He did it again. I 100% agree with Natalie Haynes, Euripides is one of the best writers of a woman’s voice, but likewise he is one of the best writers of tragedy. You finish the novel feeling sympathetic for everyone, Hippolytus, Theseus, and even Phaedra who you might wish to hate, but Euripides absolves her of her villainous reputation. And the twist about Theseus’ wishes! I thought I already knew what was gonna happen, but man, that was clever. Greek tragedies aren’t generally riveting, and I can’t really describe this play as such either, but Euripides has managed to strike a cord with me as a modern reader that I just don’t feel with many other playwrights or poets of his time

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.

Don't anger the Gods, especially the vain ones. Wait, thats everybody.

Making my way through the Greek tragedies and you can't help but think that the invention of the gods was man's biggest self-own.

این نمایشنامه داستان آشنای عشق ممنوع زن پدر به پسر است. مثل یوسف و زلیخا، سیاوش و سودابه.
خدایانی که هر یک نماینده ی نیرویی در طبیعت اند در وجود ایپولیتوس به تاخت و تاز و جنگ می پردازند. ایپولیتوس سرسپرده ی ارتمیس خدای شکار و حیوانات وحشی است. آفرودیت که از زن ستیزی و تقبیح عشق او خشمگین است برایش دامی گریزناپذیر پهن می کند. تقدیر نابودی ایپولیتوس و زن پدرش را می خواهد. حتی خدایان را توانایی دخالت در آن نیست.

Another early experiment. Deadly family dynamics and celestial pettiness.
It's Greek, after all.

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.

J'ai trop aimé que Hippolyte soit un perso aromantique et asexuel. Même si on voit ici l'origine du perso asexuel froid et hautain, qui hante encore notre culture. En vrai il est gentil avec son père, il l'aime, et il est en admiration, amour pas romantique avec Artemis et ses meilleurs amis. Du coup c'est juste une analyse pas du tout pertinente de se tenir au fait qu'il est froid et hautain avec Phedre. Il aime juste pas Phedre et omg c'est sa belle mère qui a un crush sur lui, beurk. Dommage qu'il nous balance, outré, une tirade ultra mysogyne ( le morceau le plus sexiste de tout Euripide).

این نمایش از جمله نمایش‌های اوریپید است که یک خدا مقصر بدبختی‌های تراژدیک وارده است و به این دلیل هم سخت ملامت می‌شود. تم دیگر نمایش، ضدیت جامعه با تجرد است. تجرد هیپولیتوس شاید به خاطر زن‌ستیزی او باشد؛ او نهایتا به شکل کنایه‌آمیزی قربانی مکر زنان نیز می‌شود. شاید او یکی از اولین ایسکشوال‌های تاریخ باشد؛ در واقع او از سر زهد نیست که به خدای عشق بی‌احترامی می‌کند، بلکه صرفا شکار را به تختخواب ترجیح می‌دهد.

john mulaney voice i think hippolytus is aroace

There are moments in the play where lines and the dramatic moment reached me and I recognized through the ageless dust something said of man's estate true, true still, and seemingly ever-Now. (But there are those today who will argue our evolution has made Euripides and all that ancient crowd irrelevant. It is not them that clear and cool the mind which such keen, millennia-cleaving arrows of insight).
I'm also personally struck by parallels with Scripture often when I read this ancient literature. In this case, at one point when the wroth Theseus reflects that the gods ought to make a place to send reprobates such as he deems his son to be, I'm struck with the resemblance to the New Testament references to hell. Well, what a nice note to end on.

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.