Hippolytus: Lines 1728-2208 Summary & Analysis

Here, the chorus singers seem to suggest that they themselves enjoyed Hippolytus’ presence in the city, and they seem to suggest that they played light-hearted amorous games when they chased him (this would then be a case of “acceptable” female desire). They do not consider or recognize the possibility that Hippolytus has been arrogant.

Again, Greek tragedies rarely show characters dying onstage, and the playwright relies on a messenger to bring the vivid, climactic death of the main character back to Troizen and the audience. The situation highlights the importance of place – Hippolytus died far away, on the shore, while Phaidra died just behind the palace doors. In such a distant place, strange natural and supernatural events are more likely to occur. Note also how this scene captures the difference in power between the gods and mortals – Hippolytus is extremely skilled, but it doesn’t matter in the face of the might of the gods.

Theseus ascribes to a kind of circular logic, in which he interprets Poseidon carrying out Theseus’s curse as proving Hippolytus guilty, and he wants in fact to use Hippolytus’s death to prove Hippolytus’s guilt to Hippolytus! Note though how Theseus’s quick anger has now put him, too, into a shameful familial situation, in which he actively wanting his own son to die.

Since the appearance of Aphrodite at the beginning of the play, the audience may have been waiting for the appearance of Artemis. Finally Theseus learns the truth, even though it is too late. Theseus’ recognition that he killed his innocent son is a major climax of the play.

Artemis confirms to Theseus what Hippolytus had tried to tell him before: that even when the evidence seems utterly clear, one should resort to a fair trial with impartial, wise judges in order to determine the truth. Yet, at the same time, Artemis confirms that no such impartiality or fairness exists: the gods have absolute power over the world of men, and not even other gods can interfere with one god bent on vengeance. Since Aphrodite wanted to punish Hippolytus, there could be no other outcome. So Theseus both acted improperly, and had been set up by the Aphrodite to ensure he acted improperly so that Hippolytus would end up dead.

Once again a character – this time Hippolytus – blames past familial crimes for causing present damage. When Hippolytus hears Artemis speak, it is a moving religious experience for him, however close he is to death. His devotion to her has been genuine. In recognizing the degree to which Theseus’s errors were the product of Aphrodite’s manipulation, Hippolytus seems to recognize the double edge of fate: that it is both a product of an individual’s actions and out of that individual’s control.

Artemis shows that even though one god has the ability to carry out his or her will as if it were fate, the gods can still take revenge on one another—they just do so sequentially, one after the other, rather than directly against each other. In this case, Artemis establishes a custom (which, in fact, was practiced by young women in Athens during Euripides’s life, linking together the different places and times of the setting of the play and the city and time in which it was first performed) which redeems the reputation of Hippolytus that Aphrodite had ruined, and turns Theseus against Aphrodite. Hippolytus’s forgiveness of Theseus ensures that this tragic event does not end up as the sort of familial crime that reverberates down through history, affecting their descendants even as they blamed past events in their families as affecting them.