Hippolytus by Euripides

Greek tragedy grew out of the public rituals ofposition illustrates a division between the cognitive
songs, sacrifice, dances and worship honouringand the emotional ‘self’ putting an emphasis
Dionysus, the god of wine, vegetation and growth inon the inner source of human suffering.
the 5th century B.C. Euripides’ tragic hero (orEuripides shows us weak points and mistakes of
heroes as in the play ‘Hippolytus’) is ahuman beings that makes him a modern playwright
character, who has good and bad qualities. Moreover,of his time. His approach to tragedy differs from his
qualities, which are bad tragically, destroy good onescontemporaries as he depicts characters of his plays
and we feel pity for the tragic heroes and theas they are in a real life. Euripides depicts the plight of
situations, in which they find themselves. This isPhaedre who is racked by passion and desire. She
especially true with Phaedre as she is a woman andunderstands her feelings for Hippolytus and knows
thus suffers more than men (Nietzsche 169-170).what she has to do but she is not able to bring it to
However, Nietzsche points out not only thepass. Euripides masterly shows the division between
weakness of a woman but her power to make thethe reason and emotional ‘self’ in Phaedre
life of a man a tragedy, as Phaedre does in case withwhose suffering is caused by a troubling division of
Hippolytus: ‘What, in spite of all fear, elicits pityher inside ‘self’ when nomos is in
for this dangerous beautiful cat ‘woman’ isconfrontation with physis. Finally, her natural desires
that she appears to suffer more, more vulnerable,win. Euripides version of the play is a modern one if
more in need of love … than any other animal. Fearcompared to other playwrights of that time;
and pity: with feelings man has so far confrontedhowever, showing the psychological conditions of his
woman, always with one foot in tragedy which tearscharacters, he gives a traditional mythological
to pieces as it enhances.’.explanation of their psychological state.
Two major themes are present inIn ‘Hippolytus’ Phaedre believes a person
‘Hippolytus’: passion and revenge.can act according to his/her personal aspirations and
Euripides’ play ‘Hippolytus’ is interestingpassions. She judges a decision by its value, rather
from the psychological point of view. The greatthan by the consequences. Her love is dead when
playwright shows us repeated injustice and sufferingsshe is rejected by Hippolytus and now everything
of his characters. Euripides tends to depict passiveshe wants is to revenge. In a book ‘Beyond
victims who get into trouble against their own will andGood and Evil’ Friedrich Friedrich Nietzsche wrote:
suffer because of their ‘fate’. For example,‘In revenge and in love woman is more
Phaedre is a victim who acts only when she findsbarbarous than man.’ Perhaps, this is especially
herself in a desperate position and her attempts totrue concerning a famous character of the play
change the reality vanish with her death. Phaedra's‘Hippolytus’ Phaedre.