(Hel. 830.)
A “romantic” writer might have thought that the prayers of Menelaus himself would have been more effectual with a lady.[111]
The most important of the extant plays of Euripides is, for the student of the development of the romantic tendency, undoubtedly the Hippolytus. But, in thinking of this play, the reader must first of all guard against a very common and, for a modern, very natural mistake. He must remember that the interest of the piece is intended to centre, not on Phaedra, but on Hippolytus. The main interest of the plot is the struggle between asceticism and self-gratification, as personified in the maiden Artemis and the sensual Aphrodite.[112] Phaedra is only made to fall in love with Hippolytus in order that he may reject her advances, and thereby irritate her into working his ruin. As has already been pointed out, she is dragged into a quarrel which does not concern her, for a purpose which does not interest her personally in the least.[113]
Bearing this in mind, the reader will be able to understand that combination of passionate desire and cold-blooded reasoning which marks the utterances of Phaedra. She has come to the conclusion, she says at last (l. 391 seqq.), that love is an irresistible disease; and since her position as a married woman makes impossible the only means of cure with which she is acquainted, she decides that, for the sake of her husband and children, she had better die. She will never dishonour her children, for, next to money, there is nothing so valuable as a good name.
To this the Nurse replies (l. 433 seqq.) that of course love is irresistible, and there is only one way to cure it; but she points out that this way may perfectly well be adopted. The fact that Phaedra is married need not be any obstacle, for husbands are used to seeing more than they say.
“ἀλλ’, ὦ φίλη παῖ, λῆγε μὲν κακῶν φρενῶν,
λῆξον δ’ ὑβρίζουσ’: οὐ γὰρ ἄλλο πλὴν ὕβρις
τάδ’ ἐστὶ, κρείσσω δαιμόνων εἶναι θέλειν,
τόλμα δ’ ἐρῶσα· θεὸς ἐβονλήθη τάδε.”