TFBT: Seneca's Phaedra

This month’s Book Club at the Kosmos Society features a tragedy by Seneca: Phaedra, It is a treatment of the same myth with which many members will already be familiar, Euripides Hippolytus, so it might be interesting to make comparisons.

 I like this Hippolytus better; a leader of men rather than a man-child tip-toeing across an “ untrodden meadow”  (if you will pardon the euphemism.)  Speaking of euphemisms; "with soft hand to hurl stiff javelins "  Hmm.   I will have to look at other translations, currently I am reading Frank Justus Miller.

 "Will he give up his hate for thee, when ‘tis for hate of thee, perchance, he repels all women?”  I hadn’t considered this motivation

“Venus(Aphrodite), detesting the offspring of the hated Sun (Helios), is avenging through us the chains that bound her to her loved Mars (Ares), and loads the whole race of Phoebus (Helios) with shame unspeakable. No daughter of Minos’ house hath found love’s bondage light; ever ‘tis linked with guilt. “ First, Seneca wrote at the time when the Roman sun-god Sol, the Greek god Apollo and the Titan Helios were all being synthesized into on deity; Apollo.  But Aphrodite’s’ hatred of Helios’ family runs deeper than just Minos’ house.  Their cousin, daughter of Aeetes, son of Helios didn’t do much better in the love department or Helios' sister; "Eos, whom Aphrodite tormented with constant passion as punishment for sleeping with Ares, fell in love with Orion and took him off with her to Delos." (Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 27)   Aaron Asthma at Theoi.com adds that “Aphrodite placed a curse upon the goddess Eos causing her to fall in love with a train of mortals--Orion, Tithonos, Cephalus and Cleitus.”  Helios and Eos’ sister Selene seems to suffer the same curse "Rising from the distant east, the Lady Selene (Moon), Titan- goddess, saw the girl [Medea the witch] wandering distraught [for love of Jason], and in wicked glee said to herself: ‘So I am not the only one to go astray for love, I that burn for beautiful Endymion and seek him in the Latmian Cave…” Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4. 55 ff    Their Aunt Circe didn’t seem to have a guy in her life either until Ithacan mortals boated by.  I find all this interesting because the Hyperionides; Helios, Selene and Eos were the sole surviving Titanic family that might be a threat to the sovereignty of the Cronides; children of Cronus.  Those sons of the Iapetus were either in Tartarus or assigned to the edges of the universe.  Crius and his sons Asterius, Pallas and Perses seem to disappear after the Titanomachy.  That just leaves the sons of Oceanus, who are unlikely to give up their river beds and flow up to Olympus in revolt. In other words, the sole family of gods who children might threaten the divine order are cursed with an obsession for mortals.  What a coincidence!

129] “O wife of Theseus, illustrious child of Jove". Wasn’t Theseus the son of Poseidon (Neptune)?

 274] “Thou goddess, born of the cruel sea, who art called mother of both Loves,” In case you are wondering the two “erotes” in question are Eros and Himeros, Love and Desire.

 Some interesting proverbs;

• Nice euphemism for Theseus being trapped in the underworld, "Through the deep shades of the pool which none recrosses is he faring"
• “Freedom near at hand makes the aged brave.”  Freedom from the burdens of life; slavery in her case.  I like this version of the nurse better
• The mighty god (Eros), lords it o’er all my soul. This winged god rules ruthlessly throughout the earth and inflames Jove himself, wounded with unquenched fires.
• 222] “Trust not in Death”   Wow!  More fully, “Trust not in Dis. Though he bar his realm, and though the Stygian dog keep guard o’er the grim doors, Theseus alone finds out forbidden ways.”
• “The wish for healing has ever been the half of health.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

TFBT: Bremer's Meadow

Maya M, asked me if the use of the phrase “untrodden meadow” as a euphemism for virginity, predated Euripides.  Most articles in Google and JSTOR reference only Euripides’ Hippolytus.  JM Bremer takes a different approach on the topic in “The Meadow of Love and Two Passages in Euripides’ Hippolytus” 

Bremer begins the paper with two-fold purpose, one of which is to show that “the description of the meadow may have definite erotic implications."  Bremer goes on to reference Zeus and Hera’s love-making in a meadow atop Mt. Ida while the battle raged below them on the plains of Troy.  He references Hesiod description of Aphrodite coming ashore and creating a meadow made for loving making with her mere footstep.  (Aphrodite) “came forth an awful and lovely goddess, and grass grew up about her beneath her shapely feet.” Hesiod Theogony 194-195. Other quotes from the text are; “the lovely scenario (landscape with meadow) is the setting in which (Sappho) celebrates the mysteries of Aphrodite.”  and “the softness of the meadow is almost formulaic in epic” followed by many examples.   Bremer’s point is that the twenty thousand friendly faces watching the first performance of Hippolytus would have been expecting loving making in the meadow and would have been shocked at the main character’s hubris, disregard of the awful and lovely Aphrodite and his arrogance in relation to his fellow men.  Bremer also points out that when Phaedra fantasizes, she dreams of among other things, being in a meadow.  

Every tragedian hopes the audience eternal finds something new and exciting in his play.  I assume from Bremer’s argument that what was new, shocking and innovative about Euripides play was Hippolytus blatant disregard for convention; hence Euripides became the first reference for an “untrodden meadow”.   

VftSW: Euripides’ Hippolytus and 20.CB22.1x

I am still participating in “The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours” starring Gregory Nagy and a chorus of enthusiastic teaching assistants.  It in a free on-line class from Harvardx.  This “Hour” we studied Hippolytus by the Ancient Greek playwright Euripides. 

If you don’t know the story; Hippolytus is out about in the suburbs of Ancient Athens.  Either he is participating in a major public event or else exercising naked on a remote beach, in either case his stepmother gets an eyeful and falls madly in love.  Hippolytus has two problems with her obsessive affection; 

1) Well, it is his step-mother! 

2) Hippolytus is madly in love with the virginal invisible goddess Artemis.   

Hippolytus picks flowers for Artemis and weaves them into a headband for the goddess.  Explaining that the blossoms are from “a place where it is not fit for the shepherd to pasture his flocks, nor has iron yet come there, but it is unspoiled” (Euripides Hippolytus 75) The above is an euphemism for an “untrod meadow”.  In other words Hippolytus is a virgin.  This is a problem among the Ancient Greeks, particularly when Hippolytus forsakes his dutiful worship at the altars of mighty Aphrodite, the goddess of love and sex.   

Professor Nagy writes in Chapter 20.41 of the textbook “  So, what is the trouble with Hippolytus? The answer is, Hippolytus himself simply cannot make the transition from the phase of virginity into the phase of heterosexuality.” Then at “20§42. “facilitated in the ritual of initiation, leading to social equilibrium, this same transition is blocked in myth (that is the myth of Hippolytus that we studied), leading to personal disequilibrium for the hero and, ultimately, to catastrophe. ”  In other words, like Peter Pan, Hippolytus doesn’t want to grow up. 

At line  87 the young hero says “That is the same way I should go round the turning post, heading toward the end of life just as I began it.“ He came into this world a virgin and he wants to rather unnaturally to go out that way.  The problem is the “turning post”.   

As I discussed elsewhere, in the next to last book of the Iliad Nestor gives a very long speak his son Antilokhos on  how to win a chariot race.  If involves how to turnabout the the turning point.  Two thousand and five hundred  years of scholarship termed that Nestor’s speech had nothing to do with chariot racing.  Neither do Hippolytus’ words.  

Hippolytus loves to drive his chariot along the beach practicing his skills as a chariot driver.  The turning post is what chariots turnabout during a race or contest.  And let’s be honest any time you go anywhere in life, once you go “there” and come back you aren’t the same person.  For Hippolytus, his figurative “turning post” would be the move into adulthood and marriage.   

Nagy says of Hippolytus’ virginity and relationship with the huntress goddess Artemis at 20.58 “Only Aphrodite allows female and male experiences to merge, but that merger can happen only in the adult world of heterosexuality, not in the pre-adult world represented by Hippolytus.” 

One of our lecturers for the hour is Douglas Frame.  He says of this Euripides comments on this turning post.  “he’s just not explicit about it. There's something called an absent signifier here, which means that the audience isn't being told everything.   But the absent signifier is something that you can supply if you just think it through”.  As to Hippolytus chariot racing metaphor, Douglas Frames says, “this metaphor at this point, about reaching the end of his life, turning. It's going to be a crash. He doesn't know that yet.”  

So his step-mother commits suicide and leaves an accusatory note.  Hippolytus whips the horses in hopes of getting away.  But his father believing the suicide note curses his son, the horses are freaked by a bull running up out of a wave, Hippolytus is tangled in the reins and dragged to death.  Bummer, eh?  But after all this is a tragedy. 

Now for the good news.  Artemis asks her nephew Asclepius to resurrect Hippolytus from the dead.  Artemis transplants the now immortal Hippolytus to Italy and gives him the name Virbius to disguise this little trick they played on the fates.  As to Artemis’ nephew: Nagy at 20.30 explains “As the story goes, Zeus incinerated Asclepius with his divine thunderbolt.”