Euripides� play Hippolytus was written in 428 B.C. , and ever since it has been regarded as one of the great classical works. In his treatment of the Phaedra myth, Euripides presents Phaedra in what will become a familiar situation: a state of mental anguish and exhaustion brought about by her love for Hippolytus, which she strives to conceal. Crucially, Euripides frames the events of the human characters with the presence of the gods Aphrodite and Artemis. Euripides� Athenian audience was therefore provided with prior knowledge about Phaedra�s guilty secret, for her �passion� is described as being imposed by the god Aphrodite: �Phaedra saw him, and my scheming caused a terrible longing to seize her heart� (p. 132) . She belongs to a damned line of women who have fallen in love inappropriately (p. 139). The playwright has already revealed the outcome, and so, the subsequent events that take place are all tinged with a dramatic irony that encourages us to analyse rather than just sympathise with the character.
Aphrodite�s prologue is crucial in the context of Euripides play, for although the ensuing action between the human characters is completely credible thereafter, her soliloquy presents the ensuing events as the result of a running dispute between herself and Artemis. Hippolytus is a devoted worshipper of the latter but has spurned the formers� advances (Aphrodite and Artemis partially personify love and chastity respectively), and it is this that has prompted Aphrodite to seek revenge through his destruction, an outcome she seeks to achieve through Phaedra�s passion and ultimately Theseus� incitement. But Euripides� presentation of gods onstage, rather than murdering any subsequent dramatic tension, actually provides supplementary ways of interpreting Phaedra�s passion.
On the one hand, Phaedra, along with all the other human characters, can simply be seen as a �play-thing� for the gods � she is the victim of a dispute between divinities, pawns through which Aphrodite and Artemis will settle their scores . Her passion has been �imposed� and so her fate of rejection by Hippolytus and eventual suicide pre-determined. Yet Euripides� drama rises above just this one-dimensional reading: the figures of Aphrodite and Artemis can be seen to serve a purely dramatic function. By revealing the outcome of the drama beforehand, the attention of the audience is focused more on the character�s expressions of internal emotions and conflicts rather than the progression of the narrative. The psychology of the characters, especially Phaedra�s, is therefore permitted more attention as the audience�s concern is not �what� happens but �how�. Furthermore, the interpretation of the gods themselves can be more than just literal. Aphrodite and Artemis could be interpreted as personifications of human emotion which take it in turns to claim victory over individual humans: Artemis has already achieved a victory in the �chaste� Hippolytus, and Aphrodite�s powers of passion and love in turn finally claim Phaedra. This is most striking the very first time Phaedra enters, where her internal instability is expressed through constant changes of mind. She wants her hair up then down, but more revealingly, she expresses a desire to join the hunt and �hold a barbed spear� (p. 136) before recanting and wishing she was instead in Artemis� sanctuary. The Nurse draws attention to this tension between the two desires, and how they loosely correspond to the respective gods:
Why are you babbling like this? Just now you were off to the mountains, all on fire for the hunt, but now its horses you�re after beside the waveless sands. It needs all of a prophets skill to learn which god pulls you on the rein and drives your wits astray.
(p. 136)
In addition, one can recognise that though Aphrodite causes Phaedra to fall in love with her stepson, as Halleran states: �[Aphrodite] does not compel Phaedra�s response to this passion or the other responses that ripple from it. She predicts most of the major events in the play, but that is not the same as causing them� . Though the gods may well have much to do with the outcome, it is ambivalent how much they rely on human behaviour (as an example, Knox affirms this structure emphasises �the futility of human choice and action� ). Either way, Aphrodite�s revelation of events beforehand allows the focus to rest primarily on the torment of the individual�s psyche. Most critics, including Halleran, Coffey and Mayer, agree that Euripides constructs �an investigation of the human conflict between overwhelming passion and the power of the intellect to choose and accept moral responsibility� Euripides explores areas of irrational, intense, emotional disturbance� .
In addition, one can recognise that though Aphrodite causes Phaedra to fall in love with her stepson, as Halleran states: �[Aphrodite] does not compel Phaedra�s response to this passion or the other responses that ripple from it. She predicts most of the major events in the play, but that is not the same as causing them� . Though the gods may well have much to do with the outcome, it is ambivalent how much they rely on human behaviour (as an example, Knox affirms this structure emphasises �the futility of human choice and action� ). Either way, Aphrodite�s revelation of events beforehand allows the focus to rest primarily on the torment of the individual�s psyche. Most critics, including Halleran, Coffey and Mayer, agree that Euripides constructs �an investigation of the human conflict between overwhelming passion and the power of the intellect to choose and accept moral responsibility� Euripides explores areas of irrational, intense, emotional disturbance� .
Euripides� Phaedra, established as being overcome with passion from the start, is presented alongside her Nurse. Phaedra is mindful of the fallacy of her passion, and is depicted striving to conceal it despite all the Nurse�s passionate entreaties. Most prevalent in the opening scene is Phaedra�s concern for s�phrosure. A notoriously difficult term to translate, Christopher Gill provides a good impression of the possible meanings: �chastity, purity, but also virtue, self-control and good sense� . This is one of the most revealing aspects of Euripides� character, the fact she is ever mindful of her own responsibility to set an example as a prominent woman in Athenian society, for: �when noble ladies sanction actions of shame in their own lives, the low-born will think their behaviour respectable� (p. 141). Phaedra has a keen sense of the honour which she seeks to retain, and it is this that proves the motive for her various attempts to deal with her passion:
