This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
Table of Contents:
Hippolytus
[1060] O gods, why do I not then open my mouth, seeing that I am being done to death by you towards whom I am showing piety? But no, I would not convince those I must, and I would break the oath I swore to no purpose. Theseus
Oh! Your high-and-holy manner will be the death of me! [1065] Won't you leave your father's land at once? Hippolytus
Where am I to turn, unhappy man that I am? What guest-friend's house shall I enter when I am exiled on this charge? Theseus
Someone, doubtless, that enjoys taking in as guests men to defile their wives and men who keep at home plotting evil. Hippolytus
[1070] Oh! That stroke cut me to the heart. It is nearly enough to make me weep if I am regarded as base and seem so to you. Theseus
Groans and forethought would have been in place when you had the hardihood to commit outrage against your father's wife. Hippolytus
O house, would that you could utter speech on my behalf [1075] and bear me witness whether I am base! Theseus
How clever of you to take refuge in witnesses that are dumb, while the facts with mute eloquence betray your baseness! Hippolytus
Oh! Oh! Would that I could stand apart and look at myself so that I might weep at the misfortunes I am suffering! Theseus
[1080] You are far more practiced in worshipping yourself than in being just and acting piously toward your father. Hippolytus
O unhappy mother, o birth that gave no pleasure, may no one I love ever be a bastard! Theseus
Will you not drag him away, servants? Have you not heard [1085] me proclaim for a long time that this man is no citizen here? Hippolytus
Any of them who touches me shall regret it. Rather you yourself, if you have the heart to, thrust me forth from the land. Theseus
I shall do so if you do not obey my words. For I am not moved by pity for your exile. Hippolytus
[1090] The sentence is fixed, it seems. O how luckless I am, seeing that I know the truth but not how I may tell it! Dearest of gods to me, Artemis, Leto's child, you I have sat with, you I have hunted with, I shall leave glorious Athens as an exile. Now farewell, city [1095] and land of Erechtheus! O land of Trozen, how many blessings you possess to pass one's youth in! Farewell: this is my last look at you and my last greeting! Come, you my age-mates of this land, bid me farewell and send me forth from the land. [1100] For you will never see a man more chaste than I, even though my father thinks not so.Exit Hippolytus and the young members of the crowd by Eisodos A. Exit Theseus into the palace.
Euripides. Euripides, with an English translation by David Kovacs. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. forthcoming.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com