Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1894) v1.djvu/203

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Graved on the wax—woe's me!

Alas! thou utterest speech that heralds ill.

No more within my lips' gates will I pen

The horror that chokes utterance—ah wretch!

Hippolytus hath dared assail my bed

With violence, flouting Zeus's awful eye!

Father Poseidon, thou didst promise me

Three curses once. Do thou with one of these

Destroy my son: may he not 'scape this day,

If soothfast curses thou hast granted me.

O King, recall thou from the Gods this prayer!

Thou yet shall know thine error: yield to me.

Never! Yea, I will drive him from the land,

And, of two dooms, with one shall he be scourged:—

Either Poseidon, reverencing my prayers,

Shall slay and speed him unto Hades' halls,

Or, banished from this land, a vagabond

On strange shores, shall he drain life's bitter dregs.

Lo, where thy son's self comes in season meet,

Hippolytus: refrain thy wrath, O king

Theseus, and for thine house the best devise.