Euripides' HIPPOLYTUS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

61 pages - You are on Page 31

Chorus: (chanting) O the cruel, unhappy fate of women! What arts,
what arguments have we, once we have made a slip, to loose by craft
the tight-drawn knot?

Phaedra: (chanting) I have met my deserts. O earth, O light of day!
How can I escape the stroke of fate? How my pangs conceal, kind friends?
What god will appear to help me, what mortal to take my part or help
me in unrighteousness? The present calamity of my life admits of no
escape. Most hapless I of all my sex!

Leader of the Chorus: Alas, alas! the deed is done, thy servant's
schemes have gone awry, my queen, and all is lost.

Phaedra: (to the Nurse) Accursed woman! traitress to thy friends!
How hast thou ruined me! May Zeus, my ancestor, smite thee with his
fiery bolt and uproot thee from thy place. Did I not foresee thy purpose,
did I not bid thee keep silence on the very matter which is now my
shame? But thou wouldst not be still; wherefore my fair name will
not go with me to the tomb. But now I must another scheme devise.
Yon youth, in the keenness of his fury, will tell his father of my
sin, and the aged Pittheus of my state and fill the world with stories
to my shame. Perdition seize thee and every meddling fool who by dishonest
means would serve unwilling friends!

Previous Page / First / Next Page of Hippolytus

Euripides Home Page ||| Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons
Aeschylus ||| Sophocles

Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/euripides/hippolytus.asp?pg=31