Hippolytus

Euripides

Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. I. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1906.

  1. sloping right to the Saronic gulf, there issued thence a deep rumbling sound, as it were an earthquake, a fearsome noise, and the horses reared their heads and pricked their ears, while we were filled with wild alarm
  2. to know whence came
    the sound; when, as we gazed toward the wave-beat shore, a wave tremendous we beheld towering to the skies, so that from our view the cliffs of Scirori vanished, for it hid the isthmus and the rock of Asclepius;
  3. then swelling and frothing with a crest of foam, the sea discharged it toward the beach where stood the harnessed car, and in the moment that it broke, that mighty wall of waters, there issued from the wave a monstrous bull,
  4. whose bellowing filled the land with fearsome echoes, a sight too awful as it seemed to us who witnessed it. A panic seized the horses there and then, but our master, to horses’ ways quite used,
  5. gripped in both hands his reins, and tying them to his body pulled them backward as the sailor pulls his oar; but the horses gnashed the forged bits between their teeth and bore him wildly on, regardless of their master’s guiding hand
  6. or rein or jointed car. And oft as he would take the guiding rein and steer for softer ground, showed that bull in front to turn him back again, maddening his team with terror;
  7. but if in their frantic career they ran towards the rocks, he would draw nigh the chariot-rail, keeping up with them, until, suddenly dashing the wheel against a stone, he upset and wrecked the car; then was dire confusion,
  8. axle-boxes and linchpins springing into the air. While he, poor youth, entangled in the reins was dragged along, bound by a stubborn knot, his poor head dashed against the rocks, his flesh all torn, the while he cried out piteously,
  9. Stay, stay, my horses whom 
my own hand hath fed at the manger, destroy me not utterly. O luckless curse of a father! Will no one come and save me for all my virtue?
  10. Now we, though much we longed to help, were left far behind. At last, I know not how, he broke loose
  11. from the shapely reins that bound him, a faint breath of life still in him; but the horses disappeared, and that portentous bull, among the rocky ground, I know not where.
  12. I am but a slave in thy house, ’tis true, O king,
  13. yet will I never believe so monstrous a charge against thy son’s
    character, no! not though the whole race of womankind should hang itself, or one should fill with writing every pine-tree tablet grown on Ida, sure as I am of his uprightness.
Chorus
  1. Alas! new troubles come to plague us, nor is there any escape from fate and necessity.
Theseus
  1. My hatred for him who hath thus suffered made me glad at thy tidings, yet from regard for the gods and him, because he is my son,
  2. I feel neither joy nor sorrow at his sufferings.
Messenger
  1. But say, are we to bring the victim hither, or how are we to fulfil thy wishes? Bethink thee; if by me thou wilt be schooled, thou wilt not harshly treat thy son in his sad plight.
Theseus
  1. Bring him hither, that when I see him face to face, who hath denied having polluted my wife’s honour, I may by words and heaven’s visitation convict him.
Chorus
  1. Ah! Cypris, thine the hand that guides the stubborn hearts of gods and men; thine,
  2. and that attendant boy’s, who, with painted plumage gay, flutters round his victims on lightning wing. O’er the land and booming deep on golden pinion borne flits the god of Love,