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.
- Lo! where he comes, this hapless youth, his fair young flesh and auburn locks most shamefully handled. Unhappy house!
- what twofold sorrow doth o’ertake its halls, through heaven’s ordinance!
- Ah! ah! woe is me! foully undone by an impious father’s impious imprecation!
- Undone, undone! woe is me! Through my head shoot fearful pains; my brain throbs convulsively. Stop, let me rest my worn-out frame.Oh, oh!
- Accursed steeds, that mine own hand did feed, ye have been my ruin and my death. O by the gods, good sirs, I beseech ye, softly touch my wounded limbs.
- Who stands there at my right side? Lift me tenderly; with slow and even step conduct a poor wretch cursed by his mistaken sire. Great Zeus, dost thou see this? Me thy reverent worshipper,
- me who left all men behind in purity, plunged thus into yawning Hades ’neath the earth, reft of life; in vain the toils I have endured through my piety towards mankind.
- Ah me! ah me! O the thrill of anguish shooting through me! Set me down, poor wretch I am; come Death to set me free! Kill me, end my sufferings.[*](Nauck’s comment on these closing lines of H.’s speech is, restitui vix poterunt. Any translation of them can only be tentative.)
- O for a sword two-edged to hack my flesh, and close this mortal life! Ill-fated curse of my father! the crimes of bloody kinsmen.[*](Such as Tantalus and Pelops, Atreus and Thyestes.) ancestors of old,
- now pass their boundaries and tarry not, and upon me are they come all guiltless as I am; ah! why? Alas, alas!
- what can I say? How from my life get rid of this relentless agony? O that the stern Death-god, night’s black visitant, would give my sufferings rest!
- Poor sufferer! cruel the fate that links thee to it!
- Thy noble soul hath been thy ruin.
- Ah! the fragrance from my goddess wafted! Even in my agony I feel thee near and find relief; she is here in this very place, my goddess Artemis.
- She is, poor sufferer! the goddess thou hast loved the best.
- Dost see me, mistress mine? dost see my present suffering?
- I see thee, but mine eyes no tear may weep.
- Thou hast none now to lead the hunt or tend thy fane.
- None now; yet e’en in death I love thee still.
- None to groom thy steeds, or guard thy shrines.