In my first volume “Greek Myths and Beyond”, which you can find on the homepage of this website, I didn’t have the chance to tell the story of this tragic woman who was also queen of Athens. Besides being a mythological character, she was also the protagonist of a tragedy by Euripides.
Today, Phaedra is the name of a well-known—and perhaps outdated—contraceptive pill (that’s how the world goes, and there’s nothing we can do about it!).
The girl was born in Crete, daughter of Minos and Pasiphae. She was therefore the half-sister of the monstrous Minotaur and the sister of Ariadne. She witnessed with her own eyes the bloody end of the monster, lived through Ariadne’s flight, her abandonment by Theseus on the island of Naxos, and even her marriage to the god Dionysus—a controversial deity and inventor of wine.
Perhaps it was Nemesis who was responsible for what happened next. Phaedra became the wife of that same Theseus who had abandoned her sister after using her for his own purposes. Theseus, heir of Aegeus, was king of Athens, so Phaedra became its queen. But fate, as always, was lying in wait.
Theseus had had a son from a previous wife—perhaps an Amazon—a handsome young man named Hippolytus. A few years later, Phaedra fell madly in love with the boy and tried to let him know through her nurse. Hippolytus, devoted only to hunting and a follower of Artemis, indignantly rejected Phaedra’s advances.
Deeply humiliated and disappointed, the woman swore revenge. She went to Theseus and told him that Hippolytus had tried to rape her. In a dramatic confrontation, Theseus cast his son out and banished him. Poseidon then sent a sea bull against the boy, which caused his chariot to crash and killed him instantly (I have no idea why).
Our Phaedra, unable to bear her remorse, hanged herself. The death of Theseus, we’ll discuss another time. Behind all this, it seems, was the hand of Aphrodite—jealous of Hippolytus’ devotion to Artemis. Theseus had chosen the wrong sister, and Nemesis did her job well.
Well, it was worth telling, wasn’t it?
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