Hippolytus

By a fair semblance to deceive the world, Wherefore, O Jove, beneath the solar beams That evil, woman, didst thou cause to dwell? For if it was thy will the human race Should multiply, this ought not by such means To be effected: better in thy fane Each votary, on presenting brass or steel, Or massive ingots of resplendent gold, Proportioned to his offering, might from thee Obtain a race of sons, and under roofs Which genuine freedom visits, unannoyed By women, live. But to receive this worst Of evils, now no sooner are our doors Thrown open than the riches of our house We utterly exhaust. How great a pest Is woman this one circumstance displays; The very father who begot and nurtured, A plenteous dower advancing, sends her forth, That of such loathed incumbrance he may rid His mansions: but the hapless youth, who takes This noxious inmate to his bed, exults While he caparisons a worthless image, In gorgeous ornaments and tissued vests Squandering his substance. With some noble race He who by wedlock a connection forms Is bound by hard necessity to keep The loathsome consort; if perchance he gain One who is virtuous sprung from worthless sires, He by the good compensates for the ills Attending such a union. Happier he, Unvexed by these embarrassments, whose bride Inactive through simplicity, and mild, To his abode is like a statue fixed. All female wisdom doth my soul abhor. Never may the aspiring dame, who grasps At knowing more than to her sex belongs, Enter my house: for in the subtle breast Are deeper stratagems by Venus sewn: But she whose reason is too weak to frame A plot, from amorous frailties lives secure. No female servant ever should attend The married dame, she rather ought to dwell Among wild beasts, who are by nature mute, Lest she should speak to any, or receive Their answers. But the wicked now devise Mischief in secret chambers, while abroad Their confidants promote it: thus, vile wretch, In privacy you came, with me to form An impious treaty for surrendering up My royal father's unpolluted bed. Soon from such horrors in the limpid spring My ears will I make pure: how could I rush Into the crime itself, when, having heard Only the name made mention of, I feel As though I some defilement thence had caught? Base woman, know 'tis my religion saves Your forfeit life, for by a solemn oath If to the gods I had not unawares Engaged myself, I ne'er would have refrained From stating these transactions to my sire; But now, while Theseus in a foreign land Continues, hence will I depart, and keep The strictest silence. But I soon shall see, When with my injured father I return, How you and your perfidious queen will dare To meet his eyes, then fully shall I know Your impudence, of which I now have made This first essay. Perdition seize you both: For with unsatiated abhorrence, still 'Gainst woman will I speak, though some object To my repeating always the same charge: For they are ever uniformly wicked: Let any one then prove the female sex Possest of chastity, or suffer me, As heretofore, against them to inveigh. Credits: Reprinted from The Plays of Euripides in English, vol. ii. Trans. Shelley Dean Milman. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1922.

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