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Hippolytos

euripides robert bagg

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In most versions of the Hippolytos myth, Phaidra is depicted as an utterly debauched character, a woman reduced to shamelessness by the power of Aphrodite. In Euripides' Hippolytos , however--informed by the playwright's moral and religious fascination--we find a Phaidra resisting the goddess of love with all her strength, though in the end unsuccessfully. Phaidra becomes a tragic foil for Hippolytos, making his superhuman virtue at once believable and understandable.
Robert Bagg's profound translation of this Euripidean masterpiece is idiomatic, natural, and intensely lyrical, designed not only to be read but performed. Unlike most versions, Bagg's Hippolytos sustains the dramatic tome and dynamics to the very end--even after Phaidra's death--and the moving scenes between Hippolytos and Theseus, and later Hippolytos' death-scene with Artemis, receive here unprecedented plausibility and power.

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,-0428

This edition

Format
128 pages, Paperback
Published
October 29, 1992 by Oxford University Press
ISBN
9780195072907
ASIN
0195072901
Language
English
Characters More characters
  • Artemis (Greek mythology)

    Artemis (greek Mythology)

    In Greek mythology, Artemis (Ancient Greek: Ἄρτεμις) was often described as the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity and protector of young girl...

  • Theseus (mythology)

    Theseus (mythology)

    Theseus was a mythological figure best known for slaying the Minotaur in Daedalus labyrinth at Crete.more...

  • Hippolytus

    Hippolytus

    In Greek mythology, Hippolytus (Greek Ἱππόλυτος meaning "unleasher of horses") was a son of Theseus and either Antiope or Hippolyte. He was identified with the Roman forest god Virbius.The most common legend regarding Hippolytus states that he was killed ...

  • Phaedra

    Phaedra

    In Greek mythology, Phaedra (Ancient Greek: Φαίδρα - Phaidra) is the daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë, wife of Theseus, sister of Ariadne, and the mother of Demophon of Athens and Acamas. Phaedras name derives from the Greek word φαιδρός (phaidros), w...

  • Aphrodite (Greek Goddess)

    Aphrodite (greek Goddess)

    Aphrodite (Greek: Ἀφροδίτη) is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. Her Roman equivalent is the goddess Venus.According to Hesiods Theogony, she was born when Cronus cut off Uranuss genitals and threw them into the sea...

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euripides

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Euripides (Greek: Ευριπίδης) (ca. 480 BC–406 BC) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete (Rhesus is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined—he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.
Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. He also became "the most tragic of poets", focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was "the creator of ... that cage which is the theatre of William Shakespeare's Othello, Jean Racine's Phèdre, of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg," in which "imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.
His contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism. Both were frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as a corrupting influence. Ancient biographies hold that Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age, dying in Macedonia, but recent scholarship casts doubt on these sources.

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Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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ZeroPhaze
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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Το λάτρεψα και δεν το περίμενα! Απίστευτα διαχρονικό, με έξυπνους στίχους. Πραγματεύεται θέματα όπως η κοινωνική αποδοχή, το κουτσομπολιό, η ντροπή, ο έρωτας, η ανωτερότητα ή άρνηση του έρωτα, το σώμα και η λογική. Νιώθεις ανώτερος όταν πηγαίνεις κόντρα στις φυσικές ορμές του σώματος? Όταν αρνείσαι τον έρωτα προκειμένου να μείνεις αγνός ή να μη χάσεις τη λογική, όταν είσαι ανέγγιχτος, πόσο άνθρωπος είσαι? Έχεις επαφή με το σώμα σου ή σε μπλοκάρει το μυαλό σου και η "ηθική"?
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Iba0
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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Μοναδικός.
Ουδέν περαιτέρω σχόλιο.
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millerha
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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Euripides depicts here Phaedra suffering, starving herself to death. The nurse after trying hard, gets her confession on what is the problem. Aphrodite cursed her to Love Hippolytus, her stepson.

Phaedra ends up suiciding, after her secret is revealed, Theseus arrives to see her dead body and a letter, which makes the king thinking that Hippolytus wanted to rape Phaedra.

Theseus curses Hippolytus, which then crashes on an accident and returns to the palace, about to die. Artemis told Theseus just before about the fake letter of Phaedra.

Hippolytus pardon his father for the curse, as he is very sad with Aphrodite curse on Phaedra, which made Theseus wrong Hippolytus.

It's an ok plot, showing the abscence of interference from one god to another, but a total interference on human affairs, on greek mythology.
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monkey3281
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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This was the only play, of the 19 that survive, that Euripides got 1st prize for.
My favorite tragedy in college, rereading this 30 years later was so much better. Give this a slow read, preferably allowed. Also research who Phaedra was and Theseus' prior affairs for more context.
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