Hippolytus ( / Hippolytos) is an Ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides, based on the myth of Hippolytus, son of Theseus. The play was first produced for the City Dionysia of Athens in 428 BC and won first prize as part of a trilogy.

Euripides first treated the myth in Hippolytos Kalyptomenos (Hippolytus Veiled), now lost. Scholars are virtually unanimous in believing that the contents to the missing Kalyptomenos portrayed a shamelessly lustful Phaedra who directly propositions Hippolytus, to the displeasure of the audience.

This failure prompted Euripides to revisit the myth in Hippolytos Stephanophoros ("Hippolytus who wears a crown"), this time with a modest Phaedra who fights her sexual appetites. The surviving play offers a much more even-handed and psychologically complex treatment of the characters than is commonly found in traditional retelling of myths.

The gods play a very important role in Hippolytus, framing the action. Aphrodite appears at the beginning and Artemis at the end, and they were possibly represented onstage throughout the action in the form of statues. These two goddesses can be taken as representing the conflicting emotions of passion and chastity.

Synopsis

The play is set in Troezen, a coastal town in the northeastern Peloponnese. Theseus, the king of Athens, is serving a year's voluntary exile after having murdered a local king and his sons. His illegitimate son Hippolytus, whose mother is the Amazon Hippolyta, has been trained here since childhood by the king of Troezen, Pittheus.

At the opening of the play Aphrodite, Goddess of love, explains that Hippolytus has sworn chastity and refuses to revere her. Instead, he honors the Goddess of the hunt, Artemis. This has led her to initiate a plan of vengeance on Hippolytus. When Hippolytus went to Athens two years previously Aphrodite inspired Phaedra, Hippolytus' stepmother, to fall in love with him.

Hippolytus appears with his followers, and shows reverence to a statue of Artemis, a chaste goddess. A servant warns him about his overt disdain for Aphrodite, but Hippolytus refuses to listen to him.

The chorus, consisting of young married women of Troezen, enters, and describes how Phaedra is not eating or sleeping. Phaedra, sickly, appears with her Nurse. After an agonized discussion, Phaedra finally gives into her nurse's demands and confesses why she is ill; she loves Hippolytus. The Nurse and the Chorus are shocked. Phaedra explains that she must starve herself and die with her honor intact. However, the Nurse quickly retracts her initial response and tells Phaedra that she has medicine to cure her. However, to one side she states that she has other plans.

The nurse tells Hippolytus of Phaedra's desire, after making him swear an oath that he will not tell anyone else. He reacts with a furious, misogynistic tirade on the 'poisonous' nature of women. Since the secret is out, Phaedra believes she is ruined. After making the Chorus swear secrecy, she goes inside and hangs herself.

Theseus returns and discovers his wife's dead body. Since the Chorus is sworn to secrecy, they cannot tell Theseus why she killed herself. Theseus discovers a letter on Phaedra's body, which clearly places the blame for her death on Hippolytus. Theseus takes this to mean he raped Phaedra and, enraged, he curses his son to death or at least exile. He calls upon Poseidon, his father who has promised him three curses, to enforce the curse. Hippolytus enters and protests his innocence, but cannot tell the truth because of the binding oath that he swore. Taking his wife's letter as proof Theseus exiles his son.

The Chorus sings a lament for Hippolytus.

A messenger enters and describes a gruesome scene to Theseus; as Hippolytus got in his chariot to leave the kingdom, a bull roared out of the sea, frightening his horses, which dashed his chariot among the rocks dragging Hippolytus along. Hippolytus seems to be dying. The messenger protests Hippolytus' innocence but Theseus refuses to believe him.

Theseus is pleased with Hippolytus' suffering, until Artemis appears and tells him the truth. She explains that his son was innocent and that it was Phaedra who lied. Although she attacks Theseus' decision, she ultimately recognizes that the blame must be placed on Aphrodite. Hippolytus is carried in half-alive and Artemis promises to kill any man Aphrodite holds dearest in the world. Finally, Hippolytus absolves his father of his death and dies.

Characterization

In many ways, this play is surprising in its even-handed approach to the two main characters, neither being presented in a wholly favorable light. Euripides has often been accused of misogyny in his presentations of characters such as Medea and Electra. However, Hippolytus seems unsympathetically puritan and misogynistic, though he is partially redeemed by his refusal to break his oath to the nurse and his forgiveness of his father ('I absolve you of this bloodshed'). Similarly, Phaedra is initially presented as sympathetic, honorably struggling against overwhelming odds to do the right thing, though our regard for her is reduced by her indictment of Hippolytus.

The tragedy occurs because of Hippolytus's hubris (his rejection of Aphrodite) and not for his lack of sympathy for Phaedra or his laughable misogynism, which positively reeks of sophistry. The true malevolent force of the play is uncontrollable desire personified by the vindictive Aphrodite in the introduction of the play.

Another monstrous force at work is the disaffected goddess of chastity, Artemis. She does not try to protect her favorite, as the Gods are sometimes represented as doing (e.g., the relationship between Odysseus and Athena), but rather abandons him at his very moment of death.

Notes

Texts

• Barrett, W. S. (ed.), Euripides, Hippolytos, edited with Introduction and Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964; Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1964)

Translations

• A. Mary F. Robinson, 1881, verse
• Edward P. Coleridge, 1891, prose: full text
• Gilbert Murray, 1911, verse: full text
• Arthur Way, 1912, verse
• Augustus T. Murray, 1931, prose
• David Grene, 1942, verse
• Phillip Vellacott, 1953, verse
• Robert Bagg, 1973. ISBN 978-0-19-507290-7
• David Kovacs, 1994, prose: full text
• David Lan, 1998
• Anne Carson, 2006. Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides. New York Review Books Classics. ISBN 1-59017-180-2.
• Jon Corelis, 2006: Performance version in verse.

Adaptations

• Phaedra, 1962 film

Additional references

• Summary and Analysis
• Aristotle on Hippolytus
• Hippolytus in Euripides, Seneca and Racine for a philological study of the evolution of Hippolytus as chastity paradigm