EURIPIDES
could builders with all their skill lay them dead straight?
You've fallen into the great sea of love
and with your puny swimming would escape! 470
If in the sum you have more good luck than ill,
count yourself fortunate—for you are mortal.
Come, dear, give up your discontented mood.
Give up your railing. It's only insolent pride
to wish to be superior to the Gods. 475
Endure your love. The Gods have willed it so.
You are sick. Then try to find some subtle means
to turn your sickness into health again.
There are magic love charms, spells of enchantment;
we'll find some remedy for your love-sickness.
Men would take long to hunt devices out, 480
if we the women did not find them first.
Chorus Leader
Phaedra, indeed she speaks more usefully
for today's troubles. But it is you I praise.
And yet my praise brings with it more discomfort
than her words: it is bitterer to the ear. 485
Phaedra
This is the deadly thing which devastates
well-ordered cities and the homes of men—
that's it, this art of oversubtle words.
It's not the words ringing delight in the ear
that one should speak, but those that have the power
to save their hearer's honorable name.
Nurse
This is high moralizing! What you want 490
is not fine words, but the man! Come, let's be done.
And tell your story frankly and directly.
For if there were no danger to your life,
as now there is—or if you could be prudent,
I never would have led you on so far, 495
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