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Theatre, Ritual and Commemoration in Euripides' Hippolytus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2014
Extract
The ‘meaning’ of a complex literary work like the Hippolytus cannot be reductively condensed into an abstract paraphrase. Meaning exists as (inter alia) a dynamic relation among the various areas of personal and social life that the play brings together in analogies and contrasts. Thus, to take a central nucleus of meaning in this play, the cleavage between appearance and reality is replicated in the dramatic movement between interior and exterior, in the contrast between house and city, and therefore between male and female, and is made explicit in isolated, though programmatic, statements like that of Phaedra about ‘thought’ and ‘hand’ and that of Hippolytus about ‘tongue’ and ‘thought’ (317, 612).
The multiple configurations of these patterns of similarity and difference and their capacity to generate numerous specific realisations in the details of action and language invite and make possible many different descriptions. Because critics are always seeking their own formulations for these multiple relations and selecting their own corpus of details that embody them, no single interpretation is likely to be definitive. But one interpretation can be better than another if it is more accurate, discriminating and discerning in finding the sets of relations that are of particular interest to us as readers, if it describes those relations with greater precision and exhaustiveness, and if it includes a wider range of relevant textual details that are informed by the patterns under consideration.
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References
1. See Goldhill, Simon, ‘The Great Dionysia and Civic Ideology’, JHS 107 (1987), 58–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 60–65. The main sources, which Goldhill discusses, are schol. ad Aristoph., Acharn. 504 and Isocr., De Pace 82.
2. In this view of tragedy I am in fundamental agreement with approaches like that of J.-P.|Vernant|P.|Vidal-Naquet, Tragedy and Myth in Ancient Greece, tr. Janet Lloyd (Sussex 1981sGoogle Scholar; Engl, trans. of Mythe et tragédie en Grèce ancienne [Paris 1972]Google Scholar), esp. 6–27 (‘Tensions and Ambiguities in Greek Tragedy’) — cf. their second volume, Mythe et tragédie deux (Paris 1986), 106ff. and 177ffGoogle Scholar. — or like that of Goldhill (n.l above), who provides an excellent statement of the balance between normative and transgressive currents (see esp. 68–76).
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7. There is perhaps a similar effect in the repeated syllable pol- where Hippolytus’ citizen status is mentioned (12f.: Hippolytos … politōn 1462: polla … politais).
8. Barrett and others have raised doubts about the authenticity of 1462–66: see Barrett, W.S., Euripides, Hippolytus (Oxford 1964)Google Scholarad loc.; also G., and Lawall, S., Euripides, Hippolytus (Bristol 1986)Google Scholarad loc. But the manuscript tradition is quite strong, even to the point of resisting attempted interpolations from other plays: see Diggle’s apparatus in the 1984 OCT ad loc.
9. The term ‘citizen’ (politēs) is used only three times in the play, each time of Hippolytus and in a significant way (12, 1158, 1462; cf. also 1127).
10. On the motif of writing and female sexuality in Trachiniae see duBois, Page, Centaurs and Amazons (Ann Arbor 1982), 98fGoogle Scholar.; Segal, C., ‘Greek Tragedy: Truth, Writing, and the Representation of the Self in Segal (n.4 above), 93–95; Zeitlin (n.5 above), 75–77; Nancy Rabinowitz, ‘Female Speech and Female Sexuality: Euripides’ Hippolytus as Model’, Helios 13 (1987), 134fGoogle Scholar.
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12. Lines 293–96 are perhaps a piece of social realism on Euripides’ part, for the Hippocratic treatise, Diseases of Women, discusses the medical difficulty of treating women who ‘are ashamed to tell (their illness)’ because ‘it seems shameful to them’ (Diseases of Women 62, 8.126 Littré). See Pigeaud, Jackie, ‘Euripide et la connaissance de soi: Quelques réflexions sur Hippolyte 73 à 82 et 373 à 430’, LEC 44 (1976), 8f.Google Scholar; also his Les maladies de l’time (Paris 1981), 395fGoogle Scholar. See also Sissa, Giulia, Le corps virginal (Paris 1987), 74fGoogle Scholar., with the further references there cited.
13. For a recent discussion of the problems of staging, with review of recent scholarship, see Ley, Graham and Ewans, Michael, ‘The Orchestra as Acting Area in Greek Tragedy’, Ramus 14 (1985), 75–84Google Scholar, esp. 75–77, with the previous scholarship there cited. They plausibly suggest that during the dialogue between the Nurse and Hippolytus Phaedra is on stage, perhaps against the skene or hiding behind one of the statues of the goddesses, while Hippolytus moves to the centre of the orchestra to deliver his long tirade against women in 601ff. In 565–600, however, the Nurse and Hippolytus are still inside, whereas Phaedra is outside. Thus she strains her hearing and asks for silence in order to understand the ‘voice of those within’ (‘Let me learn the voice of those inside’, 567). Her commands, ‘quiet’, ‘wait’, underline the intense listening and expectation.
14. On the unusual nature of the staging see Taplin, Oliver, Greek Tragedy in Action (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1978), 70fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15. On this issue in the play see Fitzgerald, G. J., ‘Misconception, Hypocrisy and the Structure of Euripides’ Hippolytus’, Ramus 2 (1973), 20–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Luschnig, C.A.E., ‘The Value of Ignorance in the Hippolytus’, AJP 104 (1983), 115–23Google Scholar.
16. Epissutos, an Aeschylean word, occurs only here in the extant Euripides.
17. Note how language here becomes an active force endowed with the power of movement. We may compare 576, hoios kelados en domois pitnei, ‘[Hear] what a shouting falls in the house’; 577, pompima phatis dōmatōn, ‘report sent out of the house’; 588, dia pulas emolen emole soi boa, ‘The cry went, went through the gate’.
18. On speech and silence see Knox, B. M. W., ‘The Hippolytus of Euripides’, in his Word and Action: Essays on the Ancient Theatre (Baltimore 1979), 208ff.Google Scholar; Segal, C., ‘The Tragedy of the Hippolytus: The Waters of Ocean and the Untouched Meadow’ in Segal (n.4 above), 204; Fabio Turato, ‘Seduzioni della parola e dramma dei segni nell’ Ippolito di Euripide’, BIFG 3 (1976), 173–75Google Scholar; Paduano, Guido, ‘Ippolito: la rivelazione dell’ eras’, MD 13 (1984), 49ffGoogle Scholar.
19. In Greek tragedy anōmotos occurs only here and in Medea 737 (with weak ms. authority); it occurs only one other time in extant fifth century literature (Hdt. 2.118.12). It becomes more common as a legal term in fourth-century orators.
20. Hippolytus alludes to the possibility of breaking his oath, which of course he does not do, in 656f., 660, 1060–63. See Barrett (n.8 above) ad 612.
21. For a recent, apparently unselfconscious example see Eliade, Mircea, Autobiography, Volume I, 1907–37 (New York 1981), 4fGoogle Scholar.
22. The scene, of course, forms a part of the strong contrast with the interior of Phaedra’s house and the interior space where women suffer, brood and plot. On the contrasts see Parry, Hugh, ‘The Second Stasimon of Euripides’ Hippolytus (732–775)’, TAPA 97 (1966), 325fGoogle Scholar.
23. On the symbolism of the meadow and the dedication see Segal (n.18 above), 172f., with the references there cited; Turato, F., ‘L’Ippolito di Euripide tra realtà e fuga’, BIFG 1 (1974), 136–51Google Scholar, with ample bibliography; Glenn, Justin, ‘The Phantasies of Phaedra: A Psychoanalytic Reading’, CW 69 (1975/76), 432–45Google Scholar; Pigeaud (n.12 above), 3–7; Zeitlin, ‘Aphrodite’ (n.5 above), 66f., with further bibliography at 194f. n.34; Devereux, George, The Character of the Euripidean Hippolytus: An Ethno-psychoanalytical Study (Chico, CA, 1985), 46–48Google Scholar.
24. On some of the erotic aspects of this asymmetry see Zeitlin (n.5 above), 109.
25. Note too the contrast between symbolic or ‘mythical’ places (the meadow of Hippolytus or the distant place of the lament for Phaethon) and the ‘real’ place of the action in Athens or Troezen. See Parry (n.22 above) passim, esp. 319ff.; also Padel, Ruth, ‘Imagery of the Elsewhere: Two Choral Odes of Euripides’, CQ 24 (1974), 232–34Google Scholar; Turato (n.23 above) passim, esp. 138, 149–51.
26. For the notion of the play as monument see Pucci (n.3 above), esp. 184ff.
27. Cf. sigēsate — sigō in 565–68 with the repetition of ‘be silent’ in 603f., sigeson — ouk est’ … hopos sigesomai.
28. For the sexual division of space and the association of the interior realm with women see Vernant, J.-P., ‘Hestia-Hermès. Sur l’expression de l’espace et du mouvement chez les Grecs’ in Mythe et pensé’e chez les Grecs, 3rd ed. (Paris 1965), passim, esp. 131ffGoogle Scholar.; for its scenic representation see Zeitlin, Aphrodite’ (n.5 above), 71ff. and nn.25, 26.
29. Cf. the Nurse’s plea, after 612, ‘Child, what will you do? Will you destroy those close to you?’ (613) and Theseus’ cry about destruction when he ‘shows forth’ what the tablets have to say (oloon kakon, ‘woe destructive’, 883f.). For other aspects of this passage see Avery, Harry, ‘“My Tongue Has Sworn, But My Mind Is Unsworn”’, TAPA 99 (1968), 25ffGoogle Scholar.; Segal, C., ‘Shame and Purity in Euripides’ Hippolytus’, Hermes 98 (1970), 294Google Scholar; also Segal, ‘Writing’ (n.4 above), 100f.
30. On the motif of the ‘tongue out of doors’ and the inhibiting of female speech see Rabinowitz (n.10 above), 131.
31. On the tendency to equate women’s speech and women’s sexuality, the two female stomata, see Sissa (n.12 above), 66ff., 76ff., 190ff.
32. Cf. Pind. Nem. 5.26–33; cf. also Soph. Trach. 600–23, 660–62.
33. The irony of this reversal is enhanced by the entrance of Hippolytus, after the Nurse’s revelation, with his vehement shout to earth and ‘the unfoldings of the sun’ (601).
34. Reading dusexelikton in line 1237, with Barrett (n.8 above) and Diggle in the 1984 OCT. On this passage see Zeitlin, Aphrodite’ (n.5 above), 58. For the implications of the feminine entrapment of the noose that here reaches from Phaedra to Hippolytus see Loraux, Nicole, Facons tragiques de titer unefemme (Paris 1985), 50Google Scholar, who suggests that the silent speaking by the dead body inside the house is also a symbolic continuation of the seductive, deceptive discourse associated with female guile (dolos).
35. See Segal (n.18 above), 198.
36. On the reverberations of this oath in the play see Segal, C. ‘Curse and Oath in Euripides’ Hippolytus’, Ramus 1 (1972), 165–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37. Zeitlin, ‘Aphrodite’ (n.5 above) passim, esp. 66ff.
38. On the mythic remoteness of the setting here see Parry (n.22 above), 322.
39. On the social pressures to restrain lamentation see Margaret Alexiou, The Ritual Lamentation in Greek Tradition (Cambridge 1974) passim, esp. 4, 21f., 28.
40. We may recall the haunting scene of the Mountain Nymphs planting trees around the tomb of Eetion in Iliad 6.418–20. With the wordless grief of Phaethon’s sisters in Euripides contrast the inscribed monument in Ovid (Met. 2.326f.): corpora dant tumulo, signant quoque carmine saxum: I Hie situs est Phaethon, etc. (‘They place the body in a tomb and also mark the stone with a poem: “Here lies Phaethon …” ’).
41. On Artemis’ tears see Segal (n.18 above), 214; Taplin (n.14 above), 52; Zeitlin, ‘Aphrodite’ (n.5 above), 73 and 96.
42. In what sense Hippolytus might be defined as ‘great’ see Segal, C. ‘Hippolytus “The Great” ’, AC 39 (1970), 519–22Google Scholar, which, however, should be modified in terms of the ambiguities of the ending discussed below. For a strong positive view of the ending see Newton, Rick, ‘Hippolytus and the Dating of Oedipus Tyrannus’, GRBS 21 (1980), 21f.Google Scholar, in contrast to which one should read the salutary remarks of Rabinowitz, Nancy, ‘Aphrodite and the Audience: Engendering the Reader’, Arethusa 19 (1986), 171–85, esp. 172 and 182Google Scholar.
43. For the resonances of heroic commemoration in the language of 1465f., cf. Pindar, Ol. 7.10 and Pyth. 1.95f.
44. See Zeitlin, ‘Aphrodite’ (n.5 above), 78.
45. See Knox (n.18 above), 217f.; Kovaks, David, ‘Shame, Pleasure and Honor in Phaedra’s Great Speech’, AJP 101 (1980), 301f.Google Scholar; Rabinowitz (n.10 above), 131. On the centrality and complementarity of eukleia for both protagonists see Frischer, Bernard, ‘Concordia Discors and Characterisation in Euripides’ Hippolytus’, GRBS 11 (1970), 94–96Google Scholar. See also Loraux (n.34 above), 59.
46. See Segal, C., Language and Desire in Seneca’s Phaedra (Princeton 1986), 184–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar and 194–96.
47. See C. Segal, ‘Pentheus and Hippolytus on the Couch and on the Grid: Psychoanalytic and Structuralist Readings of Greek Tragedy’ in Segal (n.4 above), 277–82.
48. There is also an ironic echo of Aphrodite’s own description of herself as ‘not without name’ in the play’s first line — an attribute that she establishes by the grim way in which Hippolytus becomes ‘not without name’.
49. See Longo, Oddone, ‘Ippolito e Fedra fra parola e silenzio’, Atti delle giornate di studio su Fedra (Turin 1985), 95Google Scholar. Fitzgerald (n.15 above), 36, suggests that the terms of Hippolytus’ feme ‘ought properly to be taken as an insult’. See also Rabinowitz (n.10 above), 136.
50. On the tomb-marker as an essential part of the warrior’s kleos see Sinos, Dale, Achilles, Patroklos and the Meaning of Philos (Innsbruck 1980), 48ffGoogle Scholar.
51. Reading ōnomazen in 33 would imply that only Phaedra (and the goddess) would know the reason for the dedication, i.e. the love ‘for Hippolytus’. The public knows only that it is a temple for Aphrodite. Later, of course (cf. to loipon, 33), the full title becomes established, as part of the aetiological myth that the play itself is making ‘not unnamed’ (1429f.). For the text see Diggle’s apparatus in the 1984 OCT. The ms. reading is now supported, it would seem, also by a papyrus fragment. Diggle, however, replaces Murray’s ms. reading with Jortin’s conjecture, onomasousin (keeping hidrusthai). The fact that Phaedra is unambiguously the subject of the verb egkatheisato, ‘founded’, just before in line 31 (parallel both in sense and syntax to the verb ‘named’ in 33) also supports the ms. reading.
52. On other aspects of this passage see Luschnig, C. A.E., ‘Men and Gods in Euripides’ Hippolytus’, Ramus 9 (1980), 98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
53. The text is uncertain here, but I cannot regard Fitton’s emendation, ‘of Aphaea’, adopted by Diggle’s 1984 OCT here and also in 1123, as likely. With Barrett (n.8 above) I follow the reading of L and P.
54. See Segal (n.29 above), 296ff.; also Newton (n.42 above), 21.
55. On this point see Blomqvist, Jerker, ‘Human and Divine Action in Euripides’ Hippolytus’, Hermes 110 (1982), 411fGoogle Scholar.
56. See Diano, Carlo, ‘Le virtu cardinale nelT “Ippolito” di Euripide’ in Oddone Longo (ed.), Euripide: Letture critiche (Milan 1976), 93–109Google Scholar, esp. 103–5, who views the play as the tragedy of gennaiotes for both Hippolytus and Phaedra.
57. E.g. Med. 190–203; Tro. 118–21 and 609f.; Suppl. 73–82. On the paradoxes of the Homeric ‘joy in lamentation’ in relation to tragedy see Diano, Carlo, ‘La catarsi tragica’ in Sagezza e poetica degli antichi (Vicenza 1968), 244ffGoogle Scholar., esp. 257f.; also F’.icci, P., The Violence of Pity in Euripides’ Medea (Ithaca, N.Y., 1980), 25ffGoogle Scholar.
58. For the ironies involved in this rite see Segal (n.47 above), 281f.; Reckford, K. J., ‘Phaethon, Hippolytus and Aphrodite’, TAPA 103 (1972), 414–16Google Scholar. For a more positive view see Dimock, George, ‘Euripides’ Hippolytus, or Virtue Rewarded’, YCS 25 (1977), 254fGoogle Scholar., who stresses the compensatory nature of the ritual, especially in contrast to the self-curse of 1028–31. For the rite as evidence of a continuing harshness in Hippolytus that has to be appeased by fearful future brides, see Devereux (n.23 above), 136f.
59. On this aspect of the marriage ritual see Vernant (n. 28 above), 130.
60. I find grotesque Diano’s suggestion of an allegorical identification of Hippolytus with the condemned and then reinstated Pericles: Diano (n.56 above), 108. More plausible, though still far from certain, are connections with the death of Pericles’ sons in the plague: see Turato (n.23 above), 151ff., with the references there cited.
61. Phaedra’s emotional and moral struggles are further kept in the background by the way in which the goddess even here shifts the agency from the human to the divine plane, from Phaedra to Aphrodite (cf. 1400, 1406).
62. The existence of this secondary chorus has sometimes been doubted (see Barrett ad 1102–50); but the alternation of masculine and feminine forms in U02ff. is otherwise hard to explain. See Diggle’s critical apparatus ad 61 and 1102.
63. These companions would also perhaps be implied in the philoi of whom Hippolytus speaks in 997f. and 1018.
64. For recent discussion see Easterling, P. E., Sophocles, Trachiniae (Cambridge 1982)Google Scholarad lot: and Kraus, Walter, ‘Bemerkungen zum Text und Sinn in den “Trachinierinnen” ’, WS 99 (1986), 103Google Scholar with n.27.
65. In Philoctetes Neoptolemus’ presence at the end is dwarfed by Heracles’: cf. Segal, C., Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretation of Sophocles (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 348–57Google Scholar.
66. See Segal (n.65 above), 399–404.
67. On the shift to the more humane mood at the end see Knox (n.18 above), 228f. For a more negative view see Rabinowitz (n.42 above), 172.
68. For geographical extent as an expression of the universal power of Aphrodite and Eros see 1–6, 447–58, 1268–82.
69. See Brown, Peter, The Lives of the Saints (Chicago 1981), 6Google Scholar, who remarks apropos of the ‘chasm’ opened between mortal and goddess by ‘the touch of death’ in Hipp. 1437f., ‘We need only compare this with the verse of the Psalms that is frequently applied by Latin writers to the role of the martyrs, “Oculi Domini super iustos, et aures eius ad preces eorum” [33:16] to measure the distance between the two worlds.’
70. On such an identification of ‘universal’ with ‘male’ see Rabinowitz (n.42 above), 171ff.
71. Compare the old Laertes’ joy in seeing ‘son and grandson striving for valour’, Odyssey 24.514f. Contrast Phaethon in 737–42, who is definitively separated from his father and united, only in the mourning ritual, with his sisters.
72. Rabinowitz (n.10 above), 136; see also Rabinowitz (n.42 above), 181–83.
73. Both Seneca and Racine develop even more fully the forgiveness of the father and the emotional strength of father-son ties, over against the wickedness of Phaedra, even though they raise her level of ethical awareness by having her repent and confess the truth before her suicide.
74. Research for this essay was facilitated by a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1985–86 and by the Stanley J. Seeger Fund and Hellenic Studies Committee of Princeton University.