Shame, Pleasure, and Honor in Phaedra's Great Speech (Euripides, Hippolytus 375-87)

Author(s): David Kovacs

Reviewed work(s):
Source: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 101, No. 3 (Autumn, 1980), pp. 287-303
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/294268 .
Accessed: 12/07/2012 09:37

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The
American Journal of Philology.

http://www.jstor.org
 SHAME, PLEASURE, AND HONOR IN PHAEDRA'S
GREAT SPEECH (EURIPIDES, HIPPOLYTUS 375-87)
j6r] :ror' aiow vvXTOr5 ?v yaxQ(o xeo6V 375
OvrrgWv epQOVTLr'
,? 6tecpOaQrat f3iog.
xai Mot 6OXOVOatvov xar& yvCbL; g cvatLv
jtQaoaatv xaxtov Eart yaQ&T6 y' Ev3 eovelv
:roA,oatv - aiAa rT6' adOeirrov r66oe
tr Xeqoar' naitardCueaOa xai ytyvdaoxo,oev, 380
OVx EX7rovoVgfe 6', ol gEV aCyiaCa i7ro,
ot 6' 76oviv xaOovro
rQoOEvTrES avri
air,lv rtv'- elCL &
6' 6ovai Jroai Plt'iov,
auaxeat re ,Ixatao xaxi uo)Y, TETCQ7ovxaxov,
al6bg re- 6taoaaal 6' elot'v, 0 \v oi) xaxj, 385
0I 6' aiOoc o'xt(wv- Ei 6' 6 xatQo\; rv aacpri;
ovx av v'7arrYv Trav' Xovre yQayd ara.

The problems in these lines are well known. How are we to

explain Phaedra's curious list of pleasures? How can aidos be
a pleasure? What is good aidos and what is bad? What rele-

I refer throughout to the following: W. S. Barrett, Euripides: Hippolytos

(Oxford 1964); David Claus, "Phaedra and the Socratic Paradox," YCS 22
(1972) 223-38; E. R. Dodds, "The AIQZE of Phaedra and the Meaning of the
Hippolytus," CR 39 (1925) 102-4; Carl Eduard Frhr. von Erffa, "AIAQZJ und
verwandte Begriffe in ihrer Entwicklung von Homer bis Demokrit,"
Philologus, Supplementband 30,2 (1937); Bernd Manuwald, "Phaidras
tragischer Irrtum: zur Rede Phaidras in Euripides' Hippolytos (vv. 373-430),"
RhM 122 (1979) 134-48; Charles P. Segal, "Shame and Purity in Euripides'
Hippolytus," Hermes 98 (1970) 278-99; F. Solmsen, "Bad Shame and related
problems in Phaedra's Speech," Hermes 101 (1973) 420-25; M. L. West,
Hesiod: Works and Days (Oxford 1978); U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,
Euripides: Hippolytos (Berlin 1891); C. W. Willink, "Some Problems of Text
and Interpretation in Hippolytus," CQ 18 (1968) 11-43; R. P. Winnington-
Ingram, "Hippolytus: A Study in Causation," in Euripide, Entretiens sur l'an-
tiquite classique, vol. 6 (Vandoeuvres-Geneva 1958/1960) 169-98. I was unable
to consult V. N. Jahrkho, "Warum ist die euripideische Phaidra zugrun-
degegangen?" Acta Classica Univ. Scient. Debreceniensis Univ. Kossuth 12
(1976) 9-18, who appears to have much in common with my views. I also take
no account of Bruno Snell, "Das friiheste Zeugnis iiberSokrates," Philologus
97 (1948) 125-35 and his later presentation of this same view in Scenes from
Greek Drama (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1964) 47-69, since Snell's chief con-
cern is with the history of ideas.

AmericanJournalof Philology Vol. 101 Pp. 287-303

0002-9475/80/1013-0287 $01.00 ? 1980 byThe Johns HopkinsUniversityPress
288 DAVID KO VACS

vance, if any, does the distinction have to the queen's own

situation? The solution I propose is a radical one, though it
relies heavily on the suggestions of two other scholars. It is
important to see at the outset that a radical solution may be
called for, that the usual solutions proposed will not bear close
scrutiny.
Let us first be clear that in the Greek aidos is unambiguously
a pleasure. Barrett (ad vv. 381-85) tries to avoid this implica-
tion: "she has (and so have the audience) forgotten the gram-
matical construction of the earlier parts of the list, and adds
aidos as though the whole list had (like the subdivision of
hedone) been given in the nom[inative]." Both we the audi-
ence and "she" must be extraordinarily forgetful (there is, of
course, no "she" to forget inter loquendum, only Euripides
the poet forgetting inter scribendum) if a line and a half of
simple coordinated nominatives can make us lose our way. But
that is nearly impossible. No member of the audience, ancient
or modern, is likely, on hearing al6bcs Tr, to understand
Phaedra to mean ol 6' ai6db JeQoevTrE;. For ati&; is wedded
by its conjunction to the preceding line, and the additive re is
no substitute for the disjunctive ol 63. The text calls aidos a
pleasure, and interpretation must account for that fact.
Against this fact, many interpretations founder, including
Barrett's own. For Barrett, the bad aidos is Phaedra's "beset-
ting fault," a "diffidence or indecisiveness" which "prevents
her from fighting down her love as she knows she should"
(230). But it is impossible to regard this as a pleasure. Indeci-
siveness may be the result of a conflict between pleasures or
between pleasure and duty but cannot itself be a pleasure. One
may doubt anyway whether aidos, standing tout nu, could ever
suggest indecisiveness to a Greek speaker rather than, say,
inhibition. Furthermore, as Solmsen points out2 and as I will
maintain below, such an interpretation "betrays a serious mis-
reading of [Phaedra's] character."
A second line of interpretation, begun by E. R. Dodds and
accepted in its essentials by C. P. Segal, looks for help to lines
244 and 335. These become exemplifications, respectively, of
Phaedra's good and bad aidos. "At v. 244 aidos saves

2 See his review of Barrett in AJP 88 (1967) 88.

 PHAEDRA'S GREAT SPEECH 289

Phaedra; at v. 335 it destroys her."3 The good aidos is the

shame that saves her from madness, the impulse of her inward
morality. Bad aidos is respect for the conventions, like the
compulsionof suppliancy.This convention is a mere external-
ity, and by yielding to it Phaedrabetrays her inner self and is
ruined. "To Phaedrathe conventional sebas of the suppliant
furnishes the necessary excuse for satisfying the thwartedde-
sire of confession, and so taking the first step towards that
abyss which a part of her nature craves (vv. 503-5). Only on
this supposition, it seems to me, can we explain her speaking
of aidos as a dangerous hedone, as a temptation, like long
gossiping and idleness."4
It must be stated bluntlythat this explanationoffends against
the laws both of probability and of logic. A Greek play is
written to be intelligiblein the theater, not in the study. It is
highly improbablethat any spectator at the first performance
on hearing385ff. would have thoughtback to the two fleeting
uses of the verb ai6?daat, neither of which is given much
emphasis by its surroundings.Even if he had, he could cer-
tainly not have identified them as the good and internal, and
the bad and external, aidos. For, in the first place, the sup-
posed internalaidos of 244 prettyclearly refers to her shame at
utteringwild words in the presence of others. Nothing, at any
rate, noticeably "inner-directed"here, as there ought to be on
Dodds' view. Secondly, as for the "external"aidos of 335, the
audience does not know at the time that line was uttered, nor
do they know at 385, that Phaedra'sconcession to the Nurse is
the first step toward disaster.5 These two occurrences of
aSi6eaOat are an improbable basis on which to explicate
Phaedra'sspeech.
Furthermore,Dodds' explanationof how bad aidos can be a
pleasure confuses the accidental with the essential. Can we
believe that Phaedraenumerateslife's pleasures thus: "Long
talks and leisure, a pleasant bane, and respect for others'
opinions (which, as we all know, so often provides one with
the pretext for doing what one really wants and is thus a plea-
sure and a temptation)"? The relation proposed by Dodds
3 Dodds, p. 103.
4 ibid.
5 This point is made by Solmsen, p. 422.
290 DAVID KOVACS

between respect for others and the indulgence of one's own

desires is not an essential one but merely per accidens. If I use
a dinner I feel socially obliged to go to as an excuse for eating
and drinking too much, it would be irrational to call my sense
of social obligation a dangerous pleasure rather than my glut-
tony. Not only is the relation between respect and self-
indulgence an accidental one, but in the nature of things it must
be rare that respect gives rise to self-indulgence. Aidos nor-
mally acts as a check on desire. We cannot call it a pleasure
merely because it happens in extraordinary circumstances to
second Phaedra's supposed desire (never, incidentally, men-
tioned in the text) to confess her guilty love.6
A different solution is proposed by Friedrich Solmsen. Solm-
sen rejects any relevance to Phaedra's own circumstances
and interprets the lines as a general disquisition. He points out
that nothing in the text authorizes us to regard Atoxat and
oZol?i as the causes of Phaedra's plight, as both Barrett and
Dodds do, and therefore to see in them a reference to
Phaedra's own situation is to indulge in mere speculation. He
compares Medea's speech to the Corinthian women which also
contains numerous elements foreign to Medea's own experi-
ence. Bad aidos is not exemplified in 335 nor anywhere else in
the play. Instead, it is something the audience would under-
stand from their own experience. He cites Thuc. 6.13.1 where
Nicias urges the Athenians not to vote for the Sicilian expedi-
tion out of shame (aioxvviv) before their neighbors, and he

6 There is no need to discuss in detail all the variations on Dodds' and

Barrett's positions. Wilamowitz, like Barrett, regards aidos as no pleasure but

as connected to the others by "ein leichtes Zeugma" (p. 203, n. 1). He regards
Phaedra as "'tief in aoXor und eoqqr]befangen" and bad aidos as her failure to
be outspoken with the Nurse. von Erffa (166-67) considers Wilamowitz' expla-
nation doubtful and sees bad aidos in 335 without, however, explaining how
this can be a pleasure. In his n. 152 he cites earlier and less probable views.
Winnington-Ingram's view is that bad aidos is the repression or "bottling up"
(194) of her passion. "It would have been a good thing if she could have
revealed the reason for her sickness. But in the circumstances of the case the
only person to whom she could make this revelation was the Nurse; and when
she does, the Nurse being what she was, it produced disastrous results." Thus,
we are to believe, the whole tragedy could have been averted if only Phaedra
had had someone with whom to sit down and talk about her problem. If that is
what Phaedra means, it is odd that she mentions long talks as a temptation
rather than as the obvious remedy.
 PHAEDRA'S GREAT SPEECH 291

suggests that the Athenians would have recognized this as a

typical situation. He supposes that people who voted out of
shame might have felt pleasure that things had gone so
smoothly and that therefore excessive respect for others'
opinions might be termed a pleasure, but he is prepared to
follow Barrett in denying that the Greek text calls it one.
Solmsen's suggestion is at least not wildly improbable. Yet
even if we were to ignore the difficulty that the Greek text calls
aidos a pleasure, whereas respect for others' opinions is not, it
must be admitted that this interpretation presupposes an audi-
ence that has thought long and hard about the dangers of con-
formism and is prepared to recognize a reference to it in a
single word which is not regularly used to mean this and in a
context (long talks and leisure) which sends their thoughts
in other directions. There is no indication elsewhere that
Euripides' audience, or even a minority of it, had given much
thought to this problem. Therefore either Euripides was un-
concerned with being intelligible or he did not intend such a
reference.
The solution to these difficulties can be found, I submit, only
if we interpret these lines in the light of the speech as a whole.
That whole has been badly misunderstood. With few excep-
tions, it has been assumed that Phaedra is confessing what she
regards as her principal faults or attempting to excuse or pal-
liate her passion for Hippolytus.7 But Phaedra is neither con-
fessing to wrong-doing nor attempting to excuse it but rather
explaining that she intends to do right and how and why. The
whole speech is an explanation of her decision (which she has
in no way altered) to take her own life. In 391-402 she tells how
she arrived at this decision. And in 402-30 she mentions mo-
tives which still actuate her: fear of disgrace (403-5), a sense of
responsibility as queen to set an example (407-12), her hatred
of adulterous women even when they escape detection (413-
18), concern for the good repute of her husband and children
(419-25). She makes it clear (419) that these are motives that
are now causing her to die, and (426) that the only thing in
her judgment that competes in value with life is virtue.8 The

7
Exceptions are Claus, pp. 233-34, Solmsen, p. 420, n. 1, and Manuwald,
p. 143.
8
Barrett's note on 426 does not convince me that i/3t is a locative dative. It
292 DAVID KOVACS

Nurse understands her perfectly, for it is against just this dec-

laration of intent to end her life that she argues (cf. 440). The
gods do not exile themselves from heaven just because of dis-
creditable passion. (This is the equivalent in the divine realm of
suicide in the human.) Most mortals, too, put up with imper-
fection and still go on living. (Cf. also 496-97 and 502.) The
Chorus (482-85) contrast the "useful" speech of the Nurse
with the speech of Phaedra which they praise. But to praise
Phaedra's speech is, they think, to cause her pain because it is
to approve of her resolve to kill herself.
It is in this light that we must understand the earlier part of
the speech. Phaedra discourses on the causes of human failure
not to explain how she has failed but to explain how she in-
tends to succeed. In the past, she has analyzed failure to
realize a good life as due to a lack not of intelligence but of
tenacity. In 388-90 she explains that this general view of human
life is the cause of the tenacity she has exhibited up until now
and will exhibit in the present situation: "Since, then, these are
the views I have in fact formed beforehand,9 there is no drug
with which I was likely to pervert these principles and fall back
from my purpose." Her next lines tell how that purpose was
being realized. It is with an eye towards her conduct in this
situation that she mentions her past reflections. What she has
thought then is the reason for what she is about to do now. On
any other interpretation it is impossible to account satisfactor-
ily for 388-90.10

comes directly after &autla&oUal which often takes a dative, and it is only with
difficulty that the audience could have avoided construing verb and dative
together.
9 Willink (p. 18) and Claus (pp. 233-34) convince me that ngoyvovo' is the
correct reading in 388. But the choice of readings makes little if any difference
to my argument.
10 Barrett's explanation of 388-90 is unconvincing. Phaedra, he says, is
making a profession of intellectual honesty. Her considered judgment is that
wrongdoing comes from lack of resolution. If she were not so honest, she
could now change this to the view (more favorable to herself in her present
situation) that wrongdoing stems from natural wickedness and is therefore
involuntary. (I conflate his notes on 377-81 and 388-90.) But, in the first place,
Phaedra says not a word about views being more or less favorable to herself.
Second, "I can't help it: it's in my nature" is not a defense but a self-
accusation. Third, the view that Phaedra rejects is that wrongdoing stems from
lack of intelligence, yvc6/u in the narrower sense, as the context makes clear.
 PHAEDRA'S GREAT SPEECH 293

Phaedra'sdiagnosis of humanfailure is clear up to a point.

The life of mortals, she says, is now corruptor in ruins (note
tense) not for want of intelligence, for intelligence, though not
universal, is possessed by many. Rather, we (i.e. people with
intelligence)know and recognize what is good but do not make
the exertion necessary to bringit to realization.For some, this
is the result of laziness. For others, some pleasure is the occa-
sion.
At this point, two suggestions advancedby Willinkand sec-
onded by Claus deserve to be accepted, for the reasons given
by Willinkand Claus and for others as well.11
1) As regards the words I6ovrv ... a`lrAv rtv', previous
scholars had seen only two possibilities, neither of which was
satisfactory. If aA;)^v means "other," there must be some
pleasure from which this "other pleasure" is being distin-
guished, and dayi(a seemed the only possibility. Yet adyia,
absence of activity, is an unlikely candidate for a pleasure.
Also, if it is a pleasure, why is it separatedfrom those listed
below? The other alternative was to regard 382-83 as an in-
stance of the "Telemachus and the other suitors" construc-
tion, where ad'og means "besides" or "something else,
namely." But in all the other instances of this construction
producedso far,12a)AAog always stands close to its noun rather
than in emphatic hyperbatonas in our text, a fact which tells
heavily against this view. Willink saw a third possibility and
translated "others through having given priority, not to to
kalon, but to some other pleasure." This is right, though Wil-
link has not mentionedthe precise grammaticalgroundsfor it:
diaiog dvTi is an idiomatic variation for dA)iogri (cf. Hel. 450,
Rhes. 204, Aesch. Prom. 467, Soph. Aj. 444); and the separa-
tion of &a/;rvfrom its noun in our passage serves to bracket
avrt roiv xa,ov so as to strengthenthe connection, as in Rhes.

11These suggestionshave not received the acceptancethey deserve for two

reasons. First, Willink'suseful remarkswere buriedin an articlebadlymarred
by a perverseingenuityof interpretation.It is to Claus's credit that he picked
out what was valuable. Second, both scholars omit the most importantargu-
ments for their suggestions. As a result, such later scholars as Manuwald
ignore or reject them.
12 See Barrettad loc. and K.-G. I.
275, Anm. 1.
294 DAVID KOVACS

204. We may translate "others having given precedence to

some pleasure other than to kalon."13
That to kalon is itself a pleasure may seem a paradox to the
modern reader. Euripides' first audience would not have found
it so. It is true that Greek sentiment sometimes opposed plea-
sure and honor, as we, the heirs of Kant, habitually contrast
inclination with duty. But that they did not invariably do so is a
fair inference from Democritus 68 B 207, cited by Claus:
Ir6ovrv ov naoav, diad rivezi Tv xaac atielJoOa ea Xsev. (Cf.
also A 167 and B 189.) That the virtuous man finds one of his
greatest pleasures in virtuous action is the view assumed by
Aristotle in several places in the Nicomachean Ethics (cf.
1099a7ff., 1104b4ff.) so that it cannot have seemed a paradox
to his hearers. Greek moral vocabulary in general, words like
to kalon and arete, suggest that goodness makes a strong ap-
peal to desire rather than that it is something accomplished in
the teeth of inclination. The sense required by Phaedra's
grammar, then, finds an echo in Greek thought at large. For
Phaedra, the honorable life is not incompatible with pleasure,
for honor is itself a pleasure. Only some pleasures are an im-
pediment to virtuous action.
2) Willink's second point may be regarded as a corollary of
the first: 6Lotaai ' ioaiv (385) means "they (these pleasures)
are of two different kinds," and 385-87 discuss the ambiguity
not of aidos but of pleasure. There are several arguments for
this. a) The preceding lines about "some pleasure other than to
kalon" make it clear that pleasure is a problematical notion,
for to kalon is a pleasure and so are the delights chosen in its
stead. It is reasonable that Phaedra should comment on this
ambiguity. b) The list of pleasures Phaedra gives is introduced
by the phrase "Life's pleasures are many (jroLaO)" and it is
natural to resume after the list with "But they are of two dif-
ferent kinds (6otoai)." (For the thought sequence multae .. .
sed inter se variae cf. Ion 381-82.) c) While it is true that 6btaoi

13 I strongly suspect, though I cannot prove, that the usual way of under-
standing these lines has persisted because readers unconsciously render avTi
as "in preference to," "before," perhaps under the influence of the Latin
ante. Barrett, for example, (p. 229) translates "they set some pleasure in front
of virtue." The examples in LSJ s.v. A. III. 5 lend no support to this rendering
here.
 PHAEDRA'S GREAT SPEECH 295

in poetic languagesometimes means little more than "two," its

root meaning is "of two sorts,'14 a meaning visible in such
places as Alc. 760, Hip. 928 (almost a distributive),Hec. 124,
fr. 189, Aesch. Ag. 123, fr. adesp. 187. We might suppose that
the basic meaning would be retained, rather than its poetic
extension, when the adjective is used predicatively,and this is
borne out by such passages as Hdt. 2.76; P1.Gorg. 500 D, Rep.
439 D, 518 A, Crat. 432 D, Leg. 866 E, Apol. 18 D, Polit. 283
E, Phil. 56 D; and Xen. Cyn. 3,1. My search of indices, lexica,
and concordances reveals no certain instance where predica-
tive 6tlooo means "two."15 d) The usual translation, "This
last is of two sorts," both imports an epanaphoricexpression
("this last") into a Greek text which does not have it and uses
singularto representthe Greekplural.Had Euripidesintended
what his interpretersunderstandhere, he could easily have
written ai6bc re' 6talAo68'i6c xoviXa:ralj o6vovxrA. (Cf. Hec.
897 and P1. Gorg. 517 D for the singular6ltoo6;.) e) Lastly,
except for the mistaken scholium on this very passage, aidos
has no plural.16
We must pause here to answer an objection raised by Segal
(299), that we have in our passage a reference to the Hesiodic
distinction(Op. 317-18)between a good and a bad aidos. Such
a reference is unlikely. For even if Hesiod had distinguished
between a good and a bad aidos, what he says would not be
relevant here. Hesiod's concern is with a delicacy that pre-
vents a man from workingto earn his bread. This has nothing
to do either with Phaedra's situation as a woman or (more
important)with the generalities she makes about the impedi-
ments to to kalon or ta chresta. The Hesiodic passage is on an
entirely differentlevel and has to do not with the impediments
not to to kalon but to materialwelfare.
In fact, however, Hesiod does not distinguishtwo kinds of
aidos. For surely the ovx cyaOr of Op. 317 should be taken
predicatively("is not a good caretakerof')just as it is in 500,

14
See P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue grecque,
s.v. 6i;.
"sAt P1. Rep. 528 B it seems to verge on "two," but "of two sorts" is
possible. In Xen. Symp. 8, 9 it is attributive.
16 It is true that Plutarch (De virt. mor. 448 F) understands these lines in the

usual way. On this see below, n. 25.

296 DAVID KOVACS

where there can be no question of two sorts of hope.17 There is

only one kind of aidos, a quality of self-restraint or respect
before the claims of others, a concern with measuring up to
accepted standards in their eyes. In the overwhelming majority
of cases, this quality is regarded as an indispensible virtue, one
of the cornerstones of Greek ethics, especially of the nobility.
Yet the Greek popular ethic reflected in Hesiod and Homer is
not one of absolute principles of universal applicability. Both
Hesiod and Homer (Od. 17.347 and 577-78) are prepared to
admit that the sensitivity to the claims of others that the aris-
tocrat is expected to exhibit all the time may in some cases be a
luxury the poor man can ill afford.'8 "Hesiod's double aidos"
is a chimera. There is only one aidos, and it is only occasion-
ally harmful. The supposed Hesiodic references therefore
evaporates, and nothing prevents us from reading Hip. 385-87
as a discussion of pleasure.
We may therefore translate "some out of laziness, others
because they give precedence to some pleasure other than to
kalon. Life's pleasures are many: long talks and leisure, a
pleasant bane, and aidos. But they are of two sorts, one no ill
thing, another a burden upon a house. If propriety were clear,

17 This is true whether we read the indicative with the medieval MSS., as
Solmsen does, or the infinitive with the papyri, as does West. Hesiod's point is
not to describe ("The bad sort of aidos customarily cares for the needy man")
but to recommend. Similarly in 500. See West ad loc. Note that when Hesiod
wants to distinguish two things called by the same name, he does so explicitly,
as in Op. 11-12. At Hom. Od. 17.347 ovx aiyaOr is clearly predicative.
18 Euripides has the Hesiodic situation in view in fr. 285.11-14, though the
text is corrupt. Similarly Ion at Ion 337 tells Creusa that her (quite proper)
aristocratic aidos will accomplish nothing for her and therefore, in her present
circumstances, had better be put aside. But I find no solid evidence that
Euripides or anyone else in his period or before regarded either the word as
genuinely equivocal or the thing as intrinsically bad instead of detrimental in
certain circumstances. Soph. fr. 842 N2 and fr. adesp. 528 are similar to Ion
337: if you possess the genuine virtue of shame, it may harm you in certain
circumstances, especially if you are dealing with those who have no shame.
This would be one obvious way to explain Eur. fr. 365 N2, though we have no
context and speculation is unwise. Finally, no far-reaching conclusions should
be based on fr. adesp. 556 where we do not know what relation there is
between shame and cowardice. There are no grounds, therefore, for thinking
that aidos was regularly conceived of as an ambiguous term. When people find
fault with it, they generally do so in the same spirit as our "nice guys finish
last."
 PHAEDRA'S GREAT SPEECH 297

the proper way to speak, there would not be two things de-
noted by the same letters."19
We are still left with two questions: How can aidos, which is
almost always a virtue and which our text calls a pleasure,
obstruct the realization of ta chresta? And how are we to ex-
plain Phaedra's odd list of pleasures? The two questions are
closely related, and the answer to neither is complete without
the answer to the other. The answer to the first is that aidos
does not obstruct the realization of an honorable life. For in
385-86 we are explicitly told that while one sort of pleasure is
harmful, the other sort is not. This ought to apply to the pre-
ceding list. Lines 384-85, therefore, are a list not of harmful
pleasures but of harmful and harmless pleasures together.20
Long leisurely talks are a pleasure and harmful, for reasons to
be discussed below. Modesty or respect is, for a noblewoman
of good character like Phaedra, a pleasure and benign for pre-
cisely the same reason that to kalon is a pleasure: both are
indispensable elements of the good life. Indeed, aidos is the
very characteristic that aims at to kalon, what is noble and of
good repute, and avoids to aischron, what is the reverse. Aidos
is practically a sense of honor, and to kalon is the honorable
conduct at which it aims.21 Aidos becomes a plausible pleasure
once we realize that "pleasure" is not synonymous with
temptation.
Phaedra's list of pleasures, to take our second question, is a
lot less odd when viewed in this light than before. To find a

19It can be demonstrated that the usual view of xatgo;, as the proper occa-
sion for exercising one sort of aidos rather than another, is almost certainly
wrong. For, in the first place, "if only the occasions for practicing these two
qualities were clear" is a rather roundabout way of saying "if only the distinc-
tion between the two were clear." Second, such an interpretation is particu-
larly awkward since, on the usual view, one sort of aidos has no proper
occasion but is always and essentially out of place. Third, on the usual view
Phaedra contradicts herself. For having eliminated knowledge as the decisive
element in the good life in 377-79, she is made to introduce it here by calling for
a knowledge of proper occasion. This then becomes the decisive factor in
realizing the good rather than tenacity as before. The meaning of xatQo; here is
the more basic one "what is proper, appropriate, just right" (Barrett, p. 231).
The context suggests that the particular propriety in view here is propriety in
speaking.
20Cf. Claus, p. 231.
21 Cf. Arist. EN 1116a28 and von Erffa, pp. 36-38.
298 DAVID KOVACS

place for aidos in a list of bad pleasures is virtually impossible,

though on a list of pleasures good and bad, it is easy. Some
oddity remains, however, for even as a list of good and bad
pleasures, uaxcQa re iaoXat .. . ail6o; re is not a very repre-
sentative collection. These items might well stand on such a
list, but it would make a great deal of difference whether they
stood alone or after mention of other and more obvious plea-
sures. I am led reluctantly to the suggestion that we may not
have Phaedra's whole list as Euripides wrote it and that there
may be a lacuna before 384.
The character of the items on the list is not the only indica-
tion that something is amiss with the text. There is also their
number. One would expect a list introduced by the phrase
"There are many X's" to have at least three items on it.22 As I
count them, there are only two here. For uaxQai A2aoat and
oxor) are not two items but one: "long talks and the leisure
therefor" or "long leisurely talks." Not only are the two no-
tions so closely allied as inevitably to be taken as a hendiadys,
but also a singular xaxov stands in apposition to them both. It
is not plausible to suppose that a Greek of the fifth century
could regard leisure tout court as an evil.23 But that Phaedra
regards long leisurely talks as an evil marks her values as iden-
tical with those of other Euripidean heroines (cf. Andromache
in Tro. 651ff. and Hermione in Andr. 929ff.) and indeed with
those of Hippolytus himself (cf. 645-48). Line 384, therefore, is
a single pleasure and aidos is a second. I appeal accordingly to
my reader's intuition: let him reread the passage and see
whether he thinks that it is clearly right as it stands, and
whether a line and a quarter containing only two items, and
two items of such a character, is likely to be the whole of what
Euripides wrote to follow "Life's pleasures are many."
22
Cf. Andr. 96, 1132, Hec. 280, Tro. 38, El. 333, Hel. 269. Two counter-
examples from the Medea (719, 1033), both in passages far less discursive and
more personal than ours and both containing obvious items, serve rather to
confirm than to allay suspicion.
23 Cf. Ion 634 and Xen. Cyr. 7.5.42 cited by F. Solmsen, "Leisure and Play

in Aristotle's Ideal State," RhM 107 (1964) 199-202. In Soph. fr. 287 N2 it is
only oXoAriqualified by iexa[a that is harmful. In the next century Theo-
phrastus defines eros as rdOoc q^vxCf; aoraocavorc; (Stob. 4.20.66 Hense), but
the earliest indications that leisure was regarded as essentially destructive are
Hellenistic. See Eduard Fraenkel, Horace (Oxford 1957) 212 and the literature
cited by him.
 PHAEDRA'S GREAT SPEECH 299

Such a lacuna can, of course, be filled only exempli gratia.

But if our interpretation of 6tooaa 6' Etoiv is correct, we can
say something about its contents. Like the line and a quarter
we possess, it will consist of both good and bad pleasures,
things both worthy and unworthy of standing in a place of
precedence, of being the goal24 of one's life. The pleasures
unworthy of such treatment would surely include some of the
more obvious temptations such as food, drink, and sex, or
perhaps wealth. The good pleasures might include various as-
pects of to kalon, morally good qualities which give pleasure
because they are morally good, or they might be things like
health that are so essentially innocent that they rarely if ever
become temptations. To explain the omission of these lines
(there need have been no more than two or three) we must only
make the not extravagant assumption that the last of the miss-
ing lines contained some form of the word 6ovyj, e.g.
rdcv 6& y7vxvradtov r6zrov
oTcrwvre yev/UaO' r6ovai, rT r' EcoCT/3;.
The scribe finished writing our line 383, his eye jumped from
one occurrence of r6ovat to the next, and he resumed writing
with our 384.
The supposition of a lacuna clarifies several things. First, a
longer list of pleasures makes their two-fold character more
easily evident and facilitates understanding 6tuaaa 6' eiotv as,
on our view, it must be understood.25 (The same effect if
achieved by the second form of M6ovrpostulated above.) Sec-
ond, Stobaeus' 6e in 384 may preserve the truth from the origi-
nal context in which it made sense.26 Third, even if it is merely
a slip for re, that re now functions differently, not as a correla-
tive to xai but connecting 384 with what precedes. This seems
to be an improvement: hendiadys does not seem to welcome
separated rE ... xai.27
24 See LSJ s.v. nTQOTLOrzU I1.2.b.
25
That Plutarch, cited above in n. 16, understood these lines as he does is
evidence that the text had lost the lines I postulate before his day.
26
On the quality of Stobaeus' text, see Barrett, pp. 82-83.
27
Juxtaposed re xai at Hip. 164, Soph. El. 36, Bacchyl. 11.12, elsewhere I
find only single xat or re. See the discussions in C. A. Lobeck, Sophoclis Aiax,
2nd ed. (Leipzig 1835) ad v. 145, C. Collard, Euripides: Supplices (Groningen
1975) ad vv. 447-49, and A. S. F. Gow, Theocritus (Cambridge 1952) on 7.57.
See also J. D. Denniston, Greek Prose Style (Oxford 1960) 62.
300 DAVID KOVACS

At this point I wish to make it clear that I put forward the

theory of a lacuna as a suggestion only, a suggestion I do not
think I have proved and which is not necessarily entailed by
the foregoing reinterpretation. What I think I have proved is
the reinterpretation: that Phaedra's speech is an explanation of
her resolve to die, not a palliation of past failure; that her
discussion of pleasure is Greek, not Kantian, and allows for
pleasure in virtuous conduct; that aidos is just such a good
pleasure; and that pleasure, not aidos, is the ambiguous no-
tion. The arguments of Claus and others for these points have
been largely ignored. It should now be necessary for those who
disagree with this reinterpretation to make a detailed reply.
It remains to consider a few consequences of this rein-
terpretation for the play as a whole. Phaedra's speech shows
her to be a resolute woman who understands clearly the moral
issues that confront her and is prepared to take drastic action.
She is clear-eyed not about what weaknesses have caused or
are about to cause her downfall (she doesn't admit a past fail-
ure or anticipate a future one) but about the course of action
necessary to achieve to kalon in her life, to avoid disgrace and
the baseness that is its cause. Like any member of the nobility
in a shame culture, she sees essential continuity rather than
discontinuity between an individual's internal moral qualities
and his reputation, though she can make this distinction if
necessary (cf. 413-14). She operates with the notion of to kalon
in an uncomplicated way, with the untroubled assurance that
both adultery and bad reputation are to be avoided and that
avoiding either or both is a goal worth giving her life for. One
important consequence that might be drawn from our rein-
terpretation of her great speech is that the dramatist is not
inviting his audience to be more complicated than Phaedra but
to enter fully into her aristocratic values and her struggle to
realize them. In particular, I suggest that a widely-held view of
the play, according to which Phaedra fails because she is weak,
conventional, and overly concerned with the opinions of
others, is mistaken. Evidence for this view has mostly been
sought in the lines we have just reinterpreted when those lines
were read as a discussion of a problematic aidos. Now that this
interpretation has been called into question, we should briefly
examine the rest of the evidence. Is Euripides inviting his au-
dience to regard Phaedra as a misguided creature who mistakes
 PHAEDRA'S GREAT SPEECH 301

the appearance of goodness for goodness itself, and are we to

see her suicide and accusation of Hippolytus, the culminating
act of her life, as a condemnation of the conventionality and
superficiality of her values, her desire for evxiEtta?
Now that her remarks on aidos, leisure, and gossip are seen
as part not of a self-accusation but of a moral credo, we may no
longer look for Euripides' condemnation there. Weakness has
been detected in Phaedra's failure to resist the Nurse. But it
can be argued, and I argue elsewhere, that Phaedra makes as
stout a resistance as one could ask for to the Nurse's attempts
both to break her silence and to dissuade her from suicide, and
that she relents in the one case because the Nurse applies a
combination of force and suppliancy that is meant by the
dramatist to appear irresistible and in the other because she is
tricked. We are left with her lying note. Yet the bare fact that
she causes the death of the young man she thinks is her enemy
and the enemy of her good name would not in the fifth century
have been regarded, without further encouragement from the
poet, as evidence of moral failure. The sentiment that to bene-
fit one's friends and harm one's enemies is the mark of an
agathos dies hard. It is still evident in Aristotle despite Plato's
attempt to make Greek morality more enlightened,28 and we
must beware of assuming in Euripides' audience standards that
are essentially Christian. If Euripides meant us to judge
Phaedra by other than prevailing standards, it was surely his
duty to let someone-the Chorus, Hippolytus, Theseus, Ar-
temis, Phaedra herself-hint that Phaedra's life is the reductio
ad absurdum of her principles. Yet those who know the truth
say no such thing.29 Neither Hippolytus nor Artemis has any
reason to be overly generous toward her, yet Hippolytus' as-
sessment is gentle (1034-35) and Artemis sums up her character
in the word yevvat6Orq; (1300-1). The poet has given us no
inducement to look behind the glittering shame-culture values

28
See, for example,EN 1124b27ff.and 1125a5ff.Cf. AndreRivier'sremarks
in the discussionfollowing Winnington-Ingram's paper, p. 196.
29To implythat Phaedra'sxaxov
yevrjaoyatin 728 is an admissionthat she
has failed to be an agathos, as Segal does (289), is to ignore the difference
betweenthe neuterandthe othertwo gendersof this word.The neutermeansa
bane, and implies no prejudiceto the arete of any individualwho may be so
described.Indeed, it is precisely the agathos who is most able to be a bane to
his enemies. Cf. Hom. II. 13.454and 21.39.
302 DAVID KO VACS

that lie on the surface of this play. Phaedra has lived and died
by the standards appropriate to an agathos. In the crisis of her
life, when the struggle to secure her honor and her good name
became most intense, she did not flinch but paid for them with
her dearest coin, her own life.30 Those who write patronizingly
of her do so in the face of the only judgments the dramatist has
given us and on the basis of standards he could not assume and
did not invoke.
One final conclusion concerns the word aidos in the rest of
the play. Although this word is now no longer the raison d'etre
of Phaedra's speech, it is an important word, it and the verb
ailoeoOat occur several times in the play, and we ought to be
able to speak convincingly of the theme of aidos, a task which
Dodds' interpretation fails, and Solmsen's declines, to per-
form. Aidos is mentioned twice by Phaedra (244, 335) as has
already been noted, but also twice by Hippolytus (78, 998), and
this is one of the many resemblances between these two
characters that generally go unnoticed.31 All four of these oc-
currences denote aspects of the same thing, a sense of honor, a
devotion to high standards, a desire to attain to kalon and to
avoid to aischron. These are admirable qualities and they
prove fatal to their possessors: -TO ' EV7yEvE,oEarTv cpQEvv
ar7ta[oreEv, says Artemis to Hippolytus, and her judgment
holds good for Phaedra as well.32 For the realization of Aphro-
dite's revenge relies heavily on the very virtues of the two
mortals whose lives she destroys. In 1307-9 Artemis points to
both Hippolytus' justice in not taking his father's wife and his
scrupulosity in not breaking his oath. Without these qualities in
her victim, Aphrodite could not have taken her revenge. And
these qualities are aspects of the aidos that waters the un-
touched meadow (78) and that keeps him from doing wrong
(998).

30 Cf. Theseus'
unwittingly truthful remarks (describing, however, only one
of her motives) at 964-65.
31 The fullest treatment of their similarities known to me is that of Harry C.

Avery, "'My tongue swore, but my mind is unsworn,' " TAPA 99(1968) 19-35.
32 Line 1390. For a view of
Hippolytus' character more favorable than usual,
see George E. Dimock, Jr., "Euripides' Hippolvtus, or Virtue Rewarded,"
YCS 25 (1977) 239-58 and David Kovacs, "Euripides' Hippolytus 100 and the
meaning of the prologue," CP 75 (1980) 130-37.
 PHAEDRA'S GREAT SPEECH 303

Phaedra's aidos is also a virtue, and one in which she de-

lights (cf. 385 with 78), and it likewise proves fatal. Her sense
of obligation to her good name finds expression in the verb
ait6EdOat in 244, and this is the motive for her suicide. Since
madness is a disgrace, and to be right in her mind causes her
unendurable pain, the only recourse is the unconsciousness
not of madness but of death. In 335, it is aidos that leads her to
respect the Nurse's suppliancy.33 Both of these qualities are
necessary for Aphrodite's revenge, for a Phaedra who lacked
the first would not have killed herself and one who lacked the
second would have gone to her grave with her secret intact. It
is this same aidos, this passionate devotion to honor, that leads
her, when the Nurse has betrayed her secret, to buy credit for
her lying accusation at the cost of her own life. It is her corpse
that enfeebles the only defense that Hippolytus can make
without breaking his oath, as Theseus points out (960-72).
Aidos, scrupulosity, a sense of honor, the desire to realize to
kalon in one's own eyes and in the eyes of others, has proven
fatal to both Phaedra and Hippolytus in their struggle with
Aphrodite, but for both, defeat has overtones of moral victory.
The popular wisdom of fr. adesp. 528, xaxov yda&aitSd EvOa
ravatiu; xQarel, receives fresh confirmation, if any were
needed. But both Euripides and his audience were familiar
with other standards than this (&dA'i xataA)g Orvi) xaAcs
reOvrxEvat rov evyevI xeOj)and could presumably distinguish
between a long and a virtuous life. They would see that both
Hippolytus' prayer (87) and Phaedra's wish (426-30) for the
latter have been fulfilled.

DAVID KOVACS
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

33 Cf. Rivier's remarks on the importance of the suppliant gesture, p. 195.