CHOR.  And lo! thy son Hippolytus is present here opportunely, but if thou let go thy evil displeasure, king Theseus, thou wilt advise the best for thine house.

HIPPOLYTUS, THESEUS, CHORUS.

HIPP.  I heard thy cry, my father, and came in haste; the thing however, for which you are groaning, I know not; but would fain hear from you.  Ha! what is the matter?  I behold thy wife, my father, a corpse:  this is a thing meet for the greatest wonder.—­Her, whom I lately left, her, who beheld the light no great time since.  What ails her?  In what manner died she, my father, I would fain hear from you.  Art silent?  But there is no use of silence in misfortunes; for the heart which desires to hear all things, is found eager also in the case of ills.  It is not indeed right, my father, to conceal thy misfortunes from friends, and even more than friends.

THES.  O men, who vainly go astray in many things, why then do ye teach ten thousand arts, and contrive and invent every thing; but one thing ye do not know, nor yet have investigated, to teach those to be wise who have no intellect!

HIPP.  A clever sophist this you speak of, who is able to compel those who have no wisdom to be rightly wise.  But (for thou art arguing too refinedly on no suitable occasion) I fear, O father, lest thy tongue be talking at random through thy woes.

THES.  Alas! there ought to be established for men some infallible proof of their friends, and some means of knowing their dispositions, both who is true, and who is not a friend, and men ought all to have two voices, the one true, the other as it chanced, that the untrue one might be convicted by the true, and then we should not be deceived.

HIPP.  Has some one then falsely accused me in your ear, and am I suffering who am not at all guilty?  I am amazed, for your words, wandering beyond the bounds of reason, do amaze me.

THES.  Alas! the mind of man, to what lengths will it go? what will be the limit to its boldness and temerity?  For if it shall increase with each generation of man, and the successor shall be wicked a degree beyond his predecessor, it will be necessary for the Gods to add to the earth another land, which[34] will contain the unjust and the evil ones.—­But look:  ye on this man, who being born of me hath defiled my bed, and is manifestly convicted by the deceased of being most base.—­But, since thou hast come to this attaint, show thy face here before thy father.  Dost thou forsooth associate with the Gods, as being an extraordinary person? art thou chaste and uncontaminated with evil?  I will not believe thy boasts, attributing (as I must, if I do believe) to the Gods the folly of thinking evil.  Now then vaunt, and with thy feeding on inanimate food retail your doctrines upon men, and having Orpheus[35] for your master, revel it, reverencing the emptiness of many letters; which avail you not; since you are caught.