O what wilt thou do now in thy cruel dilemma?PhaedraI only know one way, one cure for these my woes and that is instant death.HippolytusO mother earth! O sun’s unclouded orb! What words, unfit for any lips, have reached my ears!NursePeace, my son, lest some one hear thy outcry.HippolytusI cannot hear such awful words and hold my peace.NurseI do implore thee by thy fair right hand.HippolytusLet go my hand, touch not my robe.NurseO by thy knees I pray, destroy me not utterly.HippolytusWhy say this, if, as thou pretendest, thy lips are free from blame?NurseMy son, this is no story to be noised abroad.HippolytusA virtuous tale grows fairer told to many.NurseNever dishonour thy oath, thy son.HippolytusMy tongue an oath did take, but not my heart.NurseMy son, what wilt thou do? destroy thy friends?HippolytusFriends indeed! the wicked are no friends of mine.NurseO pardon me; to err is only human, child.HippolytusGreat Zeus, why didst thou, to man’s sorrow, put woman, evil counterfeit, to dwell where shines the sun? If thou wert minded that the human race should multiply, it was not from women they should have drawn their stock, but in thy temples they should have paid gold or iron or ponderous bronze and bought a family, each man proportioned to his offering, and so in independence dwelt, from women free. ~~But now as soon as ever we would bring this plague into our home we bring its fortune to the ground.~~1Nauck brackets these two lines as spurious. ’Tis clear from this how great a curse a woman is; the very father, that begot and nurtured her, to rid him of the mischief gives her a dower and packs her off;