spoken when Polymestor first appeared before the tent of Hekabe after the latter had put out his eyes. The chorus, Agamemnon, and Hekabe are then present, and with alternating parts fill out the rest of the play (vs. 1109 ff.).
Fig. 13.
§ 5. Hippolytos.
In the Phaidra of Sophokles and the first Hippolytos of Euripides it was Phaidra herself who acknowledged to Hippolytos her love for him. The votary of Artemis, at once enraged at this effrontery, cast her aside. She then defamed the youth to Theseus, who, believing her statement, prayed to Poseidon to destroy his son. The god accordingly sent a sea-monster to frighten the horses of Hippolytos, and the latter was soon dragged to his death. On receiving the news of this, Phaidra hung herself[[183]]. Sophokles’ play does not appear to have ever made any impression upon the world and must have been soon forgotten, and Euripides’ tragedy met with great disapproval. Such a Phaidra was more than the Greeks would tolerate. The poet grasped the situation and wrote another Hippolytos, which set him right with his public. It was no longer Phaidra in and of herself who became the instrument of the youth’s death; Aphrodite, angered at Hippolytos’ serving Artemis instead of herself, starts the gentle flame within Phaidra’s bosom and visits her with a love-sickness that drives the unfortunate woman into a confession of her illness to her attendant. On the latter’s placing the matter before Hippolytos, all to no avail, Phaidra takes her own life, not forgetting, however, to leave behind a letter containing delicate charges against her step-son. Theseus returns, finds his wife a corpse, and reads the letter. The curse and death of his son follow, as in the earlier Hippolytos. This ruin was brought on him not so much by Phaidra as by Aphrodite.
The tragedy was counted among the best of Euripides’, and has always retained its popularity. The subject was dramatized again in Greek[[184]], and there is extant the Latin version of Seneca[[185]]. The theme was one which was sure to appeal to modern authors, and among the French alone one hears of no less than seven tragedies on the love of Phaidra, written between the years 1573 and 1786. Four of these, the most famous of which is Racine’s Phèdre, belong to the seventeenth century. They are, however, more directly indebted to Seneca and Ovid[[186]] than to Euripides. Mention should be made also of the two operas by Pellegrin, 1733, and Lemoine, 1786. But after all has been said on versions of the story either in classical or modern times, one turns to the masterpiece of Euripides as the great work. According to the author of the Hypothesis, the play is among the best of this poet and was given the first prize. In reflecting that Hippolytos has stood forth since March, 428 B.C., as the beau idéal of innocent, unsullied, young manhood, one is inclined to credit the judges with possessing good sense.
There was hardly a more attractive legend than this which the artists might have been tempted to make their own, yet one discovers a surprising dearth of Greek monuments that can be referred to the myth. From these I select two vase paintings that appear to be based upon Euripides.
Fig. 14 (vid. p. [102] ff.).
Fig. 14 represents a painting on a krater in the British Museum[[187]]. The upper section alone concerns us here, and this shows the interior of a gynaikonitis with kline. On the left is a group of two females. One sits on a stool to the right, wears chiton and veil, diadem, bracelets, and necklace, and leans forward, with head dropped to one side, clasping her right knee thrown over the other. Her left foot rests on a foot-stool. Behind her a white-haired servant in the usual costume holds her right hand to her chin, and with troubled air gestures with the left hand as she speaks to her mistress. A large Eros with immense wings flies down towards the latter with a taenia in his hands. There are, further, two other groups of two each. The one before the kline is two females again. An attendant, distinguished by her hood, who holds a fan in her right hand, talks and gestures earnestly before the other, who wears the simple Doric peplos, ungirdled, and stands with her back to the kline in a disturbed and troubled sort of mood. The remaining group of two, a pedagogue in the customary dress and a female figure similar to the one on the extreme left, is also concerned over some important matter which the pedagogue is telling. Certain articles hang on the wall.