Euripides' HIPPOLYTUS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

61 pages - You are on Page 19

Chorus: (chanting) O, too clearly didst thou hear our queen uplift
her voice to tell her startling tale of piteous suffering. Come death
ere I reach thy state of feeling, loved mistress. O horrible! woe,
for these miseries! woe, for the sorrows on which mortals feed! Thou
art undone! thou hast disclosed thy sin to heaven's light. What hath
each passing day and every hour in store for thee? Some strange event
will come to pass in this house. For it is no longer uncertain where
the star of thy love is setting, thou hapless daughter of Crete.

Phaedra: Women of Troezen, who dwell here upon the frontier edge of
Pelops' land, oft ere now in heedless mood through the long hours
of night have I wondered why man's life is spoiled; and it seems to
me their evil case is not due to any natural fault of judgment, for
there be many dowered with sense, but we must view the matter in this
light: by teaching and experience to learn the right but neglect it
in practice, some from sloth, others from preferring pleasure of some
kind or other to duty. Now life has many pleasures, protracted talk,
and leisure, that seductive evil; likewise there is shame which is
of two kinds, one a noble quality, the other a curse to families;
but if for each its proper time were clearly known, these twain could
not have had the selfsame letters to denote them. So then since I
had made up my mind on these points, 'twas not likely any drug would
alter it and make me think the contrary. And I will tell the too the
way my judgment went. When love wounded me, I bethought me how I best
might bear the smart. So from that day forth I began to hide in silence
what I suffered. For I put no faith in counsellors, who know well
to lecture others for presumption, yet themselves have countless troubles
of their own. Next I did devise noble endurance of these wanton thoughts,
striving by continence for victory.

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