HKB
2 passages · search this phrase →
Often appears with: crime and punishment · theseus rage · self-accusation · oenone explanation · natural law and higher law · justice as a virtue · honor, shame, and reputation · false accusation theme · equity, mercy, and pardon · divine punishment · betrayal
Usually: argument (1) · commentary or gloss (1) · betrayal (1) · confronting death (1) · injustice endured (1) · detachment (1) · indignation (1)
Theseus declares Hippolytus convicted by the dead and treats him as a black villain, insisting on punishment, while Hippolytus protests that he is innocent and is dazed by Theseus’s accusations.
Stand I tainted here, Though utterly innocent? [*Murmurs from the crowd*.] Yea, dazed am I; 'Tis thy words daze me, falling all awry, Away from reason, by fell fancies vexed! THESEUS O heart of man, what height wilt venture next? What end comes to thy daring and thy crime? For if with each man's life 'twill higher climb, And every age break out in blood and lies Beyond its fathers, must not God devise So…
Hippolytus fears Phaedra will accuse herself to destroy herself and plans to persuade Theseus gently, but Theseus has already decided betrayal exists; Oenone claims she tried to interpret Phaedra’s tears as protection of Theseus from shame.
HIPPOLYTUS, THERAMENES HIPPOLYTUS What do these words portend, which seem'd to freeze My very blood? Will Phaedra, in her frenzy Accuse herself, and seal her own destruction? What will the King say? Gods! What fatal poison Has love spread over all his house! Myself, Full of a fire his hatred disapproves, How changed he finds me from the son he kne…