Euripides' HIPPOLYTUS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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61 pages - You are on Page 43

Leader: I know not how to call happy any child of man; for that which
was first has turned and now is last.

Hippolytus: Father, thy wrath and the tension of thy mind are terrible;
yet this charge, specious though its arguments appear, becomes a calumny,
if one lay it bare. Small skill have I in speaking to a crowd, but
have a readier wit for comrades of mine own age and small companies.
Yea, and this is as it should be; for they, whom the wise despise,
are better qualified to speak before a mob. Yet am I constrained under
the present circumstances to break silence. And at the outset will
I take the point which formed the basis of thy stealthy attack on
me, designed to put me out of court unheard; dost see yon sun, this
earth? These do not contain, for all thou dost deny it, chastity surpassing
mine. To reverence God I count the highest knowledge, and to adopt
as friends not those who attempt injustice, but such as would blush
to propose to their companions aught disgraceful or pleasure them
by shameful services; to mock at friends is not my way, father, but
I am still the same behind their backs as to their face. The very
crime thou thinkest to catch me in, is just the one I am untainted
with, for to this day have I kept me pure from women. Nor know I aught
thereof, save what I hear or see in pictures, for I have no wish to
look even on these, so pure my virgin soul. I grant my claim to chastity
may not convince thee; well, 'tis then for thee to show the way I
was corrupted. Did this woman exceed in beauty all her sex? Did aspire
to fill the husband's place after thee and succeed to thy house? That
surely would have made me out a fool, a creature void of sense. Thou
wilt say, "Your chaste man loves to lord it." No, no! say I, sovereignty
pleases only those whose hearts are quite corrupt. Now, I would be
the first and best at all the games in Hellas, but second in the state,
for ever happy thus with the noblest for my friends. For there one
may be happy, and the absence of danger gives a charm beyond all princely
joys. One thing I have not said, the rest thou hast. Had I a witness
to attest my purity, and were I pitted 'gainst her still alive, facts
would show thee on enquiry who the culprit was. Now by Zeus, the god
of oaths, and by the earth, whereon we stand, I swear to thee I never
did lay hand upon thy wife nor would have wished to, or have harboured
such a thought. Slay me, ye gods! rob me of name and honour, from
home and city cast me forth, a wandering exile o'er the earth! nor
sea nor land receive my bones when I am dead, if I am such a miscreant!
I cannot say if she through fear destroyed herself, for more than
this am I forbid. With her discretion took the place of chastity,
while I, though chaste, was not discreet in using this virtue.

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