HIPPOLYTUS
A monologue from the
play by Euripides
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from The Plays of Euripides in English, vol. ii. Trans.
Shelley Dean Milman. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1922. |
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- HIPPOLYTUS: By a fair semblance to deceive the world,
- Wherefore, O Jove, beneath the solar beams
- That evil, woman, didst thou cause to dwell?
- For if it was thy will the human race
- Should multiply, this ought not by such means
- To be effected: better in thy fane
- Each votary, on presenting brass or steel,
- Or massive ingots of resplendent gold,
- Proportioned to his offering, might from thee
- Obtain a race of sons, and under roofs
- Which genuine freedom visits, unannoyed
- By women, live. But to receive this worst
- Of evils, now no sooner are our doors
- Thrown open than the riches of our house
- We utterly exhaust. How great a pest
- Is woman this one circumstance displays;
- The very father who begot and nurtured,
- A plenteous dower advancing, sends her forth,
- That of such loathed incumbrance he may rid
- His mansions: but the hapless youth, who takes
- This noxious inmate to his bed, exults
- While he caparisons a worthless image,
- In gorgeous ornaments and tissued vests
- Squandering his substance. With some noble race
- He who by wedlock a connection forms
- Is bound by hard necessity to keep
- The loathsome consort; if perchance he gain
- One who is virtuous sprung from worthless sires,
- He by the good compensates for the ills
- Attending such a union. Happier he,
- Unvexed by these embarrassments, whose bride
- Inactive through simplicity, and mild,
- To his abode is like a statue fixed.
- All female wisdom doth my soul abhor.
- Never may the aspiring dame, who grasps
- At knowing more than to her sex belongs,
- Enter my house: for in the subtle breast
- Are deeper stratagems by Venus sewn:
- But she whose reason is too weak to frame
- A plot, from amorous frailties lives secure.
- No female servant ever should attend
- The married dame, she rather ought to dwell
- Among wild beasts, who are by nature mute,
- Lest she should speak to any, or receive
- Their answers. But the wicked now devise
- Mischief in secret chambers, while abroad
- Their confidants promote it: thus, vile wretch,
- In privacy you came, with me to form
- An impious treaty for surrendering up
- My royal father's unpolluted bed.
- Soon from such horrors in the limpid spring
- My ears will I make pure: how could I rush
- Into the crime itself, when, having heard
- Only the name made mention of, I feel
- As though I some defilement thence had caught?
- Base woman, know 'tis my religion saves
- Your forfeit life, for by a solemn oath
- If to the gods I had not unawares
- Engaged myself, I ne'er would have refrained
- From stating these transactions to my sire;
- But now, while Theseus in a foreign land
- Continues, hence will I depart, and keep
- The strictest silence. But I soon shall see,
- When with my injured father I return,
- How you and your perfidious queen will dare
- To meet his eyes, then fully shall I know
- Your impudence, of which I now have made
- This first essay. Perdition seize you both:
- For with unsatiated abhorrence, still
- 'Gainst woman will I speak, though some object
- To my repeating always the same charge:
- For they are ever uniformly wicked:
- Let any one then prove the female sex
- Possest of chastity, or suffer me,
- As heretofore, against them to inveigh.
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MONOLOGUES BY EURIPIDES |
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