Phdre reading guide: Read this before you read Phdre! Dr K. Ibbett k.ibbett@ucl.ac.

uk Poor Phdres unhappy family history is crucial to understanding the play. Phdre is the granddaughter of Helios, the sun (see line 172). Helios had a daughter Pasipha, who was partnered with Minos (king of Crete) from which union came Ariane (Ariadne) and Phdre, amongst others. (See line 36 La fille de Minos et de Pasipha, the famous description of Phdre through her ancestry.) But Pasipha did not have children only with Minos. Because Poseidon cursed her, she lusted after and mated with a bull. The fruit of this union was the Minotaur, half man half bull. Pasipha thus stands in classical tradition as an exemplar of the horrors of female sensuality; the noble daughter of the sun is degraded by this lust and by its monstrous fruit. The Minotaur is Phdres half-brother, so although Phdre is noble she also has a frighteningly monstrous heritage, associated with the excesses of female desire and a certain bestiality. The Minotaur lived at the center of the Cretan labyrinth. He was eventually killed by Thse. Thse was helped in his attack on the Minotaur by Phdres sister Ariane, the great weaver. She gave him a long string to help him get out of the labyrinth; he is known as a great hero partly because of her aid. But Ariane and Thse do not marry. There are many differing accounts of why this is so. (In some he abandons her, in others she is seized by another, etc.) Instead, Arianes sister Phdre ends up with the hero. Thse has been married before, and the son of his first marriage is Hippolyte, who is vowed to chastity. Thse is the son of Poseidon and has special abilities to call up supernatural forces from Poseidon. He was also known for his extramarital amorous adventures.