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. dismiss thy hurtful rage, King Theseus, and bethink thee what is best for thy family.
Hippolytus
  1. I heard thy voice, father, and hasted to come hither; yet know I not the cause of thy present[*](Nauck from the Cento of the Christus Patiens restores τανῦν for τινι; certainly an improvement in the Greek.) sorrow, but would fain learn of thee.
  2. Ha! what is this? thy wife a corpse I see; this is passing strange; ’twas but now I left her; a moment since she looked upon the light.
  3. How came she thus? the manner of her death?
  4. this would I learn of thee, father. Art dumb? silence availeth not in trouble; nay, for the heart that fain would know all must show its curiosity even in sorrow’s hour. Be sure it is not right, father,
  5. to hide misfortunes from those who love, ay, more than love thee.
Theseus
  1. O ye sons of men, victims of a thousand idle errors,
    why teach your countless crafts, why scheme and seek to find a way for everything, while one thing ye know not nor ever yet have made your prize,
  2. a way to teach them wisdom whose souls are void of sense?
Hippolytus
  1. A very master in his craft the man, who can force fools to be wise! But these ill-timed subtleties of thine, father, make me fear thy tongue is running riot through trouble.
Theseus
  1. Fie upon thee! man needs should have some certain test set up to try his friends, some touchstone of their hearts, to know each friend whether he be true or false; all men should have two voices, one the voice of honesty, expediency’s the other,
  2. so would honesty confute its knavish opposite, and then we could not be deceived.
Hippolytus
  1. Say, hath some friend been slandering me and hath he still thine ear? am I, though guiltless, banned? I am amazed indeed;
  2. thy random, frantic words fill me with wild alarm.
Theseus
  1. O the mind of mortal man! to what lengths will it proceed? What limit will its bold assurance have? for if it goes on growing as man’s life advances, and each successor outdo the man before him
  2. in villainy, the gods will have to add another sphere unto the world, which shall take in the knaves and villains.
  3. Behold this man; he, my own son, hath outraged mine honour, his guilt most clearly proved
  4. by my dead wife. Now, since thou hast dared this loathly crime, come, look thy father in the face. Art thou the man who dost with gods consort, as one above the vulgar herd? art thou the chaste and sinless saint?
  5. Thy boasts will never persuade me to be guilty of attributing ignorance to gods. Go then, vaunt thyself, and drive1[*](Hippolytus is here taunted with being an exponent of the Orphic mysteries. Apparently Orpheus, like Pythagoras, taught the necessity of total abstinence from animal food.) thy petty trade in viands formed of lifeless food; take Orpheus for thy chief and go
    a-revelling, with all honour for the vapourings of many a written scroll,
  6. seeing thou now art caught. Let all beware, I say, of such hypocrites! who hunt their prey with fine words, and all the while are scheming villainy. She is dead; dost think that this will save thee? Why this convicts thee more than all, abandoned wretch!
  7. What oaths, what pleas can outweigh this letter, so that thou shouldst ’scape thy doom? Thou wilt assert she hated thee, that ’twixt the bastard and the true-born child nature has herself put war; it seems then by thy showing she made a sorry bargain with her life,