HIPP. O! O! O! Unhappy I was thus foully mangled by the unjust prayers of
an unjust father--I am destroyed miserably. Ah me! ah me! Pains rush
through my head, and the spasm darts across my brain. Stop, I will rest my
fainting body. Oh! oh! O those hateful horses of my chariot, things which I
fed with my own hand, ye have destroyed me utterly and slain me. Oh! oh! by
the Gods, gently, my servants, touch with your hands my torn flesh. Who
stands by my side on the right? Lift me up properly, and take hold all
equally on me, the unblessed of heaven, and cursed by my father's
error--Jove, Jove, beholdest thou these things? Lo! I, the chaste, and the
reverencer of the Gods, I who in modesty exceed all, have lost my life, and
go to a manifest hell beneath the earth; but in vain have I labored in the
task of piety toward men. O! O! O! O! and now the pain, the pain comes upon
me, loose unhappy me, and let death come to be my physician. Destroy me,
destroy the unhappy one--I long for a two-edged blade, wherewith to cut me
in pieces, and to put my life to an eternal rest. Oh unhappy curse of my
father! the evil too of my blood-polluted kinsmen, my old forefathers,
bursts forth[50] upon me; nor is it at a distance; and it hath come on me,
wherefore, I pray, who am nothing guilty of these ills? Alas me! me! what
can I say? how can I free my life from this cruel calamity? Would that the
black and nightly fate of Pluto would put me wretched to eternal sleep!
DI. Oh unhappy mortal, with what a calamity art thou enthralled! but the
nobleness of thy mind hath destroyed thee.
HIPP. Let be. O divine breathing of perfume, for, even though being in
ills, I perceived thee, and felt my body lightened of its pain.[51] The
Goddess Dian is in this place.