H. I mourn this error more for you than me.
T. Would, son, I were a corpse instead of you.
A. Stay! for though earth and gloom encircle thee,
Not even thus the anger unavenged
Of Kupris shall devour at will thy body:
For I, with my own hand, to pay for thee,
Will pierce of men him whom she mostly dotes on,
With these inevitable shafts. But thou,
As guerdon for thine anguish, shalt henceforth
Gain highest honors in Trœzenian land,
My gift. Unwedded maids before their bridals
Shall shear their locks for thee, and thou forever
Shalt reap the harvest of unnumbered tears.
Yea, and for aye, with lyre and song the virgins
Shall keep thy memory; nor shall Phædra's love
For thee unnamed fall in oblivious silence.
But thou, O son of aged Ægeus, take
Thy child within thy arms and cherish him;
For without guile thou slewest him, and men,
When the gods lead, may well lapse into error.
Thee too I counsel; hate not thy own father,
Hippolytus: 'twas fate that ruined thee.
Thus Artemis reconciles father and son. Hippolytus dies slowly in the arms of Theseus, and the play ends. The appearance of the goddess, as a lady of transcendent power more than as a divine being—her vindictive hatred of Aphrodite, and the moral that she draws about the fate by which Hippolytus died and Theseus sinned, are all thoroughly Euripidean. Not so would Æschylus the theologian, or Sophocles the moralist, have dealt with the conclusion of the play. But neither would have drawn a more touching picture.
The following scene from the opening of the Orestes may be taken as a complete specimen of the manner of Euripides when working pathos to its highest pitch, and when desirous of introducing into mythic history the realities of common life. Electra appears as the devoted sister; Orestes as the invalid brother; the Chorus are somewhat importunate, but, at the same time, sympathetic visitors. This extract also serves to illustrate the Euripidean habit of mingling lyrical dialogue with the more regular Iambic in passages which do not exactly correspond to the Commos of the elder tragedians, but which require highly wrought expression. Helen has just left Electra. As the wife of Menelaus walks away, the daughter of Agamemnon follows her with her eyes, and speaks thus:
El. O nature! what a curse art thou 'mid men—
Yea, and a safeguard to the nobly-tempered!
[Points her finger at Helen.
See how she snipped the tips of her long hair,
Saving its beauty! She's the same woman still.—
May the gods hate thee for the ruin wrought
On me, on him, on Hellas! Woe is me!
[Sees the Chorus advancing.
Here come my friends again with lamentations,
To join their wails with mine: they'll drive him far
From placid slumber, and will waste mine eyes
With weeping when I see my brother mad.