Excerpt from The Crowned Hippolytus of Euripides: Together With a Selection From the Pastoral and Lyric Poets of Greece
Theseus was son of Ethra and Poseidon, and king of Athens. He married Hippolyta, one of the’amazons, and had by her Hippolytus, who was remarkable for beauty and continence. And when she died he took for second wife Phaedra, a native of Crete, daughter of Mines king of Crete, and of Pasiphae. And because he had slain Pallas, one of his kinsfolk, Theseus fled with his wife to Troezen, where it happened that Hippolytus was being educated in the house of Pittheus. And so soon as Phaedra beheld the youth she fell headlong into hot desire for him and not to escape scot-free therefrom, but rather to fulfil to the utmost the wrath of Aphrodite, who, having determined to destroy Hippolytus for his chastity, planned the aecom plishment of her purpose by exciting a raging love for him in Phaedra’s heart. And after concealing her malady for a long time she was constrained to reveal it to her nurse, who had promised to be her helper. And the nurse, doing as she thought best, informed the young man. And when Phaedra learned of his rage and exasperation, she reproached the nurse angrily for what she had done, and went and hanged herself. And Theseus arrived about the same time, and hastened to take down her that was hanged, and found attached to her person a writing-tablet, in which Hippolytus was accused of treachery and of having brought her to destruction. And Theseus be lieved what was written, and ordered Hippolytus into exile, and cursed him, and prayed against him to Poseidon his father; and the god hearkened to his prayer, and destroyed Hippolytus. But Artemis appeared, and explained to Theseus severally the things that had happened, and made them clear to him; and she excused l’hzedra from blame, and she comforted Theseus, now that he was bereft of his wife and of his son, and she promised that national honours should be paid to Hippolytus.
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