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. if to gratify her hate of thee she lost what most she prized. ’Tis said, no doubt, that frailty finds no place in man but is innate in woman; my experience is, young men are no more secure than women, whenso the Queen of Love excites a youthful breast;
  2. although their sex comes in to help them.[*](This apparently means that men, being addicted to the sin mentioned, are more disposed to deal lightly with offenders of their own sex. But the line has little point, and has been condemned by Hirzel, whose judgment Nauck approves, without however actually noting the fact in his own text.) Yet why do I thus bandy words with thee, when before me lies the corpse, to be the clearest witness? Begone at once, an exile from this land, and ne’er set foot again in god-built Athens
  3. nor in the confines of my dominion. For if I am tamely to submit to this treatment from such as thee, no more will Sinis,[*](Sinis and Sciron were two notorious evil-doers, whom Theseus had slain.) robber of the Isthmus, bear me witness how I slew him, but say my boasts are idle, nor will those rocks Scironian, that fringe the sea,
  4. call me the miscreants’ scourge.
Chorus
  1. I know not how to call happy any child of man; for that which was first has turned and now is last.
Hippolytus
  1. Father, thy wrath and the tension of thy mind are terrible; yet this charge, specious though its arguments appear,
  2. 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.
  3. 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,
  4. 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;
  5. 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
  6. 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
  7. all her sex? Did I aspire to fill the husband’s place after thee and succeed to thy house?[*](The next few lines teem with so many difficulties, and present such evident traces of corruption that Weil rejects them bodily; Nauck, approving his verdict, endeavours however by new punctuation to exhort a meaning; while Mahaffy, following a system scarcely likely to win favour universally, entirely rearranges the passage. It is not improbable that here and elsewhere in this play, the two editions of it may have led to some confusion, due to the introduction by ignorant copyists of inappropriate lines from one edition to the other.) 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
  8. 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
  9. gives a charm beyond all princely joys.
  10. 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.
  11. 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!
  12. 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,
  13. while I, though chaste, was not discreet in using this virtue.[*](There seems to be a play on the double meaning of the word σώφρων, unattainable by any one word in English. To obtain this, however, the Greek must be rather violently handled. Nauck cuts the Gordian knot by at once rejecting the passage; his plan certainly relieves Euripides of a host of difficulties, but where is it to stop? Of many conjectures, Weil’s is so ingenious that it is at least worth quoting: . . . οὐκ ἔκουσ’ ἄλλως φροωεῖν … οὐ κακῶς . . . i.e. she was virtuous, because she had no chance of being otherwise, whereas I, who had such a chance, did not put it to a bad use.)
Chorus
  1. Thy oath by heaven, strong security, sufficiently refutes the charge.
Theseus
  1. A wizard or magician must the fellow be, to think he can first flout me, his father,