Parodos
[Episode]
Come follow, friends, singing to Artemis, daughter of Zeus, throned in the sky,
Hippolytus
whose votaries we are.
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Attendants of Hippolytus
Lady goddess, awful queen, daughter of Zeus, all hail! hail! child of
Latona and of Zeus, peerless mid the virgin choir, who hast thy dwelling in heaven’s wide mansions at thy noble father’s court, in the golden house of Zeus.
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All hail! most beauteous Artemis, lovelier far than all the daughters of Olympus!Lines 70-72 are attributed to Hippolytus in the English and have been moved to correspond to the Greek.
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Hippolytus
ForSee note above on lines 70-72 thee, O mistress mine, I bring this woven wreath, culled from a virgin meadow,
where nor shepherd dares to herd his flock nor ever scythe hath mown, but o’er the mead unshorn the bee doth wing its way in spring; and with the dew from rivers drawn purity that garden tends. Such as know no cunning lore, yet in whose nature
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self-control, made perfect, hath a home, these may pluck the flowers, but not the wicked world. Accept, I pray, dear mistress, mine this chaplet from my holy hand to crown thy locks of gold; for I, and none other of mortals, have this high guerdon,
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to be with thee, with thee converse, hearing thy voice, though not thy face beholding. So be it mine to end my life as I began.
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Attendants
My prince! we needs must call upon the gods, our lords, so wilt thou listen to a friendly word from me?
Hippolytus
Why, that will I! else were I proved a fool.
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Attendants
Dost know, then, the way of the world?
Hippolytus
Not I; but wherefore such a question?
Attendants
It hates reserve which careth not for all men’s love.
Hippolytus
And rightly too; reserve in man is ever galling.
Attendants
But there’s a charm in courteous affability?
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Hippolytus
The greatest surely; aye, and profit, too, at trifling cost.
Attendants
Dost think the same law holds in heaven as well?
Hippolytus
I trow it doth, since all our laws we men from heaven draw.
Attendants
Why, then, dost thou neglect to greet an august goddess?Mahaffy rearranges these next nine lines and certainly obtains a clearer meaning. His note repays study, if not wholly convincing. I translate from Paleyk text as it stands.
Hippolytus
Whom speak’st thou of? Keep watch upon thy tongue lest it some mischief cause.
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Attendants
Cypris I mean, whose image is stationed o’er thy gate.
Hippolytus
I greet her from afar, preserving still my chastity.
Att
Yet is she an august goddess, far renowned on earth.
Hippolytus
’Mongst gods as well as men we have our several preferences.
Attendants
I wish thee luck, and wisdom too, so far as thou dost need it.
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Hippolytus
No god, whose worship craves the night, hath charms for me.
Attendants
My son, we should avail us of the gifts that gods confer.
Hippolytus
Go in, my faithful followers, and make ready food within the house; a well-filled board hath charms after the chase is o’er.
Rub down my steeds ye must, that when I have had my all I may yoke them to the chariot and give them proper exercise.
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As for thy Queen of Love, a long farewell to her.
Attendants
Meantime I with sober mind, for I must not copy my young master,
do offer up my prayer to thy image, lady Cypris, in such words as it becomes a slave to use. But thou should’st pardon all, who, in youth’s impetuous heat, speak idle words of thee; make as though thou hearest not,
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for gods must needs be wiser than the sons of men.
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[Choral 1]
A rock there is, where, as they say, the ocean dew distils, and from its beetling brow it pours a copious stream for pitchers to be dipped therein;
Chorus
’twas here I had a friend washing robes of purple in the trickling stream, and she was spreading them out on the face of a warm sunny rock; from her
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I had the tidings, first of all, that my mistress
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she was wasting on the bed of sickness, pent within her house, a thin veil o’ershadowing her head of golden hair.
And this is the third day I hear that she hath closed her lovely lips and denied her chaste body all sustenance, eager to hide her suffering
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and reach death’s cheerless bourn.
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[Choral 2]
Maiden, thou must be possessed, by Pan made frantic or by Hecate, or by the Corybantes dread, and Cybele the mountain mother.
Chorus
Or maybe thou hast sinned against Dictynna, huntress-queen, and art wasting for thy guilt in sacrifice unoffered. For she doth range o’er lakes’ expanse and past the bounds of earth
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upon the ocean’s tossing billows.
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Or doth some rival in thy house beguile thy lord, the captain of Erechtheus’ sons, that hero nobly bom, to secret amours hid from thee?
Or hath some mariner sailing hither from Crete reached this port that sailors love, with evil tidings for our queen, and she with sorrow for her grievous fate
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is to her bed confined?
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[Choral]
Yea, and oft o’er woman’s wayward nature settles a feeling of miserable perplexity, arising from labour-pains or passionate desire.
Chorus
I, too, have felt at times this sharp thrill shoot through me, but I would cry to Artemis, queen of archery, who comes from heaven to aid us in our travail, and thanks to heaven’s grace she ever comes at my call with welcome help.
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