Gayatri Gogoi

Does praise, blame, or a careful balance of both predominate in Euripides portrayal of

Hippolytus?
The tragic course of events in Euripides Hippolytus has often been discussed with regards to its
cause. An obvious answer is the eponymous character in the play, who on account of his staunch
devotion to his chastity and to the goddess Artemis might bear responsibility for not just his own
tragic fate but that too of his wretched stepmother Phaedra. However, to what extent can we blame
Hippolytus for the appalling events of the play? Could it be that we are in fact meant to praise
Hippolytus character? I believe that these questions can only be answered by examining not only
the titular individual, but the others whose actions contribute to the plot of the play; Phaedra, her
Nurse, Theseus and of course the goddesses, Artemis and Aphrodite. Despite the plays title,
Euripides devotes similar lengths of dialogue to these mortal characters and as such it would be
remiss of us not to take this into consideration when dealing out responsibility for the calamities of
the play.
I will argue that all these characters, including Hippolytus, but with the exception of Theseus have a
particular virtue to which they apply themselves attentively, the excess of which leads to their
downfalls, in combination with their inability to understand the respective virtues of the others. For
Phaedra this is her commitment to honour, for her Nurse logos, reason and practicality in respect of
keeping her mistress in mind, Hippolytus his excessive piety. In Theseus on the other hand we see
the acknowledgement he has to all of these virtues but his ruin is caused by his inability to fully
understand them. With regards to Aphrodite, her concern, like Phaedra, is her honour, but she
highlights the difference between honour among mortals and immortals.
Hippolytus before he even appears on stage is characterised by his devotion to Artemis in
Aphrodites prologue. In some ways we might find this piety and dedication to the gods admirable:
he is determined in his vow of chastity, lovingly devoted to Artemis, and faithful to his oath of
silence. He is even complimented for his piety by his beloved goddess as he lies dying.
But while in some ways we might praise Hippolytus for his piety, in others we can see how it leads to
the downfall of Phaedra and himself, which is rooted the excess to which he allows himself to follow
his belief. Indeed, Artemis remarks it was the nobility of your mind that has brought this
destruction upon you. From the outset, we can see how Hippolytus overzealous application of his
piety and chastity have led to him arrogantly spurning Aphrodite, who affirms that those of them
who treat me with disrespect, them, I crush and destroy and then engineers the events of the play.
The fundamental problem with Hippolytus attitude towards the gods is that he cannot reconcile his
own belief in virginity with the need for mortals to worship all the gods. By worshiping Artemis to
the exclusion of Aphrodite, we can see how his fanatical zeal has unbalanced his regard for the
divine, which leads to the hatred of the goddess. His unbalanced view of the gods reflects his
unbalanced view of the social structure of the Greek world, in which eroticism and sex were part of
life; by denying himself sex, Hippolytus is not only shunning the goddess, but not fulfilling his social
duty to provide offspring as the prince of Troezen and the social duty of a man in a Greek state.
In addition, his disgust he feels at the thought of a sexual relationship with his stepmother, both
because of his chastity and his horror at the thought of betraying his father, leads him to make an
angry and misogynistic rant about Phaedra and women in general. Before this point, Phaedra had
not given any indication about the letter of false allegations of rape she left on her body, but
Gayatri Gogoi
Winnington-Ingram conjectures that this in part may have led Phaedra in her anger at his rejection
to want to cause Hippolytus the same suffering she had experienced loving him and being spurned
by him. Just as she was not allowed to die without her sinful lust becoming known to her stepson, so
she causes it so that his reputation is tainted with the accusation of rape until Artemis explanation
of events. In this hateful rant, Hippolytus reveals an almost childlike understanding of women and
one which is completely out of touch with the true value and function of women in society in their
roles as wives, mothers, and housekeepers in the domestic sphere, as counterparts to men in the
public sphere. He displays his ignorance of the importance of women as he says a foolish wife is
better; on the other hand, it is Phaedras intelligence and prudent awareness of societal propriety
which keeps her from revealing her feelings for so long.
Furthermore, it is true as Knox remarks that when he admonishes the Nurse as he takes an oath of
silence that it is my piety which has saved you, woman, he may as well be saying it is my piety
which condemns me. His devotion to keeping solemn the oaths of the gods lead to his exile and
eventual death, by refusing to speak the truth about Phaedras lust. As his father Theseus says, All
this piety of yours is unbearable. In any case, his vow to keep silent came to naught, for Artemis
revealed the truth to his father nonetheless. Therefore, we can see how his overzealous attitude
towards Artemis leads in part to his ruin.
Moreover, we must note how his fanatical attitude towards the gods interplays with inability to see
the value of other types of virtue. For example, he cannot see the value of honour, in that his
devotion to Artemis means he is unable to see how his disregarding Aphrodite and her honour he
has brought his troubles upon himself.
Therefore, despite his apparent piety, Hippolytus ruin is engineered against him precisely because
of misunderstanding of what piety actually is; he does not understand that the gods operate on the
basis of their honour. Even then, although he has fully devoted himself to Artemis, but the best she
can give him is revenge against Aphrodites next favourite, perpetuating the cycle of divine
vengeance, rather than help him against the hostile goddess. Therefore, when he achieves his
greatest wish of meeting Artemis face to face, he reveals a more bitter attitude towards the gods,
beginning to say If only mortals could curse the gods, importantly not just mentioning Aphrodite
in particular. It is as if at the end of his life he has realised that, despite calling himself the most
virtuous and most chaste, his excessive piety has come to naught.
Phaedra can be seen as praiseworthy for her honour and concern for her reputation. She goes so far
that she does not eat for three days, as she conceals the lust that she feels for her stepson. We are
obviously meant to both sympathise and admire her resolve to die when to salvage her reputation
when Hippolytus learns of her lust. We pity her as a virtuous woman who has been put in an
impossible situation as the battle between her intelligence and her passion rages. She says How can
I now die with my honour unblemished! showing her care for her reputation and advises the nurse
to mind her own affairs, while she tends hers honourably.
However, once again her excessive concern for her honour is what causes the troubles of the
Hippolytus. Time in the Greek world was not an internal process but an externally imposed
accreditation, vested in how other people regarded you, not how one regarded themselves.
Therefore, Phaedra is wracked by the knowledge that she is doing an honourable deed by starving
herself because of her unnatural lust, but she is desperate for recognition of that knowledge.
Gayatri Gogoi
Therefore, when her resolves weakens, speaking of the meadows she longs for, obliquely meaning
her longing for Hippolytus in her maddened state, her composure slips as her desire for recognition
for her honourable behaviour grows. It is for this reason she tells the Nurse of her love for her
stepson and which leads to her telling Hippolytus.
Furthermore, once again it is the excessive concern with her honour which leads to Hippolytus
death. By leaving the letter on her body accusing her stepson of rape, should he choose to tell her
husband and his father Theseus about her lust as Hippolytus threatened to do, the letter might have
proved a defence of her honour, his word against hers. By besmirching Hippolytus reputation, she
hopes to preserve hers. However, ironically it is her extreme concern for her honour which in fact
leads to her disgrace in death; Artemis revelation at the end leaves no doubt as to Hippolytus
innocence and Phaedras deceit. In attempting to preserve her reputation, Phaedra has made the
lasting memory of it ruined by the revelation of her lust as well as the sullying of her good name as a
liar. Once again we can see how what makes Phaedra so admirable is also how she can be blamed
for the disastrous events of the play.
The Nurses approach is one motivated by logos and reason above all. She has no aim except a
practical purpose, to keep her beloved mistress Phaedra alive, an understandable and even
praiseworthy goal. However, she is unable to fathom the depths of Phaedras commitment to her
honour and as such she does not heed Phaedras pleas not to tell Hippolytus of her love. This
betrayal thereby breaks an oath sworn upon the gods, showing in turn a lack of piety, and directly
results in Phaedras death the very opposite of what the Nurse had intended. She also
misunderstood Hippolytus total commitment to Artemis and his chastity by thinking that she would
be able to persuade him away from his virginity. Therefore in the Nurses failure to comprehend the
powers of honour and of piety in both Phaedra and Hippolytus respectively, and her own virtue of
practicality actually drives forward the disaster.
Theseus is an interesting character as he shows hints of the other virtues we have already discussed;
practicality, honour and piety. Nevertheless, his understanding of them is so lacking that he
ultimately misinterprets each of them. He believes that he has a logical grasp of the situation in the
palace; his wife is dead, she has a letter accusing her stepson of rape (it should also be noted that
this is a son with whom the text makes clear he has little in common), and that son is also refusing to
defend himself by giving him the real reasons for Phaedras death. While he believes he
comprehends the situation, it is obvious to the audience that he is mistaken, meaning he wrongfully
condemns his son to exile and so to death.
The honour of Theseus house and bedchamber is at stake which is why he reacts so angrily to his
discovery of what he believes to be his sons betrayal .Theseus also demonstrates his piety, when he
prays to his father Poseidon to strike down his son, a wish which is granted. However, once again we
see his poor grasp of the divine and his sceptical attitude. He disregards sacred oaths and augury, as
he says I dont care at all about what the birds of omen, that fly about over my head says, and he
apparently forgets the curse he called down on his son when first told of misfortune, thinking
disaster had befallen the two neighbouring cities, then thinking Hippolytus had been killed by
another defiled wifes husband, rather than his own destructive prayer. Theseus hastily calls upon
the powers of the gods of which he obviously has as little comprehension, as he does the depths of
his sons loyalty both to his father and to the gods.
Gayatri Gogoi


Despite the apparent free choices made by the participants of the action, Aphrodites words at the
beginning outlining what was to happen gives us pause to think to what extent the incidents of the
play were part of a deterministic pattern or whether the free will of the characters indeed had some
bearing upon the course of events. While the characters appear to have free will to choose what to
say, or rather not say, the fact that Aphrodite predicts or even dictates what is to be might lead us to
think that the choices of humans are futile and worthless. In one sense it is correct that the actions
of humans are of little consequence, but it is only to the gods that they matter little; to other
humans they are weighty indeed. It is only when the honour of the gods is called into question that
divine beings are inspired to act in the mortal sphere, and such was Aphrodites motivation for the
ruin of Hippolytus. We might reconcile the problem of determinism versus free will in the play by
allowing for the idea of double motivation, whereby the thought of the human and the will of the
god are equal and the same in causing an action, as in the Iliad.
However, in the context of the play, we can modify this idea by showing that the double motivation
is through Aphrodites power to understand humans in a way that humans are not able to
understand themselves, and similarly understand the relationship of mortal and divine which is such
a problem for the mortal characters. Therefore, Aphrodite determines that Phaedra will reveal her
lust to her Nurse, setting off the chain of events in the play, because she understands the characters.
Obviously I do not mean understand in an empathetic sense but in such a way that Aphrodite is
able to manipulate their behaviour to her own ends based on her knowledge of their virtues and the
weaknesses that come from their excessive adherence to them. It would be easy to simply blame
Aphrodite for the destruction within the play, easy to blame her for the unjust death of Phaedra, the
more understandable but unreasonably harsh death of Hippolytus and the sufferings endured by the
other characters. However, this would be to deny the other characters any responsibility for their
actions, whose actions jointly cause the events of the play.
It seems then that in the play the virtue by which a character might be praised was the virtue which
led to their downfall and sorrow. This may seem like a bleak situation which Euripides has created,
nor could we blame him for it; the play is, after all, a tragedy. However, Hippolytus failure to control
his overzealous devotion to the gods does not end on a wholly irredeemable note. He says to his
father as he lies dying Just as Hippolytus forgives Theseus just as we are meant to forgive Hippolytus.
The ultimate lesson of Euripides play is as the Nurse advises Hippolytus All mortals make mistakes,
my son. It is in our nature. Is Hippolytus responsible for the tragedy in the play? Yes, he is
responsible, as is the nature of mortals, and as many others in the play are responsible. Can he be
praised? Yes, so long as we recognise at what point something praiseworthy and virtuous can turn
into something excessive and destructive. Can he be blamed? Yes too, but only if we refuse to
acknowledge the supremacy of the gods and the feebleness and foolishness of mortals. The blame
we associate with each character, especially Hippolytus is caused by that exact same virtue by which
we find them praiseworthy, a paradox and a sorrow. It is only in the moderation of our human selves
that Euripides shows us how we can resolve our troubles.