A tragic love story drawing from the Potipharian archetype? A treatise against the death penalty? A refutation of post-Revolution Soviet thought? A prescient-by-2500-years allegory of American involement in Vietnam? The world shall never know.

Esta interessante peça do teatro grego, inicialmente parece apenas ser construída em torno da acusação falsa de estupro, acentuada porque o acusado é um sacerdote de Artemis virgem. É o famoso "motivo Putifar".
Entretanto, a interpretação vai além. Nesta edição há um posfácio do tradutor Trajano Vieira e um ensaio de Bernard Knox que elucidam muito mais o enredo.
Primeiramente, Fedra acusa Hipólito de a ter estuprado, o que literalmente é mentira, mas digamos psicologicamente é verdade, pois do momento em que Afrodite inculcou nela a paixão, ela foi completamente possuída sem chance de defender-se.
Outra observação muito interessante é sobre a inevitabilidade da vontade dos deuses no destino dos humanos, que mesmo tentando dominar suas próprias vidas acabam por seguir exatamente o que foi predito pelos Deuses.
Um último comentário que tirei do ensaio e que vale para toda a mitologia é que os deuses são incapazes de perdoar. Vemos os humanos e os heróis perdoando, mas nunca os deuses.

n  n    "Besides I knew
too well I was a woman, and must be
abhorred by all." n  n

Euripides never lets me down.

The full title of the edition I read is "Hippolytus in Drama and Myth." It's translated by Donald Sutherland and includes an essay by Hazel E. Barnes.

The base myth of the eponymous Hippolytus portrays him as a shining exemplar of virtuousness and chastity, a kind of saint. The story goes like this: his stepmother Phaedra falls in love with him but he rejects her advances, and in revenge, she accuses him (falsely) of rape. His infuriated father Theseus believes Phaedra, and so exiles Hippolytus and curses him, whereby he meets his end tragically, pure and true to the very last. Hippolytus is someone virgin girls can look up to on festival days and proffer offerings to at temples, a role model of goodness.

But Euripides doesn't let the story rest at that. Instead, in his play he forges Phaedra into a sympathetic character, noble in her own way. Hippolytus becomes self-righteous and unbearable. And the conflict between the two-- between desire and abstinence, impulse and restraint, connection and isolation -- becomes the heart of the tale. Phaedra (and through her, Aphrodite) represents one end of the spectrum, and Hippolytus (and through him, Artemis) the other. Once again the Greeks are powerless to shape their destinies, and become mere pawns in the games of the gods. These same deities who -- by the very nature of their divine characteristics-- are necessarily forever in opposition, elemental forces pulling humans first that way, then the other.

Instead of Phaedra being the villain, it's really Aphrodite, who "breathes a deadly honeyed breath" over everything, that's at fault in Euripides' retelling. Hippolytus would rather worship Artemis than her. In order to “glut her anger" over this slight, she curses Phaedra with a forbidden and burning love of him.

Poor Phaedra. She's powerless to subdue this desire, and she's driven to suicide "in abhorrence of" the potential loss of honor, the shame of it all. Phaedra's honor being such an essential part of herself and identity reminded me of how a knight's or samurai's honor is so important that they also would die in its name. I feel like I've encountered a lot of narratives about a man's honor but not as much about a woman's honor (unless we're talking chastity). It's a perhaps small distinction, but I found it interesting seeing her, rather than someone else, take on sole responsibility for the protection of her honor, even if it ended in suicide.

Hippolytus I found insufferable. His cruel speech to Phaedra really proves that his arrogant belief that he is a perfect, infallible man is completely deluded. I agree with Theseus, who says to him: “You kill me with your sanctimoniousness!” and accuses him of “rapt worship" of himself. In fact, I can't imagine anyone reading this play and not being totally put off by Hippolytus. For one thing, he's an unrepentant misogynist. His hatred of women is unfettered and passionate, to the point of religion. This is the guy who says:

n  "O Zeus, why have you sent this counterfeit
this vileness, Woman, to inhabit the world?"n

His other choice descriptions of women include: “noxious growth” and “monster”; he rants about “ how great an evil a wife is"; declares “I loathe a clever woman” and that he'll "never have enough of hating women." And his mania for chastity takes on the hue of rigidity, of an unbending, horrifying obsession. He says: “Either let someone show me they are chaste or let me trample on these creatures still."

So it's with great satisfaction, and no sympathy or anger at Theseus, that you read his cursed end, as he's dragged into the "loud salt sea" :

n  "Up in the air flew bolts and spokes of the wheels
and axle-pins. And poor Hippolytus
wound in the reins, was dragged along, being tied
by bonds that would not loosen, in the dust
dashing his head against the rocks, tearing
his flesh, and howling dreadful cries to hear
“Stop! Stop! You mares fed at my cribs! Do not
annihilate me! Oh my father’s curse!"n

In her essay, Barnes writes of Euripides:

n  "Rather he seems to be stressing the idea that each of these forces in man calls for an absolute commitment which will brook no compromise, that once the individual yields to either of these needs of his nature, his will is no longer free to balance and moderate.”n

Hippolytus' unyielding chastity and virtuousness, his attempt at (and belief he's achieved) a perfection and purity not seem in humans, is his downfall. Paradoxically, it's his strict orthodoxy to virtue that leads him to cruelty (against Phaedra); a kind of sterile emotionless treatment of those around him; and eventually to Theseus disowning him and casting a bitter death curse on him. The sea takes him, a wild force that at long last, will succeed in submerging his self-importance.

Es war ok. Ippolito ist ein Boss.

Hipólito (428 AC)
de Euripides - Grécia (480AC- 406AC)

Vénus, deusa do amor, invejosa do culto prestado a Ártemis pelo casto Hipólito, enfeitiça Fedra para que esta se apaixone pelo enteado. Rejeitada por Hipólito, Fedra suicida-se depois de escrever um papel onde acusa o enteado de a ter violado. Teseu expulsa o filho e apela a Neptuno que o castigue. Ao passar perto do mar, uma onda gigante, de onde sai um touro, assusta os cavalos de Hipólito e este é trucidado.


(Peter Paul Rubens - The Death of Hippolytus)


Texto comum às peças Hipólito de Euripides, Fedra de Seneca e Fedra de Racine:

Se há obras que dão reviravoltas na nossa vida de leitores, na minha, Metamorfoses de Ovídio foi uma delas. Desde que o li fiquei tomada de desmedida paixão por Mitologia e nunca me canso de ler sobre este mundo de deuses e mortais.
Em Ovídio li, pela primeira vez, sobre o amor fatal, e não correspondido, de Fedra pelo enteado Hipólito. Agora, li de seguida as versões de Euripides, Seneca, Jean Racine e Sarah Kane.
As cinco versões, com ligeiras diferenças, têm todas a mesma base.
Uma história onde todos são simultaneamente culpados e inocentes, vítimas e carrascos; excepto Hipólito pois o seu coração não se deixa tocar pelos desejos e paixões humanas. No final todos são destroçados porque sucumbiram ao amor, o sentimento mais nobre e mais feroz que domina e gera outros: o ciúme, o orgulho, a injustiça, a raiva, a vingança...

Pequeno resumo para enquadramento das personagens, comuns às quatro peças:
Teseu é filho de Egeu, rei de Atenas, e enteado de Medeia (a mulher de Jasão que matou os filhos). Teve um romance com Hipólita, uma rainha das Amazonas, de quem tem um filho: Hipólito.
Em Creta reina Minos, filho de Zeus, casado com Pasífae de quem tem vários filhos, entre os quais Ariadne e Fedra. Tem também um enteado, filho duma paixoneta de Pasífae por um touro. Este mocinho, que dá pelo nome de Minotauro, vive preso no labirinto criado por Dédalo, e é morto por Teseu com a ajuda de Ariadne (a do fio). Teseu abandona a ajudante na ilha de Naxos, a qual acaba a casar com o fofinho Baco.
Teseu regressa a Creta e casa com Fedra. Tudo podia acabar bem se a tonta da Fedra não se embeiça-se pelo Hipólito. É a história da paixão trágica de Fedra que inspirou as peças de Euripides, Seneca, Racine e Kane.

Hippolytus


Never take hasty decisions
Never judge too fast
For the consequences may be
Greater than you can bear.
 
Tarnished by pride, Hippolytus dares to defy Aphrodite. He refuses to show due respect to her, so she obtains revenge. She uses his father’s wife to bring him to his doom, and in this ordeal, many a person meets their death.
 
Phaedra and Hippolytus fight in a game of gods and both die because of Aphrodite's and Artemis's caprices. The proud gods take revenge on others through playing with the lives of pious servants. Once again, Euripides mocks the gods. They do not hesitate to use humans as pawns in their wars, so do they really value the lives of their servants? 
 
I can neither side with Hippolytus nor with Phaedra. I don’t see the issue from a gender perspective as much as from a religious one. In here, both humans act according to the paths that the gods set to them. Phaedra is manipulated into falling for Hippolytus, while Hippolytus is destroyed by the excessive faith? In Artemis (who does not do anything to save him. she just appears in the end, when he was dying, when it was too late to do anything, to clarify that he did not violate Phaedra).
 
Hippolytus and Phaedra find themselves carried by events they cannot control. And mistake after mistake leads them to their death.

For Good comes in Evil's traces.
And the Evil the Good replaces
And Life, 'mid the changing faces,
Wandereth weak and blind.

Sadly, the bastard son of Theseus, Hippolytus cannot compare to Medea, and the first we hear from him is through a misogyny-tinged tirade against Aphrodite (who had quite literally already cursed him!), all women, and the passion that is of them that was so strikingly dull to me I stopped reading for a few days.

The second half of the drama, following Phaedra’s death, was more excitable. After Theseus finds an engraved wax tablet on Phaedra’s wrist, he reads out her (false) death declaration that Hippolytus had SA her, and uses one of his three wishes granted to him by Poseidon to brand his son with despair and misery. Poseidon’s wrath is first seen through a wave of impossible height. I was taken by the image of its silent creep, its unceasing glide, drawing closer, a noiseless motion felt alone in the spirit of those who see it, like a glance. The great wave crests and pulls Sciron’s Cliff into itself before crashing (the glance shuts to a blink, and in that blink, in a god’s blink, an explosion has already happened) and sea spray bursts forth a raving sea-monster that drives Hippolytus’ horses mad from terror. His chariot topples, he is entangled in the horses reigns, and is dragged to his demise.

Similar to Medea, the death (or in Hippolytus’ case near-death) event is described by a witnessing third party. Again, in my experience with Euripides, there was this incitement of horror and fascination that one is locked with when witnessing a God’s intervention, the very ideas of a God. Not through their presence but the grand level of their actions. Incomprehensible creatures, unstoppable marvels. One thinks of the Egyptian Sun God Horus, an enormous disk with wings, one turns their head with a pained confusion from the Book of Revelation. Ophanim, Seraphim, Isaiah’s vision.

I appreciated Hippolytus commenting on his status, or rather lack of status, as he is Theseus’ bastard son. In these epic Greek stories, I don’t see a lot of that- characters embracing their “commonness”. At one point he says to Theseus, living beside the good, hard-working men among him and truly connecting with them, is far more fulfilling than any crown or throne. It softened the character for me, as does most of his sentiment he shows during Thesues’ blind accusations of him. I actually ended up with a certain fondness of Hippolytus by the end of the drama. There’s something very strong and reliable in his characterization. He ends up having an honorable death, a important affair to Ancient Greeks, and speaks firm within himself and his beliefs even when Theseus turns on him. Theseus cannot see past his own nose and acts as ill-tempered as Aphrodite in the beginning of the play.

Artemis’ intervention only furthers this idea that all the events are God-willed, as the grandest of truth and deceptions of the drama are revealed and eventually canonized in ritualistic song. (She arrived a little to late to the party, imo, but she just rolls her eyes saying had to let Aphrodite do her thing. Hmmmm the gods are MESSY)

Myth is an unpacking tool in society’s relationship with “God”, which I think is one of the main reasons I have been drawn to it.

Oh, Euripides. You're so good at making totally crazy characters. For this story though, it's the Nurse. Her advice is not advisable...poor Hipploytus. I enjoyed this tragedy probably moreso because of reading Medea. I keep noticing things that feel similar like the rebuking of women's lust, the self-harming acts of spite, the roles of family being corrrupted (mother's relationship to their children), and the way that love can destroy people. Medea follows Jason and leaves everything because she's afflicted with a love for him and destroys her family, and here Phaedra is also afflicted to the point of ruining her family. I find it interesting that in this play the main character's don't seem as calculating in their bad decisions. Jason and Medea have all sorts of justifications and explanations for their evils, but the nurse and Theseus seem to have just acted rashly. My reaction to the end of this play was definitely more one of regret than horror and anger, which is what I felt reading Medea.

I really want to read more of Euripides. I can understand why the Athenians were horrified by his plays but still asked him to keep writing them. He has this way of making you feel like you're looking at a terrible car crash that should never have happened, but it's hard to look away. I think more than anything else in my career in Classics up to this point, I really just want to read Euripides in the original Greek and analyze it. I bet it's mind-blowing.

نحن أمام قصة هيبوليتوس إبن ثيسيوس .. الفتى العفيف كاره النساء .. وقعت في حبه زوجة أبيه ( فايدرا ) .. قدمت هذه المسرحية أكثر من مرة .. حتى يوريبيدس نفسه قدمها أول مرة ولم يتقبلها الجمهور اليوناني ، حيث صورها يوربيديس إمرأة لا تعرف الخجل تحاول اشباع رغباتها نحو هيبوليتوس و تعرض عليه نفسها .. ثم قدمها سوفوكليس .. و من بعدها أعاد يوربيديس تقديمها مرة أخرى و هذه هي النسخة التي بين أيدينا ..

n  n   

لقد لقيت جزائي أيتها الأرض أيها الضوء ..
كيف أهرب من مصيري
كيف أخفي لوعتي يا صديقاتي؟؟
مَن مِن الآلهة أو من البشر
سيظهر مساعداً أو مدافعاً أو مسانداً لأفعالي الخاطئة ؟؟
فالبلاء الذي أصابني يزحف عبر حياتي ولا يمكن الهروب منه
إني أتعس امرأة على وجه الأرض

n  n

Greek gods and their pettiness.

Laughing because during Trachean Women I made an off-hand comment about Greek literature being a twisty maze of tales and before I came to an end that I'd run into a minotaur. Ha. Phaedra is the half-sister of the Minotaur. Phaedra, wife of of Thesus is beset upon by the bored and distempered Aphrodite when Theseus' bastard son Hippolytus rejects and ignores her statue in favor of Artemis.

While I personally agree with Hippolytus' choice, it's never a good a idea to slight a Greek god. They have fragile egos and tend to overact at the simplest infractions let alone outright mutiny of their due. Divine retribution. Greek tragedy ensues. Again, it's a bit of overreach, miscommunication, pride, and rashness that leads to the innocents' demise.

Frankly, Hippolytus was too good of a son for Theseus, whom didn't deserve him.

Words of wisdom: n  Don't try too hard to square life's paradoxes.n

Ég held með Artemis.

Когда захотелось кого-то помоложе, но у парня отношения с Артемидой, а у Афродиты своеобразное чувство юмора.