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I'll make thee full atonement, and will plunge
The avenging sword within my sinful breast,
And so be free from life and Lmilt at once.
Thee will I follow through Tartarean pools,
Across the Styx, through streams of liquid fire. 1180
Let me appease the spirit of the dead.
Accept the spoils I offer, take this lock
Torn from my bleeding forehead. 'Twas not right
To join our souls in life; but surely now
We may by death unite our fates.
⁠[To herself.]
⁠Now die,
If thou art undefiled, to appease thy lord;
But if defiled, die for thy lover's sake. 1185
Is't meet that I should live and seek again
My husband's couch, by such foul incest stained?
This wrong was lacking still, that, as if pure,
Thou shouldst enjoy that union, justified.
death, thou only cure for evil love,
For injured chastity the last resort:
I fly to thee; spread wide thy soothing arms. 1190
Hear me, O Athens; thou, O father, hear,
Thou worse than stepdame: I have falsely sworn.
The crime, which I myself within my heart,
With passion mad, conceived, I basely charged
To him. An empty vengeance hast thou wrought
Upon thy son; for he in chastity, 1195
Through fault of the unchaste, lies there, unstained
And innocent.
⁠[To Hippolytus.]
⁠Regain thine honor now;
Behold my impious breast awaits the stroke
Of justice, and my blood makes sacrifice
Unto the spirit of a guiltless man.
⁠[To Theseus.]
How thou mayst recompense thy murdered son,
Learn now from me—and seek the Acheron. 1200
⁠[She falls upon her sword and dies.]
Theseus: Ye jaws of wan Avernus, and ye caves