[112] This seems to have been still more the case in the first version of the play, where Hippolytus appears actually as a βουκόλος, or ascetic worshipper of Artemis, and where he is promised immortality as the reward of his constancy. See Reitzenstein, Epig. u. Skol. p. 210 seqq. and [Excursus D].
oἱ σώφρονες yὰp οὐχ ἑκόντες, ἀλλ’ ὅμως
κακῶν ἐρῶσι.
(Hipp. 358.)
[114] One may argue, of course, that Hippolytus, as a devotee of Orpheus, etc., would be naturally more prone to ignore the “love-element” than a person of more human passions, and that this strange disproportion in his speech is a mark of his character. Personally I doubt this, as, firstly, the characters of the Athenian drama, when making their set speeches, generally quite forget who they are—indeed, the wonder is they don’t sometimes slip into an ἄνδρες δικασταί—and, secondly, if Hippolytus had been meant to slur over an important part of his subject, his reasons for so doing would have been more definitely explained. The conclusion seems to me inevitable, that neither Hippolytus nor Theseus thought the possibility of the former’s having been in love with Phaedra worthy of serious discussion.
[115] Mahaffy, Class. Gr. Lit. vol. i. p. 370.
[116] It is true that, later on, the magnificent heroism of Iphigeneia extorts from Achilles what is perhaps one of the earliest declarations of love from a man to a woman that we know:
Ἀγαμέμνονος παῖ, μακάριόν μέ τις θεῶν
ἔμελλε θήσειν, εἰ τύχοιμι σῶν γάμων·