The Phaedo is acknowledged to be one of Plato’s masterpieces, showing him both as a philosopher and as a dramatist at the height of his powers. For its moving account of the execution of Socrates, the Phaedo ranks among the supreme literary achievements of antiquity. It is also a document crucial to the understanding of many ideas deeply ingrained in western culture, and provides one of the best introductions to Plato’s thought

Aus dem Amerikanischen von Edith Boldt, Edda Fensch, Ingo Schwarz und Sabine Thieme Illustrationen von Gerhard Lahr

On the day she awoke remembering nothing but her name, Kahlan Amnell became the most dangerous woman alive. For everyone else, that was the day that the world began to end. As her husband, Richard, desperately searches for his beloved, whom only he remembers, he knows that if she doesn’t soon discover who she really is, she will unwittingly become the instrument that will unleash annihilation. But Kahlan learns that if she ever were to unlock the truth of her lost identity, then evil itself would finally possess her, body and soul. If she is to survive in a murky world of deception and betrayal, where life is not only cheap but fleeting, Kahlan must find out why she is such a central figure in the war-torn world swirling around her. What she uncovers are secrets darker than she could ever have imagined

There was nothing distinctive about her except the hat — the shape and color of a pumpkin, with a cockerel feather curving up from the center. And that is all Scott Henderson could remember when his life depended on it. He had met her in a bar when he was grimly trying to recover from the aftermath of a quarrel with his wife He took her to dinner, then to the theatre. It was understood that personalities should not enter into their conversation. Thus when he returned late to his apartment to find his wife strangled with one of his own neckties and the police waiting to hear his story, he could not tell them the name of the only person who could prove his innocence. Worse than that, as the police retraced his steps on the fateful night, bartender, taxi driven waiter and ticket-taker all swore that Henderson had been alone. Horrified at the thought that he had taken leave of his senses, Scott Henderson was arrested for murder. Tough, exciting and rapid-fire, the solution to the story is even more ingenious than the puzzle itself. The result is one of the most satisfying pieces of mystery fiction since the early Van Dines and Hammetts

A tool and its user function as a unit, and the more complex and tightly integrated they are…

Dr. Melanie Lipton is no stranger to the supernatural. She knows immortals better than they know themselves, right down to their stubborn little genes. So although a handsome rogue immortal seems suspicious to her colleagues, Sebastien Newcombe intrigues Melanie. His history is checkered, his scars are impressive, and his ideas are daring. But it's not his ideas that have Melanie fighting off surges of desire . . . Bastien is used to being the bad guy. In fact, he can't remember the last time he had an ally he could trust. But Melanie is different — and under her calm, professional exterior he senses a passion beyond anything in his centuries of experience. Giving in to temptation is out of the question — he can't put her in danger. But she isn't asking him

Some fires still burn when star-crossed lovers reunite... When a dangerous mission leads him deep into the jungles of Honduras, Navy SEAL Sam Shaymore is confronted with his fiery past in the form of Kelly Denning. Once their romance had been forbidden because of class differences. Then a tragedy drove them apart. But the minute he looks into her eyes, Sam knows he's never forgotten the sultry kisses and luscious curves of the beautiful Enchanter Mage. Nor can he turn his back on helping her. Sam's unit has been charged with arresting Kelly. But if he can believe her, Kelly needs his help now to save some kidnapped Mage children and to stop a conspiracy with far-reaching implications. Threatened with being kicked off his SEAL unit if he does not follow his orders, Sam must risk everything... even his heart

When Jenny returns to her medical practice in Snowfield after attending the death of her mother, she finds the shock of her young life. Everyone in the town is either horribly dead or missing. She does not know what or who has killed everyone or whether it will allow her and her fourteen-year-old sister to either leave safely or call for help. Extremely riveting supernatural thriller

Neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran is internationally renowned for uncovering answers to the deep and quirky questions of human nature that few scientists have dared to address. His bold insights about the brain are matched only by the stunning simplicity of his experiments — using such low-tech tools as cotton swabs, glasses of water and dime-store mirrors. In Phantoms in the Brain, Dr. Ramachandran recounts how his work with patients who have bizarre neurological disorders has shed new light on the deep architecture of the brain, and what these findings tell us about who we are, how we construct our body image, why we laugh or become depressed, why we may believe in God, how we make decisions, deceive ourselves and dream, perhaps even why we’re so clever at philosophy, music and art. Some of his most notable cases: • A woman paralyzed on the left side of her body who believes she is lifting a tray of drinks with both hands offers a unique opportunity to test Freud’s theory of denial. • A man who insists he is talking with God challenges us to ask: Could we be “wired” for religious experience? • A woman who hallucinates cartoon characters illustrates how, in a sense, we are all hallucinating, all the time. Dr. Ramachandran’s inspired medical detective work pushes the boundaries of medicine’s last great frontier — the human mind — yielding new and provocative insights into the “big questions” about consciousness and the self

1351 BC: Akhenaten the Sun-Pharaoh rules supreme in Egypt… until the day he casts off his crown and mysteriously disappears into the desert, his legacy seemingly swallowed up by the remote sands beneath the Great Pyramids of Giza. AD 1884: A British soldier serving in the Sudan stumbles upon an incredible discovery — a submerged temple containing evidence of a terrifying religion whose god was fed by human sacrifice. The soldier is on a mission to reach General Gordon before Khartoum falls. But he hides a secret of his own. Present day: Jack Howard and his team are excavating one of the most amazing underwater sites they have ever encountered, but dark forces are watching to see what they will find. Diving into the Nile, they enter a world three thousand years back in history, inhabited by a people who have sworn to guard the greatest secret of all time…

Emilio Salgari Geboren am 21. August 1862 in Verona; gestorben am 25. April 1911 in Turin. Sein Vater ist Tuchhändler. Die Oberschule kann er wegen schlechter Noten nicht zu Ende bringen. Von 1878 bis 1881 studierte er am Königlich Nautischen Institut in Venedig, um Kapitän zu werden. Er fiel bei der ersten Prüfung durch und heuerte als Schiffsjunge an, verließ in Brindisi das Schiff und fuhr mit der Eisenbahn zurück nach Verona. Soweit bekannt ist, hat er Italien nie verlassen. Er studiert aber eifrig Abenteuerromane und veröffentlicht schon 1883, zwei Jahre nach seiner mißglückten Weltreise, im Alter von 21 Jahren seine erste Erzählung. Emilio Salgari produzierte in den folgenden Jahren ein Gesamtwerk von über 90 Romanen und Erzählungen. 1909 fürchtet er sein Augenlicht zu verlieren; seine Frau zeigt erste Anzeichen von Geisteskrankheit. Nachdem seine Frau 1910 in eine Heilanstalt eingeliefert wird, unternimmt er einen Selbstmordversuch, wird aber gerettet. Am 25. April 1911 bringt er sich dann mit einem Rasiermesser um. Quelle: www.ablit.de Aus dem Italienischen übersetzt von Fr. Martha von Siegroth

Triumphant from a fifteen thousand year battle in space, a bolt of energy reached the third planet of a Class B star. A new life force spawned seven grey towers in the Arizona desert. Now, from out of their dark mysteries marches a new breed of killer ants to herald the dawn of Phase IV… In their path wait two men, a frightened girl and the resources of modern science. Mankind’s first line of defense—and its last… Note: Novelization based on a story and screenplay by Mayo Simon. Copyright, ©, 1973, by Simon & Schuster, Inc

Tied in to Baxter’s masterful Manifold trilogy, these thematically linked stories are drawn from the vast graph of possibilities across which the lives of hero Reid Malenfant have been scattered. Reid Malenfant is the commander of a NASA earth-orbiting science platform. The platform is intended to probe the planets of the nearest star system by bouncing laser pulses off them. But no echoes are returned … and Reid's reality begins to crumble around him. Huddling with his family, awaiting the end – or an unknown new beginning – Reid tells stories of other possibilities, other realities. The linked stories encompass the myriad possibilities that might govern our relationship with the universe: are we truly alone, or will we eventually meet other lifeforms? The final possibility – that the Universe as we know it is in fact an elaborate illusion designed to protect us from the fearful reality – is brilliantly explored in the tour de force novella that ends the volume

March 1943, at the height of World War II, a newly commissioned B-17 bomber is nearing the west coast of Greenland. Flown by a carefully picked crew, it is carrying a piece of vital secret cargo that under no circumstances can be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy. Caught by an unexpected and fearfully violent Arctic storm, the pilot is forced to crash-land on the vast, awesome Greenland Ice Cap. The crew is saved, but the plane itself and the ultrasensitive cargo it is carrying are swallowed by another great storm and disappear. Three decades later Lieutenant Scott Ferguson, the pilot of a ski-equipped Air Force C-130, discovers an unknown B-17 rigidly frozen on an all-but-unexplored section of the ice cap. Ferguson is bound for Thule Air Base, named for Ultima Thule — the end of the earth. Only 960 miles from the North Pole, in the extreme Arctic, Thule is one of the most exotic places on earth — and one of the most remote. It sits squarely on the bomber and missile route from the Soviet Union to the United States and Canada. When he reports his find, Ferguson receives sudden orders from the Pentagon: go back to the frozen bomber, get inside, and recover, if possible, a certain piece of cargo. This, the first book about Thule and the people who are stationed there, is filled with the vastness, the danger, and the fascination of the very high Arctic. And, from the first page to the last, it is a story about aircraft and the men who fly them. When Lieutenant Ferguson and his crew set about to recover the yellow color-coded crate from the wreck of the B-17, they open the door to more adventure and extraordinary flying than even Ferguson's lively imagination can conceive. For that was not an ordinary B-17…

Ex-astronaut Richard Baedecker sees everything he has ever done as merely preparation for something bigger and his quest for higher meaning leads him to a mysterious young woman who shows him the "places of power" in his own past

A group of scientists and professional divers descend 4,500 feet into the Cayman Trench to research the hydrothermal vents which were recently discovered there. An accident on the bottom leaves just three members of the crew struggling for survival

Good Girl. Notorious Bad-Boy. One Phenomenal Love. From the mean streets of Detroit rises the newest superstar of professional wrestling, Xavier Cold, better known as Phenomenal X. His muscular physique makes men cower before him and women lose their minds with desire. Anna Cortez is fresh out of college and naive to the harsh realities of the real world. Tired of living under the thumb of her conservative family, she defies them when she accepts a job as the assistant to wrestling’s most notorious bad-boy. Phenomenal X has an animalistic nature that even good girl Anna finds hard to resist. One night forced to share a bed in a sold-out hotel, lines blur between them and they quickly learn that one lustful night changes everything and neither one of them will ever be the same

Includes brand-new stories by: Diane Ayres, Cordelia Frances Biddle, Keith Gilman, Cary Holladay, Solomon Jones, Gerald Kolpan, Aimee LaBrie, Halimah Marcus, Carlin Romano, Asali Solomon, Laura Spagnoli, Duane Swierczynski, Dennis Tafoya, and Jim Zervanos. Carlin Romano, critic-at-large of the Chronicle of Higher Education and literary critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty-five years, teaches philosophy and media theory at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2006 he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, cited by the Pulitzer Board for "bringing new vitality to the classic essay across a formidable array of topics." He lives in University City, Philadelphia, in the only house on his block

A dump truck and a boy are a perfect combination. All they need is a bit of dirt. But where do you find dirt if you live in an apartment seven floors above the ground? That is Philip’s problem — a problem he shares with thousands of boys. Philip does think of some ingenious ways of getting dirt, but he meets with adult disapproval at every turn. The unique and happy solution to his problem finally comes from Mr. Neep, the doorman. Mr. Neep’s solution is as clever and delightful as the whole story of Philip and his truck. Colorful illustrations by Arnold Dobrin show exactly how the city looks to a small boy who lives in it

Philippa Meredith, la hija mayor de Rosamund Bolton y heredera de Friarsgate, sufre una terrible desilusión cuando el joven con quien pensaba casarse la abandona para ordenarse sacerdote. Sin embargo, ese inesperado giro del destino permite a la bella e impetuosa Philippa volver a ocupar su lugar en la corte de Catalina de Aragón y conocer a Crispin St. Claire, conde de Witton, un hombre sofisticado, elegante y, además, un excelente candidato para casarse. La pasión arrebatadora del noble caballero enloquece de deseo a Philippa. Pero cuando ella se entera accidentalmente de un complot para asesinar al rey Enrique Tudor, y ambos se ponen en marcha para desenmascarar a los conspiradores, su amor se resiente por la dura prueba que deben atravesar. Sensualidad, drama e intriga abundan en este relato ambientado en la corte de Enrique VIII

Bestselling author Chuck Palahniuk channels both Stephen King and John Cheever in this sinister and hilarious short story, straight from the passive-aggressive front lines of modern marriage, where a wife’s frustration, along with the family cat, become weapons of mass destruction

Elanor Robinson's life had shattered when Father volunteered for the Great War, leaving her alone with a woman he had just married. Then the letter had come that told of her father's death in the trenches and though Eleanor thought things couldn't get any worse, her life took an even more bizarre turn. Dragged to the hearth by her stepmother Alison, Eleanor was forced to endure a painful and frightening ritual during which the smallest finger of her left had was severed and buried beneath a hearthstone. For her stepmother was an Elemental Master of Earth who practiced the darker blood-fueled arts. Alison had bound Eleanor to the hearth with a spell that prevented her from leaving home, caused her to fade from people's memories, and made her into a virtual slave. Months faded into years for Eleanor, and still the war raged. There were times she felt she was losing her mind - times she seemed to see faces in the hearth fire. Reginald Fenyx was a pilot. He lived to fly, and whenever he returned home on break from Oxford, the youngsters of the town would turn out to see him lift his aeroplan - a frail ship of canvas and sticks - into the sky and soar through the clouds. During the war Reggie had become an acclaimed air ace, for he was an Elemental Master of Air. His Air Elementals had protected him until the fateful day when he had met another of his kind aloft, and nearly died. When he returned home, Reggie was a broken man plagued by shell shock, his Elemental powers vanished. Eleanor and Reginald were two souls scourged by war and evil magic. Could they find the strength to help one another rise from the ashes of their destruction?

Lee Child, Diana Gabaldon, James Sallis, and others reveal how, in Phoenix, sunshine is the new noir

This breathtaking and lyrical novella captures a thrilling and momentous decision for a young man and the people he loves. Told from the perspective of Sam, the sensitive musician from Jodi Meadows’s Incarnate series, lifetimes before he meets Ana, Phoenix Overture is a story of love and loss, strength and courage, and facing the consequences of the hardest of decisions. Phoenix Overture offers existing fans a deeper insight into a favorite character and the intriguing history of Heart, while new readers will find a stunning introduction to this rich world and the romantic, captivating fantasy of the Incarnate series. In the wilds around the Community where Sam and his family have taken shelter, life is dangerous. Dragons, trolls, centaurs, and other monsters fill the world. The word comes from the council that everyone must leave and journey to rescue their leader, Janan, who has been abducted by a mysterious new enemy in the north. Faced with overwhelming threats that bring death and destruction, Sam and the others reach the northern Range and, reunited with Janan, are given an unimaginable opportunity. Although it would give them the privilege to live and learn and love without fear, the choice is not without its own dire consequences. And lives—though not theirs—are sure to be lost. Just how much are they willing to give up to save themselves? HarperTeen Impulse is a digital imprint focused on young adult short stories and novellas, with new releases the first Tuesday of each month

"The Land Of The Free" Is No Longer Free The new President of the United States is sharing the wealth, rewriting the Constitution, and changing the National Anthem. America's liberals are thrilled with the election of the first foreign-born candidate. But when President Ohmshidi begins to implement his radical agenda-banning oil production, slashing military budgets, and establishing a "New World Order"-our once-great nation becomes easy pickings for a deadly new wave of Muslim extremists, who rename America...the Islamic Republic of Enlightenment. It's Time To Take Back America Enter Jake Lantz, a battle-seasoned army major and ace helicopter pilot who refuses to stand by and watch his country go down in flames. Assembling a ragtag team of action-ready soldiers and patriots, Jake establishes Firebase Freedom-America's last defense against the violent, lawless thugs and "Army of Allah" that has taken over. Jake's mission: Take back America. Give the people

Welcome to Tvíbura and Tvíburi, the richly imagined twin planets that stand at the center of Greg Egan’s extraordinary new novella, Phoresis. These two planets—one inhabited, one not—exist in extreme proximity to one another. As the narrative begins, Tvíbura, the inhabited planet, faces a grave and imminent threat: the food supply is dwindling, and the conditions necessary for sustaining life are growing more and more erratic. Faced with the prospect of eventual catastrophe, the remarkable women of Tvíbura launch a pair of ambitious, long-term initiatives. The first involves an attempt to reanimate the planet’s increasingly dormant ecosphere. The second concerns the building of a literal “bridge between worlds” that will connect Tvíbura to its (hopefully) habitable sibling. These initiatives form the core of the narrative, which is divided into three sections and takes place over many generations. The resulting triptych is at once an epic in miniature, a work of hard SF filled with humanist touches, and a compressed, meticulously detailed example of original world building. Most centrally, it is a portrait of people struggling—and sometimes risking everything—to preserve a future they will not live to see. Erudite and entertaining, Phoresis shows us Egan at his formidable best, offering the sort of intense, visionary pleasures only science fiction can provide

Macmillan Readers Starter Level

The Sommita lay spread-eagled on her back across a red counterpane. The bosom of her red biblical dress had been torn down to the waist and under her left breast, irrelevantly, unbelievably, the haft of a knife stuck out. The right arm, rigid as a branch, was raised in the fascist salute. She might have been posed for the jacket on an all-too-predictable shocker…

New Orleans scrapbooking shop owner Carmela Bertrand is hosting a late-night "Crop Till You Drop" session-when a neighboring antique-shop owner winds up murdered in the alley. Now, the scrapbooking expert must rearrange the jumble of clues and pick out the killer

Эта книга рассказывает об использовании в цифровой фотографии наиболее совершенного и популярного графического редактора — Adobe Photoshop CS 2. Прочитав ее, вы научитесь производить цветокоррекцию изображений, устранять недостатки фотографии, готовить изображения к печати и выводить их на принтер. Вы узнаете, каким образом производится описание изображения в цифровом виде, в каких форматах следует сохранять изображение в том или ином случае, как подготовить изображение к отправке по электронной почте и размещению в Интерете. Несмотря на то что основное внимание в самоучителе уделено обработке цифровых фотографий, все сказанное применимо и к изображениям, полученным традиционными способами Книга адресована в первую очередь тем, кто уже знаком с цифровой фотографией и умеетпользоваться фотокамерой. 

Эта книга рассказывает об использовании в цифровой фотографии наиболее совершенного и популярного графического редактора — Adobe Photoshop CS 2. Прочитав ее, вы научитесь производить цветокоррекцию изображений, устранять недостатки фотографии, готовить изображения к печати и выводить их на принтер. Вы узнаете, каким образом производится описание изображения в цифровом виде, в каких форматах следует сохранять изображение в том или ином случае, как подготовить изображение к отправке по электронной почте и размещению в Интерете. Несмотря на то что основное внимание в самоучителе уделено обработке цифровых фотографий, все сказанное применимо и к изображениям, полученным традиционными способами Книга адресована в первую очередь тем, кто уже знаком с цифровой фотографией и умеетпользоваться фотокамерой. 

Эта книга рассказывает об использовании в цифровой фотографии наиболее совершенного и популярного графического редактора — Adobe Photoshop CS 2. Прочитав ее, вы научитесь производить цветокоррекцию изображений, устранять недостатки фотографии, готовить изображения к печати и выводить их на принтер. Вы узнаете, каким образом производится описание изображения в цифровом виде, в каких форматах следует сохранять изображение в том или ином случае, как подготовить изображение к отправке по электронной почте и размещению в Интерете. Несмотря на то что основное внимание в самоучителе уделено обработке цифровых фотографий, все сказанное применимо и к изображениям, полученным традиционными способами Книга адресована в первую очередь тем, кто уже знаком с цифровой фотографией и умеетпользоваться фотокамерой. 

С помощью этой книги вы познакомитесь с основными возможностями программы обработки графики Photoshop CS3. Те, кто только начинает работать с этой программой, смогут быстро освоить все необходимые приемы, описанные в данной книге в легкой, краткой и доступной форме с использованием четких пошаговых инструкций. Вы узнаете, как с помощью Photoshop CS3 обработать изображение и подготовить его для печати, работать с текстовыми объектами и создавать векторную графику

Рассмотрены все инструменты и функции новейшей версии наиболее популярной программы для обработки растровой графики – Adobe Photoshop CS4. Читатель получит представление о технологии обработки изображений, о цветовых моделях, цветокоррекции, оптимизации печати растровых рисунков. Издание адресовано начинающим пользователям. Видеокурс прилагается только к печатному изданию книги

Эта книга для начинающих пользователей, желающих освоить работу в последней версии популярного графического редактора Adobe Photoshop CS6. В книге рассмотрены приемы работы, которые необходимы для обработки цифровых фотоснимков. В частности, книга затрагивает следующие основные темы: особенности использования различных графических форматов, кадрирование фотоснимков, выделение объектов на фотоснимках, работа со слоями, тоновая коррекция, цветокоррекция, коррекция резкости, ретушь фотоснимков, восстановление старых и поврежденных фотографий, подготовка фотографий для печати и для Интернета

В издании описаны наиболее полезные плагины для самой популярной программы обработки растровой графики – Adobe Photoshop, которые позволяют расширить возможности пакета. Данная книга будет интересна как профессионалам, ежедневно использующим Photoshop для создания проектов, так и пользователям, которых интересуют вопросы обработки цифровых фотографий в программе. Издание также пригодится дизайнерам трехмерной графики, которые разрабатывают в Photoshop текстуры для трехмерных сцен, веб-мастерам для выполнения оригинальных фонов, кнопок и других необходимых на сайте элементов. Описанные в книге плагины позволят всем пользователям Photoshop выполнять поставленные задачи быстрее и эффективнее

Эта книга – не обычный самоучитель. К ней прилагается мультимедийный интерактивный обучающий курс, который поможет вам разобраться в премудростях одной из самых популярных программ растровой графики Adobe Photoshop CS3. Процесс обучения предельно прост и максимально приближен к занятиям с репетитором. Вы видите на экране работу виртуального преподавателя с программой Adobe Photoshop CS3 и слышите его рассказ, поясняющий действия. Для закрепления полученных знаний «учитель» постоянно задает контрольные вопросы и предлагает выполнить тестовые задания, в случае затруднения поможет подсказкой. Большой объем учебного материала – около 17 часов лекций – позволяет утверждать, что мультимедийный курс будет интересен и новичкам, и опытным пользователям, которые уже владеют основными навыками работы с Adobe Photoshop и стремятся к достижению профессиональных результатов в своей работе

Not many men are as hardy as this Phule. Phule is without a doubt the only captain in the Space Legion with his own butler, but Beeker has stuck with him through thick and thin. Which is why it’s incomprehensible to Phule why Beeker has run off-planet without a word—and with Omega Company’s lovely new medic. Without his right-hand man, Phule has no idea what his left hand is doing. So he takes off after his errant butler, just as General Blitzkrieg decides to make a surprise visit to Zenobia. And the only thing Blitz would like better than catching Phule off guard is to catch Phule AWOL

When the alien Tarsalans mount a light-blocking sphere around Earth to further their aims of conquest, two scientists race against time to destroy it, even as crops die in the endless night of the phytosphere, and famine and anarchy tighten their hold on civilization. Matters go from bad to worse when Earth’s over-zealous military, seeking to defeat the Tarsalans, inadvertently destroy the phytosphere’s control mechanism, turning it into a train without brakes. One of the scientists fails to destroy the light-blocking sphere. This leaves it up to the remaining scientist. But he is on an isolated moon community without resources or weapons, and must use only his wits and cunning to defeat the twin-brained super-intelligent Tarsalans. Alien-based post-apocalyptic fiction at its best!

Phèdre [Jean Racine], tragédie en cinq actes et en vers de Jean Racine, créée en 1677. Inspirée d’Euripide et, dans une moindre mesure, de Sénèque, Phèdre de Racine est une œuvre dramatique hors du commun, à laquelle le poète a donné quelques-uns de ses plus beaux vers. Centrée autour de la figure de l’héroïne, cette tragédie raconte la trouble passion de Phèdre pour son beau-fils, Hippolyte. Celui-ci, au début de la pièce, annonce à son confident Théramène qu’il part à la recherche de son père, Thésée, dont on annonce la mort. La scène de déclaration voilée de Phèdre à Hippolyte, à l’acte II, suscite l’indignation du jeune homme, qui est épris d’Aricie. Devant ce refus, Phèdre cherche à se venger. Au retour du roi Thésée, sur les conseils insidieux de sa suivante Œnone, elle rejette la responsabilité de sa faute sur Hippolyte. Son père, furieux, réclame et obtient le châtiment de ce dernier; mais il découvre, un peu tard, par Aricie, qu’Hippolyte était épris d’elle seule. La pièce se clôt sur le récit de Théramène qui relate la mort sanglante d’Hippolyte, suivie de celle de Phèdre qui s’empoisonne en révélant, torturée de remords, la vérité. Bien des vers de Phèdre sont restés célèbres, notamment ceux qui dépeignent l’héroïne maudite, «la fille de Minos et de Pasiphaé» (I, 1). Entièrement sous l’emprise de la fatalité (rouage essentiel de la tragédie antique mais aussi point de doctrine de la théorie janséniste de la prédestination, à laquelle adhérait Racine), la passion dévastatrice qu’incarne le personnage de Phèdre est sublimée par la noblesse parfaite de l’alexandrin racinien – «J’ai voulu, devant vous exposant mes remords / Par un chemin plus lent descendre chez les morts.» (V, 7). Si la pièce n’a pas eu à souffrir de la concurrence de la Phèdre de Jacques Pradon (1644-1698), composée la même année pour nuire au poète, elle a rencontré l’hostilité de la Cour, qui la jugeait scandaleuse