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.
- About her neck she tied the hangman’s knot.
- Had grief so chilled her blood? or what had befallen her?
- I know but this, for I am myself but now arrived at the house
- to mourn thy sorrows, O 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 palace opens, 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?
- 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 impossible; 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.
- My prince, ’tis not to thee alone such sorrows come;
- thou hast lost a noble wife, but so have many others.
- Fain would I go hide me ’neath earth’s blackest depth, to dwell in darkness with the dead in misery, now that I am reft of thy dear presence! for thou hast slain me than thyself e’en more.
- Who can tell me what caused the fatal stroke that reached thy heart, dear wife? Will no one tell me what befell?
- doth my palace all in vain give shelter to a herd of menials? Woe, woe for thee, my wife! sorrows past speech, past bearing, I behold within my house; myself a ruined man, my home a solitude, my children orphans!