ARTEMIS 221
your enemies. The god of the sea, your father and kindly disposed towards you,
fulfilled your curse; he had to, since he had promised. Yet both in his eyes and
in mine you appear base, you who did not wait either for proof or the guidance
of prophets; you did not put the accusation to the test nor allow a lengthy time
for scrutiny but, more quickly than you should have, you hurled a curse against
your son and killed him.
THESEUS: My lady, let me die!
ARTEMIS: You have done terrible things but nevertheless it is still possible,
even for you, to find pardon for your actions. For it was Aphrodite who wished
that these things should come about to satisfy her anger. There is a law for the
gods as follows: no one of us wishes to thwart the will of another but we al-
ways stand aside.
For understand me clearly—If I were not in fear of Zeus' retaliation, I would
never have sunk to such a depth of shame as to allow the death of the man dear-
est to me of all mortals. Ignorance, first of all, acquits you of evil; and besides,
your wife by dying prevented your testing the truth of her accusations and so
she made you believe her. As it is, these misfortunes have burst upon you most
of all; but I too feel pain. The gods have no joy in the deaths of the good and
reverent but those who are wicked we destroy, children, house and all.(Hippolytus is brought in by servants.)f
CHORUS: Here comes the poor fellow, his young flesh mutilated, his fair hair
befouled. Oh, the suffering of this house. What grief—not once but now a sec-
ond time—has been brought down upon it by the gods!
HIPPOLYTUS: Ah, what pain. I, unfortunate, destroyed by the unjust curse of
an unjust father. Alas, wretched, I am done for, woe is me. Pains shoot through
my head, spasms dart around my brain. Stop, servants, let me rest my exhausted
body. Oh, what pain! O hateful chariot, drawn by horses fed by my own hand.
You have destroyed me, you have killed me. Ah what agony! Servants, by the
gods, place your hands lightly on my lacerated flesh. Who stands at my right
side? Lift me gently; take me along carefully, me the ill-fated one, cursed by my
father's wrong-doing. Zeus, Zeus, do you see what is happening? Here I am, a
holy and god-revering man, one who surpassed all others in virtue going to my
inevitable death. My life is utterly destroyed, and I have performed my labors
of piety on behalf of mortals, all for nothing. Ah, ah, the pain, the pain which
now overwhelms me. Let go of me in my misery and may death come as my
healer. Kill me, destroy me and my pain, doomed as I am. I long for the thrust
of a two-edged sword to end my life and bring peaceful rest.
Oh, unfortunate curse of my father. Some bloodstained evil, inherited from
my ancestors long ago, rises up and does not stay dormant but has come against
me. Why, oh why, when I am guilty of no evil myself? Woe is me, alas! What
am I to say? How will I turn my life of pain into painlessness? If only the in-
evitable fate of death would transport me, one doomed to suffer so, into the
night of Hades' realm.
ARTEMIS: O poor, wretched fellow, how great is the yoke of your misfortune!
The nobility of your nature has destroyed you.