PHAEDRA Roland Mayer Phaedra Is One of Seneca's Most Engaging
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PHAEDRA Roland Mayer Phaedra is one of Seneca’s most engaging plays, both for scholars, who continue to nd interesting things to say about it, and for dramatists, who have drawn inspiration from it down the ages. The dramatic action is more coherent than in some of the other plays (though it is not entirely seamless), the chorus is pretty well integrated into the action (in that it often announces arrivals and sometimes talks with the other characters; for a still more appreciative assessment, see Hill 2000: 563–574), and, above all, the divided soul of the protagonist, Phaedra, can successfully evoke the sympathy of audience or reader, particularly in the powerful scene (583– 671) in which she reveals her love to Hippolytus (see Morelli 1995). It was arguably this quasi-incestuous attachment that kept the myth from being exploited by playwrights of the Republic; the more relaxed moral climate of the early Principate, and perhaps a carefully restricted target audience, enabled Seneca to take his chance with one of the greatest dramatic situations of the Attic stage. It is vastly to his credit that he met the challenge, if only eetingly. The date of this play’s composition cannot be determined with precision, although the metrical analysis of Fitch (1981), which is generally followed, would place it among his earliest pieces, that is, late in Claudius’s reign. This relative dating, if accepted, rules out any interpretations (for example, hints at Agrippina’s alleged attempts to seduce her son) that would only work if the play could be dated to Nero’s reign. The drama’s action is simple. In what is regarded as a lyric prologue, Hippolytus sets of on a hunt in Attica. Then Phaedra enters and deplores her current situation: her husband, Theseus, is away on an erotic escapade (91f.) and she herself sufers the symptoms of love, an inherited malady among Cretan women (see Armstrong 2006). Her old nurse tries to discourage her from giving in to this aiction; her speech is characteristic of minor gures whose good advice is neglected by the tragic protagonist. Phaedra replies, and she and the nurse engage in an increasingly urgent dialogue: they move from longish speech to crisper dialogue, which from 239–245 turns into sharp antilabe (i.e., each speaker takes part of a single line). Phaedra caves in to the nurse’s pleas, but she resolves that only death will save her (254). This 476 roland mayer is too much for the nurse, who, after failing to change Phaedra’s intention, undertakes to tackle Hippolytus herself (271–273). This ends the rst act and a chorus of unidenti ed people sings of love’s power, a theme, as usual in the tragedies, decorated with much mythology. The nurse then tells them that Phaedra is in the grip of passion, and the palace is opened to reveal an interior scene (if the play was performed). Phaedra is shown eager to change her elaborate court dress for something loose, more suited to the hunt. At the nurse’s urging, she prays to Diana to bring Hippolytus under Venus’s control. Her prayer seems to be answered, for there Hippolytus is, at prayer himself. Phaedra bids the nurse perform her task. After a polite exchange between them, the nurse tries to persuade Hippolytus to abandon his resistance to love. He replies with a justi cation of his own position. They move into a brief dialogue (565–582), when Phaedra bursts in upon them and promptly faints into Hippolytus’s arms. He revives her and in a scene of unrivaled power in the Senecan tragic corpus, Phaedra confesses her love. Hippolytus is horri ed and draws his sword on her (line 706). Her welcoming such a death deters him, and the nurse decides to turn the tables on him, and cries “rape!” Hippolytus runs away, leaving his sword behind with the nurse, who seeks to revive Phaedra. The second act ends and the chorus comments on Hippolytus’s ight, the dangers of such great beauty, and the deceit of the women; they announce the arrival of Theseus, which begins the third act. He has returned from the Underworld, and asks why his palace is given up to grief. The nurse cannot enlighten him, so he orders the palace to be opened up (this would be another interior scene in performance), and questions Phaedra. The pace of the dia- logue becomes agitated (with some antilabe), and in answer to Theseus’s request that she identify her assailant, Phaedra shows him the sword Hip- polytus left behind: its device exposes him (and Phaedra avoids the lie direct). Theseus’s tirade, in which he curses his son to death with one of the wishes promised him by his father Neptune, concludes the third act. The chorus, after singing a short ode on the power of fortune and the general unfairness of life, announces the arrival of the messenger, with which the fourth act begins. He tells Theseus at once that Hippolytus is dead, and then embarks on a gruesome account of how he died. He concludes by saying that slaves are collecting the remains. Theseus is unexpectedly moved by the event, expressing sorrow that he has been the instrument of his son’s death. The fourth act over, the chorus again sings briey of fortune and announces that Phaedra, sword in hand, is shrieking from within the palace. The last act begins with a question to her from Theseus. Phaedra replies in a speech in which she reproaches her husband for violent haste and exonerates.