Stevie Smith - Phèdre lyrics

I wonder why Proust should have thought The lines from Racine's Phèdre Depuis que sur ces bords le dieux ont envoyé La fille de Minos et de Pasiphaé to be Entirely devoid of meaning, To me they seem As lucid as they are alarming. I wonder why The actresses I have seen Playing Phèdre Always indulge In such mature agonizing. Phèdre was young, (This is as clear in Racine as Euripides) She was young, A girl caught in a trap, a girl Under the enforcement Of a goddess. I dare say Phèdre In fact I'm sure of it Was by nature As prim as Hippolytus Poor girl, poor girl, what could she do But be ashamed and hang herself, Poor girl. How awful the French actress Marie Bell Made her appear. Poor Phèdre, Not only to be shamed by her own behaviour, Enforced by that disgusting goddess, Ancient enemy Of her family, But nowadays to have to be played By actresses like Marie Bell In awful ancient agonizing, something painful. Now if I Had been writing this story I should have arranged for Theseus To die, (Well, he was old) And then I should have let Phèdre and Hippolytus Find Aricie out In some small meanness, Say Eating up somebody else's chocolates, Half a pound of them, soft centred. Secretly in bed at night, alone, One after another, Positively wolfing them down. This would have put Hip. off, And Phaedra would be there too And he would turn and see That she was pretty disgusted, too, So then they would have got married And everything would have been respectable, And the wretched Venus could have lumped it, Lumped, I mean, Phèdre Being the only respectable member Of her awful family, And being happy. I should have liked one member Of that awful family To be happy, What with Ariadne auf Naxos, And Pasiphaé and that awful animal, And Minus sitting judging the Dead In those awful dark halls. Yes, I should like poor honourable simple sweet prim Phèdre To be happy. One would have to be pretty simple To be happy with a prig like Hippolytus, But she was simple. I think it might have been a go, If I were writing the story I should have made it a go.