Hippolytus

“Renowned shall Phaedra be in her death, but none the less die she must.

Her suffering shall not weigh in the scale so much

that I should let my enemies go untouched

escaping payment of a retribution

sufficient to satisfy me.”

With these words, Aphrodite illustrates the often-destructive lengths to which the gods will go in order to get their way—in this case, Aphrodite has no problem sacrificing the innocent Phaedra so that she can get her revenge on her enemy Hippolytus. The Consequences of Divine Intervention are a defining aspect of the relationship between human beings and the gods as explored in the play.

“You should be forgiving

when one that has a young tempestuous heart

speaks foolish words. Seem not to hear them.

You should be wiser than mortals, being gods.”

The Servant asks Aphrodite to forgive Hippolytus’s behavior, realizing as he does that, by neglecting love’s domain, the young man is dishonoring the goddess Aphrodite. The passage is an example of dramatic irony, as the audience already knows from Aphrodite’s Prologue that the goddess has no intention of forgiving Hippolytus, and indeed that the Servant’s notion that gods “should be wiser than mortals” is a fallacy that emphatically does not hold in the world of Euripidean tragedy (compare the exodos of Euripides’s Bacchae, where Cadmus says something very similar to the god Dionysus).

“Unhappy is the compound of woman’s nature;

the torturing misery of helplessness,

the helplessness of childbirth and its madness,

are linked to it forever.”

The Chorus reflects on the play’s central motif of Sex and Gender Roles, specifically on “woman’s nature,” which in ancient Greece was defined chiefly by marriage and childbearing. Women in ancient Greece were typically in the power of the men in their lives, whether their husbands or fathers—this is the “torturing misery of helplessness” of which the Chorus speaks. The central role of marriage and motherhood in forging a woman’s life and reputation will greatly inform Phaedra’s meaning of honor in the play.

“The life of humankind is complete misery:

we find no resting place from calamity.

But something other dearer still than life

the darkness hides and mist encompasses;

we are proved luckless lovers of this thing

that glitters in our world: no man

can tell us of that other life, expounding

what is under the earth: we know nothing of it.

Idly we drift, on idle stories carried.”

The Nurse meditates bleakly on the nature of human life and death, reflecting on the difficult place of human beings in a world where they are at the mercy of a fate they cannot fully comprehend. To the Nurse, life is “complete misery” and nothing can really be known about what happens to human beings after they die—a worldview that seemingly contributes to the Nurse’s relativistic and even opportunistic approach to morality and The Meaning of Honor.

 “I was mad. It was the madness sent from some god that made me fall.

[…]

Having my mind straight is bitterness to my heart;

yet madness is terrible. It is better then

that I should die and know no more of anything.”

Phaedra describes her condition as a “madness sent from some god”—in other words, her desire for Hippolytus is something that is beyond her control, reflecting The Destructiveness of Love and Desire. In the world of Euripides’s play, this is indeed the case: Aphrodite herself, the goddess of love, has assumed responsibility for Phaedra’s desire in the Prologue. This divine intervention does not necessarily represent a denial of human responsibility, however, for while Phaedra cannot control how she feels, she can control how she acts (hence her statement that “it is better […] that I should die”).

“The ways of life that are most unbending

trip us up more, they say, than bring us joy.

They’re enemies to health. So I praise less

the extreme than temperance in everything.

The wise will agree with me.”

The Nurse praises temperance, considered one of the highest virtues in the ancient Greek world. However, the Nurse values temperance not necessarily because it is good to be temperate but because she considers it safer to be temperate than extravagant—as usual, the Nurse’s morals are a question of opportunism and practicality.

“Cypris, you are no god.

You are something stronger than a god if that can be.

You have ruined her and me and all this house.”

These lines, spoken by the Nurse, bring out something of the ambivalence with which the gods are treated in Euripidean tragedy. Aphrodite—addressed here by her title “Cypris”—is held responsible by the Nurse for the suffering of Phaedra and the imminent ruin of the house of Theseus (as indeed she is, by her own admission). Aphrodite is so powerful, in the Nurse’s eyes, that she must be classified as a being “stronger than a god”—an elemental or cosmic force, something inherent in the fabric of reality that transcends even the standard ideas of power and divinity.

“I think that our lives are worse than the mind’s quality

would warrant. There are many who know good sense.

But look. We know the good, we see it clear.

But we can’t bring it to achievement.”

Phaedra finds herself in a difficult situation: She knows what the right thing to do is—to suppress her desire for Hippolytus—but cannot do it. This state of knowing the right thing but being powerless to “bring it to achievement” is the defining feature of Phaedra’s character, in stark contrast to Hippolytus, who is able to do the “right” thing (even if he can be arrogant and rash).

“And death is the best plan. No one will dispute that.

I want to have my virtues known and honored—

not many witnesses when I do something wrong!”

Phaedra, having failed to control her inappropriate feelings, has come to the conclusion that “death is the best plan”: This is the only way for her to maintain her preferred meaning of honor, which she values above all other things. Phaedra’s fear of reproach drives her actions throughout the play, and is ultimately what leads her to make her fabricated accusations against Hippolytus.

“Your case is not so extraordinary,

beyond thought or reason. The goddess in her anger

has smitten you, and you are in love. What wonder

is this? There are many thousands suffer with you.

So, you will die for love? And all the others,

who love, and who will love, must they die, too?

How will that profit them? The tide of Cypris,

at its full surge, is not withstandable.”

The Nurse, rethinking her earlier condemnation of Phaedra’s forbidden love for Hippolytus, urges her mistress to accept her helpless position and seek to make the most of it. The Nurse emphasizes the power of Aphrodite and The Consequences of Divine Intervention, suggesting that the influence of the goddess of love is simply “not withstandable.”

“This is the deadly thing that devastates

well-ordered cities and the homes of men—

this art of all-too-attractive-sounding words.”

Phaedra notes the dangerous rhetorical and sophistic prowess of the Nurse, who with “all-too-attractive-sounding words” urges Phaedra to pursue a desire she knows to be wrong and, more importantly for her, damaging to her honor. The sophists were teachers of rhetoric who had a reputation for precisely the kind of moral relativism preached by the Nurse—a timely allusion in Euripides’s Hippolytus, which was composed in the heyday of the sophists.

“Love is like a flitting bee in the world’s garden,

and for its flowers destruction is in its breath.”

The Chorus concludes the first stasimon with a meditation on The Destructiveness of Love and Desire, personified in their song (as throughout the play) by the goddess Aphrodite. Through simile, love is compared—with limited zoological accuracy—to a bee that destroys the flowers it visits, tying into the important natural imagery used throughout the play.

“NURSE. You will not break your oath to me, surely you will not?

HIPPOLYTUS. My tongue swore, but my mind was quite unpledged.”

When the Nurse tells Hippolytus of Phaedra’s inappropriate feelings for him, the young man is torn: On the one hand, he has sworn an oath to keep the Nurse’s revelation a secret. On the other hand, it is his filial duty to tell his father Theseus of his wife’s adulterous designs. When he tells the Nurse that his “mind was quite unpledged,” Hippolytus is speaking in the heat of the moment—he knows very well that this is a specious argument and that he cannot get out of keeping his oath, which indeed he does keep, even though it prevents him from defending himself later when he is accused of raping Phaedra. All the same, the line quickly became notorious as an illustration of the dishonest use of language—it was parodied on a few occasions by the comedian Aristophanes, a contemporary of Euripides.

“Women! This coin which men find counterfeit!

Why, why, Lord Zeus, did you put them in the world,

in the light of the sun? If you were so determined

to breed the race of man, the source of it

should not have been women.”

Hippolytus’s tirade against women is merciless, bitter, and angry, seemingly blaming women for all the evils of the world. The reference to women as “counterfeit” underlines Hippolytus’s own preoccupation with Legitimacy and Illegitimacy, a consequence of his own birth. Hippolytus’s views go far beyond the requirements of his chastity, suggesting that it is his misogyny, rather than simple piety, that spurs his rejection of women.

“There is a limit to all suffering and I have reached it.

I am the unhappiest of women.”

Phaedra’s lament reveals how she sees herself: as a passive victim of her suffering. Phaedra’s failure to take control of her situation by mastering her inappropriate feelings contributes just as much to her downfall as Aphrodite’s machinations, resulting in her becoming the “unhappiest of women.”

“Our wisdom varies in proportion to

our failure or achievement.”

This statement is another example of the Nurse’s moral relativism toward The Meaning of Honor, suggesting that people are judged not by their actions but by the outcomes of their actions. Phaedra condemns the Nurse for telling Hippolytus about her feelings because the outcome was negative—but had the outcome been positive, she argues, surely Phaedra would have praised her. The Nurse’s denial of conventional moral codes finally proves too much for Phaedra, and she sends her away just before she hangs herself.

“Bitter will have been the love that conquers me,

but in my death I shall at least bring sorrow

upon another, too, that his high heart

may know no arrogant joy at my life’s shipwreck;

he will have his share in this my mortal sickness

and learn to be more temperate himself.”

Phaedra’s last words are, on one level, a surrender to her fate that continues the pattern of passivity she has assumed for most of the play. However, Phaedra now also assumes an active role in her fate too, choosing to die to preserve her honor and to take revenge on Hippolytus. Phaedra’s anger at Hippolytus, though perhaps to some extent misplaced, also highlights an important flaw in Hippolytus’s character—namely, his uncompromising nature and his lack of temperance, suggesting that one must be temperate even in self-restraint.

“It cries aloud, this tablet, cries aloud,

and Death is its song!

How shall I escape this weight of evils? I am ruined, destroyed.

What a song I have seen, sung in this writing!”

Finding Phaedra’s tablet, Theseus immediately assumes that the story it contains is true—and the shame of the story leads him to feel that he is “ruined, destroyed.” The tablet is a special, liminal artifact: It represents the last words of a woman who has died, creating a link with “Death,” and it contains written text but also has a voice: the last words or “song” of the dead Phaedra.

 “When you are in trouble is no time for silence.

The heart that would hear everything

is proved most greedy in misfortune’s hour.”

Hippolytus sets out to speak in his defense, shunning silence even though he knows that he cannot reveal the one thing that his case rests on: Phaedra’s desire for him, which he has sworn to keep secret. Hippolytus’s defense, which initiates an agon (debate) scene, must hinge on his character (which he can discuss at great length) rather than on the facts (on which he must remain silent). In choosing not to break his oath, Hippolytus upholds The Meaning of Honor that he cherishes.

“If there were

some token now, some mark to make the division

clear between friend and friend, the true and the false!”

Theseus wishes there was some way of knowing the hidden truth about a person’s character, a way of telling what is legitimate from what is illegitimate. The preoccupation with legitimacy is of special importance in the play, which takes its name from Theseus’s illegitimate son Hippolytus, a young man who proves to have been true despite his relatively low social status.

“I cannot say of any man: he is happy.

See here how former happiness lies uprooted!”

A popular ancient Greek sentiment held that nobody could be considered truly happy until they had died happy, since a person’s fortunes were prone to change so much in life (in a legendary story from Herodotus’s Histories, Solon famously teaches this lesson to the rich Lydian king Croesus). In Euripides’s Hippolytus, the Chorus applies this piece of popular wisdom to the downfall of the noble Hippolytus.

“So, I’m condemned and there is no escape.

I know the truth but cannot tell the truth.”

Hippolytus realizes that his fate is sealed: His father has already made up his mind about his guilt, and his oath and The Meaning of Honor prevent him from speaking fully in his own defense. These lines highlight the dramatic irony of Theseus’s situation, as he condemns his son because he lacks knowledge that Hippolytus, the Chorus, and even the audience share but cannot disclose.

“HIPPOLYTUS. O father, this is great sorrow for you!

THESEUS. I am done for; I have no joy left in life.

HIPPOLYTUS. I sorrow for you in this more than for me.

THESEUS. Would that it was I who was dying instead of you!”

Theseus, having learned the truth about Hippolytus’s innocence, holds his son in his arms as he dies, realizing his error and grieving for his loss. Even though he is dying, Hippolytus showcases the nobility of his nature by forgiving his father and pitying him, realizing how much Theseus must be suffering from the knowledge that he has wrongly brought about the death of his son.