The Nexus Archive
Greek Tragedy · Play
Hippolytus
by Euripides · The Unsettler of the Stage · Classical Athens, c. 480-406 BCE
Aphrodite's vengeance turns chastity, shame, silence, and accusation into the destruction of Phaedra and Hippolytus.
- Advanced
- ~1 hr read
- 2 chapter guides
- Public domain
Start reading · Read the Dramatis Personæ guide free
Before the text
Editor's Prelude
A God Sets the Trap
Aphrodite tells the audience the disaster before the human characters can understand it. Hippolytus has honored Artemis while scorning sexual love, and the offended goddess will make Phaedra's desire the instrument of revenge.
Knowledge is distributed cruelly. Theseus is both king and father; Phaedra is his wife, and Hippolytus his son by another woman. The household must judge what it hears through competing loyalties, fear of dishonor, and incomplete knowledge.
Purity hardens into contempt, and shame into fatal secrecy. The gods frame the action, but the tragedy advances through human judgments about which truths can be spoken, believed, or survived.
The opening pages
Dramatis Personæ
HIPPOLYTUS
OF EURIPIDES
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
THE GODDESS APHRODITE
THESEUS, King of Athens and Trozên
PHAEDRA, daughter of Minos, King of Crete, wife to Theseus
HIPPOLYTUS, bastard son of Theseus and the Amazon Hippolyte
THE NURSE OF PHAEDRA
A HENCHMAN OF HIPPOLYTUS
THE GODDESS ARTEMIS
AN OLD HUNTSMAN
A CHORUS OF HUNTSMEN
ATTENDANTS ON THE THREE ROYAL PERSONS
A CHORUS OF TROZENIAN WOMEN, WITH THEIR LEADER
The scene is laid in Trozên. The play was first acted when Epameinon was Archon, Olympiad 87, year 4 (B.C. 429). Euripides was first, Iophon second, Ion third.
The Play — Part 1
APHRODITE
Great among men, and not unnamed am I,
The Cyprian, in God's inmost halls on high.
And wheresoe'er from Pontus to the far
Red West men dwell, and see the glad day-star,
And worship Me, the pious heart I bless,
And wreck that life that lives in stubbornness.
For that there is, even in a great God's mind,
That hungereth for the praise of human kind.
So runs my word; and soon the very deed
Shall follow. For this Prince of Theseus' seed,
Hippolytus, child of that dead Amazon,
And reared by saintly Pittheus in his own
Strait ways, hath dared, alone of all Trozên,
To hold me least of spirits and most mean,
And spurns my spell and seeks no woman's kiss,
But great Apollo's sister, Artemis,
He holds of all most high, gives love and praise,
And through the wild dark woods for ever strays,
He and the Maid together, with swift hounds
To slay all angry beasts from out these bounds,
To more than mortal friendship consecrate!
I grudge it not. No grudge know I, nor hate;
Yet, seeing he hath offended, I this day
Shall smite Hippolytus. Long since my way
Was opened, nor needs now much labour more.
For once from Pittheus' castle to the shore
Of Athens came Hippolytus over-seas
Seeking the vision of the Mysteries.
And Phaedra there, his father's Queen high-born;
Saw him, and as she saw, her heart was torn
With great love, by the working of my will.
And for his sake, long since, on Pallas' hill,
Deep in the rock, that Love no more might roam,
She built a shrine, and named it Love-at-home:
And the rock held it, but its face alway
Seeks Trozên o'er the seas. Then came the day
When Theseus, for the blood of kinsmen shed,
Spake doom of exile on himself, and fled,
Chapter guides · 2
Dramatis Personæ
The Cast at Trozên
The cast list names Theseus, his wife Phaedra, and his son Hippolytus beside Aphrodite, Artemis, attendants, and two choruses.
The royal family
Theseus is king of Athens and Trozên. Phaedra is his wife and the daughter of Minos, king of Crete. Hippolytus is Theseus's illegitimate son by the Amazon Hippolyte.
The wider cast
The goddesses Aphrodite and Artemis share the roster with Phaedra's nurse, Hippolytus's henchman, an old huntsman, attendants on the three royal figures, and choruses of huntsmen and Trozenian women. The scene note places the play in Trozên.
The Play — Part 1
Aphrodite's Plan and Phaedra's Disclosure
Aphrodite declares that she will punish Hippolytus through Phaedra. Phaedra reveals her desire only after the nurse presses her, and the nurse then takes that secret to Hippolytus despite Phaedra's fear.
Questions readers ask
- How long does it take to read Hippolytus?
- About 1 hr in total.
- How difficult is Hippolytus?
- Advanced. A mid-length play; about an hour of reading.
- Which translation is this?
- The Gilbert Murray translation from the Ancient Greek. The text follows Nine Greek Dramas, Harvard Classics, Volume VIII (1909).
- Can I read Hippolytus for free?
- Hippolytus is part of Nexus Premium, so reading it needs an account and a Premium subscription. The opening above and one chapter guide on this page are free to read.
- How many chapter guides are there?
- 2 chapter guides, written by the Nexus editors. One opens in full here; the rest show their opening line.
About Euripides
Euripides was one of classical Athens' great tragedians, younger than Aeschylus and Sophocles. His surviving plays often bring outsiders, women, captives, and wounded households to the center of the stage, giving ancient myth a severe psychological pressure.
“What happens when a person who has been used and discarded still has power?”
Euripides gives Nexus tragedy with an unstable charge: argument, humiliation, intelligence, and pain moving toward consequences no audience can comfortably admire.
Source text: public domain. Chapter guides: original Nexus writing. Hippolytus is part of The Nexus Archive, guided Quests through the great works.