Stasimon 3
[Episode]
O horror! woe on woe!
Theseus
and still they come, too deep for words, too heavy to bear. Ah me!
875
Chorus
What is it? speak, if I may share in it.
Theseus
This letter loudly tells a hideous tale! where can I escape my load of woe? For I am ruined and undone, so awful are the words I find here written clear
as if she cried them to me; woe is me!
880
Chorus
Alas! thy words declare themselves the harbingers of woe.
Theseus
I can no longer keep the cursed tale within the portal of my lips, cruel though its utterance be. Ah me!
Hippolytus hath dared by brutal force to violate my honour, recking naught of Zeus, whose awful eye is over all. O father Poseidon, once didst thou promise to fulfil three prayers of mine ; answer one of these and slay my son, let him not escape this single day,
885
if the prayers thou gavest me were indeed with issue fraught.
890
Chorus
O king, I do conjure thee, call back that prayer; hereafter thou wilt know thy error. Hear, I pray.
Theseus
Impossible! Moreover I will banish him from this land, and by one of two fates shall he be struck down;
either Poseidon, out of respect to my prayer, will cast his dead body into the house of Hades; or exiled from this land, a wanderer to some foreign shore, shall he eke out a life of misery.
895
Chorus
Lo! where himself doth come, thy son Hippolytus, in good time;
dismiss thy hurtful rage, King Theseus, and bethink thee what is best for thy family.
900
Hippolytus
I heard thy voice, father, and hasted to come hither; yet know I not the cause of thy presentNauck from the Cento of the Christus Patiens restores τανῦν for τινι; certainly an improvement in the Greek. sorrow, but would fain learn of thee.
Ha! what is this? thy wife a corpse I see; this is passing strange; ’twas but now I left her; a moment since she looked upon the light.
905
How came she thus? the manner of her death?
this would I learn of thee, father. Art dumb? silence availeth not in trouble; nay, for the heart that fain would know all must show its curiosity even in sorrow’s hour. Be sure it is not right, father,
910
to hide misfortunes from those who love, ay, more than love thee.
915
Theseus
O ye sons of men, victims of a thousand idle errors, why teach your countless crafts, why scheme and seek to find a way for everything, while one thing ye know not nor ever yet have made your prize,
