The answer of Hippolytus, however, is well worth study. For the first 24 of his 52 lines he describes in general terms his own blameless character, and it is only at the 25th that he condescends to discuss the particular incident. “But you do not perhaps believe all this about my chastity,” he says (l. 1007); “but do tell me, then, what was the temptation in this particular instance? Was this woman’s body so especially beautiful? (1½ lines.) Or did I wish by my conduct to become your heir? (2½ lines.) Or to become king? (3 lines.) Surely you know my only interest is in athletics.” (5 lines.) Then, having finished the arguments which he is able to bring forward, he proceeds to swear, and so concludes. In other words, in a speech of 52 lines, the suggestion that he might have been in love with Phaedra, even in the most rudimentary sense of the words, is contemptuously dismissed in a line and a half, and no one seems to think that this part of the subject ought to have been treated at greater length. Now this one fact seems to me in itself almost a sufficient proof that “romantic” ideas, even as they were understood at the end of the fourth century, were utterly foreign to Euripides.[114]
To come to another play. There are probably few things in all literature so strange, not to say comic, to modern ideas, as the relations between Achilles and Iphigeneia in the Iphigeneia in Aulis.
Clytemnestra has been trapped into bringing her daughter to Aulis, on promise of marriage with Achilles, and when, in the scene which begins at l. 801, she discovers the truth, she appeals to him for protection. Achilles, “the nearest approach to a modern gentleman of all the Greek tragic characters,”[115] replies as follows (l. 919 seqq.):
“I am a person of the highest breeding, and therefore you may trust me to give you the correct answer under the circumstances. Your daughter, having been betrothed to me, shall not be killed; it would reflect discredit on me if she were, and that I cannot permit. No one shall so much as touch the hem of her garment. It is not, of course, for her sake that I undertake to do this, but because I consider that Agamemnon has treated me shamefully. He used my name to trap you into coming here without asking my consent; of course I should have allowed him to use it if he had asked me, for I always put patriotism before everything; but he did not ask me. I feel grossly insulted, and he will touch Iphigeneia at his peril.”
“Your sentiments, Achilles,” remarks the Chorus, “are worthy alike of you and of your divine descent.”
“How can I thank you enough,” replies Clytemnestra, “for all the trouble you have promised to take in this matter, which cannot interest you personally in the least?”
There is a moment’s pause; then she suggests timidly, “But would you like the girl to come to you herself?”
“God forbid!” exclaims Achilles with horror. “How can you suggest anything so improper?” Then after a little he adds, “You must first of all go and argue the case with Agamemnon.”
“Why that?” asks Clytemnestra. “There is no chance there.”