Euripides' HIPPOLYTUS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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61 pages - You are on Page 20

And last when I could not succeed
in mastering love hereby, methought it best to die; and none can gainsay
my purpose. For fain I would my virtue should to all appear, my shame
have few to witness it. I knew my sickly passion now; to yield to
it I saw how infamous; and more, I learnt to know so well that I was
but woman, a thing the world detests. Curses, hideous curses on that
wife who first did shame her marriage-vow for lovers other than her
lord! 'Twas from noble families this curse began to spread among our
sex. For when the noble countenance disgrace, poor folk of course
will think that it is right. Those too I hate who make profession
of purity, though in secret reckless sinners. How can these, queen
Cypris, ocean's child, e'er look their husbands in the face? do they
never feel one guilty thrill that their accomplice, night, or the
chambers of their house will find a voice and speak? This it is that
calls on me to die, kind friends, that so I may ne'er be found to
have disgraced my lord, or the children I have borne; no! may they
grow up and dwell in glorious Athens, free to speak and act, heirs
to such fair fame as a mother can bequeath. For to know that father
or mother has sinned doth turn the stoutest heart to slavishness.
This alone, men say, can stand the buffets of life's battle, a just
and virtuous soul in whomsoever found. For time unmasks the villain
soon or late, holding up to them a mirror as to some blooming maid.
'Mongst such may I be never seen!

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