177. The Phaedra of Seneca is interesting as being modelled on the lost Hippolytus Veiled of Euripides. Phaedra herself declares her passion to Hippolytus, with her own lips reveals to Theseus the pretended outrage to her honour, and slays herself only on hearing of the death of Hippolytus. Cp. Leo, Sen. Trag. i. 173. The Phoenissae presents a curious problem. It is far shorter than any of the other plays and has no chorus. It falls into two parts with little connexion. I. (a) 1-319. Oedipus and Antigone are on their way to Cithaeron. Oedipus meditates suicide and is dissuaded by Antigone. (b) 320-62. An embassy from Thebes arrives begging Oedipus to return and stop the threatened war between his sons. He refuses, and declares the intention of hiding near the field of battle and listening joyfully to the conflict between his unnatural sons. II. The remaining portion, on the other hand, seems to imply that Oedipus is still in Thebes (553, 623), and represents a scene between Jocasta and her sons. It lacks a conclusion. These two different scenes can hardly have belonged to one and the same play. They may be fragments of two separate plays, an Oedipus Coloneus and a Phoenissae, or may equally well be two isolated scenes written for declamation without ever having been intended for embodiment in two completed dramas. Cp. Ribbeck, Gesch. Röm. Dichtung, iii. 70.
178. Sen. Trag. i. 161.
179. Leo, op. cit., i. 166 sqq.
180. 530-658. The Oedipus is based on the O. Rex of Sophocles, but is much compressed, and the beautiful proportions of the Greek are lost. In Seneca out of a total of 1,060 lines 330 are occupied by the lyric measures of the chorus, 230 by descriptions of omens and necromancy.
181. It is also to be noted that the nurse does not make use of this device till after Hippolytus has left the stage, although to be really effective her words should have been uttered while Hippolytus held Phaedra by the hair. The explanation is, I think, that the play was written for recitation, not for acting. Had the play been acted, the nurse's call for help and her accusation of Hippolytus could have been brought in while Hippolytus was struggling with Phaedra. But being written for recitation by a single person there was not room for the speech at the really critical moment, and therefore it was inserted afterwards—too late. See p. 73.
182. Similarly, Medea, being a sorceress, must be represented engaged in the practice of her art. Hence lurid descriptions of serpents, dark invocations, &c. (670-842).
183. Seneca never knows when to stop. Undue length characterizes declamations and lyrics alike.
184. As a whole the Troades fails, although, the play being necessarily episodic, the deficiencies of plot are less remarkable. But compared with the exquisite Troades of Euripides it is at once exaggerated and insipid.
185. Cp. Apul. Met. x. 3, where a step-mother in similar circumstances defends her passion with the words, 'illius (sc. patris) enim recognoscens imaginem in tua facie merito te diligo.'
186. This speech is closely imitated by Racine in his Phèdre.