Hippolytus Essay 1

7/27/2019 Hippolytus Essay 1

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Gayatri Gogoi

Does praise, blame, or a careful balance of both predominate in Euripides portrayal of

Hippolytus?

The tragic course of events in Euripides Hippolytus has often been discussed with regards to its

cause. An obvious answer is the eponymous character in the play, who on account of his staunch

devotion to his chastity and to the goddess Artemis might bear responsibility for not just his own

tragic fate but that too of his wretched stepmother Phaedra. However, to what extent can we blame

Hippolytus for the appalling events of the play? Could it be that we are in fact meant to praise

Hippolytus character? I believe that these questions can only be answered by examining not only

the titular individual, but the others whose actions contribute to the plot of the play; Phaedra, her

Nurse, Theseus and of course the goddesses, Artemis and Aphrodite. Despite the plays title,

Euripides devotes similar lengths of dialogue to these mortal characters and as such it would be

remiss of us not to take this into consideration when dealing out responsibility for the calamities of

the play.

I will argue that all these characters, including Hippolytus, but with the exception of Theseus have a

particular virtue to which they apply themselves attentively, the excess of which leads to their

downfalls, in combination with their inability to understand the respective virtues of the others. For

Phaedra this is her commitment to honour, for her Nurse logos, reason and practicality in respect of

keeping her mistress in mind, Hippolytus his excessive piety. In Theseus on the other hand we see

the acknowledgement he has to all of these virtues but his ruin is caused by his inability to fully

understand them. With regards to Aphrodite, her concern, like Phaedra, is her honour, but she

highlights the difference between honour among mortals and immortals.

Hippolytus before he even appears on stage is characterised by his devotion to Artemis in

Aphrodites prologue. In some ways we might find this piety and dedication to the gods admirable:

he is determined in his vow of chastity, lovingly devoted to Artemis, and faithful to his oath of

silence. He is even complimented for his piety by his beloved goddess as he lies dying.

But while in some ways we might praise Hippolytus for his piety, in others we can see how it leads to

the downfall of Phaedra and himself, which is rooted the excess to which he allows himself to follow

his belief. Indeed, Artemis remarks it was the nobility of your mind that has brought this

destruction upon you. From the outset, we can see how Hippolytus overzealous application of his

piety and chastity have led to him arrogantly spurning Aphrodite, who affirms that those of them

who treat me with disrespect, them, I crush and destroy and then engineers the events of the play.

The fundamental problem with Hippolytus attitude towards the gods is that he cannot reconcile his

own belief in virginity with the need for mortals to worship all the gods. By worshiping Artemis to

the exclusion of Aphrodite, we can see how his fanatical zeal has unbalanced his regard for the

divine, which leads to the hatred of the goddess. His unbalanced view of the gods reflects his

unbalanced view of the social structure of the Greek world, in which eroticism and sex were part of

life; by denying himself sex, Hippolytus is not only shunning the goddess, but not fulfilling his social

duty to provide offspring as the prince of Troezen and the social duty of a man in a Greek state.

In addition, his disgust he feels at the thought of a sexual relationship with his stepmother, both

because of his chastity and his horror at the thought of betraying his father, leads him to make an

angry and misogynistic rant about Phaedra and women in general. Before this point, Phaedra had

not given any indication about the letter of false allegations of rape she left on her body, but


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Gayatri Gogoi

Winnington-Ingram conjectures that this in part may have led Phaedra in her anger at his rejection

to want to cause Hippolytus the same suffering she had experienced loving him and being spurned

by him. Just as she was not allowed to die without her sinful lust becoming known to her stepson, so

she causes it so that his reputation is tainted with the accusation of rape until Artemis explanation

of events. In this hateful rant, Hippolytus reveals an almost childlike understanding of women and

one which is completely out of touch with the true value and function of women in society in their

roles as wives, mothers, and housekeepers in the domestic sphere, as counterparts to men in the

public sphere. He displays his ignorance of the importance of women as he says a foolish wife is

better; on the other hand, it is Phaedras intelligence and prudent awareness of societal propriety

which keeps her from revealing her feelings for so long.

Furthermore, it is true as Knox remarks that when he admonishes the Nurse as he takes an oath of

silence that it is my piety which has saved you, woman, he may as well be saying it is my piety

which condemns me. His devotion to keeping solemn the oaths of the gods lead to his exile and

eventual death, by refusing to speak the truth about Phaedras lust. As his father Theseus says, All

this piety of yours is unbearable. In any case, his vow to keep silent came to naught, for Artemis

revealed the truth to his father nonetheless. Therefore, we can see how his overzealous attitude

towards Artemis leads in part to his ruin.

Moreover, we must note how his fanatical attitude towards the gods interplays with inability to see

the value of other types of virtue. For example, he cannot see the value of honour, in that his

devotion to Artemis means he is unable to see how his disregarding Aphrodite and her honour he

has brought his troubles upon himself.

Therefore, despite his apparent piety, Hippolytus ruin is engineered against him precisely because

of misunderstanding of what piety actually is; he does not understand that the gods operate on the

basis of their honour. Even then, although he has fully devoted himself to Artemis, but the best she

can give him is revenge against Aphrodites next favourite, perpetuatingthe cycle of divine

vengeance, rather than help him against the hostile goddess. Therefore, when he achieves his

greatest wish of meeting Artemis face to face, he reveals a more bitter attitude towards the gods,

beginning to say If only mortals could curse the gods, importantly not just mentioning Aphrodite

in particular. It is as if at the end of his life he has realised that, despite calling himself the most

virtuous and most chaste, his excessive piety has come to naught.

Phaedra can be seen as praiseworthy for her honour and concern for her reputation. She goes so far

that she does not eat for three days, as she conceals the lust that she feels for her stepson. We are

obviously meant to both sympathise and admire her resolve to die when to salvage her reputation

when Hippolytus learns of her lust. We pity her as a virtuous woman who has been put in an

impossible situation as the battle between her intelligence and her passion rages. She says How can

I now die with my honour unblemished! showing her care for her reputation and advises the nurse

to mind her own affairs, while she tends hers honourably.

However, once again her excessive concern for her honour is what causes the troubles of the

Hippolytus. Timein the Greek world was not an internal process but an externally imposed

accreditation, vested in how other people regarded you, not how one regarded themselves.

Therefore, Phaedra is wracked by the knowledge that she is doing an honourable deed by starving

herself because of her unnatural lust, but she is desperate for recognition of that knowledge.


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Therefore, when her resolves weakens, speaking of the meadows she longs for, obliquely meaning

her longing for Hippolytus in her maddened state, her composure slips as her desire for recognition

for her honourable behaviour grows. It is for this reason she tells the Nurse of her love for her

stepson and which leads to her telling Hippolytus.

Furthermore, once again it is the excessive concern with her honour which leads to Hippolytus

death. By leaving the letter on her body accusing her stepson of rape, should he choose to tell her

husband and his father Theseus about her lust as Hippolytus threatened to do, the letter might have

proved a defence of her honour, his word against hers. By besmirching Hippolytus reputation, she

hopes to preserve hers. However, ironically it is her extreme concern for her honour which in fact

leads to her disgrace in death; Artemis revelation at the end leaves no doubt as to Hippolytus

innocence and Phaedras deceit. In attempting to preserve her reputation, Phaedra has made the

lasting memory of it ruined by the revelation of her lust as well as the sullying of her good name as a

liar. Once again we can see how what makes Phaedra so admirable is also how she can be blamed

for the disastrous events of the play.

The Nurses approach is one motivated by logos and reason above all. She has no aim except a

practical purpose, to keep her beloved mistress Phaedra alive, an understandable and even

praiseworthy goal. However, she is unable to fathom the depths of Phaedras commitment to her

honour and as such she does not heed Phaedraspleas not to tell Hippolytus of her love. This

betrayal thereby breaks an oath sworn upon the gods, showing in turn a lack of piety, and directly

results in Phaedras death the very opposite of what the Nurse had intended. She also

misunderstood Hippolytus total commitment to Artemis and his chastity by thinking that she would

be able to persuade him away from his virginity. Therefore in the Nursesfailure to comprehend the

powers of honour and of piety in both Phaedra and Hippolytus respectively, and her own virtue of

practicality actually drives forward the disaster.

Theseus is an interesting character as he shows hints of the other virtues we have already discussed;

practicality, honour and piety. Nevertheless, his understanding of them is so lacking that he

ultimately misinterprets each of them. He believes that he has a logical grasp of the situation in the

palace; his wife is dead, she has a letter accusing her stepson of rape (it should also be noted that

this is a son with whom the text makes clear he has little in common), and that son is also refusing to

defend himself by giving him the real reasons for Phaedras death. While he believes he

comprehends the situation, it is obvious to the audience that he is mistaken, meaning he wrongfully

condemns his son to exile and so to death.

The honour of Theseus house and bedchamber is at stake which is why he reacts so angrily to his

discovery of what he believes to be his sons betrayal .Theseus also demonstrates his piety, when he

prays to his father Poseidon to strike down his son, a wish which is granted. However, once again we

see his poor grasp of the divine and his sceptical attitude. He disregards sacred oaths and augury, as

he says I dont care at all about what the birds of omen, that fly about over my head says, and he

apparently forgets the curse he called down on his son when first told of misfortune, thinking

disaster had befallen the two neighbouring cities, then thinking Hippolytus had been killed by

another defiled wifes husband, rather than his own destructive prayer. Theseus hastily calls upon

the powers of the gods of which he obviously has as little comprehension, as he does the depths of

his sons loyalty both to his father and to the gods.


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Gayatri Gogoi

Despite the apparent free choices made by the participants of the action, Aphrodites words at the

beginning outlining what was to happen gives us pause to think to what extent the incidents of theplay were part of a deterministic pattern or whether the free will of the characters indeed had some

bearing upon the course of events. While the characters appear to have free will to choose what to

say, or rather not say, the fact that Aphrodite predicts or even dictates what is to be might lead us to

think that the choices of humans are futile and worthless. In one sense it is correct that the actions

of humans are of little consequence, but it is only to the gods that they matter little; to other

humans they are weighty indeed. It is only when the honour of the gods is called into question that

divine beings are inspired to act in the mortal sphere, and such was Aphrodites motivation for the

ruin of Hippolytus. We might reconcile the problem of determinism versus free will in the play by

allowing for the idea of double motivation, whereby the thought of the human and the will of the

god are equal and the same in causing an action, as in the Iliad.

However, in the context of the play, we can modify this idea by showing that the double motivation

is through Aphrodites power to understand humans in a way that humans are not able to

understand themselves, and similarly understand the relationship of mortal and divine which is such

a problem for the mortal characters. Therefore, Aphrodite determines that Phaedra will reveal her

lust to her Nurse, setting off the chain of events in the play, because she understands the characters.

Obviously I do not mean understand in an empathetic sense but in such a way that Aphrodite is

able to manipulate their behaviour to her own ends based on her knowledge of their virtues and the

weaknesses that come from their excessive adherence to them. It would be easy to simply blame

Aphrodite for the destruction within the play, easy to blame her for the unjust death of Phaedra, the

more understandable but unreasonably harsh death of Hippolytus and the sufferings endured by the

other characters. However, this would be to deny the other characters any responsibility for their

actions, whose actions jointly cause the events of the play.

It seems then that in the play the virtue by which a character might be praised was the virtue which

led to their downfall and sorrow. This may seem like a bleak situation which Euripides has created,

nor could we blame him for it; the play is, after all, a tragedy. However, Hippolytus failure to control

his overzealous devotion to the gods does not end on a wholly irredeemable note. He says to his

father as he lies dying Just as Hippolytus forgives Theseus just as we are meant to forgive Hippolytus.

The ultimate lesson of Euripides play is as the Nurse advises Hippolytus All mortals make mistakes,

my son. It is in our nature. Is Hippolytus responsible for the tragedy in the play? Yes,he is

responsible, as is the nature of mortals, and as many others in the play are responsible. Can he be

praised? Yes, so long as we recognise at what point something praiseworthy and virtuous can turn

into something excessive and destructive. Can he be blamed? Yes too, but only if we refuse to

acknowledge the supremacy of the gods and the feebleness and foolishness of mortals. The blame

we associate with each character, especially Hippolytus is caused by that exact same virtue by which

we find them praiseworthy, a paradox and a sorrow. It is only in the moderation of our human selves

that Euripides shows us how we can resolve our troubles.

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Hippolytus Essay 1