Stasimon 1
[Episode]
Look! where the aged nurse is bringing her forth from the house before the door, while on her brow the cloud of gloom is deepening. My soul longs to learn what is her grief, the canker that is
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Chorus
wasting our queen’s fading charms.
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Nurse
O, the ills of mortal men! the cruel diseases they endure! What can I do for thee? from what refrain? Here is the bright sun-light, here the azure sky; lo! we have brought thee on thy bed of sickness
without the palace; for all thy talk was of coming hither, but soon back to thy chamber wilt thou hurry. Disappointment follows fast with thee, thou hast no joy in aught for long; the present has no power to please; on something absent
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next thy heart is set. Better be sick than tend the sick; the first is but a single ill, the last unites mental grief with manual toil. Man’s whole life is full of anguish;
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no respite from his woes he finds; but if there is aught to love beyond this life, night’s dark pall doth wrap it round. And so we show our mad love of this life because its light is shed on earth,
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and because we know no other, and have naught revealed to us of all our earth may hide; and trusting to fables we drift at random.
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Phaedra
Lift my body, raise my head! My limbs are all unstrung, kind friends.
O handmaids, lift my arms, my shapely arms. The tire on my head is too heavy for me to wear; away with it, and let my tresses o’er my shoulders fall.
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Nurse
Be of good heart, dear child; toss not so wildly to and fro.
Lie still, be brave, so wilt thou find thy sickness easier to bear; suffering for mortals is nature’s iron law.
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Phaedra
Ah! would I could draw a draught of water pure from some dew-fed spring, and lay me down to rest in the grassy meadow ’neath the poplar’s shade!
Nurse
My child, what wild speech is this? O say not such things in public, wild whirling words of frenzy bred!
Phaedra
Away to the mountain take me! to the wood, to the pine-trees I will go, where hounds pursue the prey, hard on the scent of dappled fawns. Ye gods! what joy to hark them on,
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to grasp the barbed dart, to poise Thessalian hunting-spears close to my golden hair, then let them fly.
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Nurse
Why, why, my child, these anxious cares? What hast thou to do with the chase?
Why so eager for the flowing spring, when hard by these towers stands a hill well watered, whence thou may’st freely draw?
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Phaedra
O Artemis, who watchest o’er sea-beat LimnaA sea-coast town of Troezen. and the race-course thundering to the horse’s hoofs,
would I were upon thy plains curbing Venetian steeds!
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Nurse
Why betray thy frenzy in these wild whirling words? Now thou wert for hasting hence to the hills away to hunt wild beasts, and now
thy yearning is to drive the steed over the waveless sands. This needs a cunning seer to say what god it is that reins thee from the course, distracting thy senses, child.
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Phaedra
Ah me! alas! what have I done?
Whither have I strayed, my senses leaving? Mad, mad! stricken by some demon’s curse! Woe is me! Cover my head again, nurse. Shame fills me for the words I have spoken.
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Hide me then; from my eyes the tear-drops stream, and for very shame I turn them away. Tis painful coming to one’s senses again, and madness, evil though it be, has this advantage, that one has no knowledge of reason’s overthrow.
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Nurse
There then I cover thee; but when will death hide my body in the grave? Many a lesson length of days is teaching me. Yea, mortal men should pledge themselves
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to moderate friendships only, not to such as reach the very heart’s core; affection’s ties should be light upon them to let them slip or draw them tight. For one poor heart to grieve for twain, as I do
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for my mistress, is a burden sore to bear. Men say that too engrossing pursuits in life more oft cause disappointment than pleasure,
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and too oft are foes to health. Wherefore I do not praise excess so much as moderation, and with me wise men will agree.
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Chorus
O aged dame, faithful nurse of Phaedra, our queen, we see her sorry plight; but what it is that ails her we cannot discern,
so fain would learn of thee and hear thy opinion.
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