The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 548 pages of information about The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I..

The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 548 pages of information about The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I..

DI.  Oh unhappy mortal, with what a calamity art thou enthralled! but the nobleness of thy mind hath destroyed thee.

HIPP.  Let be.  O divine breathing of perfume, for, even though being in ills, I perceived thee, and felt my body lightened of its pain.[51] The Goddess Dian is in this place.

DI.  Oh unhappy one! she is, to thee the most dear of deities.

HIPP.  Mistress, thou seest wretched me, in what state I am.

DI.  I see; but it is not lawful for me to shed a tear down mine eyes.

HIPP.  Thy hunter, and thy servant is no more.

DI.  No in sooth; but beloved by me thou perishest.

HIPP.  And he that managed they steeds, and guarded thy statutes.

DI. Ay, for the crafty Venus hath so wrought.

HIPP.  Ah me!  I perceive indeed the power that hath destroyed me.

DI.  She thought her honor aggrieved, and hated thee for being chaste.

HIPP.  One Venus hath destroyed us three.

DI.  Thy father, and thee, and his wife the third.

HIPP.  I mourn therefore also my father’s misery.

DI.  He was deceived by the devices of the Goddess.

HIPP.  Oh! unhappy thou, because of this calamity, my father!

THES.  I perish, my son, nor have I delight in life.

HIPP.  I lament thee rather than myself on account of thy error.

THES.  My son, would that I could die in thy stead!

HIPP.  Oh! the bitter gifts of thy father Neptune!

THES.  Would that the prayer had never come into my mouth.

HIPP.  Wherefore this wish? thou wouldst have slain me, so enraged wert thou then.

THES.  For I was deceived in my notions by the Gods.

HIPP.  Alas! would that the race of mortals could curse the Gods!

DI.  Let be; for not even when thou art under the darkness of the earth shall the rage arising from the bent of the Goddess Venus descend upon thy body unrevenged:  by reason of thy piety and thy excellent mind.  For with these inevitable weapons from mine own hand will I revenge me on another,[52] whoever to her be the dearest of mortals.  But to thee, O unhappy one, in recompense for these evils, will I give the greatest honors in the land of Troezene; for the unwedded virgins before their nuptials shall shear their locks to thee for many an age, owning the greatest sorrow tears can give; but ever among the virgins shall there be a remembrance of thee that shall awake the song, nor dying away without a name shall Phaedra’s love toward thee pass unrecorded:—­But thou, O son of the aged AEgeus, take thy son in thine arms and clasp him to thee; for unwillingly thou didst destroy him, but that men should err, when the Gods dispose events, is but to be expected!—­and thee, Hippolytus, I exhort not to remain at enmity with thy father; for thou perceivest the fate, whereby thou wert destroyed.  And farewell! for it is not lawful for me to behold the dead, nor to pollute mine eye with the gasps of the dying; but I see that thou art now near this calamity.

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The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.