HIPPOLYTUS
Miserable man, what joy have you in this?
You have murdered a son, you have broken nature's
laws.
Dark indeed was the conclusion
you drew from your wife's lying accusations,
but plain for all to see is the destruction
to which they led you.
There is a hell beneath the earth: haste to it, 1290
and hide your head there! Or will you take wings,
and choosing the life of a bird instead of man
keep your feet from destruction's path in which they
tread?
Among good men, at least, you have no share in life. 1295
Hear me tell you, Theseus, how these things came to pass.
I shall not better them, but I will give you pain.
I have come here for this—to show you that your son's
heart
was always just, so just that for his good name
he endured to die. I will show you, too,
the frenzied love that seized your wife, or I may call it, 1300
a noble innocence. For that most hated Goddess,
hated by all of us whose joy is virginity,
drove her with love's sharp prickings to desire
your son. She tried to overcome her love
with the mind's power, but at last against her will,
she fell by the nurse's stratagems, 1305
the nurse, who told your son under oath her mistress
loved him.
But he, just man, did not fall in with her
counsels, and even when reviled by you
refused to break the oath he had pledged.
Such was his piety. But your wife fearing
lest she be proved the sinner wrote a letter, 1310
a letter full of lies; and so she killed
your son by treachery; but she convinced you.
Theseus
Alas!