Hippolytus

The surviving Hippolytus is the second of two plays that Euripides wrote on the story, and according to the ancient introduction (hypothesis) it won the first prize in 428 BC. Its hero is Hippolytus, the son of Theseus by an Amazon, who honours Artemis and refuses to honour Aphrodite (lines 10–19). To punish him, Aphrodite makes Theseus’ wife Phaedra, his stepmother, fall in love with him (lines 24–33). Phaedra tells nobody and is wasting away, until her old nurse forces her to admit that she loves Hippolytus (lines 176–352). Phaedra means to die rather than give way. The nurse tells Hippolytus after making him swear secrecy (lines 509–515, 601–615). Appalled, Hippolytus launches into a violent attack on women (lines 616–668), and Phaedra, hearing it, decides to kill herself, but leaves a tablet accusing him of rape (lines 715–731, 856–886). Theseus, returning from an oracle, reads it, curses his son with one of the three wishes given to him by Poseidon, and drives him into exile (lines 885–898, 973–980). Bound by his oath, Hippolytus does not reveal the truth (lines 1060–1063). A bull from the sea frightens his horses, and a Messenger brings the news that he is dragged to the point of death (lines 1157–1254). Artemis appears and tells Theseus the truth (lines 1283–1341), and the dying Hippolytus is brought in, forgives his father, and receives from the goddess a promise of honours in Troezen and revenge on Aphrodite (lines 1342–1466).

Date and Historical Background

According to the ancient hypothesis, Hippolytus was produced when Epameinon was archon of Athens, in the fourth year of the 87th Olympiad, that is, in 428 BC. Euripides was first, Iophon second and Ion third. The other plays that Euripides produced with it are not recorded.

This was not the first time that Euripides dramatized the story. The hypothesis calls the surviving play the second Hippolytus and says that what was improper and open to censure in the first one was corrected in it. The hypothesis also gives the surviving play the title Hippolytus the Wreath-Bearer; other ancient writers quote the lost earlier play as Hippolytus Veiled. The earlier play survives only in fragments, and the hypothesis does not say what was changed.

Characters and Setting

Characters

• Aphrodite, goddess of love
• Hippolytus, son of Theseus and an Amazon
• A Servant of Hippolytus, who warns him about Aphrodite (lines 88–120)
• Phaedra, wife of Theseus, daughter of Minos of Crete
• The Nurse of Phaedra
• Theseus, king of Athens, in exile at Troezen
• A Messenger, one of Hippolytus’ attendants (line 1151)
• Artemis, goddess of the hunt
• The Chorus of women of Troezen, and a band of hunters (lines 58–72)

Setting

The scene is the palace of Theseus at Troezen, in the north-eastern Peloponnese, across the Saronic Gulf from Athens. A statue of Aphrodite stands at the gates (line 101).

Summary of Hippolytus

Prologue

Aphrodite speaks the prologue. She says that she is worshipped by those who respect her power and punishes those who think too highly of themselves (lines 1–8). Hippolytus, the son of Theseus and the Amazon, is alone among the people of Troezen in calling her the worst of the gods: he refuses to marry, and honours Artemis, whom he thinks the greatest of the gods, and spends his time in the forest hunting with her (lines 10–19). She does not envy him that, but she will punish him this very day for what he has done against her (lines 20–23). The plan was made long ago. When Hippolytus came from Troezen to Athens for the Eleusinian Mysteries, his father’s noble wife Phaedra saw him and fell in love at the goddess’ will (lines 24–28). Phaedra built a temple of Aphrodite on the rock of Athena, looking over Troezen, naming Hippolytus as the object of her love, which was then far away (lines 29–33). Now that Theseus has left Athens, in flight from the pollution of the blood of the Pallantidae, and is spending a year of exile at Troezen with his wife (lines 34–37), Phaedra is groaning and sinking silently under the sting of love, and none of her servants knows her illness (lines 38–40). It must not end that way: Aphrodite will show Theseus, and Theseus will kill his son by means of the curses that Poseidon granted him, three wishes that would not fail (lines 41–46). Phaedra will die, though with honour, but Aphrodite will not spare her, since she wants her enemy to pay (lines 47–50). She sees Hippolytus approaching with his companions singing to Artemis, and leaves; he does not know, she says, that the gates of Hades are open for him and that this is his last day (lines 51–57).

The hunters sing a hymn to Artemis (lines 58–72). Hippolytus brings the goddess a garland from an untouched meadow, where only those who are naturally chaste may pick flowers, and says that he alone among men converses with her, hearing her voice but not seeing her face (lines 73–87). An old servant asks him whether he knows that people hate pride and favour the friendly; Hippolytus agrees but says that he greets the goddess whose statue stands at his gate “from afar, being pure”, and that no god who is worshipped at night pleases him (lines 88–106). The servant answers that one must honour the gods (line 107). Hippolytus tells his men to go in and eat, and says that his Aphrodite can be left to enjoy herself (lines 108–113). The servant prays to the statue of Aphrodite and asks her to forgive the young man’s foolish talk, since the gods should be wiser than mortals (lines 114–120).

Parodos (Entrance Song)

The Chorus of women of Troezen enters. They tell of the news that Phaedra is lying ill, wrapped in a thin veil, and has not eaten for three days, wishing, they have heard, to bring her life to its sad end (lines 121–140). They ask what the cause could be: is she possessed by Pan, Hecate, the Corybantes or the Mountain Mother, or has she neglected Dictynna (lines 141–147)? Perhaps her husband is unfaithful, or a sailor from Crete has brought bad news (lines 151–160).

First Episode

The old Nurse leads Phaedra out into the light, and complains of the burden of caring for the sick (lines 170–197). Phaedra asks to be lifted up and has her head uncovered (lines 198–202). In her delirium she asks for a drink from a spring, and wants to go to the mountains and the pine trees to hunt deer, and to the horse-training grounds of Artemis (lines 208–231). The Nurse is alarmed, and the Chorus believes that a god has taken her wits (lines 232–238). Phaedra then comes to herself, ashamed of what she has said, and asks to be covered again (lines 239–251). The Nurse presses her to tell the cause; Phaedra says nothing, and the Nurse, after saying that she will die if she does not tell, and that her sons by Theseus will be left to Hippolytus, the bastard who thinks like a legitimate son (lines 297–310), falls at Phaedra’s knees and begs (lines 325–335). Phaedra answers with hints: she speaks of her mother Pasiphae and her sister Ariadne, and says she is the third to be ruined (lines 337–343). The Nurse understands and asks whether she means Hippolytus; Phaedra says only, “You said it, not I” (lines 350–353). The Nurse cries out in horror, and Phaedra says that she will die (lines 353–361).

The Chorus laments, and Phaedra makes a long speech (lines 373–430). She has thought about how mortals ruin their lives, she says. People know what is good but do not do it. She first tried to hide her passion, then to bear her folly with self-control, and when this failed to overcome Aphrodite, decided to die (lines 391–402). She hates women who are chaste in word but secretly adulterous, and cannot see how they dare look their husbands in the face (lines 405–418). She will not shame her husband and her children, who must live free in Athens and speak freely, and not be enslaved by their mother’s shame (lines 419–425). Only one thing, they say, competes with life: “a just and good mind” (lines 426–430).

The Nurse now changes her tune. She says she was foolish: Aphrodite cannot be resisted when she comes in full flood, but treats the yielding gently and punishes the proud (lines 433–446). All things come from her; Zeus loved Semele and Dawn took Cephalus, and these gods still live in heaven (lines 447–458). Phaedra, she says, should not resist, since a god has willed it (lines 473–476), and she has charms and spells (lines 477–479). When Phaedra will have none of such talk, saying that this is just what she was afraid of, the Nurse says that she has love-charms in the house, which she has just thought of, that will cure her of the disease without shame or harm to her mind, provided she is not a coward (lines 498–512). She needs a token from the man, a lock of hair or a piece of his clothes (lines 513–515). Phaedra asks whether it is an ointment or a drink, and is afraid that the Nurse is being too clever (lines 516–520). The Nurse goes in (lines 521–524).

In the first stasimon (lines 525–564) the Chorus sings of the power of Eros, whose arrow is greater than fire or the stars. Greeks sacrifice oxen at Olympia and Delphi, but not to Eros, the tyrant of mankind. It tells how he gave Iole to Heracles with blood and smoke, and how Semele was killed by the thunderbolt when she was wedded to Zeus.

Second Episode

Phaedra, standing at the door, tells the women to be silent: she is ruined (lines 565–575). She hears a noise inside, the voice of Hippolytus, raised in anger against the servant (lines 576–582). The Chorus can make out that he is accusing the “go-between of evils” who has betrayed her husband’s bed (lines 589–590). Phaedra says she is betrayed by her own people, and that her secret is out. She knows only one thing to do, to die as soon as possible (lines 591–600).

Hippolytus comes out of the palace, with the Nurse clinging to him and begging him not to tell. He cries out to Earth and Sun at what he has heard (lines 601–604), and when the Nurse reminds him of his oath, he answers: “my tongue swore, my mind is unsworn” (line 612). He then makes his long speech against women. Why, he asks Zeus, did he put women into the world? If he wished to propagate mortals, he should have let men buy children in the temples for gold, iron or bronze, and live without women (lines 616–624). A woman is shown to be an evil by the dowry that the father gives to be rid of her (lines 627–633). The best wife is a simple, useless one; he hates a clever woman, because Cypris breeds more mischief in the clever (lines 638–644). Women should have only dumb animals as attendants, since their servants carry their plans out of the house (lines 645–650). He turns on the Nurse: she has led him into an agreement about his father’s untouched bed, and he will wash his ears with running water (lines 651–655). Only his oath, he says, saves her; he will keep silent, but will watch how his father and Phaedra meet (lines 656–663). He will never stop hating women, and they should either be taught to be modest or let him trample on them (lines 664–668).

Phaedra turns on the Nurse and calls her the destroyer of her friends (lines 682–694). The Nurse replies that she wished to heal and found the wrong cure, but that Phaedra can still be saved (lines 695–705). Phaedra tells her to be quiet and go. She asks the Chorus for silence, and they swear by Artemis (lines 710–714). She has found a way to leave her children a good name and to benefit from the present trouble: she will die, and she will take revenge on Hippolytus, so that he will learn not to be proud of her misfortune (lines 715–731).

In the second stasimon (lines 732–775) the Chorus wishes to be a bird flying to the Adriatic and the Eridanus, and to the garden of the Hesperides at the edge of the sky. Then it recalls the Cretan ship that carried Phaedra to Athens, and sings of how she is now, overcome by Aphrodite’s sickness, tying a noose to her white neck.

Third Episode

The Nurse cries from inside that the queen has hanged herself (lines 776–789). Theseus returns from an oracle, wearing a wreath, and wonders why the household is in mourning (lines 790–810). The Chorus tells him that his wife has hanged herself, and that his children are alive (lines 797–803). He has the doors opened to see the body (lines 808–810) and breaks into lamentation (lines 817–833). He notices a tablet hanging from her, sealed with her ring, and breaks the seal and reads it (lines 856–865). “Hippolytus,” he cries, “dared to touch my bed by force, dishonouring the holy eye of Zeus” (lines 885–886). He calls on Poseidon, who promised him three curses, to kill his son with one of them this very day (lines 887–890). The Chorus begs him to take back the curse, as he will regret it, but he says that Hippolytus will be struck by one of two fates: either Poseidon will send him dead to Hades, or he will wander as an exile in a foreign land (lines 891–898).

Hippolytus arrives, having heard his father’s cry, and finds Phaedra dead (lines 899–915). Theseus, instead of answering, launches into a speech on how people have mastered many crafts but not how to teach sense to the senseless (lines 916–920). Hippolytus is accused to his face. Theseus mocks his claim to be a devout and chaste follower of Orpheus, who lives on the smoke of many books and a vegetarian diet (lines 948–957), and says that the dead woman is the clearest witness against him (lines 958–972). He tells him to leave the country at once; he will not be thought to have been beaten by his son (lines 973–980).

Hippolytus answers, in a speech that he says he is not skilled enough to make before a crowd, that he knows the gods to be honoured and friends to be treated justly, and is not given to mocking his companions (lines 983–1001). He says that he is pure in the one thing of which he is accused: he has never touched a bed, and knows love only from hearsay and pictures, which he has no wish to look at, because his soul is virgin (lines 1002–1006). Was Phaedra the most beautiful of women, he asks, or did he hope to take over the house with her? No sensible person likes tyranny: he would like to be first in the Greek games but second in the city, in the company of the best (lines 1007–1020). He swears by Zeus and the earth that he never touched Theseus’ bed, and calls on himself to die nameless if it is false (lines 1021–1031). As for why Phaedra killed herself, he does not know, because he is not allowed to say more (lines 1032–1035). Theseus replies that he is a sorcerer who trusts to oaths to change his father’s mind (lines 1036–1040), and rejects his argument (lines 1041–1045). Exile, not a quick death, is his punishment: for a man in misfortune death is the easy way out (lines 1045–1050). Hippolytus asks to be allowed to take the oath and the word of seers as evidence, but Theseus says the tablet is evidence enough (lines 1051–1059). Hippolytus, asking himself why he does not speak out when the gods whom he honours are ruining him, decides that he will not break the oath he swore (lines 1060–1063). He cries to the house to speak for him, and Theseus says that the dumb witnesses cannot help him, as his deed shows him to be evil (lines 1074–1077). At last Theseus orders the servants to drag him out, and Hippolytus takes leave of the land of Troezen and calls on his friends to send him off, saying that they will never see a more self-controlled man, though his father thinks otherwise (lines 1084–1101).

In the third stasimon (lines 1102–1150) the Chorus sings that care for the gods lightens its cares but that the fortunes of mortals are uncertain. It laments that it has seen “the brightest star of Hellas, Athens” driven to another land by his father’s anger (lines 1120–1125), and that the groves where Hippolytus hunted and the horse-grounds will miss him (lines 1126–1139). “I am angry with the gods,” it cries (line 1146).

Exodos (Exit Song)

A Messenger, one of Hippolytus’ attendants, arrives with news for Theseus: Hippolytus is as good as dead, though he still lives (lines 1151–1163). When Theseus asks who has done it, the Messenger says that his own chariot and the curses of Theseus have done it (lines 1164–1168). Theseus thanks Poseidon for hearing his curses (lines 1169–1172). The Messenger tells how they were combing their horses by the sea when Hippolytus came, weeping, and ordered the chariot to be made ready (lines 1173–1187), prayed to Zeus to let him die if he was a bad man, and set out on the road to Argos and Epidaurus (lines 1188–1197). On the shore beyond, they heard a sound like thunder from beneath the ground, the horses pricked up their ears, and a huge wave rose, from which came a bull, a savage monster whose roar filled the land (lines 1198–1217). The horses were seized by terror; Hippolytus pulled at the reins like a sailor with an oar, but the horses bolted, and when he tried to turn them toward the soft ground the bull appeared in front, and when they ran toward rocks it ran silently beside the chariot, until it caused it to overturn on a rock (lines 1218–1233). Hippolytus was tangled in the reins and dragged along, striking his head against the rocks, crying out to the horses that he had fed (lines 1234–1242). Somehow the straps were cut and he fell, breathing still for a short while; the horses and the bull vanished (lines 1243–1248). The Messenger adds that, though he is only a servant, he can never believe that his master was evil, even if all womankind were to hang themselves (lines 1249–1254).

Theseus says that he was glad to hear it, out of hatred for the man who suffered, but that now he feels respect for the gods and for the sufferer, since he is his son, and he is neither pleased nor grieved (lines 1255–1260). He tells them to bring Hippolytus, so that he may convict him with words and the gods’ punishment (lines 1261–1267). The Chorus sings of the power of Aphrodite and Eros, who rule gods, mortals and all living things (lines 1268–1281).

Artemis appears and addresses Theseus: why does he rejoice at having unjustly killed his son, persuaded by his wife’s false story (lines 1282–1295)? She has come to show that his son’s life was just, and that Phaedra, stung by Aphrodite, fell in love with him, tried to conquer it by reason, and was destroyed by the Nurse’s scheming, since the Nurse told the secret to Hippolytus under oath (lines 1296–1306). He, being a just man, did not listen to her, and kept his oath even though he was treated badly by his father (lines 1307–1309). Phaedra, afraid of being exposed, wrote a false tablet and destroyed him by trickery (lines 1310–1312). Theseus had used one of his three curses on his own son when he could have used it on an enemy; Poseidon gave what he had promised, but Theseus has shown himself wicked to both Poseidon and Artemis, as he did not wait for proof or for seers, and did not give time to inquiry (lines 1314–1324). Theseus asks to die (line 1325). Artemis says that he may be forgiven, because Cypris wanted this to happen, and the gods do not oppose each other’s wishes; otherwise she would never have let the man most dear to her die (lines 1326–1334). His sin is excused, first because he did not know, and second because Phaedra, by dying, took away the chance of testing her words (lines 1334–1337).

The dying Hippolytus is carried in, his body torn (lines 1342–1346). He cries out in pain, curses the chariot, and asks Zeus whether he sees him, the pious and self-controlled man, going to Hades for nothing (lines 1347–1369). He wishes for a sword to cut his life in two (lines 1373–1377). He senses the presence of Artemis (lines 1391–1393). The goddess tells him that Cypris has done this because he disdained her and valued chastity (lines 1397–1402). Hippolytus says that he sees that Cypris has destroyed the three of them, and Artemis names them: his father, himself, and third, his father’s wife (lines 1403–1404); Hippolytus then laments his father’s misfortune too, and Artemis answers that Theseus was deceived by the goddess’s plans (lines 1405–1406). Theseus says that he wishes he had died instead of his son, and Hippolytus, bitterly, curses the gift of Poseidon (lines 1407–1413).

Artemis promises that Aphrodite’s wrath will not go unpunished: she will herself punish, with her unerring arrows, the mortal that Aphrodite loves best, whom she does not name (lines 1416–1422). To Hippolytus she will give the greatest honours in Troezen: unmarried girls will cut off their hair for him, and he will have songs, and Phaedra’s love for him will not be forgotten (lines 1423–1430). She tells Theseus to take his son in his arms, as he killed him without knowing it (lines 1431–1434), and tells Hippolytus not to hate his father (lines 1435–1436). She leaves, since it is not lawful for her to look on the dead (lines 1437–1439). Hippolytus says that she easily leaves a long companionship, and that he frees his father from the quarrel because she asks (lines 1440–1443). When Theseus asks whether he is releasing him from the blood-guilt, Hippolytus calls Artemis to witness that he does (lines 1448–1451). He takes leave of his father and asks him to cover his face (lines 1452–1458), and dies; Theseus cries out to Athens that it is losing such a man, and says that he will long remember the evils of Cypris (lines 1459–1461). The Chorus ends the play by saying that this unexpected sorrow is shared by all the citizens, and there will be many tears (lines 1462–1466).

A Brief Analysis

The play shows three people destroyed by one goddess. Hippolytus says that Cypris has destroyed the three of them, and Artemis names them as Theseus, Hippolytus and Phaedra (lines 1403–1404), and Artemis agrees that Aphrodite wanted this to happen (lines 1326–1328). Aphrodite also says at the start that she is destroying Phaedra, although she had done nothing wrong, because she wants to punish her enemy (lines 47–50). Phaedra herself is a woman who tries to fight her passion by silence and then by self-control, and decides to die when these fail (lines 391–402), and she is described by Artemis as destroyed by the Nurse’s scheming (lines 1304–1306). Hippolytus, for his part, keeps an oath that he thinks he should not have sworn (line 612) and dies of it (lines 1060–1063). Aristotle called Euripides “the most tragic of the poets” (Poetics 1453a29).

The gods in this play are not good or just by human standards. Aphrodite says that gods enjoy being honoured (lines 7–8), and Artemis says that it is the custom among the gods that none opposes another’s wish, and that she herself would not have allowed the man she loved best to die were it not for Zeus (lines 1328–1334). Artemis advises Hippolytus to forgive his father (lines 1435–1436), but promises to take revenge on Aphrodite through the mortal she loves most (lines 1420–1422), so the quarrel between the goddesses continues after the human beings are dead. The play does not name the victim of this revenge; Apollodorus tells that Adonis was killed by a boar while hunting, through the anger of Artemis (Library 3.14.4).

Hippolytus Sources

Euripides, Hippolytus (lines 1–1466); the ancient hypotheses to the play, for the date, the result and the earlier Hippolytus; Aristotle, Poetics 1453a29; Apollodorus, Library 3.14.4. An English translation of the play can be read on Perseus (Hippolytus).

See Also: Hippolytus, Phaedra, Phaedra and Hippolytus, Euripides