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The
Brownstone Journal >>
Issues >> Vol.
XII Spring 2005
Phaedra
Translated by Heather Way
I have but little time, so listen, Theseus,
'Twas I who toward your son so chaste and respectful
Dared to cast glances from an eye of incest, full.
Heaven in my bosom placed an ardor of death;
The perfidious Oenone controlled all the rest.
She feared that Hippolytus, knowing my zeal,
Would find a burning passion and terror feel.
The spiteful woman, profiting from my weakness,
Ran to you to accuse him to not face bleakness.
She's punished herself, and fleeing my angry rage,
Went searching for sweet solace in the gentle waves.
The iron would already have cut short my days;
But I did let my questionable virtue stay.
I wanted, by exposing my rue and my dread
To take a slower path to the place of the dead.
I took it, I made through my burning veins flow
A poison that Medea brought and my life slows.
Heather Way (SED 05, CAS 05) a French and Education
major, plans on teaching English in France and French in an
American high school. TBJ
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