injur'd honour, And guard his life with hazard of her own.

THESEUS.

Though thou 'rt the daughter of my hated foe, Though ev'n thy beauty's loathsome to my eyes, Yet justice bids me hear thee.

ISMENA.

Thus I thank you. [Kneels. Then know, mistaken prince, his honest soul Could ne'er be sway'd by impious love to Phædra, Since I before engag'd his early vows; With all my wiles subdued his struggling heart; For long his duty struggled with his love.

THESEUS.

Speak, is this true? On thy obedience, speak.

HIPPOLITUS.

Now flushing red, the downcast haggard eyes, Or fix'd on earth, or slowly rais'd to catch

A fearful view, then sunk again with horrour?

THESEUS.

This is for raw, untaught, unfinish'd villains. Thou in thy bloom hast reach'd th' abhorr'd perfection:

Thy even looks could wear a peaceful calm,
The beauteous stamp (oh Heavens!) of faultless
virtue,

While thy foul heart contriv'd this horrid deed.
Oh harden'd fiend, can't such transcending crimes
Disturb thy soul, or ruffle thy smooth brow?
What, no remorse! No qualms! No pricking
pangs!

No feeble struggle of rebelling honour!
O'twas thy joy! thy secret hoard of bliss,
To dream, to ponder, act it o'er in thought;
To doat, to dwell on; as rejoicing misers
Brood o'er their precious stores of secret gold.

THESEUS.

Canst thou be only clear'd by disobedience, And justify'd by crimes?--What! love my foe! Love one descended from a race of tyrants, Whose blood yet reeks on my avenging sword! I'm curst each moment I delay thy fate: Haste to the shades, and tell the happy Pallas Ismena's flames, and let him taste such joys As thou giv'st me; go tell applauding Minos The pious love you bore his daughter Phædra; Tell it the chattering ghosts, and hissing furies, Tell it the grinning fiends, till Hell sound nothing To thy pleas'd ears but Phædra and Ismena.`

Heavens! How that strikes me! How it wounds my sou!!

To think of your unutterable sorrows,
When you shall find Hippolitus was guiltless!
Yet when you know the innocence you doom'd,
When you shall mourn your son's unhappy fate,
Oh, I beseech you by the love you bore me,
With my last words (my words will then prevail)
Oh, for my sake, forbear to touch your life,
Nor wound again Hippolitus in Theseus.
Let all my virtues, all my joys, survive
Fresh in your breast, but be my woes forgot;
The woes which Fate, and not my father, wrought.

PHÆDRA.

By thee I'm branded, and by thee destroy'd; Thou bosom serpent, thou alluring fiend! Yet shan't you boast the miseries you cause, Nor 'scape the ruin you have brought on all.

LYCON.

Was it not your command? Has faithful Lycon F'er spoke, e'er thought, design'd, contriv'd, or acted?

Has he done aught without the queen's consent?

PHÆDRA.

Plead'st thou consent to what thou first inspir❜dst? Was that consent? O senseless politician! When adverse passions struggled in my breast, When anger, fear, love, sorrow, guilt, despair, Drove out my reason, and usurp'd my soul, Yet this consent you plead, O faithful Lycon! Oh! only zealous for the fame of Phædra! With this you blot my name, and clear your own; And what's my frenzy, will be call'd my crime: What then is thine? Thou cool, deliberate villain, Thou wise, fore-thinking, weighing politician!

LYCON.

Oh! 'twas so black, my frighten'd tongue recoil'd At its own sound, and horrour shook my soul. Yet still, though pierc'd with such amazing anguish, Such was my zeal, so much I lov'd my queen, I broke through all, to save the life of Phædra.

PHÆDRA.

What's life? Oh all ye gods! Can life atone For all the monstrous crimes by which 'tis bought? Or can I live! When thou, oh soul of honour! Oh early hero! by my crimes art ruin'd. Perhaps ev'n now the great unhappy youth Falls by the sordid hands of butchering villains; Now, now he bleeds, he dies-Oh perjur'd traitor' See, his rich blood in purple torrents flows, And Nature sallies in unbidden groans; Now mortal pangs distort his lovely form; His rosy beauties fade, his starry eyes Now darkling swim, and fix their closing beams; Now in short gasps his labouring spirit heaves, And weakly flutters on his faultering tongue, And struggles into sound. Hear, monster, hear, With his last breath he curses perjur'd Phædra: He summons Phædra to the bar of Minos; Thou too shalt there appear; to torture thee, Whole Hell shall be employ'd, and suffering Phædra Shall find some ease to see thee still more wretched,