But such sort of men I warn all to shun; for they hunt with fair-sounding words, while they devise base things.  She is dead:  dost thou think this will save thee?  By this thou art most detected, O thou most vile one!  For what sort of oaths, what arguments can be more strong than what she says, so that thou canst escape the accusation?  Wilt thou say that she hated thee, and that the bastard race is hateful forsooth to those of noble birth?  A bad housewife then of life you account her, if through hatred of thee she lost what was most dear to her.  But wilt thou say that there is not this folly in men, but that there is in women?  I myself have known young men who were not a whit more steady than women, when Venus disturbed the youthful mind:  but their pretense of manliness protects them.  Now however, why do I thus contend against thy words, when the corse, the surest witness, is here?  Depart an exile from this land as soon as possible.  And neither go to the divine-built Athens, nor to the confines of that land over which my sceptre rules.  For if I thus suffering by thee be vanquished, never will the Isthmian Sinis bear witness of me that I killed him, but will say that I vainly boast.  Nor will the Scironian rocks, that dwell by the sea, confess that I am formidable to the bad.

CHOR.  I know not how I can say that any of mortals is happy; for the things that were most excellent are turned back again.

HIPP.  Father, thy rage indeed, and the commotion of thy mind is terrible; this thing, however, though it have fair arguments, if any one unravel it, is not fair.  But I am unadorned with phrase to speak to the multitude, but to speak to my equals and to a few, more expert:  but this also has consistency in it; for those, who are of no account among the wise, are more fitted to speak before the rabble.  But yet it is necessary for me, since this calamity has come, to unloose my tongue.  But first will I begin to speak from that point where first you attacked, as though you would destroy, and as though I should not answer again.  Dost thou behold this light and this earth?  In these there is not a man more chaste than me, not even though thou deny it.  For, first indeed, I know to reverence the Gods, and to have such friends as attempt not to be unjust, but those, to whom there is modesty, so that neither they give utterance to evil thoughts, nor minister in return base services to those who use their friendship:  nor am I the derider of my associates, O father, but the same man to my friends when they are not present, and when I am with them.  But of one thing by which thou thinkest to crush me, I am pure;[36] for to this day my body is undefiled by the couch of love; and I know not the deed except hearing of it by report, and seeing it in a picture, nor even am I forward to look at these things, having a virgin mind.  And perhaps my modesty persuades you not.  Behooves it thee then to show in what manner I lost it.