THESEUS.

Who can it be, ye gods, but perjur'd Lycon ?
Who can infpire fuch ftorms of rage, but Lycon?
Where has my sword left one so black, but Lycon?
Where! Wretched Thefeus! in thy bed and heart,
The very darling of my foul and eyes!

Oh beauteous fiend! But truft not to thy form.
You too, my fon, was fair; your manly beauties
Charm'd every heart (O heavens !) to your destruction.
You too were good, your virtuous foul abhorr❜d
The crimes for which you dy'd. Oh impious Phædra!
Incestuous fury! Execrable murth'refs!

Is there revenge on earth, or pain in hell,
Can art invent, or boiling rage fuggeft,

Ev'n endless torture, which thou shalt not fuffer?

PHEDRA.

And is there aught on earth I would not suffer?
Oh, were there vengeance equal to my crimes,
Thou need'ft not claim it, most unhappy youth,
From any hands but mine: T' avenge thy fate,
I'd court the fiercest pains, and fue for tortures
And Phædra's fufferings should atone for thine :
Ev'n now I fall a victim to thy wrongs;
Ev'n now a fatal draught works out my foul;
Ev'n now it curdles in my fhrinking veins
The lazy blood, and freezes at my heart.

LYCON brought in.

THESEUS.

Haft thou efcap'd my wrath? Yet, impious Lycon,

On thee I'll empty all my hoard of vengeance,
And glut my boundless rage.

LYCON.

O! mercy, mercy!

THESEUS.

Such thou shalt find as thy beft deeds deferve, Such as thy guilty foul can hope from Thefeus ; Such as thou fhew'dft to poor Hippolitus.

LYCON.

Oh chain me! whip me! Let me be the fcorn Of fordid rabbles, and infulting crowds!

Give me but life, and make that life most wretched.

PHEDRA.

Art thou fo base, so spiritless a slave?

Not fo the lovely youth thy arts have ruin'd,
Not fo he bore the fate to which you doom'd him.

THESEUS.

Oh abject villain! Yet it gives me joy To fee the fears that shake thy guilty foul, Enhance thy crimes, and antedate thy woes. Oh, how thou 'It howl thy fearful soul away; While laughing crowds shall echo to thy cries, And make thy pains their sport! Hafte, hence, away with him,

Drag him to all the torments earth can furnish;
Let him be rack'd and gash`d, impal'd alive;

Then let the mangled monster, fix'd on high;

Grin o'er the fhouting crowds, and glut their vengeance. And is this all? And art thou now appeas'd?

Will this atone for poor Hippolitus !

Oh ungorg'd appetite! Oh ravenous thirst

Of a fon's blood! What not a day, a moment!

PHÆDRA.

A day! A moment! Oh! thou should'st have staid Years, ages, all the round of circling time,

Ere touch'd the life of that confummate youth.

THESEUS.

And yet with joy I flew to his destruction,
Boafted his fate, and triumph'd in his ruin.
Not this I promis'd to his dying mother,
When in her mortal pangs fhe fighing gave me
The laft cold kifles from her trembling lips,
And reach'd her feeble wandering hands to mine;
When her laft breath, now quivering at her mouth,
Implor'd my goodness to her lovely fon;

To her Hippolitus. He, alas! defcends
An early victim to the lazy fhades,

(Oh heaven and earth!) by Thefeus doom'd, descendș.

PHÆDRA.

He 's doom'd by Thefeus, but accus'd by Phædra, By Phædra's madness, and by Lycon's hatred.

Yet with my life I expiate my frenzy,

And dye for thee, my headlong rage destroy'd :
Thee I purfue, (oh great ill-fated youth !)
Pursue thee ftill, but now with chafte desires;
Thee through the dismal waste of gloomy death
Thee through the glimmering dawn, and purer day,
Through all th' Elyfian plains: O righteous Minos!
Elysian plains! There he and his Ifmena

;

Shall

Shall fport for ever, fhall for ever drink
Immortal love; while I far off fhall howl

In lonely plains; while all the blackest ghosts
Shrink from the baleful fight of one more monftrous,
And more accurs'd than they.

THESEUS.

I too muft go;

I too must once more fee the burning fhore
Of livid Acheron and black Cocytus,
Whence no Alcides will release me now.

PHEDRA.

Then why this ftay? Come on, let's plunge to gether:

See hell fets wide its adamantine gates,

See through the fable gates the black Cocytus
In fmoky circles rowls its fiery waves:
Hear, hear the stunning harmonies of woe,
The din of rattling chains, of clashing whips,
Of groans, of loud complaints, of piercing fhrieks,
That wide through all its gloomy world refound.
How huge Mægara stalks! what streaming fires
Blaze from her glaring eyes! what ferpents curl
In horrid wreaths, and hifs around her head!
Now, now the drags me to the bar of Minos.
See how the aweful judges of the dead
Look ftedfaft hate, and horrible dismay !
See Minos turns away his loathing eyes,
Rage choaks his ftruggling words: the fatal urn
Drops from his trembling hand: O all ye gods!
What, Lycon here! Oh execrable villain!

NA

The

Then am I ftill on earth? By hell I am,
A fury now, a fcourge preferv'd for Lycon!
See, the juft beings offer to my vengeance
That impious flave. Now, Lycon, for revenge;
Thanks, Heaven, 'tis here.--I'll steal it to his heart.
[Miftaking Thefeus for Lycon, offers to ftab him.]

GUARDS.

Heavens! tis your lord.

PHÆDRA.

My lord! O equal Heaven!

Muft each portentous moment rise in crimes,

And fallying life go off in parricide?

Then truft not thy flow drugs. Thus fure of death

[Stabs herself. Compleat thy horrors——And if this suffice not, Thou, Minos, do the rest.

THESEUS.

At length fhe 's quiet,

And earth now bears not fuch a wretch as Thefeus; Yet I'll obey Hippolitus, and live:

Then to the wars; and as the Corybantines,

With clashing fhields, and braying trumpets, drown'd
The cries of infant Jove.-I'll ftifle confcience,
And nature's murmurs in the din of arms.

But what are arms to me? Is he not dead
For whom I fought? For whom my hoary age
Glow'd with the boiling heat of youth in battle?
How then to drag a wretched life beneath,
An endless round of still returning woes,
And all the gnawing pangs of vain remorse ?

What