Hippolytus by Euripides- 428 B. C. E. - translated by Rachel Kitzinger- 2016- included in Sixteen Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides-Preface, general introduction, play introductions, and compilation copyright © 2016 by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm

 Hippolytus by Euripides- 428 B. C. E. - translated by Rachel Kitzinger- 2016- included in Sixteen Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides-Preface, general introduction, play introductions, and compilation copyright © 2016 by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm 

An Ancient Reads Project Work

Euripides:died 7 406 BC (aged approximately 74); Macedonia

Born: c. 480 BC; Salamis

CAST OF CHARACTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE) APHRODITE, goddess of sexual love; also known as Cypris HIPPOLYTUS, son of Theseus, the king of Athens, by an Amazon queen HIPPOLYTUS’ FELLOW HUNTERS, a group of slaves from his household OLD SLAVE, an attendant to Hippolytus 

CHORUS of young married women of Troezen 

NURSE, Phaedra’s personal attendant

 PHAEDRA, wife of Theseus; daughter of King Minos and Queen Pasiphae of Crete

 THESEUS, king of Athens

MESSENGER, an attendant of Hippolytus ARTEMIS, virgin goddess of the hunt, of wild things, and of childbirth

Wikipedia has a good summary of the plot and background of the play.

My reading and thinking is now shaped by my intense sorrow over the passing of my beloved wife last year. Tomorrow will be our 17th wedding anniversary.

"THESEUS: I long for the darkness below the earth, I long to die, to dwell in wretched darkness there, now I’ve lost your precious company." 

I felt a deep empathy with the words of Theseus concerning the death of his wife.

The attitude toward the competing Goddesses, APHRODITE and Artemis is that harm to humans is just "collateral damage".

By the time Seneca wrote a play based on this, entitled Phaedra, around 500 years later in 58 A.D., many in his elite audience no longer had a literal belief in these Gods but saw the story as a use of these figures to explain very destructive and irrational human behavior.

I have on my reading list Phèdre by Racine first preformed in 1677 in Paris.

The anthology pictured in this post is an excellent starting point in Greek Drama.

Mel Ulm