Phaedra (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Phaedra (; ) was a Cretan princess. Her name derives from the Greek word (), which means "bright". According to legend, she was the daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë, and the wife of Theseus. Later in life, Phaedra fell in love with her stepson, Hippolytus. After he rejected her advances, she accused him of trying to rape her. In response, Theseus prayed to Poseidon and asked the god to kill Hippolytus, which he did. Phaedra then committed suicide.

The story of Phaedra is told in Euripides's play Hippolytus, Seneca the Younger's Phaedra, and Ovid's Heroides. It has inspired many modern works of art and literature, including a play by Jean Racine.

Family

Phaedra was a daughter of King Minos and Queen Pasiphaë of Crete, who had a total of eight children together. This included three daughters: Acacallis, Ariadne, and Xenodice, and four sons: Androgeus, Deucalion, Glaucus and Catreus. Additionally, the Minotaur would have been her maternal half-brother and she had several paternal half-siblings. Before Theseus married Phaedra, he had a son, Hippolytus, with the queen of the Amazons, either Hippolyta or Antiope.

Mythology

Marriage to Theseus

Theseus married Phaedra some time after he aided Heracles in stealing the belt of Hippolyta, killed the Minotaur, and returned to Athens with her. During the journey to steal the belt from the Amazons, Theseus carried off Hippolyta (or Antiope) and she bore him a son, Hippolytus. Alternately, Hippolyta fell in love with Theseus and left with him voluntarily. When Theseus and Phaedra were celebrating their marriage at a feast, a group of the Amazons led by Hippolyta attacked the hall where the reception was being held. During the ensuing fight, Theseus killed Hippolyta. However, works such as Phaedra, written by Roman statesman and philosopher Seneca the Younger, Heroides, a collection of poems written by Ovid, and Hippolytus, a play by Euripides, give details of the story. As a result, there are many different versions of the story of Phaedra and Hippolytus, but they all share the same general structure, with two distinct versions becoming more prominent over time: one where Phaedra acts alone on her desires, and one where she is cursed by Aphrodite to fall in love with her stepson.

Phaedra alone acts upon her illicit desires

thumb|Hippolytus after the confession of Phaedra by [[Étienne-Barthélémy Garnier; Musée Ingres, Montauban]]

In the more traditional version of the story, Phaedra is the primary cause of misfortune in the tale. In the story, Phaedra falls in love with her stepson Hippolytus and decides that she will try to entice him into a sexual relationship. However, Hippolytus refused because he was a follower of Artemis, and had sworn to preserve his virginity. Phaedra was humiliated when he refused her advances. However, she was aware of the consequences she would suffer if Theseus learned about her actions. She lied to her husband and claimed that Hippolytus attempted to rape her. Theseus was angered by Hippolytus's supposed actions and cursed his son with one of the three wishes granted to him by Poseidon. Poseidon granted this wish. While Hippolytus was riding in his chariot along the seashore, Poseidon sent up a monster or sea-bull

Phaedra is cursed by Aphrodite

thumb|[[Hippolytus of Athens|Hippolytus, Phaedra and nurse, antique fresco in Herculaneum]]

In this version of the story popularized by Euripides, Phaedra has a reputation as a virtuous queen and is not entirely responsible for her actions. She gets caught in the crossfire between Hippolytus and Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Hippolytus is a devout follower of Artemis, a virgin goddess. He hails her as the greatest of all deities and in a show of devotion to honor the goddess, Hippolytus vows eternal chastity, swearing that he will never love or marry. He additionally refuses to worship Aphrodite. This offends the goddess, and to punish Hippolytus, she curses Phaedra to fall madly in love with him. Theseus was abroad at the time.

Phaedra becomes depressed for several months due to her longing for Hippolytus, lying in her bed and refusing to eat. Eventually, unable to tolerate the burden of her suffering in silence, she confides in her nurse and shares her feelings towards Hippolytus. The nurse concerned about her mistress's health tells Hippolytus about how Phaedra feels. Bound by his oath of abstinence, Hippolytus rejects his stepmother. When Phaedra learns of her nurse's actions, she fears the consequences of her immoral desires and plans to commit suicide. But before doing so, she writes a letter to her husband Theseus accusing Hippolytus of seducing and assaulting her in an attempt to clear her name and possibly protect her children from misfortune.

thumb|The Death of Hippolytus (1860) by [[Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema]]

Similar to the more common version of the story, once Theseus reads Phaedra's letter and learns of his son's supposed sins, he prays to Poseidon to kill his son. Poseidon summons a huge bull to scare Hippolytus's horses into a wild frenzy. The horses drag Hippolytus to his death. Artemis is saddened by the loss of her devout follower and tells Theseus about the curse Aphrodite placed on his wife. The story ends with Theseus grieving the deaths of his wife and son.

After death

The Athenians maintained a shrine on the south slope of the Acropolis devoted to Aphrodite "for Hippolytus". He intertwines her story with this species of tree, claiming that she would hide behind a myrtle while watching him practice. He writes that the Troezenians had a myrtle with all of its leaves pierced with holes, which they claimed were pierced by a pin in Phaedra's hair while she was watching.

Cultural influence

thumb|Death of Phaedra; 2nd century sarcophagus, [[Santa Maria delle Vigne, Genoa]]Phaedra has been the subject of many notable works of art, literature, music and film.

In art

Figure 8 Phaedra, wall painting, early first century CE, Pompeii, now Antiquarium di Pompeii, Pompeii, inv. no. 20620,
Second century Roman Sarcophagus of Beatrice of Lorraine in the Camposanto in Pisa. This was the model for Nicola Pisano's work on the Pisa Baptistery in the mid-thirteenth century.
Alexandre Cabanel's Phaedra (1880)

In literature

Phaedra's story appears in many acclaimed works of literature, including:

Euripides, Hippolytus, Greek play
Ovid, Heroides IV, Epistolary poetry
Seneca the Younger, Phaedra, Latin play
Jean Racine, Phèdre (1677), French play
Algernon Charles Swinburne, Phaedra (1866), English lyrical drama
Herman Bang, Fædra (1883), Danish novel.
Thomas Sturge Moore, Aphrodite against Artemis (1901), English play
Willa Cather, The Marriage of Phaedra (1905), American short story
Gabriele D'Annunzio, Fedra (1909), Italian play
Miguel de Unamuno, Fedra (1911), Spanish play
Eugene O'Neill, Desire Under the Elms (1924), American play
Marina Tsvetaeva, Fedra (1928), Russian play
Mary Renault, The Bull from the Sea (1962), English novel
Sarah Kane, Phaedra's Love (1996), English play

In music

Phaedra is also the subject of a number of musical works, including:

Hippolyte et Aricie, opera (tragédie en musique) by Jean-Philippe Rameau, 1733
Phèdre, opera by Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, 1786
Fedra, opera by Giovanni Paisiello, 1788
Fedra, opera by Simon Mayr, 1820
Phèdre, overture by Jules Massenet,1873 also appearing as a protagonist in his 1907 opera Ariane
Fedra, opera by Ildebrando Pizzetti, 1915, based on D'Annunzio's 1909 play
Some Velvet Morning Song by Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra 1967
Phaedra, LP recorded by Tangerine Dream, 1974
Phaedra (cantata) by Benjamin Britten, 1975
Phaedra, opera by Hans Werner Henze, 2007
Tragedy, avant-pop album by Julia Holter, 2011

Notes

References

Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Phaedra"
Virgil, Aeneid VI.445; Ovid, Metamorphoses XV.497

External links

The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Phaedra)