Euripides' HIPPOLYTUS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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61 pages - You are on Page 37

Leader: I know but this, for I am myself but now arrived at the house
to mourn thy sorrows, O Theseus.

Theseus: Woe is me! why have I crowned my head with woven garlands,
when misfortune greets my embassage? Unbolt the doors, servants, loose
their fastenings, that I may see the piteous sight, my wife, whose
death is death to me. (The central doors of the palace open, disclosing
the corpse.) Woe! woe is thee for thy piteous lot! thou hast done
thyself a hurt deep enough to overthrow this family. Ah! ah! the daring
of it done to death by violence and unnatural means, the desperate
effort of thy own poor hand! Who cast the shadow o'er thy life, poor
lady?

Theseus: (chanting) Ah me, my cruel lot! sorrow hath done her worst
on me. O fortune, how heavily hast thou set thy foot on me and on
my house, by fiendish hands inflicting an unexpected stain? Nay, 'tis
complete effacement of my life, making it not to be lived; for I see,
alas! so wide an ocean of grief that I can never swim to shore again,
nor breast the tide of this calamity. How shall I speak of thee, my
poor wife, what tale of direst suffering tell? Thou art vanished like
a bird from the covert of my hand, taking one headlong leap from me
to Hades' halls. Alas, and woe! this is a bitter, bitter sight! This
must be a judgment sent by God for the sins of an ancestor, which
from some far source I am bringing on myself.

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