MESS. I bring a tale that demands concern, of thee and of thy subjects,
both those who inhabit the city of the Athenians, and the realms of the
Trœzenian land.
THES. What is it? Has any sudden calamity come upon the two neighboring
states?
MESS. To speak the word--Hippolytus is no more. He views the light however
for a short moment.
THES. _Killed_? By whom? Has any come to enmity with him, whose wife, as
his father's, he has forcibly defiled?
MESS. His own chariot slew him, and the imprecations of thy mouth, which
thou didst put up to thy father, the ruler of the ocean, concerning thy
son.
THES. O ye Gods! and O Neptune! how truly then wert thou my father, when
thou didst duly hear my imprecations! Tell me too, how did he perish? in
what way did the staff of Justice strike him that disgraced me?
MESS. We indeed near the wave-beaten shore were combing out with combs the
horses' hair, weeping, for there had come a messenger saying, that
Hippolytus no longer trod on this land, having from thee received the
sentence of wretched banishment. But he came bringing to us on the shore
the same strain of tears: and an innumerable throng of his friends and
companions came following with him. But at length after some time he spake,
having ceased from his groans. "Wherefore am I thus disquieted? My father's
words must be obeyed. My servants, yoke to my car the harnessed steeds, for
this city is for me no more." Then indeed every man hasted, and sooner than
one could speak we drew up the horses caparisoned before our master; and he
seizes with his hands the reins from off the bow of the chariot, mounting
with his foot sandaled as it was.[44] And first indeed he addressed the
Gods with outstretched hands: "Jove, may I no longer exist, if I am a base
man; but may my father perceive how unworthily he treats me, either when I
am dead, or while I view the light." And on this having taken the whip in
his hands he struck the horses both at once: and we the attendants followed
our master by the chariot close to the reins, along the road that leads
straightway to Argos and Epidauria, but when we came into the desert
country, there is a certain shore beyond this land which slopes even down
to the Saronic Sea, from thence a voice like the subterraneous thunder of
Jove sent forth a dreadful groan appalling to hear, and the horses pointed
their heads erect and their ears toward the sky, and on us there came a
vehement fear, whence possibly the voice could come: but looking toward the
sea-beaten shore we beheld a vast wave pillared in heaven, so that the view
of the heights of Sciron was taken from mine eye:[45] and it concealed the
Isthmus and the rock of Æsculapius. And then swelling up and splashing
forth[46] much foam around in the ocean surf, it moves toward the shore,
where was the chariot drawn by its four horses. But together with its
breaker and its tripled surge,[47] the wave sent forth a bull, a fierce
monster; with whose bellowing the whole land filled resounded fearfully:
and to the lookers-on a sight appeared more dreadful than the eyes could
bear. And straightway a dreadful fear comes over the steeds. But their
master, being much conversant with the ways of horses, seized the reins in
his hands, and pulls them as a sailor pulls his oar, having fixed his body
in an opposite direction to the reins.[48] But they, champing with their
jaws the forged bits, bare him on forcibly, heeding neither the hand that
steered them, nor the traces, nor the compact chariot: and, if indeed
holding the reins he directed their course toward the softer ground, the
bull appeared in front, so as to turn them away maddening with fright the
four horses that drew the chariot. But if they were borne to the rocks
maddened in mettle, silently approaching the chariot he followed so far,
until he overthrew it and drove it backward, dashing the felly of the wheel
against the rock. And all was in confusion, and the naves of the wheels
flew up, and the linch-pins of the axles. But the unhappy man himself
entangled in the reins is dragged along, bound in a difficult bond, his
head dashed against the rocks, and torn his flesh, and crying out in a
voice dreadful to hear, "Stop, O ye that have been trained up in my stalls,
do not destroy me. Oh unhappy imprecation of my father! Who will come near
and save a most excellent man?" But many of us wishing so to do failed
through want of swiftness: and he indeed freed, in what manner I know not,
from the entanglements of the reins, falls, having the breath of life in
him, but for a very short time. And the horses vanished, and the woeful
monster of the bull I know not where in the mountain country. I am indeed
the slave of thy house, O king, but thus much never shall I at least be
able to be persuaded of thy son, that he is evil, not even if the whole
race of women were hung, and though one should fill with writing all the
fir of Ida,[49] since I am confident that he is virtuous.
CHOR. Alas! alas! The calamity of new evils is consummated, nor is there
refuge from fate and from what must be.
THES. Through hate of the man, who has thus suffered, I was pleased with
this account; but now, having respect unto the Gods, and to him, because he
is of me, I am neither pleased, nor yet troubled at these ills.
MESS. How then? Must we bring him hither, or what must we do to the unhappy
man to gratify thy wishes! Think; but if thou take my advice, thou wilt not
be harsh toward thy son in his misfortunes.
THES. Bear him hither, that seeing him before my eyes that denied he had
defiled my bed, I may confute him with words, and with what has happened
from the Gods.
CHOR. Thou, Venus, bendest the stubborn mind of the Gods, and of mortals,
and with thee he of varied plume, that darts about on swiftest wing; and
flies over the earth and over the loud-resounding briny ocean; and Love
charms to subjection, on whose maddened heart the winged urchin come
gleaming with gold, the race of the mountain whelps, and of those that
inhabit the sea, and as many things as the earth nourisheth, which the sun
doth behold scorched [with its rays,] and men: but over all these things
thou, Venus, alone holdest sovereign rule.