Analysis of the tragedy "Hippolytus". Yarkho V.: Dramaturgy of Aeschylus and some problems of ancient Greek tragedy

Hippolytus- the main character of the tragedy of the same name. I., the son of the Athenian king Theseus living in Troezen, aroused the latter’s wrath with his zealous veneration of Artemis and the disdain shown for Aphrodite. According to her plan, Theseus’s wife and I. Phaedra’s stepmother fell passionately in love with him. Phaedra's old nurse decides to help her at all costs. Against Phaedra's will, she volunteers to act as a mediator of their love. However, I. rejects the nurse’s offer with hatred and contempt. Phaedra, who accidentally overheard this conversation, commits suicide. But, in order to wash away the shameful stain from her name, and also to punish I. for his arrogance, she leaves a letter for her husband in which she accuses I. of allegedly dishonoring her of her death. Theseus, returning from a trip to the oracle, finds Phaedra’s letter and curses him in anger I., begging Poseidon, who promised him to fulfill his three wishes, so that I. would not live to see the end of this day. I. goes into exile, but a monstrous bull sent from the sea by Poseidon terrifies I.’s horses, which rush in different directions, smashing I. on the stones. Theseus orders his dying son to be brought to him. Artemis, who appears, reveals the truth to Theseus, accusing him of a hasty decision, and promises I. posthumous honors on earth.

The main feature of I.’s image is his piety. At the same time, his main virtue is his virgin purity. I. does not doubt his virtue and considers himself superior to all people in it. However, the flip side of his complete devotion to Artemis is the natural disdain he shows for the goddess Aphrodite. I. resolutely rejects all attempts of his old servant to protect him from arrogance in front of Aphrodite. He spreads his hatred to all women and angrily attacks Phaedra, who does not deserve his reproaches. I. hates women not at all because, from his point of view, Phaedra’s behavior turned out to be vicious; on the contrary, he judges Phaedra’s behavior this way because of his hatred of women. And it was this unfair attitude that ultimately became the direct cause of his death. In a fit of anger and indignation, I. threatens to break the oath of silence given to him, not condescending to any of the nurse’s requests. Phaedra hears these cries of indignation and, preparing to die, prepares the death of I.

An additional characteristic of I.’s image is the emphasized elitism of his lifestyle, which also could not receive an unambiguously positive assessment from even a fully educated and modern ancient viewer of this tragedy.

In this tragedy, I.’s main antagonist is Phaedra. In her image, the same theme is developed - the relationship between true piety and observance of purity. In this sense, the images have a parallel development. However, in relation to Phaedra, the theme develops in a positive way: Phaedra resists passion so as not to violate traditional moral norms, and such resistance can cause nothing but praise. As for I., in his image the theme receives a rather negative interpretation. In this sense, the images of Phaedra and I. are contrasted with each other.

Description of work

The myth of Hippolytus is one of the Greek variants of the widespread story of a treacherous wife who slanderes a chaste young man who did not want to share her love to her husband (cf. the biblical tale of Joseph). This tragedy was a success, but it had to be rewritten twice. The plot is also known in the Bible - a variant of the plot about the treacherous wife. The tragedy opens with a prologue, where Aphrodite says that she is offended by Hippolytus because he spends all his time with Artemis. Aphrodite sends the passion of Hippolyta to Phaedra. The episode begins with Phaedra, the wife of Theseus, being sick, but she does not understand why exactly; the Nurse and Corypheus do not know what the matter is. As it soon turned out, Phaedra was passionately in love with Hippolytus.

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The myth of Hippolytus is one of the Greek variants of the widespread story of a treacherous wife who slanderes a chaste young man who did not want to share her love to her husband (cf. the biblical tale of Joseph). This tragedy was a success, but it had to be rewritten twice. The plot is also known in the Bible - a variant of the plot about the treacherous wife. The tragedy opens with a prologue, where Aphrodite says that she is offended by Hippolytus because he spends all his time with Artemis. Aphrodite sends the passion of Hippolyta to Phaedra. The episode begins with Phaedra, the wife of Theseus, being sick, but she does not understand why exactly; the Nurse and Corypheus do not know what the matter is. As it soon turned out, Phaedra was passionately in love with Hippolytus. The picture of Phaedra's love torments is painted with great force. Phaedra hides this from her husband, she is very ashamed in front of him and wishes herself to die. After the shock has passed, the nurse tells Fedra that it’s not as scary as it seemed at first and advises her to tell her husband everything without hiding, but Fedra doesn’t want to fall so low in front of him, she’s afraid that her husband will kill her children. The nanny promised that since Phaedra did not want to be in love with Hippolytus, then she would find healing from love, and would not tell anyone about the secret. Phaedra fears what the nurse means and is very afraid. And yet the Nurse reveals Phaedra’s secret to Hippolytus. Hippolytus immediately comes, expresses indignation, threatens to come with Theseus, curses and leaves. Phaedra is horrified and wishes for a speedy death for both herself and the nanny, because she vilely betrayed the secret, no matter how the nurse justified herself. Phaedra is soon found dead, hanging from a noose. Theseus, having learned of the death of his wife, is in bitter sadness. Immediately he finds in the clenched hand of his deceased wife a letter where it is written about harassment by Hippolytus. The refusal of the indignant Hippolytus then forced Phaedra to carry out a suicide plan, but now with the goal of preserving her good name with the help of dying slander against her stepson. Theseus, in curses, asks Zeus to kill Hippolytus. When Hippolytus appears before Theseus’s eyes, the first asks Hippolytus to leave Athens forever, since he believed that nothing could be worse than death than wandering around the world in search of food and considering this to be the best retribution for the death of his wife. Ippolit sincerely does not understand why he is doing this and asks at least someone to prove his innocence. And so, Hippolytus, setting off on his chariot away from Athens, sees in front of him a wave in the form of a water bull. The bull overturns Hippolytus's chariot, and the latter is severely wounded by sharp stones. Thus, Theseus' curse came true, and Poseidon fulfilled his wish. The dying Hippolytus is brought on a stretcher to Theseus. The goddess Artemis, who patronizes Hippolytus, appears at the end of the tragedy to reveal the truth to Theseus and console Hippolytus before his death. It turns out that she could not come to the aid of her admirer in a timely manner, since the custom among the gods is not to go against each other... Theseus is very upset that he cursed his son for nothing. The son blames his father for not listening to him then and not heeding his pleas. But still he feels sorry for his father, forgives him, and says that his fate is worthy of crying. Theseus wants to replace his son and calls his sin an eclipse of reason. In the end, Hippolytus dies, leaving his father to suffer alone.

In the later works of Euripides, the point of man’s dependence on randomly acting forces both inside and outside him, on sudden impulses, on turning points of fate, on the play of chance, is even more highlighted.

Euripides’ attitude towards the gods is also indicative: Aphrodite acts from such petty motives as vanity and offended pride, and Artemis, whose faithful admirer was Hippolytus, gives him up to the mercy of Aphrodite’s base feelings. Gods, by whose will people endure such suffering without any guilt, are unworthy to be called gods - this idea, repeatedly expressed in various tragedies of Euripides, reflects his religious doubts and skepticism

(Εύριπίδης, 480 – 406 BC)

Origin of Euripides

The third great Athenian tragedian, Euripides, was born on the island of Salamis in 480 BC (Ol. 75, 1), according to legend, on the same day when the Athenians defeated the Persian fleet at Salamis - 20 voedromion or 5 October. The poet's parents, like most Athenians, fled from Attica during the invasion of Xerxes' hordes and sought refuge in Salamis. Euripides' father's name was Mnesarchus (or Mnesarchides), and his mother's name was Clito. There are remarkable, contradictory reports about them, which, perhaps, partly owe their origin to the mocking Attic comedy. Euripides' mother, as Aristophanes often reproached him, was, they say, a merchant and sold vegetables and herbs; the father is said to have also been a merchant or innkeeper (κάπηγοσ); they say that he, for some unknown reason, fled with his wife to Boeotia and then settled again in Attica. We read from Stobaeus that Mnesarchus was in Boeotia and there he was subjected to an original punishment for debts: the insolvent debtor was taken to the market, sat there and covered with a basket. By this he was dishonored and therefore left Boeotia for Attica. The comedians say nothing about this story, although they used everything they could to ridicule Euripides.

Euripides with an actor's mask. Statue

From everything reported, it seems that we can conclude that Euripides’ parents were poor people, from the lower class. But Philochorus, the famous collector of Attic antiquities who lived during the time of the Diadochi, in his work on Euripides, on the contrary, reports that Euripides’ mother came from a very noble family; Theophrastus (c. 312 BC) also speaks about the nobility of the poet’s parents, according to whom Euripides was once among the boys who, during the festival of Phargelia, poured wine for the singers - an activity for which only children from noble locals were chosen childbirth The remark of one biographer that Euripides was the torchbearer (πύρθορος) of Apollo Zosterius has a similar meaning. Therefore we must believe that Euripides came from a noble Athenian family. He was assigned to the district of Phlia (Φλΰα).

The youth and education of Euripides

Even if Euripides’s father was not rich, he nevertheless gave his son a good upbringing, which was fully consistent with his origin. The father especially tried to train his son in athletics and gymnastics, precisely because, as legend says, that at the birth of the boy, the father received a prediction from the oracle or from passers-by Chaldeans that his son would win victories in sacred competitions. When the boy's strength was already sufficiently developed, his father took him to Olympia for the games; but Euripides was not allowed to attend the games due to his youth. But later, as they say, he received an award for an athletic competition in Athens. In his youth, Euripides also studied painting; Subsequently, more of his paintings were located in Megara. In adulthood, he zealously took up philosophy and rhetoric. He was a student and friend of Anaxagoras of Clazomenos, who, during the time of Pericles, first began to teach philosophy in Athens; Euripides was on friendly terms with Pericles and with other remarkable people of that time, such as, for example, the historian Thucydides. The tragedies of Euripides show the deep influence that the great philosopher (Anaxagoras) had on the poet. His tragedies also sufficiently testify to his knowledge of rhetoric. In rhetoric, he used the lessons of the famous sophists Protagoras of Abdera and Prodicus of Keos, who lived and taught in Athens for a long time and were on good terms with the most remarkable people in this city, which then became a gathering point for all outstanding scientists and artists. In ancient biographies, Socrates is also mentioned among Euripides' teachers; but this is simply a chronological error. Socrates was a friend of Euripides, who was 11 years older than him; they had common views and common aspirations. Although Socrates rarely visited the theater, he came there every time a new drama by Euripides was played. “He loved this man,” says Elian, for his wisdom and for the moral tone of his works.” This mutual sympathy between the poet and the philosopher was the reason why comedians, ridiculing Euripides, claimed that Socrates was helping him write tragedies.

Dramatic activity of Euripides and the attitude of his contemporaries towards it

What prompted Euripides to leave his studies in philosophy and turn to tragic poetry is unknown to us for certain. Apparently, he took up poetry not out of inner motivation, but out of deliberate choice, wanting to popularize philosophical ideas in poetic form. He first performed the drama in the 25th year of his life, in 456 BC (Ol. 81.1), the year of the death of Aeschylus. Then he received only the third award. Even in ancient times they didn’t know exactly how many dramas Euripides wrote; most writers attributed 92 plays to him, including 8 satirical dramas. He won his first victory in 444 BC, the second in 428. In general, throughout his long-term poetic activity, he received the first award only four times; the fifth time he received it after his death, for didascalia, which put on stage on his behalf by his son or nephew, also named Euripides.

Euripides. Encyclopedia Project. Video

From this small number of victories it is clear that the works of Euripides did not enjoy special attention among his fellow citizens. However, during the life of Sophocles, who, being the favorite of the Athenian people, inseparably reigned on the stage until his death, it was difficult for anyone else to achieve fame. In addition, the reason for the insignificant successes of Euripides lay mainly in the peculiarities of his poetry, which, having left the solid ground of ancient Hellenic life, tried to acquaint the people with philosophical speculation and sophistry, therefore, took a new direction that did not like the generation brought up on old customs . But Euripides, regardless of the public’s reluctance, stubbornly continued to follow the same path, and in the consciousness of his own dignity sometimes directly contradicted the public if it expressed its displeasure with some of his bold thoughts, the moral meaning of some place in his works. So, for example, they say that once the people demanded that Euripides delete some place from his tragedy; the poet went on stage and declared that he was used to teaching the people, and not learning from the people. Another time, when, during the performance of Bellerophon, the whole people, having heard the misanthrope Bellerophon praising money above all else in the world, rose from their seats in anger and wanted to drive the actors off the stage and stop the performance, Euripides again appeared on stage and demanded that the audience We waited until the end of the play and saw what awaited the lover of money. The following story is similar to this. In Euripides’ tragedy “Ixion,” its hero, the villain, elevates injustice to a principle and with daring sophistry destroys all concepts of virtue and duty, so that this tragedy was condemned as godless and immoral. The poet objected, and only then removed his drama from the repertoire when he was forced to do so.

Euripides did not pay much attention to the verdict of his contemporaries, confident that his works would be appreciated later. Once, in a conversation with the tragedian Acestor, he complained that in the last three days, despite all his efforts, he managed to write only three poems; Akestor boasted that at this time he could easily write a hundred poems; Euripides remarked: “But there is a difference between us: your poems are written only for three days, but mine are written forever.” Euripides was not deceived in his expectations; as a supporter of progress, which increasingly attracted the younger generation, Euripides, from the time of the Peloponnesian War, began to meet little by little with more and more approval, and soon his tragedies became the common property of the Attic educated public. Brilliant tirades from his tragedies, pleasant songs and thoughtful maxims were on everyone’s lips and were highly valued throughout Greece. Plutarch, in his biography of Nicias, says that after the unfortunate outcome of the Sicilian expedition, many of the Athenians who escaped captivity in Syracuse and fell into slavery or were in poverty in another part of the island owed their salvation to Euripides. “Of the non-Athenian Greeks, the greatest admirers of the muse of Euripides were the Sicilian Greeks; they learned passages from his works by heart and gladly communicated them to one another. At least many of those who returned to their homeland from there joyfully greeted Euripides and told him, some how they freed themselves from slavery, having taught their master what they knew by heart from Euripides’ tragedies, others how they, singing his songs, received their own food when, after the battle, they had to wander without shelter.” In this regard, Plutarch tells how one day a ship, pursued by pirates, sought salvation in the bay of the city of Kavna (in Caria): the inhabitants of this city at first did not allow the ship into the bay; but then, asking the shipmen if they knew anything from Euripides and receiving an affirmative answer, they allowed them to hide from their pursuers. The comedian Aristophanes, a representative of the “good old times”, an enemy of all innovations, attacks Euripides especially strongly and very often laughs at passages from his tragedies; this proves how important Euripides was among his fellow citizens during the Peloponnesian War and how famous his poems were.

Personal character of Euripides

The dislike with which Euripides was greeted by his fellow citizens for a long time is partly explained by his personal character and way of life. Euripides was a completely moral person, which can already be seen from the fact that Aristophanes never cites a single immoral incident from his life; but by nature he was serious, gloomy and uncommunicative; like his teacher and friend Anaxagoras, whom no one had ever seen laughing or smiling, he hated all carefree enjoyment of life. And he was also not seen laughing; he avoided contact with people and never left a concentrated, thoughtful state. With such isolation, he spent time only with a few friends and with his books; Euripides was one of the few people of that time who had his own library, and quite a significant one at that. The poet Alexander Etolsky says about him: “The student of the strict Anaxagoras was grumpy and uncommunicative; an enemy of laughter, he did not know how to have fun and joke while drinking wine; but everything he wrote was full of pleasantness and attractiveness.” He withdrew from political life and never held public office. Of course, with such a lifestyle, he could not claim popularity; like Socrates, he must have seemed useless and idle to the Athenians; they considered him an eccentric, “who, buried in his books and philosophizing with Socrates in his corner, is thinking of remaking Hellenic life.” This is how Aristophanes presents him, of course, for the amusement of the Athenians, in his comedy “Acharnians”: Euripides sits at home and soars in the higher spheres, philosophizes and writes poetry, and does not want to go down to talk with Dicaeopolis, since he has no time; Only yielding to the urgent requests of the latter, he orders, for the sake of great convenience, to push himself out of the room. Paying some attention to the judgments of the crowd, Euripides in his "" advises smart people not to give their children an extensive education, "since a wise man, even because he loves leisure and solitude, arouses self-hatred among his fellow citizens, and if he invents something good, fools consider it a daring innovation.” But if Euripides moved away from public life, however, as is clear from his poetry, he had a patriotic heart; he tried to arouse love for the fatherland in his fellow citizens, he vividly felt the failures of his native city, rebelled against the machinations of the unscrupulous leaders of the mob, and even gave sound advice to the people in political matters.

On the island of Salamis they showed a lonely, shady cave with an entrance from the sea, which Euripides built for himself in order to retire there from the noisy light for poetic studies. In all likelihood, the gloomy and melancholic character of this cave, reminiscent of the personal characteristics of Euripides, prompted the Salamis people to name this cave after the poet born on the island. On one stone, which Welker speaks of (Alte Denkmäler, I, 488), there is an image relating to this Euripides cave. Euripides, a plump old man with a large beard, stands next to the muse, who holds a scroll in her hand and brings it to a woman sitting on a rock. This woman, as Welker explains, “is a nymph living in this coastal rock, a nymph of this cave, friendly receiving Euripides; the construction of a cave here for the solitary study of wise poetry is indicated by Hermes standing behind the nymph.”

The theme of women in Euripides

The gloomy and unsociable character of Euripides also explains the hatred of women for which the Athenians and especially Aristophanes reproached him in his comedy “Women at the Festival of Thesmophoria.” The women, irritated by Euripides’ bad reviews of them, want to take revenge on him and, having gathered for the festival of Thesmophoria, where complete agreement reigns between them, they decide to arrange a trial of the poet and sentence him to death. Euripides, in fear for his fate, is looking for one of the men who would agree to dress in women's dress, take part in a meeting of women and defend the poet there. Since the pampered, effeminate poet Agathon, whom Euripides asks to provide this service, does not want to be in danger, Mnesilochus, Euripides’ father-in-law, who has fully mastered the philosophical and oratorical techniques of his son-in-law, takes on this role and, dressing in a woman’s dress, delivered by Agathon , goes to the Thesmophorion temple. Here a trial takes place, in which female speakers violently attack the son of a merchant who insults their sex; Mnesilochus ardently defends his son-in-law, but he is soon recognized and, on the orders of Prytan, who was called to the temple, he is tied to a stake, so that he can then be tried for criminal intrusion into female society. Euripides, who ran to the temple, tries in vain, using various tricks, to free his father-in-law; finally, he manages to free him when he promises the women never to scold them in the future, and, with the assistance of a flutist, distracts the attention of the Scythian standing on guard. Carried away by this comedy, later writers told as a historical fact that during the festival of the Thesmophoria, women attacked against Euripides and wanted to kill him, but he saved himself by giving them a promise that he would never say anything bad about them; talking about this, the biographer cites in confirmation several verses from Euripides’ drama “Melanippe”, which say: “The abuse uttered by men against women does not hit the mark; I assure you that women are better than men.” According to another biographer, women attacked Euripides in the Salamis cave; they burst in, says the biographer, and wanted to kill him while he was writing the tragedy. How the poet calmed them down is not said; of course, with the help of the above promise.

Seated Euripides. Roman statue

Euripides paid special attention to the female sex and brought women to the stage much more often than other poets. The passions of a woman's heart, especially love and its clash with moral feelings, were often the subject of his tragedies; Thus, in his tragedies situations could easily appear in which the bad and dark sides of a woman’s heart were sharply outlined. Thus, often in entire plays and in many individual scenes, a woman appears in a bad light, although it cannot be said that these scenes express the poet’s firm conviction. The Athenians could be offended both by the fact that the poet generally depicted a woman on stage with all her innermost feelings and motives, and by the fact that women’s errors and depravity of character were depicted in such bright colors, and moreover, at a time when Attic women really stood morally not particularly high. This is the reason why Euripides acquired a reputation among the Athenians as a hater of women; we must admit that his attitude towards women does him at least as much honor as it does shame. In his dramas we meet many noble women, distinguished by their high love and self-sacrifice, courage and willpower, while men often appear next to them in a pitiful and secondary role.

Euripides' family relationships

If Euripides's harsh judgments about women are in most cases explained by the nature of the dramatic plot, then some of the sentences of this kind, apparently, were expressed by him quite sincerely. In his family life, the poet had to endure difficult trials. According to biographers, Euripides had two wives; the first was Chirila, the daughter of the above-mentioned Mnesilochus, from whom Euripides had three sons: Mnesarchides, who was later a merchant, Mnesilochus, who became an actor, and Euripides the Younger, a tragedian. Since this wife was unfaithful to Euripides, he divorced her and took another wife, Melito, who, however, turned out to be no better than the first and left her husband herself. This Melito is called by others the first wife of Euripides, and Chirilu (or Chirina) - the second; Gellius even says that Euripides had two wives at the same time, which, of course, is not true, since bigamy was not allowed in Athens. Chyrila is said to have had an affair with a certain Cephisophon, an actor who is said to be a young slave of Euripides, and of whom comedians say that he helped Euripides write dramas. Chyrila's infidelity prompted Euripides to write the drama Hippolytus, in which he particularly attacks women; Having experienced the same trouble from his second wife, the poet began to condemn women even more. Under such circumstances, of course, he could quite sincerely put such strange thoughts into Hippolytus’s mouth:

“Oh Zeus! You have darkened people's happiness by giving birth to a woman! If you wanted to support the human race, you would have to arrange it so that we do not owe our lives to women. We mortals could bring copper or iron or costly gold to your temples, and in return receive children from the hands of the deity, each according to his offering; and these children would grow up freely in their father’s house, never seeing or knowing women; for it is clear that woman is the greatest disaster.”

Departure of Euripides from Athens to Macedonia

In the last years of his life, Euripides left his hometown. This was shortly after the presentation of Orestes (408 BC). What prompted him to do this we do not know; Perhaps troubles in the family, or the constant bitter attacks of comedians, or the turbulent situation in Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War, or perhaps all this together made his stay in his homeland unpleasant. He first went to Thessalian Magnesia, whose citizens received him very hospitably and honored him with gifts. However, he did not stay there long and went to Pella, to the court of the Macedonian king Archelaus. This sovereign was not distinguished by moral qualities; he paved his way to the throne with a triple murder; but he was very zealous about introducing Greek culture and morals into his country, especially about giving his court more shine by attracting Greek poets and artists. At his court lived, among others, the tragedian Agathon of Athens, the epic Chiril from Samos, the famous painter Zeuxis from Heraclea (in Magna Graecia), the musician and author of dithyrambs Timothy from Miletus. At the court of the hospitable and generous king, Euripides enjoyed pleasant leisure and, in honor of the Macedonian royal house, wrote the drama "Archelaus", which depicts the founding of the Macedonian kingdom by the descendant of Hercules Archelaus, the son of Temen. In Macedonia, Euripides wrote the drama “The Bacchae,” as can be seen from the allusions to local circumstances in this play. These plays were presented in Dion, in Pieria, near Olympus, where the cult of Bacchus existed and where King Archelaus staged dramatic competitions in honor of Zeus and the muses.

Probably, the poet Agathon also took part in these competitions, who left Athens and arrived in Pella almost at the same time as Euripides. As a joke, a story was invented that the handsome Agathon in his youth was the lover of Euripides, who was then about 32 years old, and that Euripides wrote his “Chrysippus” to please him. The story of how the old Euripides once, drunk at dinner with Archelaus, kissed the 40-year-old Agathon, deserves just as little faith, and when asked by the king whether he still considers Agathon his lover, he answered: “Of course, I swear by Zeus ; after all, beauties are given not only a wonderful spring, but also a wonderful autumn.”

Legends about the death of Euripides

Euripides did not live long at the court of Archelaus. He died in 406 BC (Ol. 93, 3), 75 years old. There are various stories about his death, which, however, have little credibility. The most widespread news was that he was torn to pieces by dogs. The biographer tells the following: In Macedonia there was a village inhabited by Thracians. One day the Molossian dog Archelaus came running there, and the villagers, according to their custom, sacrificed it and ate it. For this, the king fined them one talent; but Euripides, at the request of the Thracians, begged the king to forgive them for this act. A long time later, Euripides was walking one day in a grove near the city, in which the king was hunting at the same time. The dogs, escaping from the hunters, rushed at the old man and tore him to pieces. These were the puppies of the same dog that the Thracians ate; hence the Macedonians’ proverb “dog’s revenge.” Another biographer says that two poets, the Macedonian Arideus and the Thessalian Kratev, out of envy of Euripides, bribed the royal slave Lysimachus for 10 minutes so that he would unleash dogs on Euripides, who tore him to pieces. According to other news, it was not dogs, but women who attacked him on the road at night and tore him to pieces.

The news of Euripides' death was received in Athens with deep sorrow. They say that Sophocles, having received this news, put on mourning clothes, and during a performance in the theater led the actors onto the stage without wreaths; the people were crying. Archelaus erected a decent monument to the great poet in the romantic area between Arethusa and Wormiscus, near two springs. The Athenians, having learned about the death of the poet, sent an embassy to Macedonia with a request to hand over the body of Euripides for burial in his hometown; but since Archelaus did not agree to this request, they erected a cenotaph in honor of the poet on the road to Piraeus, where Pausanias later saw him. According to legend, the tomb of Euripides, like the tomb of Lycurgus, was destroyed by a lightning strike, which was considered a sign of the gods’ special attention to mortals, since the place where lightning struck was declared sacred and inviolable. The historian Thucydides or the musician Timothy is said to have decorated his cenotaph with the following inscription:

“The whole of Greece serves as the grave of Euripides, but his body is in Macedonia, where he was destined to end his life. His fatherland is Athens and all of Hellas; he enjoyed the love of the muses and thereby gained praise from everyone.”

Bergk believes that this inscription was not composed by the historian Thucydides, but by another Athenian of the same name from the house of Aherd, who was a poet and, apparently, also lived at the court of Archelaus. Perhaps this inscription was intended for the monument to Euripides in Macedonia.

Let us mention one more circumstance here. Soon after the death of Euripides, the Syracusan tyrant Dionysius, who gained dominance in the same year, bought from his heirs, for one talent, a string instrument that belonged to the poet, a board and a stylus, and donated these things, in memory of Euripides, to the temple of the muses in Syracuse.

From antiquity to our time, many busts of Euripides have survived, representing him either separately or together with Sophocles. A colossal bust of the poet in Parian marble is in the Vatican Chiaramonti Museum; this is probably a copy of a statue that was placed, by order of Lycurgus, in the theater, next to the statues of Aeschylus and Sophocles. “In the facial features of Euripides one can see that seriousness, gloominess and inhospitability for which the comedians reproached him, that dislike of fun and laughter, with which his love for solitude, for the remote Salamis cave, is so consistent. Along with seriousness, his figure expresses benevolence and modesty - the properties of a true philosopher. Instead of sophistic complacency and pride, something honest and sincere is visible in the face of Euripides.” (Welker).

Euripides. Bust from the Vatican Museum

Euripides and sophistry

For more details, see the article “Sophistic Philosophy” (section “The Influence of Sophistic Philosophy on Euripides”)

Euripides is a complete representative of the time when the Athenians fell in love with sophistry and began to flaunt sensitivity. His penchant for mental pursuits early distracted him from social activities, and he lived among philosophers. He delved into the skeptical ideas of Anaxagoras, he liked the seductive teachings of the sophists. He did not have the cheerful energy of Sophocles, who diligently performed civic duties; he shunned state affairs, shunned the life of society, whose morals he portrayed, and lived in a closed circle. His tragedies were liked by his contemporaries; but his ambition remained unsatisfied - perhaps that is why he left Athens in his old age, where comic poets constantly laughed at his works.

Related to it in tendency, in content, and probably close to it in time is the tragedy of “The Petitioner.” Its content is the legend that the Thebans did not allow the Argive heroes killed during the Campaign of the Seven against Thebes to be buried, but Theseus forced them to do so. The hints about modern political relations are also clear here. The Thebans also did not want to allow the Athenians to bury the soldiers killed in the battle of Delia (in 424). At the end of the play, the Argive king enters into an alliance with the Athenians; it also made political sense: soon after the Battle of Delium, the Athenians entered into an alliance with Argos. The chorus of “Petitioners” consists of the mothers of the murdered Argive heroes and their maids; then the sons of these heroes join them; The choir's songs are excellent. Probably, the scenery representing the Eleusinian Temple of Demeter, at whose altars the “petitioners”—the mothers of the murdered heroes—sit down, had a beautiful appearance. The scenes of the burning of those heroes, the procession of boys carrying urns with the ashes of the dead, the voluntary death of Capaneus’s wife, who climbed onto the fire to her husband’s body, were also good. At the end of the drama, Euripides, by deus ex machina, brings the goddess Athena onto the stage, who demands an oath from the Argives never to fight with the Athenians. Following this, the Athenian-Argive alliance was formalized, for the sake of the renewal of which in modern times “The Petitioners” were written.

Euripides – “Hecuba” (summary)

Some of the tragedies of Euripides that have come down to us are based on episodes from the Trojan War, in particular from the terrible events of the destruction of Troy; they depict strong emotions of passion with great energy. For example, in “Hecuba” the mother’s grief is first depicted, from whose embrace her daughter, Polyxena, the bride of Achilles, is torn out. Stopping after the destruction of Troy on the Thracian shore of the Hellespont, the Greeks decided to sacrifice Polyxena on the tombstone of Achilles; she willingly goes to her death. At this moment, the maid, who went to fetch water, brings Hecuba the body of Polydor, her son, who she found on the shore, killed by the traitor Polymestor, under whose protection Polydor was sent. This new misfortune turns Hecuba’s victim into an avenger; the thirst for revenge on her son’s killer merges in her soul with despair over the death of her daughter. With the consent of the main leader of the Greek army, Agamemnon, Hecuba lures Polymestor into the tent and, with the help of slaves, blinds him. In carrying out her revenge, Hecuba shows great intelligence and extraordinary courage. In Medea, Euripides depicts jealousy; in Hecuba, revenge is depicted with the most energetic features. The blinded Polymestor predicts Hecuba's future fate.

Euripides – “Andromache” (summary)

Passion of a completely different kind constitutes the content of Euripides' tragedy Andromache. Andromache, the unhappy widow of Hector, at the end of the Trojan War, becomes the slave of Achilles' son, Neoptolemus. Neoptolemus's wife, Hermione, is jealous of her. The jealousy is all the stronger because Hermione has no children, and Andromache gives birth to a son, Molossus, from Neoptolemus. Hermione and her father, the Spartan king Menelaus, brutally persecute Andromache, even threatening her with death; but Neoptolemus’s grandfather, Peleus, saves her from their persecution. Hermione, fearing her husband's revenge, wants to kill herself. But Menelaus’s nephew, Orestes, who was previously Hermione’s fiancé, takes her to Sparta, and the Delphians, excited by his intrigues, kill Neoptolemus. At the end of the play, the goddess Thetis appears (deus ex machina) and foreshadows the happy future of Andromache and Molossus; this artificial denouement is intended to produce a calming impression in the audience.

The whole tragedy is imbued with hostility towards Sparta; this feeling was inspired in Euripides by modern relations; Sparta and Athens were then at war with each other. "Andromache" was probably staged in 421, somewhat earlier than the conclusion of the Peace of Nicias. Euripides with obvious pleasure depicts in Menelaus the severity and treachery of the Spartans, and in Hermione the immorality of Spartan women.

Euripides – “The Trojan Women” (summary)

The tragedy "The Trojan Women" was written by Euripides around 415. Its action takes place on the second day after the capture of Troy in the camp of the victorious Hellenic army. The captives taken in Troy are distributed among the leaders of the victorious Greeks. Euripides depicts how Hecuba, the wife of the murdered Trojan king Priam, and Hector’s wife, Andromache, are preparing for the fate of slavery. The son of Hector and Andromache, the baby Astyanax, is thrown from the fortress wall by the Greeks. One daughter of Priam and Hecuba, the Trojan prophetess Cassandra, becomes the concubine of the Greek leader, Agamemnon, and in ecstatic madness makes predictions about the terrible fate that will soon befall most of the destroyers of Troy. Hecuba's other daughter, Polyxene, is to be sacrificed at Achilles' tomb.

The role of the chorus in this drama by Euripides is played by Trojan women captured by the Greeks. The finale of “The Trojan Women” is the scene of the burning of Troy by the Hellenes.

As in the case of "The Petitioners", "Andromache" and "Heraclides", the plot of "The Trojan Women" has a close connection with the events of that time. In 415 BC, the Athenians, on the advice of the ambitious adventurer Alcibiades, decided to sharply turn the tide of the Peloponnesian War and achieve pan-Greek hegemony through a military expedition to Sicily. This rash plan was condemned by many prominent people of Athens. Aristophanes wrote the comedy “The Birds” for this purpose, and Euripides wrote “The Trojan Woman,” where he vividly depicted the bloody disasters of war and expressed sympathy for the suffering captives. The idea that even with a successful completion of the campaign, its further consequences will be tragic for the victors who transgressed justice, was carried out very clearly by Euripides in The Trojan Women.

The Trojan Women, one of Euripides' best dramas, was not a success when it was first staged - around the time of the start of the Sicilian expedition. The “anti-war” meaning of “The Trojan Women” was not liked by the people excited by the demagogues. But when in the fall of 413 the entire Athenian army died in Sicily, their fellow citizens recognized that Euripides was right and instructed him to write a poetic epitaph on the tomb of his fellow countrymen who fell in Sicily.

Euripides – “Helen” (summary)

The content of the tragedy “Helen” is borrowed from the legend that the Trojan War was fought because of a ghost: in Troy there was only the ghost of Helen, and Helen herself was carried away by the gods to Egypt. The young king of Egypt, Theoclymenes, pursues Helen with his love; she runs away from him to the tomb of King Proteus. There she is found by her husband, Menelaus, brought to Egypt by storms after the capture of Troy, appearing in beggarly clothes, since all his ships were destroyed by a hurricane. To deceive Theoclymenes, Helen tells him that Menelaus supposedly died at Troy, and she, having now become a free woman, is ready to marry the king. Elena asks only to be allowed to go out to sea on a boat to perform the last memorial rites for her ex-husband. On this boat, Helen leaves with Menelaus in disguise. They are helped by the priestess girl Theonoya, the only noble person in the play. Theoclymenes, having discovered the deception, sends a chase after the fugitives, but she is stopped by the Dioscuri, who play the role of deus ex machina: they declare that everything that happened happened by the will of the gods. “Helen” is both in content and form one of the weakest tragedies of Euripides.

Euripides – “Iphigenia at Aulis” (summary)

Euripides also took themes for his tragedies from the legends about the Atrids - the descendants of the hero Atreus, among whom were the leaders of the Trojan War Agamemnon and Menelaus. The drama “Iphigenia in Aulis” is beautiful, but distorted by later additions, the content of which is the legend of the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter, Iphigenia.

Before setting sail for Troy, the Greek army gathers in the harbor of Aulis. But the goddess Artemis stops the fair winds, since she was angered by the supreme leader of the Hellenes, Agamemnon. The famous soothsayer Calhant announces that Artemis’s anger can be softened by sacrificing Agamemnon’s daughter, Iphigenia, to her. Agamemnon sends a letter to his wife Clytemnestra with a request to send Iphigenia to Aulis, since Achilles allegedly makes it a condition for his participation in the campaign to Troy that he receive Iphigenia as a wife. Iphigenia arrives in Aulis with her mother. Achilles, having learned that Agamemnon used his name for deceptive purposes, is terribly indignant and declares that he will not allow Iphigenia to be sacrificed, even if this means fighting with other Greek leaders. Iphigenia responds by saying that she does not want to become the cause of a fight between her compatriots and will gladly give her life for the good of Hellas. Iphigenia voluntarily goes to the sacrificial altar, but the messenger who appears at the end of Euripides’ tragedy reports that at the moment of the sacrifice the girl disappeared and instead a doe was under the knife.

The plot of “Iphigenia in Aulis” was borrowed by Euripides from the tales of the Trojan War, but he gives the legend such a form that a moral conclusion is drawn from it. In the confusion of the events of human life, agitated by passions, the only true path is the one along which a pure heart, capable of heroic self-sacrifice, leads. Euripides' Iphigenia selflessly offers to be sacrificed; by its free decision, the reconciliation of the heroes arguing among themselves is accomplished. Thus, this tragedy is free from the artificial method of arranging a denouement through the intervention of a deity, although here too this method is somewhat reminiscent of the appearance of the Messenger at the end of the action.

Euripides – “Iphigenia in Tauris” (summary)

“Iphigenia in Tauris” also has high artistic merit; its plan is good, its characters are noble and beautifully depicted. The content is borrowed from the legend that Iphigenia, who escaped the sacrifice in Aulis, subsequently became a priestess in Tauris (Crimea), but then ran away from there, taking with her the image of the goddess she served.

Artemis, who saved Iphigenia in Aulis, took her from there to Tauris on a wonderful cloud and made her her priestess there. The barbarians of Tauris sacrifice to their Artemis all the foreigners who fall into their hands, and Iphigenia is entrusted with performing a preliminary rite of purification over these unfortunates. Meanwhile, the Trojan War ended, and Iphigenia's father, Agamemnon, who returned to his homeland, was killed by his own wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus. Avenging his father, Iphigenia's brother, Orestes, kills his mother Clytemnestra and is then subjected to terrible torments of repentance, sent by the goddesses Erinyes. Apollo announces to Orestes that he will get rid of torment if he goes to Tauris and brings from there the idol of Artemis captured by the barbarians. Orestes arrives in Tauris with his friend Pylades, but the local savages capture them and condemn them to sacrifice. They are brought to the priestess Iphigenia, sister of Orestes. Euripides describes an exciting scene in which Iphigenia recognizes her brother. Under the pretext of performing a cleansing ritual, Iphigenia takes Orestes and Pylades to the seashore and runs with them to Greece, taking away the image of Artemis. The barbarians of Tauris give chase, but the goddess Athena (deus ex machina) forces them to stop.

Euripides’ Iphigenia is not as ideal a face as Goethe’s, but still she is a pious girl, faithful to her duties, passionately loving her homeland, so noble that even the barbarians respect her; she instills in them humane concepts. Although the barbarians sacrifice people to the goddess she serves, Iphigenia herself does not shed blood. The scene in which Orestes and Pylades each want to be sacrificed in order to save their friend from death is dramatic. Euripides managed to add touchingness to this dispute between friends without resorting to excessive sentimentality.

Euripides – “Orestes” (summary)

In both tragedies, with the title Iphigenia, the characters are energetic and noble, but about the tragedy “Orestes” one of the ancient scholiasts already said that all the characters in it are bad, with the exception of Pylades alone. And indeed, this is both in content and form one of the weakest works of Euripides.

According to the decision of the Argive court, Orestes should be stoned for the murder of his mother, Clytemnestra, although she herself had previously nearly killed him along with his father, Agamemnon. The baby Orestes was then rescued by his sister, Electra. Now Electra is being tried together with Orestes, for she participated in the murder of their common mother. Orestes and Electra hope for the support of the brother of their father killed by Clytemnestra, the Spartan king Menelaus, who arrived in Argos during the trial. However, due to cowardice and selfishness, he does not want to save them. When the national assembly condemns Orestes to Euripides - “Heraclides” (summary) erti, he, together with his faithful friend Pylades, takes hostage the wife of Menelaus, the culprit of the Trojan War, Helen. But divine power carries her through the air. Orestes wants to kill Helen's daughter, Hermione. At the decisive moment, Deus ex machina appears - Apollo plays this role here - and orders everyone to reconcile. Orestes marries Hermione, whom he recently wanted to kill, Pylades on Electra.

The characters of the characters in this drama of Euripides are devoid of any mythical grandeur; these are ordinary people, without tragic dignity.

Euripides – “Electra” (summary)

Electra suffers from the same shortcoming, but even more so than Orestes, in which the sublime legend is remade so that it becomes like a parody.

Clytemnestra, in order to get rid of constant reminders of the murder of her husband, passes off her daughter, Electra, as a simple peasant. Electra lives in poverty, doing menial housework herself. For the same purposes, Clytemnestra expels Orestes as an infant from the capital of Agamemnon, Mycenae. Having matured in a foreign land, Orestes returns to his homeland and comes to his sister. Elektra recognizes him by the scar left from a bruise he received as a child. Having conspired with Electra, Orestes kills the lover of their common mother and the main culprit in the death of their father, Aegisthus, outside the city. Electra then lures Clytemnestra into her poor hut under a pretext. as if she had given birth to a child. In this hut, Orestes kills his mother. This terrible denouement plunges Electra and Orestes into insanity, but the Dioscuri, who miraculously appeared, excuse them by saying that they acted at the behest of Apollo. Electra marries Orestes' friend, Pylades. Orestes Dioskouri himself is sent to Athens, where he will be acquitted and cleansed of sin by the council of elders - the Areopagus.

Euripides – “Hercules” (summary)

"Hercules" (or "The Madness of Hercules"), a play designed for effects, has several scenes that make a strong impression. It combines two different actions. When Hercules goes into the underworld, the cruel Theban king Lycus wants to kill his wife, children and old father, Amphitryon, who remained in Thebes. Hercules, who unexpectedly returned, frees his relatives and kills Lik. But then he himself exposes them to the fate from which he saved them. Hera deprives Hercules of his sanity. He kills his wife and children, imagining that they are the wife and children of Eurystheus. He is tied to a fragment of a column. Athena restores his sanity. Hercules feels bitter remorse and wants to kill himself, but Theseus appears and keeps him from doing this, taking him to Athens. There Hercules is cleansed of sin by sacred rites.

Euripides – “Ion” (summary)

“Ion” is a wonderful play in terms of entertaining content and clear characterization of individuals, full of patriotism. There is neither greatness of passions nor greatness of character in it; the action is based on intrigue.

Ion, the son of Apollo and Creusa, the daughter of the Athenian king, was thrown into the Delphic temple by his mother, ashamed of the casual affair, as a baby. He is raised there, destined to be a servant of Apollo. Ion's mother, Creusa, marries Xuthus, who was chosen by the Athenian king for his heroism in the war. But they don't have children. Xuthus comes to Delphi to pray to Apollo for the birth of a descendant and receives an answer from the oracle that the first person he will meet at the exit from the temple is his son. Xuthus meets Ion first and greets him as a son. Meanwhile, secretly from Xuthus, Creusa also comes to Delphi. Hearing how Xuthus calls Ion and his son, she decides that Ion is the side offspring of her husband. Not wanting to accept a stranger into his family, Creusa sends a slave with a poisoned chalice to Ion. But Apollo keeps her from committing villainy. He also detains Ion, who, having learned about the insidious plan against him, wants to kill Creusa, not knowing that she is his mother. The priestess who raised Jonah comes out of the Delphic temple with the basket and swaddling clothes in which he was found. Creusa recognizes them. Apollo's son Ion becomes heir to the Athenian throne. Euripides' play ends with Athena confirming the truth of the story about the divine origin of Ion and promising power to his descendants - the Ionians. For the pride of the Athenians, the legend was pleasant that the ancestor of the Ionians came from the line of ancient Achaean kings and was not the son of a foreign stranger, the Aeolian Xuthus. The young priest Ion depicted by Euripides is sweet and innocent - an attractive face.

Euripides – “Phoenicians” (summary)

Later, “Jonah” was written by Euripides, the drama “The Phoenician Women”, and which has many beautiful passages. The name of the play comes from the fact that its chorus consists of captive citizens of Phoenician Tyre, who were sent to Delphi, but were delayed in Thebes along the way.

The content of The Phoenician Women is borrowed from the myth of the Theban king Oedipus, and the drama is replete with many different episodes from this cycle of legends. Euripides' reworking of the myth is limited to the fact that Oedipus and his mother and wife Jocasta are still alive during the campaign of the Seven against Thebes, when their sons Eteocles and Polyneices kill each other. Jocasta, who, together with her daughter Antigone, tried in vain to prevent the single combat of her two sons, kills herself in the camp over their dead bodies. Blind Oedipus, expelled from Thebes by Creon, is led by Antigone to Colon. Creon's son, Menoeceus, in fulfillment of the prophecy given by Tiresias of Thebes, throws himself from the Theban wall, sacrificing himself to reconcile the gods with Thebes.

Euripides – “The Bacchae” (summary)

The tragedy of The Bacchae probably dates back to an even later time. It was apparently written by Euripides in Macedonia. In Athens, The Bacchae was probably staged by the author's son or nephew, Euripides the Younger, who also staged Iphigenia at Aulis and Euripides' tragedy Alcmaeon, which has not reached us.

The content of “The Bacchae” is the legend of the Theban king Pentheus, who did not want to recognize as god his cousin Bacchus-Dionysus, who returned from Asia to Thebes. Pentheus saw in the ecstatic cult of Dionysus only deception and debauchery and began to strictly persecute his servants, the bacchantes, contrary to the opinion of his grandfather, the hero Cadmus, and the famous soothsayer Tiresias of Thebes. For this, Pentheus was torn to pieces by his mother Agave (sister of Dionysus's mother, Semele) and the maenads (Bacchantes) who accompanied her. Dionysus sent all the Theban women into a frenzy, and they, led by Agave, fled to the mountains to indulge in bacchanalia in deer skins, with thyrsus (staffs) and tympanums (tambourines) in their hands. Dionysus told Pentheus of an insane desire to see the Bacchantes and their service. Dressed in a woman's dress, he went to Kiferon, where it took place. But Agave and the other bacchantes, at the suggestion of Dionysus, mistook Pentheus for a lion and tore him to pieces. Agave triumphantly carried the bloody head of her own son to the palace, imagining that it was the head of a lion. Having sobered up, she was cured of madness and was struck by repentance. The end of Euripides' "The Bacchae" is poorly preserved, but, as far as can be understood, Agave was condemned to exile.

This tragedy is one of Euripides's best, although the verse in it is often careless. Its plan is excellent, the unity of action is strictly observed in it, consistently developing from one basic given, the scenes follow one after another in an orderly order, the excitement of passions is depicted very vividly. The tragedy is imbued with a deep religious feeling, and the choir’s songs especially breathe it. Euripides, hitherto a very free-thinking man, in his old age seems to have come to the conviction that religious traditions must be respected, that it is better to maintain piety among the people and not deprive them of respect for ancient beliefs by ridicule, that skepticism deprives the masses of the happiness that they find in religious feeling.

Euripides – “Cyclops” (summary)

In addition to these 18 tragedies, the satirical drama of Euripides “Cyclops” has reached us, the only surviving work of this branch of dramatic poetry. The content of “Cyclops” is an episode borrowed from the Odyssey about the blinding of Polyphemus. The tone of this play by Euripides is cheerful and humorous. Its chorus consists of satyrs with their leader, Silenus. During the course of the play, the Cyclops Polyphemus launches into confused but bloodthirsty reasoning, praising extreme immorality and selfishness in the spirit of the theories of the sophists. The satyrs subordinate to Polyphemus are eager to get rid of him, but out of cowardice they are afraid to help Odysseus, who is in danger of being killed by the Cyclops. At the end of this play by Euripides, Odysseus defeats the Cyclops without anyone else's assistance. Then Silenus and the satyrs, in a comic tone, attribute Odysseus’s merit to themselves and loudly glorify their “courage.”

Euripides' political views

Evaluation of Euripides' work by descendants

Euripides was the last great Greek tragedian, although he was inferior to Aeschylus and Sophocles. The generation that followed him was very pleased with the properties of his poetry and loved him more than his predecessors. The tragedians who followed him jealously studied his works, which is why they can be considered the “school” of Euripides. The poets of modern comedy also studied and highly respected Euripides. Philemon, the oldest representative of the new comedy, who lived around 330 BC, loved Euripides so much that in one of his comedies he said: “If the dead really live beyond the grave, as some people claim, then I would hang myself if only just to see Euripides." Until the last centuries of antiquity, the works of Euripides, thanks to the ease of form and abundance of practical maxims, were constantly read by educated people, as a result of which so many of his tragedies have come down to us.

Euripides. World of passions

Translations of Euripides into Russian

Euripides was translated into Russian by: Merzlyakov, Shestakov, P. Basistov, N. Kotelov, V. I. Vodovozov, V. Alekseev, D. S. Merezhkovsky.

Theater of Euripides. Per. I. F. Annensky. (Series “Monuments of World Literature”). M.: Sabashnikovs.

Euripides. Petitioners. Trojan women. Per. S. V. Shervinsky. M.: Khud. lit. 1969.

Euripides. Petitioners. Trojan women. Per. S. Apta. (Series “Ancient Drama”). M.: Art. 1980.

Euripides. Tragedies. Per. Inn. Annensky. (Series “Literary Monuments”). In 2 vols. M.: Ladomir-Science. 1999

Articles and books about Euripides

Orbinsky R.V. Euripides and his significance in the history of Greek tragedy. St. Petersburg, 1853

Belyaev D.F. On the question of Euripides’ worldview. Kazan, 1878

Belyaev D. F. Euripides’ views on classes and states, internal and foreign policy of Athens

Decharme. Euripides and the spirit of his theater. Paris, 1893

Kotelov N.P. Euripides and the significance of his “drama” in the history of literature. St. Petersburg, 1894

Gavrilov A.K. Theater of Euripides and the Athenian Enlightenment. St. Petersburg, 1995.

Gavrilov A.K. Signs and action - mantika in “Iphigenia Tauride” by Euripides

After some dates before the Nativity of Christ, our article also indicates dating according to the ancient Greek Olympics. For example: Ol. 75, 1 – means the first year of the 75th Olympiad

CHAPTER IX

CRISIS OF THE NORMATIVE HERO: “HIPPOLYTUS” BY EURIPIDES *

In the established system of evaluation of the three great ancient Greek tragedians, Euripides is usually considered as a playwright who reflected in his work the crisis of Athenian democracy, in contrast to Sophocles, the poet of its heyday. The fairness of these characteristics as a whole cannot be doubted - provided, however, that in the very heyday of Athenian democracy we discovered serious contradictions, which gave rise to the tragic power of Sophocles' heroes. In turn, in the dramaturgy of Euripides we will find certain points of contact with the artistic thinking of his older contemporary. Thus, some of Euripides’ heroes display traits close to the image of a person, “as he should be,” with the only difference being that these heroes are forced to live in a world significantly different from the world of Sophocles.

The transitional nature of Euripides' dramaturgy is most clearly revealed in the analysis of Hippolytus. Delivered in 428 BC. e., a little earlier than Oedipus the King, often coming close to the works of Sophocles in the depiction of the main characters, this tragedy at the same time testifies to the beginning of a deep crisis in the views of its author on the world and on the meaning of human suffering in it.

We will begin our analysis not with the hero whose name the tragedy is named, but with his young stepmother Phaedra. Although Aphrodite in the opening monologue already gives a brief description of Hippolytus, which is soon confirmed by the prince’s own behavior, neglecting the warnings of the old servant, he then leaves the orchestra for a long time, and our attention is focused on the experiences of the unfortunate woman. This order of presenting his heroes to the public, apparently, somehow attracted Euripides; we will not violate his plan.

Since ancient times, the creator of “Hippolytus” has been considered a subtle connoisseur of the female soul and is admired for his ability, with exceptional psychological insight, to depict a lover, restless among conflicting feelings and motives. And when Phaedra, exhausted by a fruitless struggle with the passion that has gripped her, appears before the choir, we will have to fully join in this assessment of the creative achievements of the last of the three great Greek tragedians: the half-mad visions of Phaedra, dreaming of hunting in protected groves, of taking a sip of water from a forest stream , about a bed among fragrant meadow grasses (208-231) 1 - before Euripides, Athenian spectators had not seen or heard anything like this.

With all this, closer attention to the expressions that characterize Phaedra’s love feeling will not only again show us the uniqueness of the depiction of a person in ancient drama in comparison with the literature of modern times, but will also allow us to trace the undoubted dependence of Euripides on his predecessors.

First of all, attention is drawn to the identification of Phaedra’s love feeling with illness. This is what the goddess Aphrodite calls him in the prologue (40), who knows well the source of this “disease.” This is how the choir of Troezen women, who joined the orchestra a little later, describes the state of their queen: they learned that Phaedra had been “languishing on a bed of illness” for the third day (131), refusing food and awaiting death as deliverance from a secret illness. And further, over the course of six hundred verses, from the first phrases of the nurse leading her mistress out into the fresh air (176), to the reflections of the chorus commenting on Phaedra’s last decision (766), the words “illness,” “sick,” “painful” are used again and again to depict the state of Phaedra, struck by severe passion. The image of “disease” (nosos and related words) becomes a kind of dominant throughout the entire first half of tragedy 2.

The key concept of “illness” receives further clarification: Phaedra’s love passion is likened to madness. For the first time this idea is expressed by the choir, wondering about the reason for the queen’s difficult condition: is she possessed by the will of Pan or Hecate, is she going mad at the suggestion of the sacred Corybants or the “mother of the mountains”? 3 (141-144). When Phaedra then, in her delirium of love, expresses her inexplicable desires, the nurse considers them a manifestation of madness (mania, 214) and the speeches themselves are insane (paraphron, 232). And Phaedra herself, waking up, asks herself in horror where she “wandered away” 4 from common sense? She was in madness, succumbing to the blindness that the deity sends. It’s hard to return to a normal state of mind, but going crazy is also a disaster (240-248). It is not surprising that the chorus, after everything it has seen and heard, strongly encourages the nurse to find out the reason for Phaedra’s “wandering of mind” (283).

Depicting love as the most terrible type of illness - madness, Euripides is largely in line with the artistic tradition that has long been established in ancient Greek poetry 5. Already Ivik, describing the well-being of a person overwhelmed by passion, likens the action of Eros to a stormy gust of a fierce Thracian wind, which excites the soul with “withering madness” (fr. 286). The classical “singer of love” Anacreon, not being able to understand his contradictory feelings, says about himself: “Again I love and do not love, I am mad and not mad” (fr. 428). And in another place: “For Eros, our madness and confusion are no more than a game of dice” (fr. 398) 6. Continuing this line, the chorus in Antigone says that a person attacked by the irresistible Eros “fell into madness” (memenen, 790).

As for the designation of love passion by the word “illness” (nosos), the first evidence in the lyrics is an excerpt from the dithyramb of Bacchylides (26, 8), where this concept refers to the love attraction of the Cretan queen Pasiphae to a handsome bull. In tragedy (excluding for now the work of Euripides himself), the term nosos appears several times in Sophocles’s “Women of Trachin” when it comes to the passion of Hercules for the captive Iole (445, 544 bis).

Thus, both assessments of Phaedra’s love found in “Hippolytus”—“illness” and “madness”—can be considered quite traditional for Greek artistic thinking of the 5th century BC. e. Adjacent to them is an essentially equally traditional image of the emergence of a love feeling: it is perceived not as a spontaneous act occurring within a person himself, but as a result of divine influence from the outside.

The first evidence on this matter belongs to Aphrodite herself: when Phaedra first saw Hippolytus come to Athens, she “was seized in her heart by terrible love” “according to Cypris’ plan” (27 f.). And now, when Phaedra is in Troezen with Theseus, she, “unhappy, struck by the sting of passion,” dies in silence (38 ff.). Artemis would later characterize Phaedra’s condition in the same expressions: Theseus’s wife fell in love with his son, “stung by the sting of the most hated of goddesses” for her, Artemis (1301-1303). In turn, Phaedra, having recovered from her delirium of love, tells the women of the choir about the course of her thoughts when she was “wounded by passion” (392)—later the choir, foreseeing the gloomy end of Phaedra, will sing about how the queen, “broken by unholy love” , will die, “freeing the heart from painful passion” 8.

We also encounter the idea of ​​love as an external force that affects a person in two choral songs.

After Phaedra revealed her secret, the Troezen women turn to Eros with a plea “not to come to them with trouble.” “For neither a tongue of flame, nor a ray of luminaries has such power as the arrow of Aphrodite, which is thrown from the hands of Eros, the child of Zeus.” It is in vain that people do not honor him on an equal basis with the Olympian gods: after all, he, “coming to mortals, destroys them and sends all sorts of troubles upon them” (525-544). Another time, the chorus recalls the power of Aphrodite, when the bitter fruits of her intervention had already become obvious: Phaedra hanged herself, Hippolytus was torn to pieces by horses maddened with horror. But Troezen women do not condemn Cyprida. On the contrary, their song is more like a hymn glorifying the goddess: she conquers the unbending hearts of gods and people, and with her Eros embraces them with her swift wing; he flies over land and sea, bewitching those he attacks, sowing madness in the heart... (1268-1280). (The vocabulary of the original creates an even more energetic image of Eros swooping down on the victim like a hawk on its prey.)

Thus, a person’s vulnerability to love passion, sent from the outside and often acting against his wishes 9, is an idea shared by both Phaedra and the choir. The statement of this circumstance poses, however, before the heroes of Euripides the most important ethical question, which did not arise either before the Homeric leaders (each of them knew that “it is pleasant to unite in love with a woman,” Il. XXIV, 130 ff.), nor before the author. the mentioned hymn to Aphrodite: how should a person who finds himself in the grip of such an obsession behave?

Of course, the easiest thing is not to even try to offer him meaningless resistance, but to obey without reasoning. This is what, for example, the heroine of Euripides’ unpreserved tragedy “The Cretans” (mid-30s BC) did—the Cretan queen Pasiphae, mother of Phaedra. A papyrus fragment of her monologue has been preserved, 10 in which, in three dozen verses, we encounter a full arsenal of lexical means denoting love attraction. Not by her own desire (ouch hekousion, 10), but by the will of the deity, Pasiphae “fell into madness” and “went mad in illness” (9, 20): looking at the handsome bull, she “felt in her soul the bite of a most shameful disease” (12 ). Her passion is “a blow sent by the gods,” a disease (30, 35), resistance to which is useless.

Phaedra also did not try to resist her - but not in the now famous “Hippolytus,” but in an earlier tragedy under the same name, written by Euripides, probably in the second half of the 30s, that is, almost simultaneously with “The Cretans.” From this first “Hippolytus”, two dozen fragments of insignificant size have come down to us 11. Although we find in them the usual designation of Eros as the “most irresistible” of all gods, and mention of “disasters sent by the gods,” it is not known how the action took place in detail. But something else is known: the tragedy failed, and for the second edition the poet had to correct something “inappropriate and reprehensible” in the first version. Since the second “Hippolytus” was awarded the first prize, it is clear that the indignation of the Athenians in the early play was caused not by the very fact of the appearance on stage of Phaedra, who fell in love with a young man (such was the myth!), but by her unworthy behavior: here Hippolytus’s stepmother herself explained herself to him love, so that the young man had to cover his head with a cloak out of shame (hence the name given to this tragedy in ancient publications: “Hippolytus covered with a cloak”). The Athenian queen, who hung herself around the neck of her stepson, could not evoke sympathy from the audience. Euripides took this into account and soon enough managed to partially justify his heroine, but this belated rehabilitation had almost no effect on her posthumous reputation throughout the centuries: since the first version had a much greater influence on the entire subsequent literary tradition, including Ovid (4th letter in the Heroides) ) and especially Seneca, which Racine actively used, then the modern reader invariably associates with the image of Phaedra the idea of ​​a stepmother who fell in love with her stepson and dared to reveal her love to him. Meanwhile, Phaedra in the surviving “Hippolytus” is endowed with completely different features, and it is these features that make her image tragic in a very specific ideological sense, characteristic of Athens at the turn of the 30s-20s of the 5th century BC. e.

The key to understanding the image of Phaedra is contained in her famous monologue addressed to the Troezen women. Researchers have long noticed that the characters of Euripides’ “early” tragedies appear consistently in two dimensions: emotional and rational. At first, the viewer sees them in a state of despair, anger, love madness; then the immediate outburst of feelings calms down, and the heroine (for most often this is a woman) turns out to be capable of a comprehensively substantiated, logically reasoned analysis of her situation 12. One of the most consistent examples of such a “model” of a tragic image is Phaedra: between a hopelessly in love, engulfed in semi-delirious dreams, as she appears in Art. 198-249, and a reasonable, worthy woman pronouncing her monologue (373-430), at first glance, there is nothing in common. Meanwhile, such a depiction of a person is characteristic of all ancient tragedy, conveying the contradictory mental state of the hero by consistently showing its various sides 13. In addition, between Phaedra’s last words, spoken in delirium, and the beginning of the monologue, there is her dialogue with the nurse, who is trying to find out the cause of her mistress’s illness; In this exchange of remarks, motives appear that will receive full development in Phaedra’s further behavior.

Not suspecting the true cause of the queen’s mental turmoil, the nurse expects to find her in more or less everyday circumstances that could plunge a noble nature into despair: are the queen’s hands desecrated by accidentally spilled blood? Did some enemy cast a spell on her? Isn’t she burdened by her husband’s betrayal? In answers that are mysterious to the nurse, Phaedra gradually reveals her state of mind, so that this stichomythia, both compositionally and for depicting Phaedra, serves as a connecting link between the first scene and the monologue. So, Phaedra’s hands are clean, but the filth is in her way of thinking; it is not her enemy who destroys her, but a loved one, and, moreover, against his own and her own wishes; She has no complaints against Theseus, so long as she doesn’t turn out to be worthless in his eyes. Otherwise, the position in which she finds herself should bring her honor, for she will find a way to valor from the shame that threatens her (316-331). The nurse, being completely unable to understand where all this is heading, understands only one thing: judging the honor and valor of a person is possible only when these properties are accessible to observation, that is, they are manifested in his actions or speeches. Phaedra also understands this; if she commits suicide without explaining the reasons for her action, no one will be able to appreciate the strength of her resistance to Cyprido (329-335; cf. 403 f.). Therefore, she will inevitably have to reveal the secret to the choir, but the decision is given to her with the greatest difficulty. Hence the half-recognition of Phaedra, who does not call Hippolyta by name, but characterizes the object of her love as “the son of the Amazon” (351). And while the nurse, and after her the choir, are experiencing a terrible discovery, Phaedra gathers her strength for her monologue.

Her speech is not an impulsive reaction to the despair of the choir, not an excuse “for the occasion,” but the result of long reflection on why human life is destroyed. Accordingly, the monologue is structured according to all the rules of the logical development of thought: first - a general discussion about moral norms (373-387), from which Phaedra draws a fundamental conclusion for herself (388-390), after which she moves on to her state, also clearly dividing it into successively passed stages: she began by trying to hide her passion (391-397); then she planned to defeat recklessness with prudence (398 items); finally, when she failed to defeat Cypris in such ways, she decided to die and justifies this decision (400-425). A short discussion on the value of moral principles ends the monologue (426-430), returning us to the train of thought at its beginning.

When we are dealing with such a carefully constructed argument, each point must be thought out and evaluated in order to understand not only the image of Phaedra herself, but also for the ideological plan of the tragedy as a whole, even if we can fully reveal it only by understanding the behavior of the other participants . Based on this double task, let us first try to isolate from Phaedra’s monologue what directly concerns her and her future.

First of all, Phaedra considers her feeling to be illness and madness; to cope with it would mean to overcome Cypris (394-405) - in other words, Phaedra fully adheres to the traditional assessment of love as a disaster sent from outside, which we have already traced in the tragedy. Our heroine is as far from heaven as from the argument that every living person has the right to satisfy passion, because Cyprida herself instills it in him - this argument, which the nurse will not hesitate to use, is alien to Phaedra and deeply disgusting. She knows that cheating on her husband brings disrepute to a woman, and curses the one who was the first to disgrace the marital bed (405-409). She is killed by the very thought that she can disgrace her husband and her own children - let them live in glorious Athens, taking advantage of the good reputation that their mother acquired for them (419-423). Only one thing can compete in duration with human life - justice and a sound way of thinking (426 f.), that is, it is better to die in valor than to live in dishonor.

Two moral concepts determine the course of Phaedra's thoughts: the desire for glory 14 and the fear of shame, 15 and both of them bring Euripides' heroine closer to the characters of Sophocles, especially Ajax and Neoptolemus from the later Philoctetes 16. Adherence to the moral values ​​that Phaedra talks about in her monologue continues to characterize her further, in a conversation with the nurse, who is trying to persuade the queen to get closer to Hippolytus.

The nurse, who plays, as one researcher puts it, the role of the devil who quotes the Bible, cannot be denied the rhetorical skill and persuasiveness of her argumentation. Here is the irresistible power of Cyprus, which gives birth to all life on earth, and a reference to the gods entering into illegal relationships with each other. Here, finally, is an appeal to Phaedra’s sense of self-preservation: of course, it would be better for her not to want to unite with Hippolytus, but if her life is at risk, then doesn’t the nanny who fed her have the right to take extreme measures?

Phaedra reacts to all this quite unequivocally: good fame is still more valuable to her than seductive words, and she sees the nurse’s arguments as a complete shame 17 . The only thing that attracts her attention in the nurse's speeches is the mention of a "potion that softens love" that will cure Phaedra of her illness without forcing her to shame or damaging her sanity (509-512). “Is the ointment or drink medicine?” - asks Phaedra (516) 18. Regarding the verses concluding Phaedra’s dialogue with the nurse, scholars of the tragedy express the most contradictory opinions.

Some of them see in Phaedra a lover blinded by passion (and sometimes even a “lustful woman” 19) and believe that in the words of the nanny she finds a lifeline thrown to her, which she willingly grabs.

Other researchers who hold a higher opinion of our heroine still admit that the nanny manages to break the queen’s resistance: already exhausted by the internal struggle, she is happy to shift responsibility to someone else. If the old woman manages to bewitch Hippolytus and the initiative for rapprochement comes from him, then Phaedra, remaining in the position of the passive party, will again achieve her goal 20.

Finally, the third category of philologists 21 believes that the verses under discussion are not in conflict with Phaedra’s moral credo and do not provide grounds to discredit her: if the promised medicine does not harm her good name and health, why not try it? If this attempt ends in failure, Phaedra will still face a tragic choice: shame or death. It is significant that the greatest difficulty of Phaedra’s position is fully realized by the chorus, which unconditionally shares her attitude towards the shameful proposals of the nurse.

Having heard Phaedra’s involuntary confession, the women immediately understand that she has irretrievably ruined herself and that she does not have long to live (368 items). After the heroine’s monologue, the chorus again supports her in focusing on “noble glory” (432), while the nurse’s arguments are commented on even more unequivocally: “Phaedra, she says, of course, something useful in the current difficult situation, but I praise you. True, this praise is heavier than her words, and it is much more painful for you to listen to it” (482-485). The chorus, further, shows rare understanding when the menacing voice of Hippolytus is heard from the palace, branding the nurse for trying to set him up with his stepmother. “Alas, what troubles! - the women exclaim, turning to Phaedra. - You are betrayed!.. The secret has been revealed, you are dead, alas, alas! betrayed by a loved one” (591-595). And again, after Hippolytus’s angry monologue: “Alas, alas! it has happened, and it is impossible to correct, madam, the tricks of your servant” (680 f.). For Phaedra, these words serve as a reminder of the role that the nurse played in her fate. “Didn’t I tell you, didn’t I inspire you to remain silent about why I’m now dying? - she attacks the nanny. “You couldn’t restrain yourself, because of this I’m dying in disgrace” (685-688).

Only by taking a negative position towards Phaedra in advance can it be argued that she is trying to shift the blame from a sick head to a healthy one: after all, we heard at the very end of the previous scene how Phaedra expressed concern about the excessive frankness of the nurse - we see that this fear was confirmed . “You have advised me unkindly before and incited me to do evil,” Phaedra continues her reproaches (706 items). However, now she has no time for a nurse. Subjectively, Phaedra is not at all guilty of either the birth of a criminal passion in her or the exposure of her secret. But objectively, she may find herself in the most unfavorable position if Hippolytus, despite his oath of silence, tells his father upon his return about the proposal, which he thinks came from his stepmother. Therefore, with even greater force, the desire to die arises in Phaedrus, expressed in the first monologue and awakening again at the first sounds of Hippolytus’ voice (599 ff.). At the same time, the motivation for the decision to die in Phaedra’s last words almost entirely repeats her arguments in the first monologue: “I will never, for the sake of preserving my life, disgrace my home in Crete and will not go out to look Theseus in the face, committing shameful acts” (719-721) . As before, the glory of a good name and the fear of shame for Phaedra are higher than life.

They often say that Phaedra’s moral code is focused on external assessment, and they see in this a certain insufficiency of her moral level, limited by the conditions of the social environment: she is afraid of being exposed for a crime (420), afraid of appearing worthless (321, 428, 430), afraid of bad people. reviews, that is, she is allegedly afraid not of the immoral act itself, but of its publicity. Of course, this moment plays a significant role in Phaedra’s moral position, but it occupies an equally significant, if not greater, place in all “heroic” ethics. For Homer's heroes, concern for glory, including posthumous glory, is one of the main moral incentives. Sophocles' Ajax throws himself on the sword not because his plan for revenge on the Atrides who insulted him failed, but because Athena's intervention turned this plan into a senseless slaughter of Greek cattle, bringing eternal shame and ridicule on the culprit. And even Dejanira, who is so demanding of herself, knows that a shameful act hidden in darkness does not entail shame for the perpetrator (“Trakhinyanki”, 596 f.). This means that in this respect, the image of Phaedra joins the long line of Homeric and Sophocles heroes who jealously guard their reputation.

A person’s desire to be respected by his fellow citizens, the fear of shame and disgrace were conveyed in the ancient Greek language by the concept of aidos and the denominal verb aidcomai, which are also found in “Hippolytus” in relation to both main characters, although in exactly the opposite sense. They cannot be easily translated into Russian.

The original meaning of aidos is “reverence,” “reverent veneration,” most often of a sacred object or being capable of causing such a feeling. For example, a person must experience and show aidos in relation to parents, the elderly, and foreigners asking for protection. In the event that he clearly neglects the moral norms that are obligatory for him, he faces the moral condemnation of his fellow tribesmen or fellow citizens, and such a person will, in turn, be forced to experience aidos - a feeling of “shame” for his actions. This state is conveyed by the verb aidcoinai - “to be ashamed” of the opinions of others.

Returning to Phaedra, we find the verb aidcomai in two very significant points of the tragedy.

Having come to her senses after love hallucinations, Phaedra turns to her nurse: “Oh, I’m unhappy! What have I done?.. Cover my head, nanny, I am ashamed (aidoumet-ha) of what I said. Tears flow from my eyes, and my gaze is turned to my shame” (239-246). Thus, the first use of the verb aidcomai in relation to Phaedra denotes the point where emotions subside and reason comes into its own, that is, awareness of duty and understanding that an attack of love passion in front of people disgraces the noble queen.

More than five hundred verses later, after Hippolytus’s angry speeches were heard and Phaedra, who had finally decided to commit suicide, went to the palace, the chorus foresees her sad end: now she is tying a noose around her neck, “ashamed ((kataidestheîsa) of her terrible lot, preferring the good glory and (for this) freeing the soul from destructive passion "(772-775). Here again the idea of ​​shame is closely connected with the idea of ​​good fame, and again the verb aidcomai (with the prefix kata-, giving the meaning of the completeness of the process) marks an important divide in tragedy: Phaedra passes away and drops out of the cast of characters acting in the future.

If in both cases analyzed, the use of the verb aidcomai, framing the process of Phaedra’s thinking and decision, does not cause any ambiguity in interpretation, then the situation is much more complicated with the noun aidos itself, which is found in the introductory part of Phaedra’s monologue.

During her long nightly reflections, she says here, she came to the conclusion that people act badly not because of the lack of natural reason, for many are able to think sensibly. We know and understand what is useful, but we don’t do it. Some - due to a lack of will (literally: “due to inactivity”), others - preferring some kind of pleasure to good.

After all, there are many pleasures in life: long conversations, leisure - a sweet evil, and aidos; it comes in two types: one is good (literally: “not bad”), the other is a burden on houses (377-386).

We have retold Phaedra's thoughts based on the traditional assignment of the adjective dissai (“double,” “double”) in v. 385 to the word aidos (in Greek it is feminine). However, such an understanding, which dates back to the handwritten scholia, gives rise to significant difficulties that modern interpreters are trying to overcome in different ways.

First of all, how should aidos be understood here - as “shame” or “honor”? Since Phaedra names it among pleasures, the meaning “shame” is clearly not suitable, for what pleasure can a person experience from a feeling of shame? As for “honor” and “respect,” they are undoubtedly capable of arousing pleasure in a person—perhaps even greater than long conversations with friends and peers in the women’s quarters or the leisure that the housewife has left over from her household chores.

So, aidos here is “honor,” which gives a person pleasure because it secures his place in society. But then why does this “honor” appear in two forms: one is good, the other is a burden on houses, that is, an obviously negative concept? To explain this duality, various parallel passages from ancient texts22 are used, in which, however, there is no talk anywhere about two types of aidos. In general, this noun in the plural is not attested in the ancient Greek language, except for the already mentioned scholium to Art. 386.

Despite this, two types of aidos are still being tried to be extracted from the text of Hippolytus itself. They say that if in the above Art. 244 Phaedra experiences good aidos, ashamed of her weakness, but the situation in Art. 335. Here the nurse, falling at Phaedra’s feet and grabbing her hand (the usual gesture of those begging for mercy), demands an explanation of the cause of her illness, to which she receives the following answer: “I will give you (the gift you asked for), for I honor (aidoumai) your hand” (335) - like the hand of the old woman who nursed Phaedra. It is believed that the respect shown by Phaedra to the suppliant becomes the cause of her death, since the nurse reveals the secret of her mistress to Hippolyte, and that, thus, aidos appears here in its destructive function. This interpretation, although relatively widespread, is nevertheless unlikely: Phaedra nowhere expresses regret that her secret became known to the nurse and the women who make up the chorus. Rather, on the contrary, Phaedra could never count on “good fame” if she hid her love from “society” and, for no apparent reason, committed suicide in the bowels of the palace. Only by reporting her resistance to Cypris, who is pushing her into criminal embraces, can Phaedra receive “honor” for choosing a “noble way of thinking” over a shameful life (cf. 331, 432). On the other hand, if Phaedra honors her old nurse, can this be considered evidence of the negative properties of aidos, which make it possible to identify it with a “burden on houses”?

As can be seen, interpretations that postulate the existence of certain two aidos do not lead to the goal. Therefore, the recently expressed idea that the adjective dissai - both grammatically and in meaning - does not refer to aidos at all, but to the noun hedonai ("pleasures", also feminine in Greek) deserves serious attention 23. Then the contrast in the next verse takes on a completely reasonable meaning: some pleasures are “not bad,” others are “a burden on houses.” The English researcher who proposed this understanding of the text believes that Phaedra refers to aidos as “not bad” pleasures (in fact, what’s wrong with honor?), and long conversations and leisure time as a “burden for homes.” In our opinion, Phaedra thinks in exactly the opposite way: from her, female, point of view, in long conversations and leisure there can hardly be any harm to the house; These are the innocent entertainments of a Greek woman, confined for life within the four walls of the gyneceum. But then the question arises, what considerations force Phaedra to identify such a worthy concept as aidos with a “burden for houses”? Here we come to the contradictory content that is inherent in the ancient Greek aidos and which was first revealed in all its inconsistency precisely in Euripides’ Hippolytus.

We have already noticed more than once that the idea of ​​aidos is one of the most concentrated expressions of moral orientation towards external assessment of human behavior. What matters is not what the hero thinks when he acts one way or another, what matters is what comes out of it in the eyes of his social environment. In the case of Phaedra, the situation becomes more complicated, since initially no one knows the cause of her suffering and, therefore, cannot assess the strength of her resistance to shameful passion. In order to find the path to “valor” (331) from shame, to earn “glory” and “honor,” Phaedra must reveal her secret. Of course, having done this, she could have retired to the bedroom and hanged herself, but then there would have been no tragedy. The tragedy begins when Phaedra, against her will given by her nurse to Hippolytus, must resort to slander in order to preserve the good name of herself and her children in the situation that has arisen - she is prompted to do this by the same desire for “honor”, ​​which requires evaluation from the outside .

It should also be noted that the very fact of revenge on Hippolytus should not have evoked such a negative attitude among Euripides’ viewers as it does among modern readers: ancient Greek ethics considered the desire to harm one’s enemies to be the same natural property of human nature as the willingness to provide all kinds of services to friends. Thucydides, reporting on the events already known to us in Corfu (see Chapter II), adds that in this troubled time people preferred to avenge an insult than to be insulted themselves (III, 82, 7). Judging by Xenophon, Socrates adhered to this same point of view, or, in any case, did not refute it. “He is considered worthy of the greatest praise who is the first to do evil to enemies and good to friends,” he said 24. Therefore, not a single contemporary of Sophocles and Euripides could condemn either Ajax or Medea: both were dealt a mortal insult, and both have the right to seek extreme means for revenge.

There is, however, a significant difference between the position of the named heroes and the position taken by Phaedra.

Ajax and Medea take revenge on the people truly guilty of their humiliation; Phaedra dooms the innocent Hippolytus to death. Of course, he does not choose expressions in a fit of anger, but his justified indignation is caused by the dishonest offer of the nurse. Ajax openly admits the incompatibility of his position with the norms of valor—Phaedra resorts to posthumous slander against a man bound by an oath of silence. Ajax, in order to avoid shame, throws himself on the sword, paying alone for his disgrace; Phaedra drags with her to the grave another, whose only guilt is impeccable morality. “It is wonderful to live or it is wonderful to die,” this is the motto of the noble Ajax (479 ff.). “I will arrange my affairs perfectly,” says Phaedra (709), already planning to destroy Hippolytus and not noticing that she is repeating the words of the nurse (521), who shamefully betrayed her mistress.

Focus on external evaluation, on “honor” (aidos) in the eyes of others pushes Phaedra to an obvious crime. Artemis, appearing in the finale, opens Theseus’s eyes to the “nobility” of his wife (1301); however, one cannot help but admit that this nobility could have been paid for at the cost of one life instead of two (not to mention the broken happiness of Theseus), if his own opinion about herself meant more to Phaedra than external assessment. Phaedra becomes a tragic heroine because the internal consciousness of her innocence is not enough for her - she must submit her moral qualities to an external court, which - in the person of the nurse - turns out to be below the level of hopes placed on him and forces Phaedra to seek salvation for her reputation in dishonest slander. Before her secret was revealed to Hippolytus, Phaedra could claim that her hands were clean, but that impurity was hidden in her thoughts (317). By posthumously accusing Hippolyta, Phaedra deprives herself of the right to claim the purity of her hands, for now they are even more desecrated by innocently shed blood than before her thoughts were stained by criminal passion.

The fate of Phaedra reveals the inconsistency of the scale of moral norms by which epic and Sophoclean heroes measured their behavior, the destructiveness of the ethical orientation towards aidos - “honor”, ​​which presupposes external assessment 25. Is a stable position in this world guaranteed for a person who puts internal self-esteem into the concept of aidos? The answer to this question must be sought in the fate of Hippolytus - it is not for nothing that his tragedy plays out after the tragedy of Phaedra ended 2 6 .

The main character of “Hippolytus” was hardly more fortunate in modern literary criticism than Phaedra or King Oedipus. A pure young man, who is brought into a completely understandable state of furious indignation by the nurse’s offer, is accused of arrogance, arrogance, and impermissible severity towards his neighbors. He is so convinced of his superiority over everyone else, so imbued with hatred of women that “indiscriminately, passionately and arrogantly, he denied air, sun and even reason to the whole half of humanity,” as Inn wrote about Hippolytus at the beginning of our century. Annensky 27, being strongly influenced by the “psychologizing” interpretation of the famous tragedy characteristic of the late 19th century. However, even in the most recent works, self-confidence and narcissistic pride are still quite often blamed on Hippolytus: he does not listen to the warnings of the old servant and, without understanding the essence of the matter, with inappropriate vehemence denounces Phaedra’s behavior, which prompts her to take legal revenge 28 .

To these interpretations, seeking to establish the subjective guilt of Hippolytus, are added a rather persistent search for his “tragic guilt,” which should be rooted in the hero’s voluntary or involuntary collision with the “objective” state of the world. Here, Hippolytus’s unforgivable neglect of that side of human life, without which there would be no life at all, comes to the fore. By refusing to serve Cypris, Hippolytus allegedly seeks to exclude from his existence the instinctive, “animal” principle inherent in every living creature. It is not surprising that eternal nature punishes such an attempt, which violates the natural order of things, and therefore in the death of Hippolytus they want to see some kind of “tragic justice”, raising a single episode to the level of the existential tragedy of humanity 29 .

Finally, recently it has become fashionable (mainly in American philology) to explain this way of thinking and actions of Hippolytus from positions close to psychoanalysis: Hippolytus suppresses his natural sexual desire, masking it for himself and for others with one-sided morality; since, however, a person cannot eradicate natural instincts in himself, Hippolytus becomes a victim of this unnatural suppression 30.

If we now turn to the tragedy itself, we will see that not only does it not provide the slightest basis for discussions about “tragic guilt,” and even more so for the Freudian search for repressed sexuality, but Hippolytus’ subjective guilt is not as obvious as it seems to many researchers .

As for the suppression of the sexual instinct accused of Hippolytus, it cannot be subtracted from the tragedy under any microscope. The image of Phaedra gives us a fairly vivid picture of how a person struggles with a forbidden feeling suffers - both in her hallucinations and in her reflections. Hippolytus does not experience anything similar; he does not have to fight the feeling of love for the reason that he simply does not experience it. He is physically and morally a completely healthy person, and the order to take care of a hearty dinner, which he gives to his fellow hunters in the prologue (108-112), sharply contrasts with the subsequent story of the chorus about the three-day abstinence from food to which Phaedra condemned herself (135- 140, 274 pp.).

The question of Hippolytus’s refusal to serve Aphrodite cannot be considered abstractly, in isolation from the content of the tragedy and the myth that formed its basis. Probably, the most severe critics will not demand from Hippolytus that he prove the omnipotence of Cypris by ascending to the bed of his stepmother who fell in love with him. In this way, of course, the demands “existentially” inherent in human nature would have been satisfied, but Hippolytus would hardly have benefited from this in the eyes of Euripides’ contemporaries and his current readers. Therefore, within the limits of tragedy, Hippolytus has no choice but to reject Phaedra's claims, even if he is simply a decent man and not a principled misogynist.

In this regard, we note that other heroes of ancient myths who find themselves in a similar position do the same: the biblical Joseph, the Greek Bellerophon and Peleus 31 . They all refuse to share the seductress’s bed, so as not to offend the people who have shown them hospitality and trust; Ippolit's moral reasons for refusing to cohabit with his stepmother are undoubtedly even more weighty. Consequently, Hippolytus’s chastity is not at all a necessary prerequisite for his tragedy 32. Of course, in Euripides it motivates the long-standing hatred of Aphrodite, and we have yet to explain the nature of her actions. As for Hippolytus himself, it is ridiculous and pointless to blame him for refusing to unite with his stepmother.

What, after all, is the origin of this innocence of Hippolytus, which is as incomprehensible to the modern reader as it was incomprehensible to the French viewer of the 17th century (which is why Racine replaced it with the romance of Hippolytus and Aricia)? Euripides' contemporaries were in a more favorable position in this sense: they knew Hippolytus not only as a character in myth, but also as a “hero” in the religious meaning of the word, an object of worship in the local cult. It was in Troezen, where the action of the tragedy of Euripides takes place, in his time and much later (in any case, back in the 2nd century AD), there was a sanctuary of Hippolytus associated with the marriage ceremony: before marriage, Troezen girls brought gifts to the “hero » cut off strands of their braids. Since premarital sacrifices date back to ancient times, in Hippolytus one should probably see the ancient Troezenian male deity with functions parallel to those of the pan-Greek female goddess, Artemis, who was the patroness of both maiden chastity and women giving birth. It is also not difficult to explain why the object of veneration in such a cult was a young man who died before marriage: his innocence personified maiden purity, and his death reflected that transition from one physical state to another, which in primitive consciousness was perceived as the death of a person and birth into a new one. quality. It is no coincidence that the gift of a lock of hair is an indispensable part of the ancient Greek funeral and memorial rites, and the so-called initiations - the initiation of young men and women to the rank of “adults” - were accompanied in a number of cases by a ritual associated with the shedding of blood. Consequently, the chastity of Hippolytus was given in advance by the cult, and there was no need for Euripides to change this cult premise of the myth, since he did not at all seek to convince his viewers of the advantages of communication between the sexes over the absurd male asceticism. They themselves knew that it was the duty of a citizen to marry “for the birth of legitimate children,” as the traditional Athenian formula stated. But Euripides’ contemporaries understood just as well that cohabitation with a stepmother while the father was alive does not fall under the said formula, and in this sense, the story of Hippolytus did not pose any moral dilemma for them. To look for the germ of the tragedy of repressed and avenging sexuality in the myth of Hippolytus means measuring the religious ethics of the ancient Greeks by the yardstick of modern psychoanalysis. But along with the recognition of the immorality of the union of a stepson with a stepmother, all interpretations aimed at searching for the “tragic guilt” of Hippolytus before the objective “state of the world” disappear.

What remains is the “subjective” guilt of Hippolytus - arrogance, arrogance and much more that modern critics accuse him of. The basis for this is the fact that Hippolytus calls himself sophron several times, and also in the superlative degree (sophronestatos). Can this be blamed on him?

The words sophron and its derivative sophrosyne are no less polysemantic in Greek than aidos and its derivatives. The most accurate translation, based on the composition of the word sophron, would be the Russian “sane.” We are, however, not talking about practical “sanity”, which is necessary in everyday everyday affairs. Since the ethics of the ancient Greeks was highly rationalistic, the concept of “sanity” included the idea of ​​a high moral level: a “sane”, “prudent” person has the ability to self-control, he is “pious”, that is, he is well aware of his duty to people and gods and will not allow himself to violate existing moral standards.

“Under this sun and on this earth,” even if you do not agree with it, “there is no person who would be more pious than me” (993-995), says Hippolytus to his father and then gives justification for such self-esteem: he honors the gods; as friends he uses people who are incapable of shameful acts, and he himself, in turn, does not slander those who are absent, but treats everyone equally; finally, he did not touch women and does not even like paintings depicting loving embraces (996-1006). However, Hippolytus continues, my prudence (to sophron, 1007) does not convince you; he then gives arguments that should refute the accusation brought against him. Another time, already doomed to exile, Hippolytus orders his comrades to accompany him, because they will never see a more pious man again (1100 ate). Finally, in his dying laments, Hippolytus exclaims: “O Zeus, Zeus, do you see this? Here I am, pious and reverent of the gods, I, surpassing everyone in purity (sophrosyne), go down to Hades... In vain I endured such torment in my piety...” (1363-1369).

Many researchers consider these words to be an involuntary recognition of Hippolytus in the narrowness of his ideal and the limitations of his perfection: he takes credit for the veneration of the gods, but does not honor Cypris himself; his confidence in his own superiority blinds him to the true cause of his death. However, strict critics lose sight of one essential circumstance: both these and all of the above words of Hippolytus, which seem to give grounds for reproaches of arrogance, belong to the second half of the tragedy and are pronounced after the young man - undoubtedly “piously” - rejected the love of his stepmother and just as piously remains faithful to the oath of silence given to him. Therefore, in Art. 1363-1369 one should not look for any generalization that requires Hippolytus to reassess the life he lived: his piety and veneration of the gods relate to a very specific case - his observance of the oath, which destroyed him.

But let’s assume that Hippolytus really has too high an opinion of himself—let’s listen to what others say about him. Artemis appeared to Theseus with the goal of “showing the noble way of thinking of his son, so that he would die in glory” (1298 ff.). Having given the nurse a vow of silence, Hippolytus, “as he should,” did not succumb to her words, but even under a hail of accusations he did not break the oath, “being naturally pious” (1309). The fate of Hippolytus saddens Artemis, since the gods are not pleased with the death of pious people (1339 f.), and it was for his piety that Hippolytus hated Cypris (1402). Artemis admits that Hippolytus was ruined by his own nobility (1390), and promises to take revenge for his piety and noble way of thinking (1419). And if the goddess whom Hippolytus worshiped comes forward for his belated justification with the impartiality characteristic of the gods, then one cannot deny the young man deep sympathy from the messenger who brought the news of his death: “Of course, king, I am only a slave in your house, but never in For the life of me I will not believe that your son was a worthless person, even if the entire family of women hanged themselves, having destroyed the entire forest from Mount Ida with letters - I know for sure that he is noble” (1249-1254).

A little time will pass, and Theseus will have to agree with this assessment: having learned the whole truth and realizing the depth of his error, the king begs his son for forgiveness and, contrary to his expectations, receives it. It is here that Theseus must admit that Hippolytus is noble and pious (1452, 1454) 33.

Another point in Hippolytus’ moral position that he insists on is his innocence in what is happening, including the death of Phaedra. He says this about himself both at the very beginning of the explanation with his father (933), and after the catastrophe (1383), and finds support in the choir (1148-1150 - everywhere the same formula: ouden aitios - “not at all guilty” ), who is also trying in every possible way to keep Theseus from making a hasty decision. Of course, if we very intensively look for the “tragic guilt” of Hippolytus, we can say that his “innocence” contains a certain tragic irony: in fact, he is “guilty”, for he rejected Cypris. However, Theseus accuses him of exactly the opposite: in his opinion, Hippolytus, boasting of his piety, only covers up the sensual desire characteristic of youth (966-969). Refuting this opinion and the shameful suspicion (1191-1193) of an attempt on Phaedra’s honor, Hippolytus insists on his innocence.

So, if the playwright, through the mouth of his characters, repeatedly calls the main character “noble,” “pious,” “innocent,” then it was hardly the author’s task to denigrate this hero, to expose him to the audience of self-confidence, arrogance and other unattractive qualities. But is the subject of artistic research in Euripides' tragedy the moral properties of Hippolytus? Not at all; they do not give rise to doubt, for if the young man were not noble, pious, etc., he could easily agree with the nurse’s proposal (cf. her own reasoning about the tolerance of many fathers towards their sons, 462-465), easily could break the vow of silence (this is what Phaedra is afraid of, 689-692) 34. Or is it the ethical problem of Hippolytus' chastity? It was given by the cult, and Euripides’ audience hardly needed proof that it is more natural for a man to get along with a young woman than to refuse her—of course, if this union does not violate generally accepted moral norms. The problem that arises in “Hippolytus” comes down to something completely different: how will a noble and pious hero, a man “as he should be,” behave in this situation, for everything that we know about Hippolytus gives us reason to apply this characteristic to him Sophocles' heroes.

What, in fact, destroys Hippolyta? Refusal to share a bed with Phaedra? She herself had not thought about this. They further say that Hippolytus’s angry monologue, pronounced in the presence of Phaedra, arouses in her the fear of exposure, and therefore she resorts to posthumous slander. If the young man had been more restrained in expressing his indignation, or had at least figured out who was to blame for the proposal made to him—whether Phaedra herself or the nurse acting against her will—everything could have been different. Meanwhile, Hippolytus’s intolerance is the same “Sophoclean” feature of the tragic hero as nobility, and in this sense, the image of Hippolytus has the same transitional character as the image of Phaedra: like Oedipus in relation to Creon, Hippolytus has no time (and it doesn’t even occur to ) to understand and look for the truly guilty. He is deeply outraged by the immorality of his stepmother, and this indignation is not difficult to understand and justify, especially knowing about Hippolytus’s attitude towards women in general. The main thing, however, is not this.

Hippolytus' monologue undoubtedly serves as the basis for Phaedra's false accusation, and its purely dramatic significance should not be underestimated. However, Hippolytus dies not so much from Phaedra’s slander as from observing the oath of silence given to him (1060-1063). The young man has to defend himself against Theseus’s accusation with general arguments about his views on life, while just interrogating the nurse would put everything in its place. Then, if Phaedra were still alive, Hippolytus might fear that a truthful story would disgrace her or even encourage her to commit suicide—now Phaedra is dead, and no confession from a young man could make her any worse. Finally, not a single person in the world is able to appreciate the nobility shown by Hippolytus, except for the choir, and his opinion hardly means anything to the prince. If Artemis had not appeared in the finale and had not opened Theseus’s eyes to everything that had happened, the son would have remained in the eyes of his father as a vile seducer of his stepmother - and Hippolytus, of course, could not have known that Artemis would take care of his belated acquittal.

Thus, Hippolytus, unlike Phaedra, is guided not by external assessment, not by someone else’s opinion, but by his own consciousness of innocence. He is “not trained in nobility and modesty” - these qualities are in his blood, he was born with them, and with them he will die. We learn about this already at the first appearance of Hippolytus in the orchestra, when the young man presents a gift to Artemis with a wreath of flowers collected in a reserved meadow, which “Bashfulness (Aidos) refreshes with river moisture.” Access there is open only to those “who have not been taught anything, but by nature have forever drawn the lot of piety” (to sophron-in) (78-80). Here two key moral concepts are immediately named that are to play such a large role in the future fate of the main characters of the tragedy: aidos and sophrosyne. We have already seen the place aidos occupies in Phaedra’s behavior and commitment to sophronein in Hippolytus’ assessment. It is important to note that “piety” is inherent to a certain extent in Phaedra: the nurse states in despair that even “pious people” (that is, Phaedra), even against their will, are committed to vice (358 f.); Phaedra herself tried, with the help of piety, to overcome love madness (399); the chorus considers the desire for “noble glory” (431) a sign of her piety (to sophron). The concept of “piety” fatally connects Hippolytus and Phaedra: the former, at the end of his angry monologue, appeals to someone who could “teach piety » women (567); the second is removed from life with the threat of “teaching piety” to Hippolytus himself (731).

On whose side, however, true piety is, is unambiguously clear from the words of Hippolytus, incomprehensible to Theseus, about the late Phaedra: “She acted piously, not having the opportunity to be pious” (1034). For Phaedra, the only way to prove her piety was death, combined with the false accusation of her stepson - the bitter fruit of the same orientation towards external evaluation, which we examined in detail above. Hippolytus is pious from the inside, “by nature”—hence the motif of his “innate” moral qualities, repeatedly repeated in the second half of the tragedy. “There is no man who was born (gegos) more pious than I,” says Hippolytus (995), and Artemis supports him in this opinion: he was born pious (eusebes gegos, 1309). The negative assumption rejected by Hippolytus himself is repeated three times: let him die ingloriously and namelessly, “if he was born (pephyka) a worthless person” 35.

It is generally accepted that the appeal to innate moral qualities is part of aristocratic morality, which contrasts true nobility “from birth” with the vain attempts of people of humble birth to learn valor (cf. Pindar, German III, 40-42; Ol. X, 20). However, the sophists, who strongly defended the possibility of teaching a person “valor,” never denied the importance of his natural properties (physis) for the results of training (cf. Protagoras’ statement: “Training needs natural data and training,” physeos kai askeseos, French VZ ) 36 The whole question is what the moral self-education of a person is aimed at: traditional norms, the observance of which is accessible to external assessment and therefore only needs it, or at the internal judgment and self-esteem of the individual. It would be wrong to give the entire first half of this alternative to “aristocratic” ethics, forgetting the role that the fear of “shame” played for Sophocles’ heroes. But at the same time it is obvious that only in the last decades of the 5th century BC. e. For the first time, the question of the internal criteria of human behavior arises. In this regard, the statements of the philosopher Democritus, a younger contemporary of Euripides, are of significant interest.

“Whoever commits a shameful deed (aischra) must first of all be ashamed (aischynesthai) of himself,” he wrote. “One should be ashamed of oneself (aidefsthai) no less than other people, and should not commit a bad act, even if no one knows about it.” finds out, it’s the same as if all people knew about him. Most of all one should be ashamed (aideisthai) of oneself, and a law should be established for the soul: “Do not do anything inappropriate” 37

Given the current state of our knowledge about Democritus, we cannot establish when these lines were written and, moreover, whether they were known to Euripides? 38 One thing is clear: Democritus based his assessment of a person not on what others say about him, but on what he thinks about himself, and the behavior of Euripides’ Hippolytus completely coincides with this second approach. Euripides' hero knows that he cannot break this oath, knows that he is innocent, but does not seek external means to prove his innocence or restore his damaged reputation. His piety, purity, nobility are deeply internal properties, manifestations of the nature inherent in him. However, they do not save Hippolytus just as Phaedra’s focus on external things does not save her: a good name, posthumous fame.

The tragedy of Hippolytus reaches its highest tension not in the finale, where he is brought awaiting imminent death, but in the scene with Theseus, who does not understand him at all. In this regard, the nature of the dialogue taking place between them deserves attention.

Based on formal characteristics, this scene can be classified as one of the agons so common in Euripides’ tragedies - disputes between two antagonists defending directly opposite points of view. Among his plays, from the earliest extant "Alcestis" (438 BC) to those staged in 415 BC. e. There is not a single “Trojan Women” where two opponents did not clash in a fierce dispute, trying to justify their positions with the greatest persuasiveness. Such an agon usually precedes the climax, to some extent predetermining the course of events leading to it. In “Hippolytus” a completely different situation arises: the dispute is not about what is to come, but about what has already happened and, therefore, from a plot point of view, it is devoid of any meaning.

In fact, when Hippolytus, alarmed by the cries of his father (902-904), appears in the orchestra, Theseus had already turned to his divine parent Poseidon with a request for revenge on his worthless son (887-890) - even if Hippolytus had managed to convince his father of his innocence, once uttered a prayer to the gods cannot be returned back. But Hippolytus is not able to refute the accusations brought against him, being bound by an oath. Therefore, here the agon resembles a dialogue between a deaf man and a mute: Theseus does not know the true state of affairs, accepting Phaedra’s slander as the truth, and does not want to listen to Hippolytus’ hints, from which he could extract the truth. Hippolytus knows more than he dares to say, but that is why he does not have the opportunity to refute Theseus’s logical arguments. Unlike other agons, this scene is not aimed at what follows, but itself depends on the ambiguous past, and the entire logic of the dispute turns into tragic nonsense for both participants, in which Hippolytus’ position is aggravated by immense moral loneliness.

The situation is partly reminiscent of Sophocles' Antigone, where the girl experiences a feeling of terrible loneliness, not seeing support from anywhere. But in Antigone, the logic of the development of action indicates, at least, the moral victory of the heroine. In “Hippolytus,” on the contrary, it turns out that he himself, Phaedra, and Theseus became victims of the insulted Aphrodite and that Hippolytus dies without any fault on his part—this is the most significant difference between the ending of “Hippolytus” and the ending of “Antigone.” There, thanks to the active action and self-sacrifice of a heroic personality, world harmony is restored. Here the noble hero is doomed to passive suffering and death, revealing the illogicality of the existing world.

There is, however, one more feature in Hippolytus’s appearance that brings him closer to Sophocles’ heroes: this is the ability to withstand the most terrible test, without ceasing to remain faithful to his noble nature.

Innocently accused by his father, a victim of his curse, before his death, Hippolytus forgives Theseus for his involuntary crime. To the father’s call: “Don’t leave me, child, hold on!” - Hippolytus answers briefly: “I stood my ground” (1456 words). He is able not only to withstand his moral duty, preferring loyalty to the oath to his own salvation. He was able to forgive his murder to his unfortunate father. The greatness and nobility of spirit characteristic of Hippolytus during his life accompany him until the last words spoken on the threshold of death.

The development of action in Hippolytus, leading to the senseless death of both main characters, shows that in the world of Euripides there is no place left for people endowed with the traits of normative heroes. No matter how Phaedra and Hippolytus understand their moral duty, following it leads both to disaster. In Hippolytus, human behavior is deprived of reliable moral criteria, and Euripides’ gods do not help to find them.

As has long been noted, the content of “Hippolytus” is enclosed in a kind of frame, which is created by two scenes that overlap in their dramatic purpose. The tragedy begins with the appearance of one goddess - Aphrodite; two dozen verses before the end of the drama, another goddess, Artemis, leaves the orchestra. Immediately after Aphrodite’s opening monologue, the square in front of the palace is filled with a crowd of hunters led by Hippolytus - together with him in choral songs they glorify their patroness Artemis (61-72). At the end of the tragedy, the appearance of Artemis is preceded by a choral song of the Troezen women, asserting the irresistible strength and power of Eros (1260-1282). Noteworthy is the contrasting opposition of identical motives in the initial and final parts of the tragedy: the power of love, personified by Aphrodite, and the glorification of the virgin Artemis - in the prologue; the song about the omnipotence of Eros and the appearance of Artemis herself - in the finale. In all this one senses such a well-thought-out artistic calculation that the “divine” framing of “Hippolytus” cannot be reduced to a purely technical means of organizing the plot.

It is often said that the action in Hippolytus does not require commentary from the gods at all, that the emotional drama of Phaedra and the unbridled anger of Theseus, the moral fortitude of Hippolytus and the immoral practicality of the nurse are completely understandable as a manifestation of the properties of human characters placed in certain conditions. Why did Euripides need two goddesses? Do they represent the personification of the two great elements that rule human life - chastity and love attraction, or does Euripides reduce them “to the level of anthropomorphic gods, endowed with all human weaknesses?

The very first meeting with Aphrodite forces us, apparently, to give an affirmative answer to the second of the questions posed.

In fact, Cypris immediately gives an unambiguously “human” justification for her attitude towards Hippolytus: she respects those who honor her power and overthrows those who boast before her, because the race of gods also has this property: they rejoice when mortals they are revered (1-8). The goddess's further speech should confirm the validity of this thesis: since Hippolytus considers her the worst of the gods, rejecting women's embraces, and honors Artemis as the greatest of the goddesses, Aphrodite will take revenge on him today. And although she assures that she is not at all offended by the honors that Hippolytus renders to Artemis, and that she does not envy them at all, she lists them not without contemptuous indignation (9-20). All this is the typical logic of the Homeric gods, whose anger and mercy largely determined the fate of the epic heroes.

Even more than the Homeric gods, Aphrodite in Hippolytus is unscrupulous in her means. So, although she knows about Phaedra’s nobility, she does not consider her death such a significant event that she would not sacrifice the unfortunate woman for the sake of revenge on the enemy and satisfying her vanity (47-50).

Aphrodite's self-characterization is confirmed by the statements of other characters. Don’t you think, the old servant asks Hippolytus, that the gods, like people, hate arrogance and value courtesy in relation to them? Of course, Hippolytus confirms, if we humans live according to the laws given by the gods (91-98). And if the servant’s suggestion does not make the proper impression on the young man, then the old man knows well what he needs to do: bowing before the image of Cypris, he begs the goddess to show leniency towards the folly of youth: after all, the gods should be wiser than mortals (114-120). The old servant’s pleas, as we know, did not achieve their goal: the gods should be wiser than people, but in Hippolytus they do not show such an understanding of their duties. “Satiating her anger” 39 (1328), Cypris destroyed Hippolytus - Artemis directly calls her a “villain” (panourgos) for this and explains her actions by the fact that Hippolytus did not give her due honors; his virtue displeased the goddess (1400-1402).

Moreover, Hippolytus was not the only victim of Aphrodite: Phaedra died without any guilt on her part; Theseus lost his son, deceived by the will of the vengeful goddess (1406, 1414) - how long will he, unfortunate one, remember the troubles caused by Cypris! (1461). These words, with the exception of the final five-line verse of the chorus (which may not belong to Euripides), complete the tragedy, which begins with the self-presentation of Cypris to the audience. The name of the goddess in the first verses of the tragedy, the name of the goddess in the last verses, is hardly a coincidence. Undoubtedly, the poet wanted to emphasize the role that Aphrodite plays in the fate of his heroes, the unlimited power of her power over the mortal race. The last idea is especially clearly confirmed by the content of two songs of the choir, which have already been discussed: the first of them (525-564) is more extensive, the second (1268-1282) is much shorter, but here and there the conviction expressed by the choir comes down to one thing : Resistance to Eros is doomed to failure.

Therefore, it is often said that the anthropomorphic characteristic of Aphrodite should not be given too much importance. Of course, the goddess is proud, merciless, intolerant - but isn’t love the same, an indomitable element that subjugates everything living on earth? In this regard, they recall the surviving passage from Aeschylus’s tragedy “Danaids” (fr. 125), where Aphrodite appears as a great cosmic force that fertilizes the earth and everything earthly. They also cite fr. 898 of Euripides himself, closely resembling the lines of Aeschylus. However, the context from which the Euripidean fragment is taken is unknown, and the comparison of Hippolytus with Aeschylus' Danaids proves the opposite of what they want to derive from this comparison.

Although we have no reliable information about the content of the two unfinished tragedies from the trilogy about the daughters of Danaus, there is reason to believe that in the course of the trilogy both the blasphemous violence of the Egyptians and the unnatural aversion to marriage on the part of the Danaids were condemned. Speaking in the “Danaids” (the last part of the trilogy), Aphrodite took under the protection of Hypermestra, the only one of the Danaids who saved the life of her husband, since the voluntary union of the sexes created the precondition for a natural resolution of the conflict.

In “Hippolytus,” on the contrary, the starting point is not the gods’ concern for restoring broken harmony, but such an archaic category as the wrath of a deity personally offended by a person. Even if we recognize Aphrodite’s revenge on Hippolytus, who violates her eternal law, as legitimate, why do Phaedra and Theseus suffer? Phaedra, as far as her strength was sufficient, resisted criminal passion, protecting her marital honor; if she had submitted to the feeling of love, she would have had to disgrace herself, her husband, and her children—subordination to Cyprida as a “natural” necessity would have led to a “violation of the norms of “valor.” In such Cypris one cannot see the cosmic force with which Aeschylus’s Aphrodite identifies herself in French. 125, - there following the call of nature affirms world harmony; here it would entail a shameful violation of moral standards. In the eyes of Aeschylus, love attraction is inseparable from the highest laws of morality; in Hippolytus, nature and morality come into irreconcilable contradiction.

This is best seen from the reasoning and behavior of the nurse, who vulgarizes the idea of ​​love as a cosmic force, and at the same time distorts such a traditional ethical concept as hybris. Having recovered from the first shock, the nurse tries to convince Phaedra of the meaninglessness of her experiences: nothing out of the ordinary happened to her - she is not the only one who loves, and because of love one should not go to the next world (437-440). After all, Cypris rules both in the sky and in the depths of the sea, everything comes from her. She sows life and gives love, whose creation is all of us (447-450). These thoughts, quite in tune with the Greek idea of ​​the power of passion, do not yet contain anything odious. But already from the life of the gods she selects examples of “side” relationships, and moving on to contemporary morals, she completely justifies immoral behavior: how many husbands turn a blind eye to their wives’ infidelity? How many fathers share a bed with their sons? (462-465). From here the nurse draws a conclusion addressed to Phaedra: “So, my child, give up bad thoughts, stop being arrogant (hybrizein), because the desire to be stronger than the gods is nothing more than pride (hybris). Dare to love: the goddess wanted this” (473-476).

It is not difficult to understand that the natural-philosophical axiom undergoes an amazing metamorphosis in the mouth of the nurse: she calls Phaedra’s concern for her honor “bad thoughts” and sees “pride” not in violating moral norms, but in trying to remain faithful to them. In order not to fall into “pride” in the face of Cyprida, Phaedra, according to the nanny, must desecrate her marital bed with her stepson - is it possible to come up with a more paradoxical statement of the thesis about the cosmic omnipotence of love? 40

Consequently, Aphrodite is endowed not only with anthropomorphic features that make her appearance unattractive. Even if we accept her as the personification of love as a cosmic force, then in this case we will be faced with an insoluble contradiction: those who do not recognize Aphrodite, like Hippolytus, perish; those who resist Aphrodite, like Phaedra, also perish; but those who extol the power of Aphrodite (“Cypris is not a god, but something more than a god...”, 359 f.) and are guided by this in practical activities, like a nurse, lead things to disaster. “Calm down, my child,” says the nanny to Phaedra, “I will arrange this well. If only you, the mistress of the sea Cypris, would be my assistant” (521-523). This is followed by the nurse's confession to Hippolyta, leading Phaedra to suicide. “I will arrange my affairs well,” Phaedra says to the chorus. “... Having given up my life today, I will amuse Cyprida, who destroyed me” (709, 725-727). This is followed by Phaedra's posthumous slander, costing Hippolytus' life. Cypris the helper and Cypris the destroyer act together, and if Cypris is nothing more than the personification of the eternal natural instinct, then is a world reasonable where the “call of nature” leads to the undeserved death of two noble people? 41

We cannot derive a positive answer to this question from the behavior of that goddess, who seems to Hippolytus to be the complete opposite of Cypris. If any mortal deserves special recognition from Artemis, then it is, of course, Hippolytus, her faithful servant, and not one of the Homeric gods would hand over his favorite to Aphrodite for reprisal without trying either to intervene in the matter himself or to appeal to the supreme will of Zeus. How much effort Poseidon made to destroy Odysseus, the mighty ruler of the seas, however, only managed to delay the moment of the hero’s return to his native Ithaca, because the interests of Odysseus were strictly guarded by his heavenly patron Athena. Euripides' Artemis confesses her love for Hippolytus (1333, 1398), but does not take a single step to save him from his father's curse. She explains this to Theseus by the law existing among the gods: when one of them is up to something, the others step aside, and the fear of breaking the law protected by Zeus forced Artemis to retreat from Hippolytus (1328-1334) - little consolation for the unfortunate father!

Hardly more effective relief for Theseus and the dying Hippolytus could be brought by the prophecy of Artemis about the establishment of the Troezenian cult and especially her promise to repay Aphrodite: with her own hand, with one of her irresistible arrows, she would strike one of the mortals who is most dear to Aphrodite and loved by her ( 1420-1422). This means that once again the victim of “divine wrath” will be a man guilty only of honoring Aphrodite, just as Hippolytus has already fallen, guilty only of honoring Artemis. It is difficult to find in this promise of Artemis the slightest signs of the gods’ concern for a just world order, although the goddess herself assures that the Olympians are saddened by the death of the pious, and they destroy the bad along with their home and children (1340 f.). The Athenian spectators, before whose eyes the noble Phaedra had just perished and the impeccably pure Hippolytus would soon perish, could hardly be convinced of the sincerity and appropriateness of this belated theodicy... 42

A number of researchers also blame Artemis for her cold indifference at the sight of the mutilated Hippolytus: she does not allow herself to shed a tear over her devoted admirer (1396) and leaves as soon as she feels the approach of his last breath (1437-1439). These reproaches are hardly justified: the Olympians, in their eternal greatness, are, of course, not supposed to cry over the transitory lot of mortals, and contact with the dead is for them ritual desecration; therefore, in particular, it was considered a religious crime to kill a person in a temple. But for Hippolytus, this coldness of Artemis is undoubtedly a bitter reproach. “You easily interrupt our long friendship,” he says after her (1441). The gods should be wiser and more responsive than mortals - the example of Artemis does not justify this hope of people, just like the example of Aphrodite: Cypris without hesitation sacrifices the nobility of Phaedra to her vanity, Artemis leaves the moral purity of Hippolytus unprotected.

Of course, the gods are not obliged to find a way out for mortals from the moral conflicts that arise before them. Among all the tragedies known to us by Aeschylus and Sophocles, there is only one that uses deus ex machina - Sophocles' Philoctetes, staged in 409 BC. e. But even here, the moral problem facing Neoptolemus (following “benefit” or one’s noble “nature”) is resolved by him without any help from the gods - the appearance of the deified Hercules in the finale is necessary for the playwright only in order to introduce the plot of the tragedy into the mainstream of myth, which required the indispensable participation of Philoctetes in the decisive battle for Troy.

In Hippolytus, the gods intervene twice in the action, at the beginning and at the end, but do nothing to clarify the ethical conflict: an orientation towards external honor leads to the same destructive consequences as a deeply internal sense of piety. In a world where such gods rule, there are no reliable moral criteria left for mortals—this is the reason for the tragedy of Hippolytus and Phaedra.

One of the foreign researchers of “Hippolytus” believes that the fate of all the heroes of the drama proves “the absence of free human will, the uselessness of moral decisions” - whatever they do, they only carry out the intentions of Aphrodite, announced by her in the prologue 43. It is clear from the previous discussion that we are inclined to attach much more importance to the ethical justification for the behavior of Phaedra and Hippolytus. If each of them’s different understanding of their moral duty equally leads them to a tragic result, then this happens not because the gods did not leave room for the independence of mortals, but because their power and power lose in the eyes of Euripides the rational meaning that they had for Aeschylus and Sophocles.

Notes.

* This (and partly the next) chapter uses the author’s works: “Guilt and responsibility in ancient Greek tragedy.”— “Problems of ancient culture”, Tbilisi, 1975, p. 75-84; "Warum ist die Euripideische Phaidra zugrundegegangen?".— "Acta Classica Universitatis scientiarum Debreceniensis", t. XII, 1976, p. 9-18.

2 Art. 40, 131, 178, 179, 205, 269, 279, 283, 293, 394, 405, 477,479, 512, 597, 698, 730, 766. Cf. 1306. External symptoms are consistent with this: deathly pallor, shadows around the eyes (172, 175), instantly changing desires (181-185), complete loss of strength (198-202).

3 “Mother of the Mountains” the chorus calls the famous Asia Minor goddess Cybele, whom the Greeks identified with the wife of Kron, the “mother of the gods” Rhea.

4 pareplagchthen (240) - a similar image already in Homer’s hymn to Aphrodite (the turn of the 7th-6th centuries BC), 254: apeplagchthen n6oio - “strayed away from reason.”

5 See for more details: V. N. J arc ho. Zum Menschenbild der nachhomerischen Dichtung.—Philologus, 112 (1968), S. 147-172.

6 Wed. in Theognis, 1231: “Ill-fated Eros, madness has nursed you...” In all examples from the lyrics, the vocabulary is unambiguous: mania, mainomai..

7 By the word “sting” we translate in both cases the Greek noun kentron, using the example of which we can trace the formation of love metaphors in the tragedy of Euripides. The original meaning of kentron is a stick with a pointed end; hence the scourge (Il. XXIII, 430). The direct meaning is preserved in the 5th century. BC e. (Sophocles, “Oedipus the King,” 809; Aristophanes, “Clouds,” 1297; in prose - in Herodotus, Xenophon), but along with this figurative language also appears - “stimulant”, “stimulus” (Pindar, fr. 124, 4 ; 180, 3; Aeschylus, Ev. 427). But only Euripides is the first to use kentron to denote love passion - and, moreover, with such physically tangible specificity (literal translation of Article 1303: “bitten by stings”).

8 764—766, 774 ff.

9 It is significant that Phaedra did not want to submit to destructive passion (ouch hekousa, 319; cf. 358). And not at all of her own free will (ouch hekousa, 1305) she fell into a trap set for her - against her desire (693 ff.)! - nurse.

10 The text of the excerpt is in the book: “Nova fragmenta Euripidea in papyris reperta.” Ed. From Austin. Berlin, 1968, No. 82; with parallel English translation: "Select Papyri", v. III. Texte... by D. L. Page. London, 1941 (and subsequent reprints), p. 74-77.

11. They are conveniently collected and commented in the book: Euripides. Hippolytos. Ed. by W. S. Barrett. Oxford, 1964, p. 18-22. ao the introductory part of this fundamental commented edition of “Hippolytus” also contains all the necessary Material on the history of the myth and its later reflections in literature.

12 V. d i Benedetto. Euripide: teatro e socicta. Torino, 1971, p. 5-46.

13 Let us recall how Aeschylus in “The Seven” in the image of Eteocles first puts forward the features of an ideal king, then the son of Oedipus, or in “Choephori” the formation of Orestes’ decision is “decomposed” into a number of successive stages in the commos.

14 classes: 405, 423, cf. 47.

15 aischros and related words: 404, 40U, 411, 420, cf. 246, 331.

16 Ajax, 436, 465, 769; 473 words; Philoctetes, 108, 475 ff., 524, 906, 909, 1228, 1234, 1249, 1382 ff.

17 499, 503, 505; Wed 500, 511

18 By attaching Phaedra's question directly to v. 512, we follow those editors of the text who consider Art. 513—515 not genuine. In fact, in the words of the nurse (509-512) Phaedra sees hope for a life-saving remedy that can cure love (she is still afraid that the nurse will reveal her secrets to Hippolytus, 520), but the nurse has in mind a love potion for Hippolyta. Thus, everyone thinks about his own, and this creates a tragic ambiguity; preservation in the text of Art. 513-515 completely destroys it.

19 See: C h. Segal. Shame and Purity in Euripides" Hippolytus. "Hermes", 98 (1970), S. 289. The author, who dedicated a number of works to "Hippolytus", is strongly influenced by psychoanalysis and tends to look everywhere for repressed sexuality and nature's revenge on man.

20 See: R. P. Winnington-Jngram in the collection: “Euripide (Entretiens sur l" antiquite classique, t. 6).” Geneve, 1960, p. 180.

21 Among them is L. Meridier (see the edition of the tragedies of Euripides indicated in note 1, vol. II, 1956, p. 18). We refer in approx. 19-21 only for the most recent utterances; Usually in each of the named works one can find an indication of previous literature.

22 Hesiod, Works, 317-319; Euripides, fr. 365.

23 S. M. Willipk. Some Problems in "Hippolytus."—Classical Quarterly, 18 (1968), p. 15.

24 Memoirs of Socrates, II, 3, 14; Wed 6, 35; IV, 2, 15 pp.

25 The problem of internal inconsistency of traditional moral values ​​arises already in Medea, staged three years before Hippolytus. Jason starts a new marriage in order to achieve “well-being” (olbos), the desire for which Solon considered natural. But on the way to his goal, Jason sacrifices such human feelings as love and devotion to Medea, which leads him to the collapse of all his plans. If in the image of Jason - due to his conscious pragmatism - this contradiction does not develop into a tragic conflict, then the situation is different with Medea. Guided by the traditional norm for “noble” people to harm their enemies (807-810), she becomes a murderer of her own children.

26 Although in quantitative terms the part of Phaedra (187 verses) is significantly smaller than the part of Hippolytus (271 verses), it is significant that the tragedy of Phaedra occupies exactly half of the entire play: she retires to the palace after Art. 731, in total there are 14RG poems in “Hippolytus”.

27 "Theatre of Euripides". St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 346.

28 Wed. Barrett's statements in his edition (note 11), p. 15, 154, 174 units; L. Bergson. Die Relativitat der Werte ira Fruhwerk des Euripides. Stockholm, 1971, pp. 45-47.

29 L. Crocker. On interpreting “Hippolytus.”— Philologus, 101 (1957), S. 243-245.

30 C h. Segal. The Tragedy of the "Hippolytus": the Waters of Ocean and the untouched Meadow.—Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 70 (1965), p. 137, 144-147.

31 The Story of Joseph - Book. Genesis, 39 and 41. About Bellerophon, see: Il. VI, 155-197 and fragments of the unpreserved tragedy of Euripides “Stheneboea”: the monologue of a young man - in the ed. "Select Papyri... by D. L. Page", p. 126-129; reconstruction of the plot - in the book: T.V.L. Webster. The Tragedies of Euripides. London, 1967, p. 80-84. About the wife of Acastus, who tried to seduce Peleus - Hesiod, fr. 208-211; Pindar, German. V, 25-36; in most detail - in the so-called “Library” of Apollodorus, III, 13, 3. For other versions of the folklore short story on the plot of “beautiful Joseph” (including in Ancient Egypt), see article: N. Neger. Phaedra in griechischer und romischer Gestalt.—Rheinisches Museum, 114 (1971), S. 47-50. There is also previous literature.

32 This is best seen from a comparison with Racine’s “Phaedra,” where Hippolytus has a lover named Aricia, the daughter of one of Theseus’s mortal enemies, and to the high moral considerations that force Hippolytus to reject Phaedra is added his feeling for another woman; thus, the action comes to a tragic conclusion without any misogyny on the part of Hippolytus.

33 In the verses cited here, along with sophron and its derivatives, the adjective eusebes (“pious”) and its derivatives (1309, 1339, 1364,1368,1419,1454), as well as various synonyms characterizing the nobility of Hippolytus: esthlos (1254) play an important role ), eugenes (1390), gennatos (1452).

34 Thucydides, speaking about the decline of morality during the Peloponnesian War, saw one of its signs in the fact that only forced oaths were given and at the first opportunity they took revenge on the enemy, taking advantage of his gullibility (III, 82, 7).

35 1028—1031, 1075, 1191.

36 F. Ileini m aim. Nonios und Physis. Basel, 1945, pp. 98-101.

37 Fr. 604 by ed.: S. Ya. Lurie, Democritus. L., 1970.

38 Historians of ancient philosophy consider the year of birth of Democritus to be 470 or 460 BC. But they all agree that in Athens Democritus lived unnoticed and did not know anyone.

39 Plerousa thymon. Cypris succumbs to the thirst for revenge, like Medea or Hecuba, who are also driven to crime by unbridled thymos: “Medea,” 108, 1056, 1079; "Hecuba", 1055.

40 It is no coincidence that Aristophanes in “Clouds” puts into the mouth of Krivda a defense of immoral behavior, using the logic of a nurse: after all, the gods fall in love and sin, following the call of nature—how can a mortal be better than the gods? (1079—-1082).

41 In this regard, the reflections of the choir in the 3rd stasima, after Theseus’s curse had already sounded and Hippolytus was condemned to exile and death, are indicative. The understanding of what is happening leaves me when I peer into the destinies of mortals,” the choir sings (1105-1107). “My thoughts are in confusion, and what I see happens contrary to all expectations: the most shining star of Athens is doomed by the wrath of his father to go into someone else’s land (1120-1125).

42 The extent to which the gods are interested in maintaining justice is evident from Theseus’s reaction to the messenger’s message:

O gods and you, Poseidon! You really were my father for listening to my pleas! But tell me, how did he die? How did the club of Justice strike down my offender?” (1169—-1172). Justice (Dica), which Hesiod, Solon and Aeschylus considered a guarantee that evil will be punished, appears in Hippolytus in a tragically ambiguous situation. Theseus is confident in Hippolytus’s guilt, “exposes” his pretensions to appear fair (dikaios, 929-931, 942, 1081) and sees in his death divine retribution and the exposure of a liar (1265-1267) - in fact, the reason for Hippolytus’s condemnation was foul play ( ;klik;i trg;i, 676) nurse, who took an oath of silence from him.

43 B" M. W. Knox. The "Hippolytos" of Euripides. - Quoted from the German translation in the book: "Euripides". Herausg. von E. R. Schwinge. Darmstadt, 1968, S. 242.

Ministry of Education of Ukraine

Zaporozhye State University

Faculty of Foreign Philology

Department of Foreign Literature

Course work

on the topic :_____Ancient world in the tragedies of Euripides “Hippolytus” and Seneca “Phaedra”

Performed Bekhteeva Svetlana Vladimirovna

Art. groups _______________________________________________

Supervisor assistant professor _____________________Emirsuinova N.K.

Standard controller___________________________________________

Zaporozhye

1. coursework assignment 1

2. ABSTRACT 1

3. Introduction........................................................ ..................................... 2

4. comparative analysis of tragedies.................................... 9

5. poets’ views on modern problems 12

5.1 interpretation of religion and gods in the works of Euripides “Hippolytus” and Seneca “Phaedra”;

5.2 Hippolytus – “man of good”; the fate of a mortal is in the hands of the gods;

5.3 PHAEDRA – THE DEGREE OF TRAGIC IMAGE IN BOTH WORKS;

5.4 THE MAIN QUESTION OF THE WORKS IS “WHAT IS EVIL?”

6. conclusions......................................................... .......................................... 19

7. List of used literature...... 219

for a student's coursework

Bekhteeva Svetlana Vladimirovna

1. Work theme The ancient world in the tragedies of Euripides “Hippolytus” and Seneca “Phaedra”

2. Time for student to submit completed work _________

3. Initial data for work Texts of works by Seneca and Euripides, literary and philosophical works devoted to this problem.

4. List of issues to consider

1. Comparative analysis of tragedies.

2. Interpretation of religion and gods in the works of Euripides “Hippolytus” and Seneca “Phaedra”.

3. The concept of a “good man” and the fate of a mortal in the hands of the gods.

4. The tragedy of the image of Phaedra in the tragedies of Euripides and Seneca.

5. Date of assignment ________________________________

text of the course work 19 pp., 8 sources.

Object of study This work contains the texts of works of art by Euripides (“Hippolytus”), Seneca (“Phaedra”, “Letters to Lucilius”), biographical sources and philosophical theses.

The purpose of the work is to study the problem of the literary traditions of antiquity through the study of particular examples of the artistic and philosophical worlds of Euripides and Seneca. The study is expected to solve the following problems:

– Establish the main features and differences in the manner of writing the work by Greek and Roman authors;

– To identify the degree of social influence and historical basis of both tragedies and the work of these authors in general;

– Carry out an independent analysis of intertextual connections and differences, their dependence on the social environment of the authors.

Research methods– system analysis and comparative method.

Scientific novelty This work is an attempt to identify the direct dependence of the historical basis, social environment and views of two ancient authors, Seneca and Euripides, their approaches to contemporary problems and the plot of the same ancient myth in particular.

Application area– teaching literature and philosophy.

MAN OF KIND, TRAGIC IMAGE, HISTORICAL BASIS, SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT, STOICISM, “NEW” STYLE, POLICE SYSTEM, ROCK, PROVIDENCE.

Through the centuries, from deep antiquity, heroes of mythological stories come to us, preserving their morals, customs, and identity. But, passing through the prism of time and distance, their basic ideas, partly their characters, views and the very essence of their actions change. There is no exception to the plot in which Phaedra, the wife of the Athenian king Theseus (Theseus), fell in love with her stepson Hippolytus. Rejected by him, she commits suicide, discrediting Hippolytus and accusing him of an attempt on her honor. So this plot was used by the great Greek tragedian Euripides, Seneca, the Roman master of the “new style”, and Racine in his work “Phaedra”, written in the best traditions of French classicism (1677).

Of course, each work is the brainchild not only of its author, but also of the people, social status in society, the political system that existed at that time, and, often, just emerging new thoughts and trends, as was the case with the work of Euripides “Hippolytus”.

So, to find the differences and differences in the works of Euripides and Senel, the reasons for their occurrence and the degree of influence of public opinion and the surrounding reality on them is our task.

In my opinion, the roots of the theme, the ideas of each work and the reasons that prompt the author to do so should be sought in his origin, education, way of thinking and action, and the surrounding reality.

Isolation of personality and a critical attitude towards thym - both of these trends in the new worldview were in sharp contradiction with the ideological foundations of the tragedy of Aeschylus and Sophocles; nevertheless, they received their first literary embodiment within the tragic genre, which remained the leading branch of Attic literature of the 5th century. New trends in Greek social thought found a response in the works of Euripides, the third great poet of Athens.

The dramatic creativity of Euripides proceeded almost simultaneously with the activities of Sophocles. Euripides was born around 406. His first plays were staged in 455, and from that time on, for almost half a century, he was the most prominent rival of Sophocles on the Athenian stage. He did not achieve success with his contemporaries soon; success was not lasting. The ideological content and dramatic innovations of his tragedies met with sharp condemnation among the conservative part of the Athenians and served as the subject of constant ridicule for the comedy of the 5th century. Over twenty times he performed his works at tragic competitions, but the Athenian jury awarded him only five prizes during all this time, the last time posthumously. But later, during the period of decomposition of the polis and in the Eliistic era, Euripides became the favorite tragic poet of the Greeks.

The most reliable biographical sources portray Euripides as a solitary thinker - a book lover. He was the owner of a fairly significant book collection. He did not take an active part in the political life of Athens, preferring leisure time devoted to philosophical and literary pursuits. This way of life, unusual for citizens of the polis, was often attributed by Euripides even to mythological heroes.

The crisis of traditional polis ideology and the search for new foundations and ways of worldview were very clearly and completely reflected in the tragedy of Euripides. A solitary poet and thinker, he sensitively responded to pressing issues of social and political life. His theater is a kind of encyclopedia of the mental movement of Greece in the second half of the 5th century.

In the works of Euripides, various problems were posed that interested Greek social thought, new theories were presented and discussed, ancient criticism called Euripides a philosopher on stage.. However, he was not a supporter of any philosophical doctrine, and his own views were not distinguished by either consistency or constancy .

It is important for us that Oripides has a negative attitude towards the aggressive foreign policy of democracy. He is an Athenian patriot and an enemy of Sparta. Euripides is alien to the philosophical views of Roman society.

Seneca, like Euripides, was a son of his state, and this influenced the character of his work “Phaedra”, as well as all of his work. The structure of the empire created by Augustus (“Principate”) lasted over 200 years after the death of its founder, until the crisis of the 3rd century. Military dictatorship turned out to be the only state form in which ancient society, corroded by the contradictions of slavery, could continue to exist after the collapse of the polis system.

Despite all the appearance of prosperity, symptoms of the approaching decomposition of the slave system soon began to appear. It is in Italy that the signs of economic decline are most clearly revealed, but while the economic decline was only approaching, the social and moral decline of Roman society was already evident. General lack of rights and loss of hope for the possibility of a better order corresponded to general apathy and demoralization. The bulk of the population demanded only “bread” and “circuses”. And the state considered it its direct responsibility to satisfy this need.

Slavery, open pursuit of material wealth, weakening social feelings, fragility of family ties, celibacy and a drop in the birth rate are characteristic features of Roman society in the 1st century.

On this ground, the level of Roman literature declines, and individual brilliant exceptions do not change the overall picture. A characteristic feature of the “Silver Age” is the appearance of a large number of provincials among literary figures. In particular, Spain, the oldest and most culturally mature of the Romanized western provinces, produced a number of significant writers - Seneca, Lucan, Quintilian and others. The style, created by the “reciters” of the time of Augustus, became most widespread in the middle of the 1st century. Writers of the 1st century they call it a “new” style, in contrast to the “ancient” style of Cicero, whose long speeches, philosophical discussions, strictly balanced periods now seemed sluggish and boring. The literary traditions of “Asianism” found fertile soil in Rome at the beginning of the 1st century. with his thirst for brilliance, the desire for a proud pose and the pursuit of sensually vivid impressions. the best master of the “new” style in the middle of the 1st century. – Lucius Annaeus Senela. Born in Spain, in the city of Corduba, but grew up in Rome. Seneca received an education in the spirit of new rhetoric and expanded it with philosophical knowledge. In his youth, he was interested in fresh philosophical trends, and in the 30s he became a lawyer and entered the Senate. But, having gone through the hellish circles of political intrigue, ups and downs, he moved away from the court and took up literary and philosophical activities.