University of Virginia Library

Scene 2:

The woods; moon about to rise. Chorus of Satyrs.
First Satyr.
[An old one]
Ah, woe! Ah, woe! On Athens woe!

Second Satyr.
[A young one]
Good father, what should move thee so?

First Satyr.
The hellish queen, with ill-intent,
Doth work our darling's banishment,
Hippolytus to death must go.

Chorus.
Ah, woe is me, forever woe!

2nd Strophe.
Ye little rivulets that flow,
Forsake your beds and backward go;
Your merry music now must fall,
While heavens are black, and stars grow pale.
Rise up this wicked deed to show.

Chorus.
Ah, woe is me, forever woe!

3rd Strophe.
Ye pretty grasses of the woods,
Ye May-plants with the fragrant buds,
To funeral incense change your breath,
And droop your foreheads, feigning death.
Hippolytus to doom doth go.

Chorus.
Ah, woe is me, forever woe! [Four Nymphs come forward]


First Nymph.
How your twinkling eyes will miss him,
Who so soft your state did press!
Rise up one last time to kiss him,
Hold him fast for one caress.
Fringèd branches, close around him,
Twine him in your fresh embrace,
For the chords of death have bound him,
Ye no more shall see his face.

Second Nymph.
We who in the summer weather,
Saw his feathery footsteps bound,
When the hounds sang all together,
And the dew shone on the ground;
We shall wait his further coming
With distended eyes, in vain.
Winter's rain or summer's blooming
Shall not bring him back again.

Third Nymph.
Never, oh, ye beauteous blossoms,
Let the poisonous Phaedra pass;
Nymphs, make hard your pitying bosoms,
Wither at her footsteps, grass!
Would she loose, in wood or meadow,
From her breast the guilty chain,
Fright her with her victim's shadow,
Till she flee in frantic pain.

Fourth Nymph.
Ah! Our love than hate is stronger,
Wretch, we curse thee, and have done,
But we'll weave his chaplet longer
Than the journeys of the sun.
Maids unborn shall shear their tresses
For the hero we bewail,
He shall live in our distresses
Till the voice of song shall fail.

First Satyr.
I hear a footstep.

Second Satyr.
Some one comes this way.
Then hide we in our unseen fastnesses.

[Exeunt Omnes. Enter Hippolytus]
Hipp.
How melancholy are the shades to-night!
The boughs hang spiritless across my path,
As though a sorrow touched them. As I came
Weird music sobbed, but left the cheated ear
Untold of its direction. Nay, methought
That very tears were dropt upon my cheek
By th' unseen creatures of the woods, in this
More piteous of my sorrow than myself
That cannot vent it thus. Have ever thanks,
Ye harmless satyrs, and ye woodland nymphs,
For suiting thus my mood—I am not well.
Oh, where stays Creon?

Creon.
[Entering]
He is close at hand,
Filled with the shame and anguish of your wrong.

Hipp.
Let us not speak of that—for many years
Its bitterness shall grow, when we have time
To weep upon it. Action suits us now,
And the sweet comfort of your faultless love,
My Creon. Goest thou with me?

Creon.
By my life,
Though twenty kings stood bristling in my path,
I go with thee.

Hipp.
Perchance, in Theseus' mind,
Shall this devotion blight thy growing grace,
And lose the state a valiant officer.
Stay where thou art, and serve the land I love,
But never from thy lips let word escape
To grieve my father for the thing he does.

Creon.
How? Wouldst thou bind me to inglorious fraud?

Hipp.
I bind thee to be mindful of his peace,
Who, beyond all that is, is dear to me. [Enter Messenger]


Creon.
What have we here?

Hipp.
A message from the king.

Mess.
Art thou Hippolytus?

Hipp.
You have known me such—
And what I was, I am.

Mess.
This from the king.
Theseus commands you journey by the sea,
Southward, until you learn his further will.

Creon.
Into the country of his enemies
He sends you!

Hipp.
It is well as he ordains.
What bringst thou more?

Mess.
He bids thee take thy way
At earliest dawn, and from thy banished steps
Divorces all who love him.

Hipp.
All who love him?

Mess.
Ev'n so.

Hipp.
Why, then, my Creon, we must part.

Creon.
Not so, for by the anguish of this hour,
And by the glorious head unjustly shamed,
I love him not.

Hipp.
Restrain the impious word.
That much offends thyself and me.

Creon.
By heaven,
I'll speak the truth altho' my blood spout with it:
I love him not, and, till he do thee right,
I'll serve him as the panther serves the wolf.

Hipp.
Forsake my presence, then, for, as I live,
None shall be near me in whose heart his name
Is not the kingliest jewel in the crown.
Nay, have I grieved thee? [Opening his arms]

Comrade, counsellor!
[Embracing him]
Thus let us part, as friends whose firm-knit bonds
Distance shall draw but closer. With the dawn
Bid that my chariot at the seaward gates
Await me.

Creon.
But you'll rest with us till then—
We'll keep the precious watches of the night,
And mark the heavy hours with mutual tears.

Hipp.
Here will I sleep, that no Athenian roof
Confront the royal wrath to harbour me.
Creon, farewell. [Exit Creon, reluctantly]

A houseless, friendless wretch,
I ask the pitying woods to shelter me,
Till the unwelcome sun shall hold the torch
That lights Hippolytus to banishment. [Music. He lies down, the Nymphs and Satyrs steal softly out, and group around him; the moon slowly rises on the scene. Soft music. Tableau]