Hippolytus
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Nurse
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I cannot tell; be content, my child, to profit by it and ask no questions.
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Phaedra
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I fear me thou wilt prove too wise for me.
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Nurse
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If thou fear this, confess thyself afraid of all; but why thy terror?
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Phaedra
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Lest thou shouldst breathe a word of this to Theseus’ son.
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Nurse
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Peace, my child! I will do all things well; only be thou, queen Cypris, ocean’s child, my partner in the work! And for the rest of my purpose, it will be enough for me to tell it to Our friends within the house. [Exit Nurse.
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Chorus
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O Love, Love, that from the eyes diffusest soft desire, bringing on the souls of those, whom thou dost camp against, sweet grace, O never in evil mood appear to me, nor out of time and tune approach!
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Nor fire nor meteor hurls a mightier bolt than Aphrodite’s shaft shot by the hands of Love, the child of Zeus.
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Chorus
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Idly, idly by the streams of Alpheus and in the Pythian shrines of Phoebus, Hellas heaps the slaughtered steers; while Love we worship not, Love, the king of men, who holds the key to Aphrodite’s
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sweetest bower,—worship not him who, when he comes, lays waste and marks his path to mortal hearts by wide-spread woe.
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Phaedra
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Peace, ladies, peace! I am undone.
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Chorus
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What, Phaedra, is this dread event within thy house?
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Phaedra
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Hush! let me hear what those within are saying.
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Chorus
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I am silent; this is surely the prelude to mischief.
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Phaedra
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Great gods!
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how awful are my sufferings!
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Chorus
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What a cry was there! what loud alarm! say what sudden terror, lady, doth thy soul dismay.
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Phaedra
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I am undone. Stand here at the door and hear the noise arising in the house.
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Chorus
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Thou art already by the bolted door; ’tis for thee to note the sounds that issue from within. And tell me, O tell me what mischief can be on foot.
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Phaedra
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’Tis the son of the horse-loving Amazon who calls, Hippolytus, uttering foul curses on my servant.
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Chorus
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I hear a noise, but cannot clearly tellReading ὅπᾳ. The old reading was ὔπα. which way it comes. Ah! ’tis through the door the sound reached thee.
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Phaedra
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Yes, yes, he is calling her plainly enough a go-between in vice,
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traitress to her master’s honour.
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Chorus
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Woe, woe is me! thou art betrayed, dear mistress! What counsel shall I give thee? thy secret is out; thou art utterly undone.
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Phaedra
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Ah me! ah me!
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Chorus
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Betrayed by friends!
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Phaedra
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She hath ruined me by speaking of my misfortune; ’twas kindly meant, but an ill way to cure my malady.
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Chorus
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O what wilt thou do now in thy cruel dilemma?
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Phaedra
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I only know one way,
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one cure for these my woes and that is instant death.
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Hippolytus
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O mother earth! O sun’s unclouded orb! What words, unfit for any lips, have reached my ears!
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Nurse
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Peace, my son, lest some one hear thy outcry.
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Hippolytus
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I cannot hear such awful words and hold my peace.
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Nurse
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I do implore thee by thy fair right hand.
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Hippolytus
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Let go my hand, touch not my robe.
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Nurse
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O by thy knees I pray, destroy me not utterly.
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Hippolytus
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Why say this, if, as thou pretendest, thy lips are free from blame?
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Nurse
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My son, this is no story to be noised abroad.
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Hippolytus
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A virtuous tale grows fairer told to many.
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Nurse
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Never dishonour thy oath, thy son.
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Hippolytus
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My tongue an oath did take, but not my heart.
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Nurse
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My son, what wilt thou do? destroy thy friends?
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Hippolytus
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Friends indeed! the wicked are no friends of mine.
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Nurse
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O pardon me; to err is only human, child.
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Hippolytus
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Great Zeus, why didst thou, to man’s sorrow, put woman, evil counterfeit, to dwell where shines the sun? If thou wert minded that the human race should multiply, it was not from women they should have drawn their stock,
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but in thy temples they should have paid gold or iron or ponderous bronze and bought a family, each man proportioned to his offering, and so in independence dwelt, from women free.
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But now as soon as ever we would bring this plague into our home we bring its fortune to the ground.1Nauck brackets these two lines as spurious. ’Tis clear from this how great a curse a woman is; the very father, that begot and nurtured her, to rid him of the mischief gives her a dower and packs her off;
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while the husband, who takes the noxious weed into his home, fondly decks his sorry idol in fine raiment and tricks her out in robes, squandering by degrees, unhappy wight! his house’s wealth. For he is in this dilemma;
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say his marriage has brought him good connections, he is glad then to keep the wife he loathes; or, if he gets a good wife but useless relations, he tries to stifle the bad luck with the good. But it is easiest for him who has settled in his house as wife a mere nobody,For ἀλλὰ Weil proposes οὖσ’. Another conjecture is ἀλλὰ νωχελὴς. incapable from simplicity.
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I hate a clever woman; never may she set foot in my house who aims at knowing more than women need; for in these clever women Cypris implants a larger store of villainy, while the artless woman is by her shallow wit from levity debarred.
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No servant should ever have had access to a wife, but men should put to live with them beasts, which bite, not talk, in which case they could not speak to any one nor be answered back by them. But, as it is, the wicked in their chambers plot wickedness,
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and their servants carry it abroad.
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Even thus, vile wretch, thou cam’st to make me partner in an outrage on my father’s honour; wherefore I must wash that stain away in running streams, dashing the water into my ears. How could I commit so foul a crime
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when by the very mention of it I feel myself polluted? Be well assured, woman, ’tis only my religious scruple saves thee. For had not I unawares been caught by an oath, ’fore heaven! I would not have refrained from telling all unto my father. But now I will from the house away, so long as
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Theseus is abroad, and will maintain strict silence. But, when my father comes, I will return and see how thou and thy mistress face him, and so shall I learn by experience the extent of thy audacity.
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Perdition seize you both! (To the audience). I can never satisfy my hate for
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women, no! not even though some say this is ever my theme, for of a truth they always are evil. So either let some one prove them chaste, or let me still trample on them for ever.
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Phaedra
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O the cruel, unhappy fate of women!
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What arts, what arguments have we, once we have made a slip, to loose by craftFollowing Nauck’s reading δόλοις. If λόγου be retained, it would seem to mean loose the tight hold a word can keep on us i.e. the threat of Hippolytus; but it is doubtful if the Greek will bear this. the tight-drawn knot? I have met my deserts. O earth, O light of day! How can I escape the stroke of fate? How my pangs conceal, kind friends?
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What god will appear to help me, what mortal to take my part or help me in unrighteousness? The present calamity of my life admits of no escape. Most hapless I of all my sex!
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Chorus
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Alas, alas! the deed is done, thy servant’s schemes have gone awry, my queen, and all is lost.
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Phaedra
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Accursed woman! traitress to thy friends! How hast thou ruined me! May Zeus, my ancestor, smite thee with his fiery bolt and uproot thee from thy place.
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Did I not foresee thy purpose, did I not bid thee keep silence on the very matter which is now my shame? But thou wouldst not be still; wherefore my fair name will not go with me to the tomb. But now I must another scheme devise. Yon youth, in the keenness of his fury,
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will tell his father of my sin, and the aged Pittheus of my state, and fill the world with stories to my shame. Perdition seize thee and every meddling fool who by dishonest means would serve unwilling friends!
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Nurse
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Mistress, thou may’st condemn the mischief I have done, for sorrow’s sting o’ermasters thy judgment; yet can I answer thee in face of this, if thou wilt hear. ’Twas I who nurtured thee; I love thee still; but in my search for medicine to cure thy sickness I found what least I sought.
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Had I but succeeded, I had been counted wise, for the credit we get for wisdom is measured by our success.
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Phaedra
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Is it just, is it any satisfaction to me, that thou shouldst wound me first, then bandyσυγχωρεῖν, so Liddell and Scott, but it seems a doubtful usage, and Nauck suspects the word. words with me?
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Nurse
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We dwell on this too long; I was not wise, I own;
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but there are yet ways of escape from the trouble, my child.
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Phaedra
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Be dumb henceforth; evil was thy first advice to me, evil too thy attempted scheme. Begone and leave me, look to thyself; I will my own fortunes for the best arrange. (Exit Nurse).
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Ye noble daughters of Troezen, grant me the only boon I crave; in silence bury what ye here have heard.
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Chorus
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By majestic Artemis, child of Zeus, I swear I will never divulge aught of thy sorrows.
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Phaedra
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’Tis well. But I, with all my thought,The reading προστρέπουσ’ offers no clear meaning; of the various suggestions Monk’s προσκοποῦσ’ is the simplest. can but one way discover out of this calamity, that so I may secure my children’s honour, and find myself some help as matters stand. For never, never will I bring shame upon my Cretan home,
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nor will I, to save one poor life, face Theseus after my disgrace.
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Chorus
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Art thou bent then on some cureless woe?
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Phaedra
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On death; the means thereto must I devise myself.
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Chorus
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Hush!
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Phaedra
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Do thou at least advise me well.
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For this very day shall I gladden Cypris, my destroyer, by yielding up my life, and shall own myself vanquished by cruel love. Yet shall my dying be another’s curse, that he may learn not to exult at my misfortunes;
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but when he comes to share the self-same plague with me, he will take a lesson in wisdom.
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Chorus
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O to be nestling ’neath some pathless cavern, there by god’s creating hand to grow into a bird amid the winged tribes!
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Away would I soar to Adrians wave-beat shore and to the waters of Eridanus; where a father’s hapless daughtersThe daughters of Helios and Clymene are represented as weeping for Phaethon their brother on the banks of Eridanus (Po). Ovid Metam. v. 340 sqq. says the sun turned their tears into amber, and they themselves became poplars on the river-bank. in their grief for Phaethon
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distil into the glooming flood the amber brilliance of their tears.
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Chorus
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And to the apple-bearing strand of those minstrels in the west I then would come, where ocean’s lord
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no more to sailors grants a passage o’er the deep dark main, finding there the heaven’s holy bound, upheld by Atlas, where water from ambrosial founts wells up beside the couch of Zeus inside his halls,
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and holy earth, the bounteous mother, causes joy to spring in heavenly breasts.
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Messenger
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Help!Messenger lines attributed to the Nurse in the Greek. ho! To the rescue all who near the palace stand! She hath hung herself, our queen, the wife of Theseus.
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Chorus
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Woe worth the day! the deed is done; our royal mistress is no more, dead she hangs in the dangling noose.
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Messenger
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Haste!Messenger lines attributed to the Nurse in the Greek. some one bring a two-edged knife wherewith to cut the knot about her neck!
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1st Half Chorus
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Friends, what shall we do? think you we should enter the house, and loose the queen from the tight-drawn noose?
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2nd Half Chorus
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Why should we? Are there not young servants here?
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To do too much is not a safe course in life.
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Messenger
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LayMessenger lines attributed to the Nurse in the Greek. out the hapless corpse, straighten the limbs. This was a bitter way to sit at home and keep my master’s house! [Exit Messenger.
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Chorus
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She is dead, poor lady, so I hear. Already are they laying out the corpse.
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Theseus
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Ladies, can ye tell me what the uproar in the palace means? There came the sound of servants weeping bitterly to mine ear. None of my household deign to open wide the gates and give me glad welcome as a traveller from prophetic shrines.
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Hath aught befallen old Pittheus?
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No. Though he be well advanced in years, yet should I mourn, were he to quit this house.
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Chorus
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’Tis not against the old, Theseus, that fate, to strike thee, aims this blow; prepare thy sorrow for a younger corpse.
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Theseus
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Woe is me! is it a child’s life death robs me of?
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Chorus
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They live; but, cruellest news of all for thee, their mother is no more.
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Theseus
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What! my wife dead? By what cruel mischance?