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”.
