Monologue

Theseus Monologue from Hippolytus

From Hippolytus by Euripides

male · anguished · 1:04 min

Ah me, this is the last --Hear, O my countrymen!--and bitterest Of Theseus' labours! Fortune all unblest, How hath thine heavy heel across me passed! Is it the stain of sins done long ago, Some fell God still remembereth, That must so dim and fret my life with death? I cannot win to shore; and the waves flow Above mine eyes, to be surmounted not. Ah wife, sweet wife, what name Can fit thine heavy lot? Gone like a wild bird, like a blowing flame, In one swift gust, where all things are forgot! Alas! this misery! Sure 'tis some stroke of God's great anger rolled From age to age on me, For some dire sin wrought by dim kings of old.

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