It would have been better far for men To have got their children in some other way, and women Not to have existed. Then life would have been good. CHORUS.
Lucky is the man who escapes a storm at sea and finds his way home to safe harbor – the man delivered from hardship. We all compete for wealth and power, and for every thousand hearts a thousand hopes. Some wither, some bear fruit. 910But the one who lives from day to day, finding good where he can: he is happy – he is a lucky man.
What’s more, we are born women. It mat be we’re unqualified for deeds of virtue: yet as the architects of every kind of mischief, we are supremely skilled.
For when a man of high degree meets with adversity, he feels the strangeness of his fallen state more keenly than a sufferer of long standing.
I am a curse upon your house as well.
Ah! there is naught more serviceable to mankind than a prudent distrust.
And I’m a woman made of sorrow.
The classes of citizens are three. The rich are useless, always lusting after more. Those who have not, and live in want, are a menace, ridden with envy and fooled by demagogues; their malice stings the owners. Of the three, the middle part saves cities.
But words can conquer words.
You gave birth to your own death.
Is love so small a pain for a woman?
This thy wit hath no wit.
And ’tis a rare prize for a man to obtain such a wife, but there is no lack of getting a bad spouse.
We gain the most hateful things at the hand of those dearest.
And women, though most helpless in doing good deeds, Are of every evil the cleverest of contrivers.
Verily we must believe the Gods are senseless, if we feel well disposed to murderers.
Hurry, come hold me, though I am dead. Shed tears on my body as on my grave.
But my pain’s a fair price, to take away your smile.
DIONYSUS: You did not know me when you should have.
In your grief, too, I weep, mother of little children, You who will murder your own, In vengeance for the loss of married love.
See, how strong love overwhelms us. See, how it wounds and destroys and yet when Aphrodite wants to soothe, nothing cures as love cures. So, my love, shoot me gently, barely break my skin with your terrible arrows.