Monologue text
Hippolytus by Euripides
Information
Role: Hippolytus, male, ephebe
Synopsis: The tragedy of Hippolytus by Euripides is
par excellance a hymn to purity. Hippolytus the son of Theseus and amazone's
Hippolyte, lives an immaculate life consecrated to the virgin goddess Artemis.
Goddess Aphrodite, is much incensed because Hippolytus, worships only pure
Artemis. His stepmother Phaedra falls in love with him and he repulses her.
Phaedra commits suicide. Before the dread deed, however, she has written on her
tablet, sealed with a royal seal, the charge that Hippolytus has dishonored her.
The Prince's protestations of innocence are unavailing against the King's
unreasoning anger, and his oath prevents his speaking the whole truth. Theseus
condemns his son to life-long exile and in addition prays to his ancestor,
Poseidon, powerful god of the sea, to destroy the ravisher of his dear wife.
Hippolytus, knowing the futility of further arguments, mounts his chariot to
drive along the seashore until he shall reach his father's boundaries. As he
drives, a terrible monster, riding a huge wave, so affrights his spirited horses
that he is dashed against the rocks and is carried back, dying, to his father's
presence. While he is still conscious Artemis appears in a cloud and explains to
Theseus how cruelly Aphrodite had plotted against Hippolytus. Thus both the
youth and Phaedra are revealed as the innocent victims of a goddess' jealousy
and their honor is vindicated.
In this monologue here, Phaedra is steel alive, and seems that Hippolytus is
aware of her infatuation and of the nurse's plans. He blames Zeus for creating
women as a snare for men, and vows to leave home until Theseus returns...
Monologue
Hippolytus: Oh, Zeus, why have you settled women -evil
counterfeit-in the light of the sun? If you wished to propagate the
human race, you shouldn't have done that from women, but men could
bring in your temples either gold, or iron, or bronze, and the seed
of their children to buy proportioned to their means, and then dwelt
in houses free from women.
Now when we have them in our home- disaster to ourselves - our
wealth we give them.
The proof of how baneful woman is? Her very father, who breed and
raised her, offers dowry to send her away and rid the mischief. And
the one who takes this insidious creature in his home, and takes
pleasure adorning a wooden statute, unfortunate he is, because his
property will be thrown away. And then pressure makes him bear this
creature if she brought him good kin, but if the in-laws are useless
and his wife good, he tries to stifle the bad luck with the good.
Yet a man better not have in home but a stupid and worthless woman.
The clever woman, them I loathe! May there never be in my house a
woman with more intelligence than befits a woman! For Cypris
inculcates more mischief in the clever. The guileless is kept from
maleficence by the slenderness of her wit.
No slave should ever have access to a woman. Rather one should put
them to live with wild beasts so that they could not speak to anyone
nor to be spoken to in return. But as it is, the wicked ones plot
evil in their chambers and their servants carry it abroad. Even you,
loathsome wretch, have come to bargain the unsullied bed of my
father. I shall wash away your proposals with running water into my
ears. How could you think me such a traitor, that even the very
mention of such things makes me feel unclean?
Get this well in your mind, it is my piety that saves you, woman.
For if I had not been caught by an oath in the name of the gods, I
would not have refrained from telling all these to my father. For
now, while Theseus is away, I shall leave the house and seal my
mouth. But I shall return when my father comes and see how you and
your mistress look upon him. I shall then know by experience your
impudence. Curse on you all women! I hate for women can never be
satisfied, not even though some say that I am always talking of it,
for they too are always evil. So let a man accordingly either teach
them to be chaste or let me to trample on them forever. [He
exits]
~An excerpt from the tragedy Hppolytus by Euripides~
[Translation by Alice Katsavou]
Books and movies (about Hippolytus)
- Book: Euripides Four Plays: Medea, Hippolytus, Heracles, Bacchae (Focus Classical Library)
- Book: Euripides, 2 : Hippolytus, Suppliant Women, Helen, Electra, Cyclops (Penn Greek Drama Series)
- Book: Hippolytos (Greek Tragedy in New Translations)
- Book: Three Plays: Alcestis / Hippolytus / Iphigenia in Taurus
- Book: The Noose of Words: Readings of Desire, Violence and Language in Euripides' Hippolytos
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