TFBT: Senecas Phaedra III

The Kosmos Society is going to have a reading of the Phaedra  Here are some of my random notes on the play by Seneca.

Observation;

• "835] At last I escaped the realm of eternal night, the dark world which in vast prison-house o’ershades the dead, and scarcely do my eyes endure the longed-for light. Now for the fourth time is Eleusis harvesting the bounty of Triptolemus, as many times has Libra made day equal unto night,"  So Theseus sat on the bench four years? 
• No gods on stage.  Is that a Roman thing?  Senecan thing?   No evidence or mention that Diana (Artemis) cared about Hippolytus.  
• One commentator suggests if Theseus has escaped Pluto, Hippolytus has gone to fill his place.
• “THESEUS: Who—say it!—has upended my  honor?”   Not, are you okay?  Not, who did this to you? But, who offended my honor.  Not a nice guy, but we know that from the way he treated Phaedra’s sister, Adriane

Beautiful;

• 1128 Seldom does the moist valley suffer the lightning’s blast; but Caucasus the huge, and the Phrygian grove of mother Cybele, quake beneath the bolt of high-thundering Jove. For in jealous fear Jove aims at that which neighbors on high heaven; but the low-roofed, common home ne’er feels his mighty blasts. Around thrones he thunders. 
• Grieving and tears and woe, and on my very threshold sad lamentation? – auspices that well befit a guest from hell.
• And something in its burdened womb this pregnant surge was bearing.  

Hearth vs. Altar

 No more justly did ever any hearth see blood spilled to the bow-holding goddess! Translated by Mark Damen (mark.damen@usu.edu)

 Never has blood been more justly spilled upon thy altar, O goddess of the bow. Translated by Miller, Frank Justus

Hated of Half-breeds

Probably the most despised “barbarian” in Greek mythology is Medea daughter of Aeëtes, king of Colchis.  Medea is also Phaedra’s first cousin.  But  Medea was more than a barbarian princess; she betrayed her father and country, diced up her little brother, convinced the daughters of Pelias to do the same to their father, sacrificed her children on Hera’s altar and tried to poison Phaedra’s husband.  So maybe the classical dislike of Medea had more to do with what she did rather than where she was raised. 

Medea and Phaedra’ mother were raised in Colchis.  The kingdom lies at the back end of the Black Sea up against the Caucasus Mountains.  Alexander Dumas¹ says that Mt. Elbruz of this range “is, says mythological tradition, the rock to which Prometheus was chained”.  This was the eastern edge of the universe in Ancient Greek thinking. 

To the North of this distant,  barbarian land lays the home of the barbarian women called the Amazons.  Hippolytus mother was an Amazon, as we are regularly reminded in the play.  Generally, when a Greek character prays to or swears by some obscure river god, it was the river back home on whose banks they were raised ²   Hence, it is notable that when Hippolytus calls upon a river god to witness Phaedra’s monstrous behavior he doesn’t call upon a local river god, but rather the Tanais of his mother’s homeland. 

I wonder if Seneca’s is hinting at Hippolytus’ mixed ancestry when Hippolytus discusses Phaedra’s mother Pasiphae and her brother the minotaur; “thy monster-bearing mother… did but pollute herself with her shameful lust, and yet her offspring by its two-shaped infamy displayed her crime, though long concealed, and by his fierce visage the hybrid child made clear his mother’s guilt.”  Is there a subtle comparison between the half-breed Hippolytus and the half-breed Minotaur?

Phaedra and then Theseus easily slander the half-breed Hippolytus, “Whence came this infection of infamy in our stock? Was that man nurtured by the land of Greece or by the Scythian Taurus and Colchian Phasis? The breed reverts to its progenitors and debased blood reproduces the primal stock.”

I can think of no “barbarian” other than Medea that is despised in Greek myth nor any prejudice against characters of mixed Greek/Barbarian blood.  Is this hatred of half-breeds a Roman thing? Asenecan thing?

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1.  Adventures in Caucasia, Alexander Dumas,
2. The most famous example being Achilles and the river-god Spercheus n (Iliad 23.141)

Seneca's Phaedra II

The Nurse isn't very good at seduction.  She should have tried accounts of other sets of lovers like Zeus did on Mt Ida with Hera.  Phaedra sucks at seduction too.  Sadly as Miss Manners points out, desperation does not make us more attractive.  Maybe it is just Seneca that sucks at seduction.

[580] “As some hard crag, on all sides unassailable, resists the waves, and flings far back the flood importunate,.”  We’ve heard the same metaphor for Achilles and Hector in the Iliad.

625] The overlord of the fast-holding realm and of the silent Styx has made no way to the upper world once quitted; and will he let the robber of his couch go back? Unless, perchance, even Pluto sits smiling upon love.”  Interesting description of Hades.

Hippolytus referring to his lustful step-mother, "O father, I envy thee; than thy Colchian step-dame (Medea) this is a curse, greater, greater far!” Just a thought here; "Curse" is a euphemism for Erinye.  Later he says, “(Thou art) a greater evil than thy monster-bearing mother (Pasiphae).”  No luck for Phaedra, she gets compared to her child-slaying cousin and monster-bearing mother.

 "Never has blood been more justly spilled upon thy altar, O goddess of the bow." Hippolytus compares killing Phaedra to Agamemnon sacrificing Iphigenia.  But Hippolytus was killing his father’s widow not for a good wind or in revenge for something, but just for making a pass at him.  No taboo is being broken. 

I was confused at first why Hippolytus would call upon these purifiers; “Tanaïs will cleanse me, what Maeotis, with its barbaric waves rushing into the Pontic sea?”    Tanais was a river-god of Skythia in north-eastern Europe,  the Maeotis is the Sea of Azov, and the Pontic Sea is of course the Black Sea.  Oh, dh!  He is calling on the waters of his mother’s homeland Amazonia for help!

Proverbs;

• ·      “Wanton weapons in his boyish hands” 

• ·      “Rich men, propped on empire, ever grasp at more than heaven allows? He who is too powerful seeks power beyond his power. “
• ·      “Love sways the monsters of the raging sea”
• ·      564] Why make the crime of few the blame of all?
• ·      “Loosen the reins!”  How often have the Kosmonauts and HeroesX students heard that coversation? 
• ·      “Sooner shall Tethys from her far western shore bring in bright dawn".   To translate -The sun will rise in the West!

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.”