The Male Characters of Euripides by
Professor E M Blaiklock
Murray, for all his free translation, catches the spirit admirably:
'He shall not stand so proud where I have lain, Bent in the dust! Oh, he shall stoop to share
The life I live in, and learn mercy there!'
E. R. Dodds comments with striking acuteness on these verses.(22. 22) C.R. XXXIX, p. 103.
23 The theme of Miss L. E. Matthaei's essay on the play in her Studies in Greek Tragedy quoted above.
" And complete distrust of Hippolytus' word, 'because of his one tremendous lapse (Matthaei, sup, cit. p. 97.)
“His (Hippolytus') ruin is due not to a mistaken punctiliousness—he tells us himself that even if he broke his oath it would not help him (v. 1062)-but to the indirect gratification of a repressed impulse under the guise of virtue.
To those readers who see in the Hippolytus an idealisation of sexual purity, the pitiless brutality of the hero's tirade to the nurse comes as a rude shock; but Euripides is never content to show us half a soul, and the unmeasured hatred felt by the ascetic against the manifestation in others of that passion which lives suppressed in himself, is in every age a familiar spectacle.
The last link in the chain of disaster is not Hippolytus' self-control, but his lack of it. Zwopoveiv ualńoera, cries Phaedra; and vv. 1034, 5 (Translation needed here please - which should not be tampered with) show that the prediction is fulfilled.' Thus, as we have remarked above, Hippolytus' moral fault is linked decisively with the consummation of the tragedy.
It is owpoon which the unfortunates of this drama lack.?
In excess of self-righteousness Hippolytus drives Phaedra to suicide. In wild excess of fear she dies. Caught by the spirit of that evil day, the maddening breath of Aphrodite's will through the stricken house, Theseus appears, reads the note on the dead woman's wrist, and in excess of wrath and haste, and in the face of the Chorus’ most urgent warnings, calls down Poseid’s promised curse upon his son. And in the midst of the wild scene, with Phaedra's body lying there, Hippolytus appears, anxious, filial, but with a strange unconsciousness of the ruin his last words have wrought:
а, ті хрна; отр бмар бр, ттєр, VEKpÓV. (Translation needed here please)
(22) C.R. XXXIX, p. 103.
23 The theme of Miss L. E. Matthaei's essay on the play in her Studies in Greek Tragedy quoted above.
" And complete distrust of Hippolytus' word, 'because of his one tremendous lapse (Matthaei, sup, cit. p. 97.)
Continued from p 48:
48
THE MALE CHARACTERS OF EURIPIDES
Ha, what is this? Father thy wife I see
Dead! matter this for marvel passing great.
But now I left her, who upon this light
Looked, it is not yet a long season since.
What hath befallen her? How perished she?
Father, I fain would learn it from thy mouth.
Silent? In trouble silence naught avails.
The heart that yearns to know all cares of thine Fain shall be found to prove thy troubles too.
(Hipp. 905-913. Way)
Theseus is clearly taken aback. He might have expected, indeed the audience might have expected, but on different grounds, some mark of agitation. It is as though a storm of the mind had passed, and left the sufferer forgetful of its stress. It is Euripides' intention to reveal Hippolytus in the completeness of his self-righteousness. Therein lay his lack of mercy, a faling which goes with the feeling of another’s infirmities’ , our point developed with deep insight by (The Writer) of the epistle to the Hebrews. (25 Hebrews 4: 15, 16, ou yap exoper apprepea un ourdperor oupralnoal
отута xpis auaptias. просєрхинєва оби мета таруоа та
Pov TiS XapITOS iva LáßWuEY ENEOS, Kai XpIV EUpOUEV EiS. Translation is needed here please. )
It takes the crude word of direct accusation (Il. 944, 5) to shake this mood, which might well have appeared to Theseus as tódun (interaction please) and Opáoos (l. 937).
Hippolytus, in horror, says Way, 'covers his face. (26 Murray agrees, 'Hippolytus with a cry falls back and covers his face with his robe.' Are we to suppose he keeps this attitude or looks his father in the face during Theseus' long speech? The mask, of course, must not be forgotten.)
He is rather to be pictured staring, unbelieving, aghast, at the fatal two lines (Il. 886, 7) on Phaedra's tablet. He is struck dumb and still cannot find speech when, at 1. 960, as Way suggests, Theseus thrusts the tablet into his hands. He has looked at it haggard with horror, for twelve lines, let him take it, handle it.
Those lines are used by the tragedian to reveal what the discerning of the audience already know_Hippolytus is the devotee of a mystic cult which makes much of abstinence and virtue. Hence the greater vileness of the sin. It is the way of Hebrews 4: 15, 16, ou yap exoper apprepea un ourdperor oupralnoal
отута xpis auaptias. просєрхинєва оби мета таруоа та
Pov TiS XapITOS iva LáßWuEY ENEOS, Kai XpIV EUpOUEV EiS - translation please.
Murray agrees, 'Hippolytus with a cry falls back and covers his face with his robe.' Are we to suppose he keeps this attitude or looks his father in the face during Theseus' long speech? The mask, of course, must not be forgotten.