Euripides' HIPPOLYTUS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

61 pages - You are on Page 53

Artemis: (chanting) Hearken, I bid thee, noble son of Aegeus: lo!
'tis I, Latona's child, that speak, I, Artemis. Why, Theseus, to thy
sorrow dost thou rejoice at these tidings, seeing that thou hast slain
thy son most impiously, listening to a charge not clearly proved,
but falsely sworn to by thy wife? though clearly has the curse therefrom
upon thee fallen. Why dost thou not for very shame hide beneath the
dark places of the earth, or change thy human life and soar on wings
to escape this tribulation? 'Mongst men of honour thou hast now no
share in life. (She now speaks.) Hearken, Theseus; I will put thy
wretched case. Yet will it naught avail thee, if I do, but vex thy
heart; still with this intent I came, to show thy son's pure heart,-that
he may die with honour,-as well the frenzy and, in a sense, the nobleness
of thy wife; for she was cruelly stung with a passion for thy son
by that goddess whom all we, that joy in virgin purity, detest. And
though she strove to conquer love by resolution, yet by no fault of
hers she fell, thanks to her nurse's strategy, who did reveal her
malady unto thy son under oath. But he would none of her counsels,
as indeed was right, nor yet, when thou didst revile him, would he
break the oath he swore, from piety. She meantime, fearful of being
found out, wrote a lying letter, destroying by guile thy son, but
yet persuading thee.

Theseus: Woe is me!

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