HIPPOLYTUS.

Η μεν παλευσεις δυσλυτοις οισρα βροχοις,
Έρωτας, Εκ πρωίας, αλλ' Εριννύων
Πικραν αποψήλασα κηρυλκον παγην.

LYCOPHRON.

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA.

VENUS.

HIPPOLYTUS.

ATTENDANTS OF HIPPOLYTUS.

OFFICER BELONGING TO THE PALACE.

CHORUS OF TROZENIAN DAMES.

NURSE.

PHEDRA.

THESEUS.

MESSENGERS.

DIANA.

SCENE-BEFORE PITTHEUS' PALACE AT TRŒZENE.

HIPPOLYTUS.

VENUS.

My empire Man confesses, and the name
Of Venus echoes thro' Heaven's wide expanse.
Among all those who on the distant coast
Of ocean dwell, and earth's remotest bounds
Old Atlas' station who upholds the skies,
Beholding the resplendent solar beams;
On them who to my power due homage pay
Great honours I bestow, and to the dust
Humble each proud contemner. E'en the race
Of happy Deities with pleasure view

The reverence mortals yield them. Of these words
Ere long will I display the truth: that Son
Of Theseus and the (1) Amazonian Dame,
Hippolytus, by holy Pittheus taught,

E'en he alone among all those who dwell
Here in Trozenè, of th' immortal Powers
Styles me the weakest, loathes the genial bed,

(1) Plutarch says the name of the Amazonian captive whom Theseus married, was, according to some, Antiope, and, according to others, Hippolyta. In Petit. Leg. Att. 1. 6. tit. 1. the reader will find a discussion of that law which enjoined the Athenians to take to Wife a citizen, which appears to have undergone several fluctuations, and sometimes to have been enforced with more, and sometimes with less, strictness: nor can we wonder if the children of Phædra, who was the Daughter of Minos king of Crete, and married to their Sovereign, were legitimated by the people of Athens, while the Son of the captive Amazon, especially after the death of his Mother, and second marriage of his Father, found the law made use of against him, in order to bar his succeeding to the throne: but his exclusion is represented by the Nurse, v. 305, as depending on Phædra's life. In the course of this Tragedy, Theseus, v. 962, and Hippolytus himself, v. 1083, lay a great stress on the word 1905, which signifies one "of spurious birth." I thought this explanation the more requisite, as Carmelli, in his notes, says he does not see why the Poet calls Hippolytus, and supposes him to mean nothing more than that Phædra was his Mother-in-law.

Nor to the sacred nuptial yoke will bow:
Apollo's Sister Dian sprung from Jove
He worships, her the greatest he esteems
Of all the Gods, and ever in her groves
A favour'd comrade of the virgin dwells,
With his swift hounds the flying beasts of prey
Expelling from their haunts, and aims at more
Than human nature reaches: him in this

I envy not: why should I? yet shall vengeance
This day o'ertake the miscreant: I have forg'd
Each implement already, and there needs
But little labour to effect his doom.
For erst on his arrival from the house
Of Pittheus, in Pandion's land, to view
The mystic rites, and in those mystic rites
To be initiated; his Father's Wife
Illustrious Phædra saw the Prince, her heart,
At my behest, love's dire contagion seiz'd:
And ere she came to this Trozenian coast,
She, where Minerva's rock o'erlooks this land,
To Venus rear'd a temple, for the youth
Who in a foreign region dwelt, engross'd
By amorous frenzy, and to future times
Resolv'd this lasting monumental pile
Of her unhappy passion to bequeath.
But from Cecropia's realm since Theseus fled
To expiate his pollution, with the blood

Of (2) Pallas' Sons distain'd, and with his Queen
Sail'd for this coast, to voluntary exile
Submitting for one year, the wretched Phædra
-Groaning and deeply smitten by the stings
Of love hath pin'd in silence, nor perceives

(2) "Nisus, Pallas, and Ægeus, were the three Sons of Pandion; "Nisus dwelt at Megara; but Ægeus and Pallas ruled over some de"tached tribes; Attica not being yet collected into one state. It is "said that Theseus killed one of his first cousins the Sons of Pallas, who "was his competitor for the kingdom." SCHOLIAST.