The play is set in Troezen where Theseus is serving a year’s voluntary exile for having murdered the Pallantides. In the opening scene we have Aphrodite telling the story of Hippolytus, son of Theseus and Amazonian queen Hippolyta, who has offended her refusing her love and calling her the worst of all Olympians. Under the vow of chastity that sets him miles away from the world of the goddess of love, he honours Artemis instead spending his time in the woods hunting. Rejected Aphrodite swears vengeance on Hippolytus and makes Phaedra, the wife of Theseus, fall madly in love with her young stepson. At first, the queen doesn’t show her feelings consuming herself in the agony of her ill passion. However, she decides to confess her love to the nurse who then, wanting to help her ward, breaks the vow of silence and reveals to Hippolytus Phaedra’s affection. After hearing this, the disgusted young man runs away from the city promising not to come back until his father returns. Now, when her secret is out, Phaedra believes she is ruined and so, in order to regain the lost honour, she decides to kill herself. However, she will have her revenge on Hippolytus: before taking her life away, Phaedra wrote a letter addressed to Theseus accusing Hippolytus of her death. Completely crushed by the terrible news, the Athenian king doesn’t even question the words of his late spouse and, once he reads the letter, curses his son calling upon his divine father Poseidon. And so it was: as the young man was leaving the kingdom on the chariot, a bull-like monster rose from the sea, frightening his horses, which dashed the chariot against the rocks drawing Hippolytus along. At length, in the role of deus ex machina, Artemis comes on the stage revealing the truth: the drama turns the full circle and ends where it’s started, in the antagonism between two deities – Artemis and Aphrodite. After he realised what he had done, the devastated Theseus begs his dying son for forgiveness. In the closing scene, Hippolytus absolves his father and dies. Upon his death, Artemis introduces the cult of Hippolytus in the city of Troezen. Yet, this mythic-religious solution is of little comfort to the mortals, as the chorus records us in the concluding choral: “And the rivers of tears shall be shed over and over again, for tales of heroes hurt most.”
Phaedra (The crowned Hippolytus)
Characters
(in order of appearance)
Aphrodite
Hippolytus
Attendants of Hippolytus
Servant
Chorus of Troezenian women
Nurse of Phaedra
Phaedra
Maid
Theseus
Messenger
Artemis