| 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] |
Jeanie's epitaph.
By the way, I always thought her name sounded like some kind of Doctor Suess animal, a cross between a giraffe and a buffalo.
My wife is looking over my shoulder so I totally disagree with your post if you know what I mean .....(wink, wink)