Hippolytus

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 516 sections

870
alas! is ruined, brought to naught, I say. Spare it, O Heaven, if it may be. Hearken to my prayer, for I see, as with prophetic eye, an omen boding mischief.
874
O horror! woe on woe!
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and still they come, too deep for words, too heavy to bear. Ah me!
876
What is it? speak, if I may share in it.
877
This letter loudly tells a hideous tale! where can I escape my load of woe? For I am ruined and undone, so awful are the words I find here written clear
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as if she cried them to me; woe is me!
881
Alas! thy words declare themselves the harbingers of woe.
882
I can no longer keep the cursed tale within the portal of my lips, cruel though its utterance be. Ah me!
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Hippolytus hath dared by brutal force to violate my honour, recking naught of Zeus, whose awful eye is over all. O father Poseidon, once didst thou promise to fulfil three prayers of mine ; answer one of these and slay my son, let him not escape this single day,
890
if the prayers thou gavest me were indeed with issue fraught.
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O king, I do conjure thee, call back that prayer; hereafter thou wilt know thy error. Hear, I pray.
893
Impossible! Moreover I will banish him from this land, and by one of two fates shall he be struck down;
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either Poseidon, out of respect to my prayer, will cast his dead body into the house of Hades; or exiled from this land, a wanderer to some foreign shore, shall he eke out a life of misery.
899
Lo! where himself doth come, thy son Hippolytus, in good time;
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dismiss thy hurtful rage, King Theseus, and bethink thee what is best for thy family.
902
I heard thy voice, father, and hasted to come hither; yet know I not the cause of thy present sorrow, but would fain learn of thee.
905
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.
909
How came she thus? the manner of her death?
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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,
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to hide misfortunes from those who love, ay, more than love thee.
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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,
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a way to teach them wisdom whose souls are void of sense?
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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.
925
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,
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so would honesty confute its knavish opposite, and then we could not be deceived.
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Say, hath some friend been slandering me and hath he still thine ear? am I, though guiltless, banned? I am amazed indeed;
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thy random, frantic words fill me with wild alarm.
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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
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in villainy, the gods will have to add another sphere unto the world, which shall take in the knaves and villains.
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Behold this man; he, my own son, hath outraged mine honour, his guilt most clearly proved
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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?
950
Thy boasts will never persuade me to be guilty of attributing ignorance to gods. Go then, vaunt thyself, and drive1 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,
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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!
960
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,
965
if to gratify her hate of thee she lost what most she prized. ’Tis said, no doubt, that frailty finds no place in man but is innate in woman; my experience is, young men are no more secure than women, whenso the Queen of Love excites a youthful breast;
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although their sex comes in to help them. Yet why do I thus bandy words with thee, when before me lies the corpse, to be the clearest witness? Begone at once, an exile from this land, and ne’er set foot again in god-built Athens
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nor in the confines of my dominion. For if I am tamely to submit to this treatment from such as thee, no more will Sinis, robber of the Isthmus, bear me witness how I slew him, but say my boasts are idle, nor will those rocks Scironian, that fringe the sea,
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call me the miscreants’ scourge.
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I know not how to call happy any child of man; for that which was first has turned and now is last.
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Father, thy wrath and the tension of thy mind are terrible; yet this charge, specious though its arguments appear,
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becomes a calumny, if one lay it bare. Small skill have I in speaking to a crowd, but have a readier wit for comrades of mine own age and small companies. Yea, and this is as it should be; for they, whom the wise despise, are better qualified to speak before a mob.
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Yet am I constrained under the present circumstances to break silence. And at the outset will I take the point which formed the basis of thy stealthy attack on me, designed to put me out of court unheard; dost see yon sun, this earth? These do not contain,
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for all thou dost deny it, chastity surpassing mine. To reverence God I count the highest knowledge, and to adopt as friends not those who attempt injustice, but such as would blush to propose to their companions aught disgraceful or pleasure them by shameful services;
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to mock at friends is not my way, father, but I am still the same behind their backs as to their face. The very crime thou thinkest to catch me in, is just the one I am untainted with, for to this day have I kept me pure from women. Nor know I aught thereof, save what I hear
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or see in pictures, for I have no wish to look even on these, so pure my virgin soul. I grant my claim to chastity may not convince thee; well, ’tis then for thee to show the way I was corrupted. Did this woman exceed in beauty
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all her sex? Did I aspire to fill the husband’s place after thee and succeed to thy house? That surely would have made me out a fool, a creature void of sense. Thou wilt say, Your chaste man loves to lord it. No, no! say I, sovereignty pleases only those
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whose hearts are quite corrupt. Now, I would be the first and best at all the games in Hellas, but second in the state, for ever happy thus with the noblest for my friends. For there one may be happy, and the absence of danger
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gives a charm beyond all princely joys.
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One thing I have not said, the rest thou hast. Had I a witness to attest my purity, and were I pitted ’gainst her still alive, facts would show thee on enquiry who the culprit was.
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Now by Zeus, the god of oaths, and by the earth, whereon we stand, I swear to thee I never did lay hand upon thy wife nor would have wished to, or have harboured such a thought Slay me, ye gods! rob me of name and honour, from home and city cast me forth, a wandering exile o’er the earth!
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nor sea nor land receive my bones when I am dead, if I am such a miscreant! I cannot say if she through fear destroyed herself, for more than this am I forbid. With her discretion took the place of chastity,
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while I, though chaste, was not discreet in using this virtue.
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Thy oath by heaven, strong security, sufficiently refutes the charge.
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A wizard or magician must the fellow be, to think he can first flout me, his father,
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then by coolness master my resolve.
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Father, thy part in this doth fill me with amaze; wert thou my son and I thy sire, by heaven! I would have slain, not let thee off with banishment, hadst thou presumed to violate my honour.
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A just remark! yet shalt thou not die by the sentence thine own lips pronounce upon thyself; for death, that cometh in a moment, is an easy end for wretchedness. Nay, thou shalt be exiled from thy fatherland, and wandering to a foreign shore drag out a life of misery;
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for such are the wages of sin.
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Oh! what wilt thou do? Wilt thou banish me, without so much as waiting for Time’s evidence on my case?
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Ay, beyond the sea, beyond the bounds of Atlas, if I could, so deeply do I hate thee.
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What! banish me untried, without even testing my oath, the pledge I offer, or the voice of seers?
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This letter here, though it bears no seers’ signs, arraigns thy pledges; as for birds that fly o’er our heads, a long farewell to them.
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(aside). Great gods! why do I not unlock my lips, seeing that I am ruined by you, the objects of my reverence? No, I will not; I should nowise persuade those whom I ought to, and in vain should break the oath I swore.
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Fie upon thee! that solemn air of thine is more than I can bear.
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Begone from thy native land forthwith!
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Whither shall I turn? Ah me! whose friendly house will take me in, an exile on so grave a charge?
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Seek one who loves to entertain as guests and partners in his crimes corrupters of men’s wives.
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Ah me! this wounds my heart and brings me nigh to tears to think that I should appear so vile, and thou believe me so.
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Thy tears and forethought had been more in season when thou didst presume to outrage thy father’s wife.
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O house, I would thou couldst speak for me and witness if I am so vile!
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Dost fly to speechless witnesses? This deed, though it speaketh not, proves thy guilt clearly.
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Alas! Would I could stand and face myself, so should I weep to see the sorrows I endure.
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Ay, ’tis thy character to honour thyself far more than reverence thy parents, as thou shouldst.
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Unhappy mother! son of sorrow! Heaven keep all friends of mine from bastard birth!
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Ho! servants, drag him hence! You heard
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my proclamation long ago condemning him to exile.
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Whoso of them doth lay a hand on me shall rue it; thyself expel me, if thy spirit move thee, from the land.
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I will, unless my word thou straight obey; no pity for thy exile steals into my heart. [Exit Theseus.
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The sentence then, it seems, is passed. Ah, misery I How well I know the truth herein, but know no way to tell it! O daughter of Latona, dearest to me of all deities, partner, comrade in the chase, far from glorious Athens must I fly. Farewell, city
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and land of Erechtheus; farewell, Troezen, most joyous home wherein to pass the spring of life; ’tis my last sight of thee, farewell!
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Come, my comrades in this land, young like me, greet me kindly and escort me forth,
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for never will ye behold a purer soul, for all my father’s doubts. [Exit Hippolytus.
1.1102
In very deed the thoughts I have about the gods, whenso they come into my mind, do much to soothe its grief, but though I cherish secret hopes of some great guiding will, yet am I at fault when I survey the fate and doings of the sons of men;
1.1105
change succeeds to change, and man’s life veers and shifts in endless restlessness.
1.1111
Fortune grant me this, I pray, at heaven’s hand,—a happy lot in life and a soul from sorrow free;
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opinions let me hold not too precise nor yet too hollow; but, lightly changing my habits to each morrow as it comes, may I thus attain a life of bliss!
2.1120
For now no more is my mind free from doubts, unlooked-for sights greet my vision; for lo! I see the morning star of Athens, eye of Hellas, driven by his father’s fury
2.1125
to another land. Mourn, ye sands of my native shores, ye oak-groves on the hills, where with his fleet hounds he would hunt the quarry to the death,
2.1130
attending on Dictynna, awful queen.
2.1131
No more will he mount his car drawn by Venetian steeds, filling the course round Limna with the prancing of his trained horses. Nevermore in his fathers house shall he wake the Muse
2.1135
that never slept beneath his lute-strings; no hand will crown the spots where rests the maiden Latona ’mid the boskage deep; nor evermore shall our virgins vie to win thy love, now thou art banished;
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while I with tears at thy unhappy fate shall endure a lot all undeserved. Ah! hapless mother,
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in vain didst thou bring forth, it seems. I am angered with the gods; out upon them! O ye linked Graces, why are ye sending from his native land this poor youth, a guiltless sufferer,
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far from his home?
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But lo! I see a servant of Hippolytus hasting with troubled looks towards the palace.
1153
Ladies, where may I find Theseus, king of the country? pray, tell me if
1155
ye know; is he within the palace here?
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Lo! himself approaches from the palace.
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Theseus, I am the bearer of troublous tidings to thee and all citizens who dwell in Athens or the bounds of Troezen.
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How now? hath some strange calamity overtaken these two neighbouring cities?

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