Hippolytus: the battle between Lust and Continence

The incestuous, profound, unintended and unintentional love between stepmother and stepson unleash the most tragic of all classical tragedies: Euripdes' Hippolytus.

Don't mess with the Gods: abide by their rules or perish.

The anger of a deity who feels dishonored by the choice made by a human; the wrath of the Goddess of Love - Aphrodite - who can't stand her impotence for not being able to subdue the chaste Hippolytus to her powers of passion and desire. The rivalry of two opposites: Virginity (Artemis) and Sex (Aphrodite), and the prevail of the latter. A world ruled by lust and desire were chastity has no place.

"Freedom is merely an illusion, a dreamlike thing, for Fate is the master of all of us. Like slaves, we must submit".

Once again, a story that reflects the poor and submissive condition of human existence: no life of your own, a life that belongs to the unpredictable and selfish will of the Gods.

The Plot

The goddess Aphrodite is much incensed because Hippolytus, bastard son of King Theseus of Trozên and the Amazon "Hippolyte", worships only pure Artemis. She resolves, therefore, to bring about his death through the very sex that he has scorned, and scorning, has thus offered insult to the mighty Aphrodite.

For some months past, Phaedra, beloved wife of Theseus, has hidden in her inmost heart a secret passion for the manly Hippolytus. Through unsatiated desire and secret shame she has wasted away until her old nurse despairs of her life. Finally, after much coaxing, the old nurse learns her secret. On pretense of making a love-philter that will cure Phaedra of her unholy love, the nurse confesses her mistress' secret to Hippolytus. The latter in anger scorns and upbraids Phaedra. Only his oath of secrecy given to the nurse, he admits, keeps him from confessing his stepmother's shame to the King as soon as His Majesty returns.

Phaedra, in her half-crazed state, scarcely heeds him. She sees honor gone and her life ruined through her old servant's mistaken kindness, for she really believes that Hippolytus means to tell the King. In despair she hangs herself. Before the dread deed, however, she has written on her tablet, sealed with a royal seal, the charge that Hippolytus has dishonored her. On the King's arrival the first thing he notes is the tablet fastened to his dead wife's wrist. Grief-stricken, he opens it believing that it will contain some final directions for the care of their children, only to be shocked by the terrible accusation against Hippolytus.

The Prince's protestations of innocence are unavailing against the King's unreasoning anger, and his oath prevents his speaking the whole truth. Theseus condemns his son to life-long exile and in addition prays to his ancestor, Poseidon, powerful god of the sea, to destroy the ravisher of his dear wife.

Hippolytus, knowing the futility of further arguments, mounts his chariot to drive along the seashore until he shall reach his father's boundaries. As he drives, a terrible monster, riding a huge wave, so frightens his spirited horses that he is dashed against the rocks and is carried back, dying, to his father's presence. While he is still conscious Artemis appears in a cloud and explains to Theseus how cruelly Aphrodite had plotted against Hippolytus. Thus both the youth and Phaedra are revealed as the innocent victims of a goddess' jealousy and their honor is vindicated.

Note: summary taken from Moonstruck

Best extracts of the play

- The nurse, having heard Phaedra's in love with his stepson, tries to comfort her mistress by reminding her that mortals are helpless to the desire of the Gods. It's impossible for a simple woman to escape the longings of a God.

Nurse: "Give up your railing. It's only insolent pride to wish to be superior to the Gods. Endure your love, the Gods have willed it so. You are sick (...)"

- When Hippolytus learns by the Nurse that his stepmother is in love with him.

Hippolytus: "Women ! (...) Why, why, Lord Zeus did put you in the world, in the light of the sun? If you were so determined to breed the race of man, the source of it should not be women. (...) how great a curse is woman (...) beauty heaped on vileness (...) I'll hate you women, and hate you and hate you, and never have enough hating."

- The moment Theseus arrives home and curses his son for having murdered Phaedra.

Theseus: "Citizens, Hippolytus has dared to rape my wife. He has dishonored God's holy sunlight. Father Poseidon (...) I pray, kill my son (...) I banish him from this land's boundaries. So fate shall strike him, one way or the other, either Poseidon will respect my curse, and send him dead into the House of Hades, or exiled from this land (...)".

- When Artemis appears to Theseus and the hole truth is revealed.

Artemis: "I call on the noble king [Theseus] to hear me ! It is Artemis, child of Leto. Miserable man (...) you have murdered your son! (...) I have come here for this - to show you that your son's heart was always just, so just that for his good name he endured to die. I will show you, too, the frenzied love that seized your wife, or I may call it, a noble innocence. For that most hated Goddess [Aphrodite], hated by all of us whose joy is virginity, drove her with love's sharp prickings to desire your son. She tried to overcome her love with the mind's power, but at last against her will, she fell by the nurse's stratagems (...) who told your son under oath her mistress loved him (...) But he, just man, did not fall in with her counsels, and even when reviled by you refused to break the oath he had pledged. But your wife fearing lest she be proved the sinner wrote a letter, a letter full of lies, and so she killed your son by treachery (...)".

- The closing dialogue between the Goddess Artemis, father (Theseus) and son (Hippolytus): with his last breath, a dying son forgives his murderous father for having killed him.

Aphrodite:"You have sinned indeed, but you may win pardon. For it was Cypris [Aphrodite] who managed the things this way to gratify her anger against Hippolytus" (...)".

Hippolytus: "O father, this is sorrow for you indeed".

Theseus: "I, too, am dead now. I have no more joy in life".

Hippolytus: "I sorrow for you in this more than myself" (...) The darkness is upon my eyes already. Father, lay hold on me and lift me up". (...)

Theseus: "And so you leave me, my hand stained with murder."

Hippolytus: "No, for I free you from all guilt in this".

As I tried to introduce in the opening, I find Euripides' Hippolytus to be the most tragic and emotionally devastating of classical poems. Thus, I encourage you to stop watching those brain-washing soap operas that appear on TV and start reading this writer's awesome play!

> Click here to read the entire play

Plato's Symposium - Aristophanes's speech

What is the nature of love? What purpose does love have?

In trying to find an answer to this inquiry, Plato writes his philosophical Symposium, a book comprising "a story within a story, within a story" that deals with the topics of knowledge and love. According to the play, a group of sophisticated and enlightened people are invited to a meeting in order to debate on these two matters.

Among these guests is our master comedian Aristophanes, who tries to explain why people in love say they feel "whole" when they have found their love partner.

These are more or less the ideas on love that Plato puts in his mouth:

Plato's Symposium - Aristophanes's speech - On Love

In primal times people were globular spheres who wheeled around like clowns doing cartwheels. There were three sexes: the all male, the all female, and the "androgynous," who was half man, half woman. The creatures tried to scale the heights of heaven and planned to set upon the gods. Zeus thought about just blasting them to death with thunderbolts, but did not want to deprive himself of their devotions and offerings, so he decided to cripple them by chopping them in half.

After chopping the people in half, Zeus turned half their faces around and pulled the skin tight and stitched it up to form the belly button. Ever since that time, people run around saying they are looking for their other half because they are really trying to recover their primal nature.

Aristophanes - The Complete Plays

After having analyzed during the last months a bunch of plays written by the comedian Aristophanes, I guess now it's a good time to make a little review of all his masterpieces.

Greek's Theater of Dionysus, in Athens

Of the many comedies produced by this Greek author, only eleven of them have survived and reached our modern times in a complete state: Acharnians, Knights, Clouds, Wasps, Peace, Birds, Lysistrata, Women at the Thesmophoria Festival, Frogs, A Parliament of Women and Plutus (Wealth). Among all these poems, I've already shared with you the three ones I found most captivating: The Acharnians, Clouds and Lysistrata.

How would I describe his plays ?
I if had the possibility to gather all Aristophanes's plays in a single and illustrating label I wouldn't hesitate to choose "ABSURD" or any of its equivalents: ridiculous, laughable, risible, idiotic, stupid, foolish, silly, insane, unreasonable, irrational, illogical, incongruous, senseless, crazy. Aristhopnahes was the first known artist to make Comedy and Entertaining a serious business ... and he did it in a outstanding way.

What drew most of my attention ?
The vast theatrical mastery the audience ought to have in order to get a complete understanding of his plays, or even to just "follow" them. You would miss half of them shouldn't you have first read or heard about the other many stories and authors he constantly parodies and quotes: the great Homer, Socrates, Aesop ... or even his arch-rivals Sophocles, Euripides or Aeschylus and their many, many performed plays.

Why read Aristophanes ?

The easiest and most direct response would be "You can't travel the road of Classical Mythology without paying a visit to Aristophanes". Apart from this "canned answer", my personal reply would be "the much he makes you think !"; disguised in foolish, entertaining and perspicacious dialogues, deep topics reach the surface. Aristophnes makes his audience laugh and enjoy the moment, and leaves them with a great number of profound things in which to turn their minds to.

And what about the rest of the poems ?

Can't let you empty handed; here is a little summary of 4 of his other plays:

- Peace: Trygaeus, sick of war (27 years have passed since the beginning of The Peloponnesian War), flies to Olympus on a gigantic beetle - parodying Bellerophon's aerial journey on Pegasus - to ask Zeus what he is doing about the conflict. But Zeus has washed his hands of humanity and is allowing War (who has trapped Peace inside a cave) to have free rein. Finally, Peace is rescued and brought back in triumph to Earth.

- Birds: two middle-aged Athenians, fed up with the world they live in, decide to go in search for a better one. Under the direction of two pet birds, they seek advice from Tereus, who used to be human but is now a hoopoe: why not join the birds and create a new and invincible empire ? An aerial city (later baptized "Cloudcuckooland") placed between the Earth and the high Sky, where Gods and humans alike would have to pay tributes to them.

No doubt, this is the most absurd of all Aristophanes's plays !

- Frogs: Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides are all dead, and there are no more good poets or good theater; so Dionysus, patron of the stage, decides to go down to Hades and bring back the best of the three. An artistic contest begins between the play writers; Aeschylus gets the first prize, and accompanies Dionysus back to the mortal world.

- Plutus (Wealth): Zeus once blinded Plutus so that he couldn't tell the difference between god and bad people (being rich has nothing to do with being good). Chremyslus, an Athenian citizen, decides to take him to Aesclepius, god of healing, to get his sight back. On their way they come across Poverty who tells them they are making a big mistake: "without the fear of poverty, mortals would have no motive to make an effort". Plutus then gets his sight back.

Odysseus's Journey in a present-day map

Meet the destinations Odysseus visited in his way home to Ithaca.

The epic voyage of Odysseus seen inside a Google Map

After the epic war held in Troy, Homer tells us the story of Ithaca's king, who travelled by sea for 10 years before reaching his homeland. (Take a sneak peek of "The Odyssey")

I've just found in the web a user-defined Google Map containing placemarks of Odysseus's probable destinations, together with a small summary of the tale involved in each place:

Note: never forget that Homer's geography of the Odyssey is somewhat inconsistent. You should take it in a mythical way rather than literal.

1- Troy: where the war between Agamemnon's Achaeans and Priam's Trojans was held (Homer's Iliad).

2- Ismaros (Ismara): After their departure from Troy, Odysseus and his companions stop at Ismaros. They sack the town, situated on an island, and then engage in a fierce battle with the Cicones, the inhabitants of the adjacent region. They kill the men and divide the women and treasures among themselves and after that start to feast, although Odysseus proposes to leave. The Cicones, who in the meantime go for help, come back in the morning in great quantities. Odysseus manages to escape after heavy losses and embarks with the survivors to continue towards his homeland, Ithaca, but shortly after sailing they are caught in a northerly storm.

3- The Land Of The Lotus Eaters (Modern day Djurba, Tunisia): "(...) on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eaters, who live on a food that comes from a kind of flower. Here we landed to take in fresh water, and our crews got their mid-day meal on the shore near the ships. When they had eaten and drunk (...) went about among the Lotus-Eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back (...).

4- Land Of The Cyclopes (SE Sicily)

5- Island of Aeolia (isle at N Sicily): Odysseus flees here after the ravaging of his men by Polyphemus, and their subsequent escape from the land of the Cyclopes. Aelouss, son of Hippotas, gives Odysseus a bag of winds to head home with, and the journey goes well until his men open the bag and are cast back into the waters of the Mediterranean.

6- Ithaca: he actually never reached at this point.

7- Return to Aeolia

8- Telepylos: the mythological city of the Laestrygonians. When Odysseus reached the city in the Odyssey, he sent three scouts to explore the island. They came across the King, a giant cannibal, who then ate one of the men, causing the other scouts to run away. Most of Odysseus' men are killed in the incident, but his boat is moored outside the Laestrygonians' harbour. He is able to sail away, without the bombardment of rocks received by the rest of the fleet who did moor within the harbour. Only fifty-two men escaped.

9- Aeaea: the land of the sorceress Circe, who detained Odysseus and turned his men into swine.

10- The underworld: the Acheron River.

11- Return to Aeaea

12- Anthemoessa: the land of the sirens. All locations were surrounded by cliffs and rocks. Sailors who sailed near were compelled by the Sirens' enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast.

13- Strait of Messina: were the 2 monsters were waiting for Odyssey. Scylla and Charybdis

14- Land Of Hyperion: one of the 12 Titan Gods; related to the Sun.

15- Ithaca: homeland.

The Odyssey

This is the story of Odysseus, mythology's greatest mortal hero

Video coming from The History Channel

Apart from being considered Episode II of Classical Mythology's Bible (being Homer's Iliad the former), The Odyssey is one of the most fascinating, adventurous and imaginative stories ever written. It's the tale of Odysseus, mythology's greatest mortal hero, written 800 years before the time of Jesus.

Odysseus, the mastermind of the Trojan Horse, is the main character of this epic. After having defeated the Trojans in their land, it's time for the king of Ithaca to return home to his beloved wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. Nevertheless, what was supposed to be an easy task ended in a 10 year journey across all the Mediterranean Sea. He's done the worst of things: he has angered the Sea God Poseidon.

In this 5 episode movie you'll encounter a good synopsis of the legend. Though not precisely accurate, it's a very complete source to get a surfrace understanding of Odysseus adventures.

Most fascinating deeds during his journey

- The Trojan Horse craftsmanship: he retells how he deceived the Trojans into letting the Wooden horse inside their walls, a thing that became their doom.

- The Lotus eaters: a bizarre drug that almost ended their journey.

- The blinding of the Cyclops Polyphemus: Odysseus couldn't make it worse than putting the son of Poseidon's eye out and letting him know who had done it (read The "no men" artistry)

- Aeolus, the master of winds: the king who captured the mighty winds inside a bag and gave it to Odysseus in order to help him back home. When Ithaca was on sight, his crew accidentally opened the bag and unleashed the destructive winds which deprived them from reaching land.

- The witch-goddess Circe: who turned his crew (what was left of them) into swines.

- His journey to the Underworld (Hades): place were he went in order to learn from the seer Tiresias how to sail back to Ithaca. He encounters the spirits of Agamemnon and Achilles.

- The land of the Sirens: Odysseus and his crew are tied to the ship to escape the enchantments of these creatures and avoid getting shipwrecked.

- Scylla and Charybdis: while trying to cross the Strait of Messina, these two monsters were waiting for him.

- The Nymph Calysto: who kept him captive for seven years.

- His final return home: where he reveals himself to his son Telemachus.

- The killing of Penelope's suitors: after having showed his virtuosity with the bow.

- The encounter with Penelope: after an intimate story, his wife finally recognizes him and falls into his arms.

Enjoy it !!

The story of Zeus - God of Gods

A son battles his father for control of the Universe and seizes more power than any God ever had.

Video coming from The History Channel

I was surfing the Internet for different Classical Mythology material in order to share with you, and I came across a series of episode coming from the award winning History Channel.

Just as Cronus had overthrown his father Uranus,

now it's Zeus's time.

Up to this moment, I've been keeping a single posting architecture: landscape picture + text. After having found this and many other interesting videos, I guess I'll restructure my orthodox kind of writing this blog and extend my sources with the help of You Tube's embedding feature.

Take a look at this cinematographic 5-episode-video. It's not the same as reading Hesiod's Theogony book, but those of you who prefer watching than reading, you''l find it more than fluent and entertaining. Even those of you who are fond of reading, I suggest you still don't miss it: simple, graceful and accurate.

Aesop's fables

This is the story of a slave who gained his freedom by captivating his audience with animal tales filled with moral content: "The Fables of Aesop".

The law of the jungle prevails in the world of men

Little is really known about the life of this writer; even some experts maintain that he never actually existed. Nevertheless I'll try to summarize what has been best "accepted" about his time on earth:

Aesop was a 6th century BC warrior, sold into slavery to a citizen of Samos (East of Turkey) called Xanthus. After having earned big reputation for telling astonishing animal tales in important discussions and negotiations - which indeed impressed his listeners - he supposedly gained his freedom. He is attributed with the writing of a compilation of 358 fables, though the inconsistencies found in his characters and settings tend to make us believe that the tales had come from various and different sources.

Fable: narrative form, usually featuring animals that behave and speak as human beings, told in order to highlight human follies and weaknesses. A moral—or lesson for behaviour—is woven into the story and often explicitly formulated at the end.

The idea of representing human types as animals has the advantage of a profound simplicity, but is not simplistic.

Why do we put Aesop under the "tag" of Classical Mythology ? I guess I can point three main reasons:

1- His tales involve the Olympian Gods and Goddesses, and thus some of the things we got to know about Zeus, Hermes or Athena were learnt from him.

2- Just as Ovid told us the story of the first spider (the weaver "Arachne" who made Athena furious and was consequently turned into this 8 legged insect), Aesop had already written similar tales 600 years before: Why does the tortoise carry his "home" in his back ? Because Zeus punished the animal for not attending the God´s wedding party. "I´d rather stay home" were the words who sentenced the tortoise to carry forever his house with him.

3- Many play writers, being Aristophanes at the top of the list, have included Aesop's tales in their plays. It seems that all the audience of that time (-800 to -400 approx) knew these stories by heart.

Coming next is one of Aesop´s fables, but I suggest you read this other posting first: "The power of Allegories"

The ant and the grasshopper

In times of abundance we should plan ahead lest we suffer distress when times change.

During the wintertime, an ant was living off the grain that he had stored up for himself during the summer. The grasshopper came to the ant and asked him to share some of his grain. The ant said to the grasshopper, 'And what were you doing all summer long, since you weren't gathering grain to eat?' The grasshopper replied, 'Because I was busy singing I didn't have time for the harvest.' The ant laughed at the grasshopper's reply, and hid his heaps of grain deeper in the ground. 'Since you sang like a fool in the summer,' said the ant, 'you better be prepared to dance the winter away!'

Lysistrata - by Aristophanes

In order to put an end to war Lysistrata hits on a startling way of forcing husbands to stay home and become pacifists: deny them sex !

I hit on a way to stop the war: forgo sex !

Society in classical Greek times is known to have been patriarchal and misogynistic (hatred of women), segregating females from public life and confinig them to soldier-raising and housework tasks. Nonetheless, Aristophanes comes again with a satirical and absurd masterpiece that reconciles women, making them intelligent schemers of a worldwide plot to bring war to an end.

Just to gain a little comprehension of the time and setting needed to fully understand the poem I must point out that this play was written in 411 BC, which situates it in the center of The Peloponessian War (431 BC to 404 BC) with Athens and Sparta fighting for supremacy in the Greek mainland.

The story

While men are away in battle, Lysistrata - an average Athenian wife - gathers women from all over the Peloponnese to share her stratagem against male and their endless desire to battle.

- The salvation of our State rests with us (...)

- If all us women united en masse - Beotians, Spartans, and us - we all together could save Greece (...)

And here comes the brilliantly unexpected slant, funny enough to make the reader think:

- Precisely that's what we're going to need to save Greece: a seductive wardrobe, our rouge, our negligees (...) to stop every living man (...) from ever lifting a shield or (...) springing a dagger (...)

- What we are going to have to forgo is ... penis (...)

- (...) Imagine it: us lolling around all tarted up, our pussies' sweet little triangles neatly plucked, and we float past them in our see-throughs, and our men get stiff as rods and want to screw, but we elude them and hold ourselves aloof - why, they'll sue for peace real quick. That you can bet.

Women realize they can gain total control of men through sex; or in this case ... through the absence of it. Now take a look at the sexual, entertaining and hysterical oath women do:

- No man whatsoever, whether husband or lover shall (...) come near me with a rampant cock. (...) I'll live at home in continence unrutting (...) all tarted up in my saffron frock (...) so that my husband is bursting to erupt (...) while I stay aloof and adamant (...).

- Set him on fire with pangs of desire. Tantalize him to the hilt (...) Promise him his every want except what on the wine cup we swore we wouldn't.

By now you might have guessed the end of the story: because of the boycott of sex by the women of both Athens and Sparta men start to show signs of priapism (painful and persistent erection of the penis). They have no way out but to submit to women's will and sign peace with each other.

- Now that everything's worked out so well its time you Spartans got back your wives, and you Athenians yours. So, my dears, let each husband stand beside his woman while each wife stands beside her husband. And let us celebrate this happy bond and thank the gods with dance. And let us swear never to make the same mistakes again and be so dense (...).

Greek History Timeline

From the first mythological poems of Homer and Hesiod (800 BC) to the Roman conquer of the Hellenistic world in 146 BC.

All the classical poets, battles, philosophers and the like ... in a single timeline

A unified timeline were to observe the coexistance and correlativity of poets, batlles, philosophers and politicians:

- Hesiod, Homer, Aesop, Sappho, Aeschylus, Pindar, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Virgil, Ovid.

- Thales, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Socrates, Democritus, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle.

- Illiad and Odyssey (Homer), Theogony (Hesiod), The Frogs (Aristophanes), Socratic Dialogues (Plato), Odes (Pindar), The Oresteia and Prometheus Bound (Aeschylus), Antigone and Ajax (Sophocles), Medea and Electra (Euripides), The Aeneid (Virgil), Metamorphoses (Ovid).

- Persian Wars, Peloponnesian War, Battle of Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis, Battle of Corinth and Leuctra.

- First Olympic Game, Solon, Pericles, Birth of Democracy, Alexander The Great, Macedonian Greece, Conquer of Greece by the Romans.

- Classical, Hellenistic and Roman eras.

Further reading > Simplified Greek History

Seven against Thebes - by Aeschylus

This is the story of the two sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, who battled for the kingdom of the seven-gated Thebes.

Eteocles and Polynices - both men lie dead, each murdered by the other

This drama, written in 467 BC, is the chronological continuance of the famous tragedy Oedipus King / Rex. After the incestuous birth of Eteocles, Polynices, Antigone and Ismene followed by the discovery of Oedipus' true story (recall that he had unintentionally killed his father Laius and married his mother Jocasta), Jocasta hangs herself and Oedipus leaves Thebes to die in exile.

(...) "No mother more unfortunate than she who bore these boys, oh, none more doomed among all women, so many as are mothers on this earth " (...)

Before departing, Oedipus instructs his two sons Eteocles and Polynices to co-rule the city, leading alternately year by year. However, after the first 365 days of reign had passed, Eteocles refuses to give up his power and Polynices joins the Argives to reclaim his throne by force.

Great warriors from both sides face each other in single combat, and the Seven Gates that surround the city of Thebes become the perfect setting of each battle. Eteocles and Polynices engage in the final crusade; two brothers fated to death by the curse of their own family. They are both killed by the hands of the other; the Eumenides (also known as Furies or Erinyes - deities of vengeance) have succeeded in their duties.

(...) "Both men lie dead, each murdered by the other" (...)

(...) "Their destinies identical, the fate of one that of the other; in one stroke oblivion enveloped their doomed clan" (...)

Now Eteocles is given a king-like burial, while his brother's body is left to the crows.

(...) "this body here, Eteocles, for his great dedication to the State (...) has died as a youthful patriot ought to die, repelling enemies of his native place".

(...) "As for this, the corpse of Polynices, (...) if a certain god had not stepped in to guide his brother's spear - would have overturned the city and laid waste our Cadmean realm: he shall be cast beyond the gates, unburied, a meal for dogs".

The story opens the door to Sophocles' tragedy "Antigone"; it ends where the latter starts.

Antigone: "(...) Regardless of consequences I will take the risk of opposing the authorities and bury my brother" (...)

Now picture the final moment of the play: Ismene carrying her brother Eteocles with the people of the city, and Antigone on his own, carrying the lifeless body of Polynices.

JMD: Another excellent piece of work from Aeschylus ... what else can I tell you ??