The Legitimization of Hippolytus*

There has never been much consensus of opinion concerning Euripides or his tragic dramas. In his own time, traditionalists accused Euripides of impiety,2a branded some of his plays scandalous,13a and attacked the quality of his art.1 Youths and liberals of his day, however, idolized him.4 After twenty-five centuries there is still no coherent critical view of Euripidean tragedy. Euripides, it is said, held “a strange fascination from the very first, even for his detractors,”9” and accordingly his harshest critics are at times ambivalent. His work continues to “evoke astonishingly diverse judgments,”12a and it is claimed that “Euripides has had more labels attached to him than any other dramatist who ever lived.”14

The diversity of opinion that has always surrounded Euripides' tragedies exists even in connection with what is perhaps his most popular play, the Hippolytus. The Hippolytus, has received continued and consistent praise. And yet—as if Euripides' work was not meant to be understood—it is difficult to locate similar, let alone identical interpretations of the tragedy. This article will attempt to explain why the Hippolytus fascinates yet perplexes.

Even the conservative judges of the Greek dramatic festivals considered the Hippolytus an excellent play, and they awarded it first prize upon its presentation in 428 B.C.2c** In modern criticism praise for the drama abounds. Grube9d refers to the Hippolytus as “perhaps the greatest of all the extant plays”; Bates2c says that