nor sea nor land receive my bones when I am dead, if I am such a miscreant! I cannot say if she through fear destroyed herself, for more than this am I forbid. With her discretion took the place of chastity, while I, though chaste, was not discreet in using this virtue.There seems to be a play on the double meaning of the word σώφρων, unattainable by any one word in English. To obtain this, however, the Greek must be rather violently handled. Nauck cuts the Gordian knot by at once rejecting the passage; his plan certainly relieves Euripides of a host of difficulties, but where is it to stop? Of many conjectures, Weil’s is so ingenious that it is at least worth quoting: . . . οὐκ ἔκουσ’ ἄλλως φροωεῖν … οὐ κακῶς . . . i.e. she was virtuous, because she had no chance of being otherwise, whereas I, who had such a chance, did not put it to a bad use.ChorusThy oath by heaven, strong security, sufficiently refutes the charge.TheseusA wizard or magician must the fellow be, to think he can first flout me, his father, then by coolness master my resolve.HippolytusFather, thy part in this doth fill me with amaze; wert thou my son and I thy sire, by heaven! I would have slain, not let thee off with banishment, hadst thou presumed to violate my honour.TheseusA just remark! yet shalt thou not die by the sentence thine own lips pronounce upon thyself; for death, that cometh in a moment, is an easy end for wretchedness. Nay, thou shalt be exiled from thy fatherland, and wandering to a foreign shore drag out a life of misery; for such are the wages of sin.Bergk rejects the first, Nauck the second of these lines.HippolytusOh! what wilt thou do? Wilt thou banish me, without so much as waiting for Time’s evidence on my case?TheseusAy, beyond the sea, beyond the bounds of Atlas, if I could, so deeply do I hate thee.HippolytusWhat! banish me untried, without even testing my oath, the pledge I offer, or the voice of seers?TheseusThis letter here, though it bears no seers’ signs, arraigns thy pledges; as for birds that fly o’er our heads, a long farewell to them.