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Chorus Leader
My lord, I beg you by the gods, take back your prayer! For you will learn in time that you have made a mistake. Be ruled by me! Theseus
It cannot be. And what is more, I shall banish him from this land, and of two fates one shall strike him: [895] either Poseidon, honoring my curses, will send him dead to the house of Hades or being banished from here he will wander over foreign soil and drain to the dregs a life of misery.Enter Hippolytus by Eisodos B. Chorus Leader
Look! Your son Hippolytus is here himself, a timely arrival! [900] Abate your harsh anger, my lord Theseus, and think what is best for your house! Hippolytus
I heard your cry and came in haste, father. But what it was that brought forth your groan, I know not but would gladly hear from your lips. He sees the corpse of Phaedra.
[905] But what can this be? I see your wife, father, dead. This is matter for gravest wonder. Just now I left her, and it was no long time ago that she was looking on this light of day. What has happened to her? How did she die? [910] Father, I want to learn this from you. Theseus is silent. What, silent? Silence is no use in misfortune. [For the heart that longs to hear all things is proved greedy in misfortune as well.] It is not right to keep your troubles from your kin, [915] no, more than kin, father. Theseus
O foolish mankind, so often missing the mark, why do you teach crafts numberless and contrive and invent all things when there is one thing you do not understand and have not hunted after, [920] how to teach the senseless to be sensible! Hippolytus
A formidable expert this, who is able to force insensate fools to show sense. But since these fine-spun disputations of yours, father, are unseasonable, I fear that your misfortunes have caused your tongue to run amok. Theseus
[925] Ah, but there ought to be for mortals some reliable test for friends, some way to know their minds, which of them is a true friend and which is not, and each man ought to have two voices, the one a voice of justice, the other whatever he chanced to have, [930] so that the voice that thinks unjust thoughts would be convicted of falsehood by the just voice. And in this way we should never be deceived. Hippolytus
But has one of my kin been slandering me in your ear and are my fortunes diseased though I have done nothing amiss? I am astonished. [935] Your words, cast adrift from all sense, astonish me.
Euripides. Euripides, with an English translation by David Kovacs. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. forthcoming.
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