EURIPIDES
But if your troubles may be told to men, 295
speak, that a doctor may pronounce upon it.
So, not a word! Oh, why will you not speak?
There is no remedy in silence, child.
Either I am wrong and then you should correct me:
or right, and you should yield to what I say.
Say something! Look at me! 300
Women, I have tried and tried and all for nothing.
We are as far as ever from our goal.
It was the same before. She was not melted
by anything I said. She would not obey me.
But this you shall know, though to my reasoning
you are more dumbly obstinate than the sea:
If you die, you will be a traitor to your children. 305
They will never know their share in a father's palace.
No, by the Amazon Queen, the mighty rider
who bore a master for your children, one
bastard in birth but true-born son in mind,
you know him well—Hippolytus. . . .
So that has touched you? 310
Pliaedra
You have killed me, nurse. For God's sake, I entreat you,
never again speak that man's name to me.
Nurse
You see? You have come to your senses, yet despite that,
you will not make your children happy nor
save your own life besides.
Phaedra
I love my children.
It is another storm of fate that batters me. 315
Nurse
There is no stain of blood upon your hands?
192