The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Phaedra herself later makes this false accusation, echoing the deceit. One day as Hippolytus was driving his chariot by the seashore, Poseidon sent a sea monster to frighten Hippolytus's horses. © 2019 Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. Encyclopedia.com. The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Encyclopedia.com. Earlier, Ariadne had helped him kill the Minotaur and escape from Crete. STYLE Letters from a Stoic. These figures inhabited…, Venus While Euripides’ version has Theseus view the maimed body of his dying son, Seneca’s depicts the king trying to piece together the But the values reflected in the course of the play may be likened to those of fifth century bce Greece, when its playwrights began to dramatize the legend. [2] As a result, Hippolytus' horses were frightened by a sea monster and dragged their rider to his death. It is telling that the Greeks of Egypt found these marriages shocking and incestuous, despite their infrequency and their legality. Artemis later told Theseus the truth. ." ." There are many versions of the story of Phaedra… Ovid. In the fifth act, a messenger arrives at Theseus’ palace to reveal that Hippolytus is dead. art and literature, mixing Greek and Roman aesthetics, a practice that during Seneca’s lifetime was on the rise. prove that the Roman poet Horace declared “Graecia capta ferum uictorem cepit (Captured Greece captured her savage conqueror)” (Horace in Jones and Sidwell, p. 22; italics added). The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Aeneas had raped her. At first he considers stabbing Phaedra, then flings away his sword as defiled by her touch and flees to the woods while Phaedra swoons again. Sometime after the first Punic War (264-241 bce), Rome decided it ought to increase its intellectual achievements. The state dropped all legal action against those who were accused of wrongdoing once they had committed suicide. Though married to Theseus, Phaedra fell in love with Hippolytus, Theseus's son born by either Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, or Antiope, her sister. HISTORICAL CONTEXT A. J. Boyle. 16 Oct. 2020 . GR FR Melina Mercouri, Anthony Perkins, Raf Vallone, Elizabeth Ercy; Cameos: Jules Dassin; D: Jules Dassin; W: Jules Dassin, Margarita Liberaki; M: Mikis Theodorakis. "Phaedra With the help of Ariadne, Minos’ eldest daughter, he finds his way into the maze in which the Minotaur is hidden and kills it Theseus quickly flees Crete, taking Ariadne with him, but he abandons her on the isle of Naxos for reasons that vary from version to version. Virile and handsome, Hippolytus scorns women and love, devoting himself instead to the worship of the virgin goddess Diana (Rome’s equivalent of the Greek goddess Artemis). Probably Seneca was familiar with all three, which today survive only in fragments or, in the case of one of Euripides’ versions, not at all. In Seneca’s play, Phaedra reveals that her own marriage to Theseus is a political arrangement, intended to quell hostilities between Athens and her native island of Crete. She dies, either in battle or by Theseus’ own hands, after which Theseus marries Ariadne’s younger sister, Phaedra, in Seneca’s portrayal, Theseus is a mostly unsympathetic character; the play depicts him as a faithless, often cruel husband. San Francisco, Calif.: Chandler, 1972. Finally, after being lowered into a very hot bath, Seneca suffocated to death from the steam. For many years, critics have compared Seneca’s tragedies unfavorably with the Greek dramatists he imitated. Rejected, Phaedra killed herself and left a note saying that Hippolytus had raped her. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. From 550 bce onwards, people burred their dead either in stone coffins decorated with sculpture (sarcophagi) or in pit graves. The sixth act begins as Phaedra enters, frantic with grief. ELIZABETH KNOWLES "Phaedra In Greek mythology, Phaedra was the daughter of King Minos and Queen Pasiphae of Crete and the younger sister of Ariadne.Phaedra married Theseus, king of Athens and slayer of the beast known as the Minotaur. . Seneca’s play reflects these circumstances when Theseus orders that Hippolytus be cremated and Phaedra ignominiously buried in the earth. But the poison appeared to have no great effect—nor did placing his lacerated body into a container of slightly heated water. Authors of the era usually employed a colorful style, full of passionate speeches and dazzling rhetorical displays that constituted ends in themselves. ." Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). Hippolytus, the bastard son of King Theseus of Athens and Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons, leads a perfectly chaste life. Centuries later, Seneca presented an innocent Hippolytus and his own complex, morally ambiguous Phaedra. During Seneca’s lifetime the act of suicide was in vogue among the upper classes. Loose and updated adaptation of Euripides' “Hipploytus.” Mercouri, the second wife of a rich Greek shipping magnate, is dispatched to London to convince her husband's adult son (Perkins) to come home to Greece. . The legends fall into two main categories: 1) a jealous stepmother abuses or plots to kill her stepchildren, usually to make her own son the heir; and 2) the stepmother plots against her stepson because he has rejected her amorous advances. by the seashore, Poseidon sent a sea monster to frighten Hippolytus's Upon reviving, Phaedra tries to con-fess her love but Hippolytus repeatedly misunderstands her, believing she is pining for Theseus. "Phaedra oozed out, Seneca dictated a lengthy discourse to his secretaries and then drank poison. "Phaedra ." Seneca’s plays are often considered in the con-text of the Hellenization of Roman culture (its fusion with Greek ways). The time in which Seneca’s Phaedra takes place is un-specified. Horrified, he rejects her. Instead, the legends feature (and condemn) the stepmother as the root of amorous desire, perhaps because the ancient Greeks and Romans considered women more subject to sexual passion than men. (October 16, 2020). [2] As a result, Hippolytus's horses were frightened by a sea monster and dragged their rider to his death. The nurse enters and tells the king that Phaedra means to commit suicide because of some unknown shame. (October 16, 2020). ." Scholars con-tend that the legend originated at Troezen, a town in the northeast Peloponnese by the Saronic Gulf. Burial did not become customary until late in the second century e.g. Heroines. Retrieved October 16, 2020 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/phaedra. A devastated Theseus laments his part in the family tragedy, then gives orders for the disposal of the dead. In France, Seneca’s influence is evident in Jean Racine’s Phèdre (1677), the play often held to be the French playwright’s masterpiece. Gathering his friends around him, Seneca ex-pounded on Nero’s murderous cruelty before killing himself in a death scene that must have been agonizing to watch. In Seneca’s era, for example, people saw the self-inflicted death of Cato the Younger (95 bce-46 bce) as the pinnacle of moral acts—a “lesson learned by every school boy” (Hill, p. 179). . Hill, Timothy. No record survives of how these performances were received. Rejected, Phaedra killed herself and left a note saying that Hippolytus Phaedra married Theseus, king of Athens and slayer of the beast known as the Minotaur. Hippolytus rejected her. https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/phaedra, MICHAEL KENNEDY and JOYCE BOURNE "Phaedra Once a ." Hornblower, Simon, and Antony Spawforth, eds. Phaedra's name derives from the Greek word φαιδρός (phaidros), which meant "bright". Bereft of wife and son, and distressed by his own part in the tragedy, Theseus is overcome with remorse at having destroyed his son. fragments of his son’s mangled corpse: “His strong right hand goes here / Here put his left hand which controlled the reins / With skill; I recognize signs of his left side. Burial in stone-lined pits covered with wood or stone was customary in the eleventh century bce, followed by cremations, with the ashes stored in urns, from 1000-750 bce, Next came burial in earth-cut pit graves from 750-700 bce and cremations within the graves themselves from 700-550 bce. As the dark red liquid Retrieved October 16, 2020 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/phaedra.