Plutarch, Life of Theseus

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Plutarch, Life of Theseus: 15-22

The legendary founder of democracy at Athens, Theseus was the focus of an elaborate mythology.

Here Plutarch recounts Theseus’ travels to Crete to vanquish the Minotaur (putting a definitive

end to the war between Crete and Athens and the abominable tribute imposed by CRte, of 14

young Athenians to feed the minotaur a composite human-bull) and his mishaps on the way

back to Athens, abadoning his new bride Ariadne on Scyros, and causing the suicide of his

human father Augeus (remarkably, Theseus was able to claim the parentage of two fathers—the

other one was Poseidon)

XV Not long afterwards there came from Crete for the third time the collectors of the

tribute. Now as to this tribute, most writers agree that because Androgeos was thought

to have been treacherously killed within the confines of Attica, not only did Minos

harass the inhabitants of that country greatly in war, but Heaven also laid it waste, for

barrenness and pestilence smote it sorely, and its rivers dried up; also that when their

god assured them in his commands that if they appeased Minos and became reconciled

to him, the wrath of Heaven would abate and there would be an end of their miseries,

they sent heralds and made their supplication and entered into an agreement to send

him every nine years a tribute of seven youths and as many maidens. And the most

dramatic version of the story declares that these young men and women, on being

brought to Crete, were destroyed by the Minotaur in the Labyrinth, or else wandered

about at their own will and, being unable to find an exit, perished there; and that the

Minotaur, as Euripides says, was “A mingled form and hybrid birth of monstrous

shape,” and that “Two different natures, man and bull, were joined in him.”

XVI. Philochorus, however, says that the Cretans do not admit this, but declare that the

Labyrinth was a dungeon, with no other inconvenience than that its prisoners could not

escape; and that Minos instituted funeral games in honour of Androgeos, and as prizes

for the victors, gave these Athenian youth, who were in the meantime imprisoned in the

Labyrinth; and that the victor in the first games was the man who had the greatest

power at that time under Minos, and was his general, Taurus by name, who was not

reasonable and gentle in his disposition, but treated the Athenian youth with arrogance

and cruelty. And Aristotle himself also, in his “Constitution of Bottiaea,” clearly does

not think that these youths were put to death by Minos, but that they spent the rest of

their lives as slaves in Crete. And he says that the Cretans once, in fulfilment of an

ancient vow, sent an offering of their first-born to Delphi, and that some descendants of

those Athenians were among the victims, and went forth with them; and that when

they were unable to support themselves there, they first crossed over into Italy and

dwelt in that country round about Iapygia, and from there journeyed again into Thrace

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and were called Bottiaeans; and that this was the reason why the maidens of Bottiaea, in

performing a certain sacrifice, sing as an accompaniment: “To Athens let us go!”

And verily it seems to be a grievous thing for a man to be at enmity with a city which

has a language and a literature. For Minos was always abused and reviled in the Attic

theatres, and it did not avail him either that Hesiod called him “most royal,” or that

Homer styled him “a confidant of Zeus,” but the tragic poets prevailed, and from

platform and stage showered obloquy down upon him, as a man of cruelty and

violence. And yet they say that Minos was a king and lawgiver, and that Rhadamanthus

was a judge under him, and a guardian of the principles of justice defined by him.

XVII. Accordingly, when the time came for the third tribute, and it was necessary for

the fathers who had youthful sons to present them for the lot, fresh accusations against

Aegeus arose among the people, who were full of sorrow and vexation that he who was

the cause of all their trouble alone had no share in the punishment, but devolved the

kingdom upon a bastard and foreign son, and suffered them to be left destitute and

bereft of legitimate children. These things troubled Theseus, who, thinking it right not

to disregard but to share in the fortune of his fellow-citizens, came forward and offered

himself independently of the lot. The citizens admired his noble courage and were

delighted with his public spirit, and Aegeus, when he saw that his son was not to be

won over or turned from his purpose by prayers and entreaties, cast the lots for the rest

of the youths.

Hellanicus, however, says that the city did not send its young men and maidens by lot,

but that Minos himself used to come and pick them out, and that he now pitched upon

Theseus first of all, following the terms agreed upon. And he says the agreement was

that the Athenians should furnish the ship, and that the youths should embark and sail

with him carrying no warlike weapon, and that if the Minotaur was killed the penalty

should cease.

On the two former occasions, then, no hope of safety was entertained, and therefore

they sent the ship with a black sail, convinced that their youth were going to certain

destruction; but now Theseus encouraged his father and loudly boasted that he would

master the Minotaur, so that he gave the pilot another sail, a white one, ordering him, if

he returned with Theseus safe, to hoist the white sail, but otherwise to sail with the

black one, and so indicate the affliction.

Simonides, however, says that the sail given by Aegeus was not white, but “a scarlet

sail dyed with the tender flower of luxuriant holm-oak,” and that he made this a token

of their safety. Moreover, the pilot of the ship was Phereclus, son of Amarsyas, as

Plutarch, Life of Theseus

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Simonides says; but Philochorus says that Theseus got from Scirus of Salamis

Nausithoüs for his pilot, and Phaeax for his look-out man, the Athenians at that time

not yet being addicted to the sea, and that Scirus did him this favour because one of the

chosen youths, Menesthes, was his daughter’s son. And there is evidence for this in the

memorial chapels for Nausithous and Phaeax which Theseus built at Phalerum near the

temple of Scirus, and they say that the festival of the Cybernesia, or Pilot’s Festival, is

celebrated in their honour.

XVIII. When the lot was cast, Theseus took those upon whom it fell from the

prytaneium and went to the Delphinium, where he dedicated to Apollo in their behalf

his suppliant’s badge. This was a bough from the sacred olive-tree, wreathed with

white wool. Having made his vows and prayers, he went down to the sea on the sixth

day of the month Munychion, on which day even now the Athenians still send their

maidens to the Delphinium to propitiate the god. And it is reported that the god at

Delphi commanded him in an oracle to make Aphrodite his guide, and invite her to

attend him on his journey, and that as he sacrificed the usual she-goat to her by the sea-

shore, it became a he-goat (“tragos”) all at once, for which reason the goddess has the

surname Epitragia.

XIX. When he reached Crete on his voyage, most historians and poets tell us that he got

from Ariadne, who had fallen in love with him, the famous thread, and that having

been instructed by her how to make his way through the intricacies of the Labyrinth, he

slew the Minotaur and sailed off with Ariadne and the youths. And Pherecydes says

that Theseus also staved in the bottoms of the Cretan ships, thus depriving them of the

power to pursue. And Demon says also that Taurus, the general of Minos, was killed in

a naval battle in the harbour as Theseus was sailing out. But as Philochorus tells the

story, Minos was holding the funeral games, and Taurus was expected to conquer all

his competitors in them, as he had done before, and was grudged his success. For his

disposition made his power hateful, and he was accused of too great intimacy with

Pasiphaë. Therefore when Theseus asked the privilege of entering the lists, it was

granted him by Minos. And since it was the custom in Crete for women to view the

games, Ariadne was present, and was smitten with the appearance of Theseus, as well

as filled with admiration for his athletic prowess, when he conquered all his opponents.

Minos also was delighted with him, especially because he conquered Taurus in

wrestling and disgraced him, and therefore gave back the youths to Theseus, besides

remitting its tribute to the city.

Cleidemus, however, gives a rather peculiar and ambitious account of these matters,

beginning a great way back. There was, he says, a general Hellenic decree that no

trireme should sail from any port with a larger crew than five men, and the only

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exception was Jason, the commander of the Argo, who sailed about scouring the sea of

pirates. Now when Daedalus fled from Crete in a merchant-vessel to Athens, Minos,

contrary to the decrees, pursued him with his ships of war, and was driven from his

course by a tempest to Sicily, where he ended his life. And when Deucalion, his son,

who was on hostile terms with the Athenians, sent to them a demand that they deliver

up Daedalus to him, and threatened, if they refused, to put to death the youth whom

Minos had received from them as hostages, Theseus made him a gentle reply, declining

to surrender Daedalus, who was his kinsman and cousin, being the son of Merope, the

daughter of Erechtheus. But privately he set himself to building a fleet, part of it at

home in the township of Thymoetadae, far from the public road, and part of it under

the direction of Pittheus in Troezen, wishing his purpose to remain concealed. When his

ships were ready, he set sail, taking Daedalus and exiles from Crete as his guides, and

since none of the Cretans knew of his design, but thought the approaching ships to be

friendly, Theseus made himself master of the harbour, disembarked his men, and got to

Gnossus before his enemies were aware of his approach. Then joining battle with them

at the gate of the Labyrinth, he slew Deucalion and his body-guard. And since Ariadne

was now at the head of affairs, he made a truce with her, received back the youthful

hostages, and established friendship between the Athenians and the Cretans, who took

oath never to begin hostilities.

XX. There are many other stories about these matters, and also about Ariadne, but they

do not agree at all. Some say that she hung herself because she was abandoned by

Theseus; others that she was conveyed to Naxos by sailors and there lived with

Oenarus the priest of Dionysus, and that she was abandoned by Theseus because he

loved another woman:— “Dreadful indeed was his passion for Aigle child of

Panopeus.” This verse Peisistratus expunged from the poems of Hesiod, according to

Hereas the Megarian, just as, on the other hand, he inserted into the Inferno of Homer

the verse:— “Theseus, Peirithous, illustrious children of Heaven,” and all to gratify the

Athenians. Moreover, some say that Ariadne actually had sons by Theseus, Oenopion

and Staphylus, and among these is Ion of Chios, who says of his own native city:—

“This, once, Theseus’s son founded, Oenopion.”

Now the most auspicious of these legendary tales are in the mouths of all men, as I may

say; but a very peculiar account of these matters is published by Paeon the Amathusian.

He says that Theseus, driven out of his course by a storm to Cyprus, and having with

him Ariadne, who was big with child and in sore sickness and distress from the tossing

of the sea, set her on shore alone, but that he himself, while trying to succour the ship,

was borne out to sea again. The women of the island, accordingly, took Ariadne into

their care, and tried to comfort her in the discouragement caused by her loneliness,

brought her forged letters purporting to have been written to her by Theseus,

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ministered to her aid during the pangs of travail, and gave her burial when she died

before her child was born. Paeon says further that Theseus came back, and was greatly

afflicted, and left a sum of money with the people of the island, enjoining them to

sacrifice to Ariadne, and caused two little statuettes to be set up in her honour, one of

silver, and one of bronze. He says also that at the sacrifice in her honour on the second

day of the month Gorpiaeus, one of their young men lies down and imitates the cries

and gestures of women in travail; and that they call the grove in which they show her

tomb, the grove of Ariadne Aphrodite.

Some of the Naxians also have a story of their own, that there were two Minoses and

two Ariadnes, one of whom, they say, was married to Dionysus in Naxos and bore him

Staphylus and his brother, and the other, of a later time, having been carried off by

Theseus and then abandoned by him, came to Naxos, accompanied by a nurse named

Corcyne, whose tomb they show; and that this Ariadne also died there, and has

honours paid her unlike those of the former, for the festival of the first Ariadne is

celebrated with mirth and revels, but the sacrifices performed in honour of the second

are attended with sorrow and mourning.

XXI. On his voyage from Crete, Theseus put in at Delos, and having sacrificed to the

god and dedicated in his temple the image of Aphrodite which he had received from

Ariadne, he danced with his youths a dance which they say is still performed by the

Delians, being an imitation of the circling passages in the Labyrinth, and consisting of

certain rhythmic involutions and evolutions. This kind of dance, as Dicaearchus tells us,

is called by the Delians The Crane, and Theseus danced it round the altar called

Keraton, which is constructed of horns (“kerata”) taken entirely from the left side of the

head. They say that he also instituted athletic contests in Delos, and that the custom was

then begun by him of giving a palm to the victors.

XXII. It is said, moreover, that as they drew nigh the coast of Attica, Theseus himself

forgot, and his pilot forgot, such was their joy and exultation, to hoist the sail which was

to have been the token of their safety to Aegeus, who therefore, in despair, threw

himself down from the rock and was dashed in pieces. But Theseus, putting in to shore,

sacrificed in person the sacrifices which he had vowed to the gods at Phalerum when he

set sail, and then dispatched a herald to the city to announce his safe return. The

messenger found many of the people bewailing the death of their king, and others full

of joy at his tidings, as was natural, and eager to welcome him and crown him with

garlands for his good news. The garlands, then, he accepted, and twined them about his

herald’s staff, and on returning to the seashore, finding that Theseus had not yet made

his libations to the gods, remained outside the sacred precincts, not wishing to disturb

the sacrifice. But when the libations were made, he announced the death of Aegeus.

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Thereupon, with tumultuous lamentation, they went up in haste to the city. Whence it

is, they say, that to this day, at the festival of the Oschophoria, it is not the herald that is

crowned, but his herald’s staff, and those who are present at the libations cry out:

“Eleleu! Iou! Iou!” the first of which cries is the exclamation of eager haste and triumph,

the second of consternation and confusion.

Bacchylides, Theseus

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Bacchylides 17

The Young Athenians or Theseus for the Ceans to Perform in Delos

Bacchylides (5th century BCE) was a Greek lyric poet. This little piece recounts how Minos and

Theseus prove to each other that they are indeed the sons of gods.

The ship with the blue-black prow, as it carried Theseus, steadfast in the battle din, and

the twice seven splendid youths and maidens of the Ionians, was cleaving the Cretan

sea, for northerly breezes fell on the far-shining sail thanks to glorious Athena, the

aegis-shaker; but Minos’ heart was chafed by the dread gifts of the Cyprian goddess

with desire in her headband, and he could no longer keep his hand from the girl but

touched her white cheeks. Eriboea shouted for the bronze-corsleted descendant of

Pandion, and Theseus saw it and rolled his eyes darkly beneath his brows as cruel pain

tore his heart, and he spoke: ‘Son of peerless Zeus, in your breast you no longer steer

thoughts that are righteous: restrain your arrogant might, hero. Whatever all-powerful

Fate has ordained for us from the gods and the scales of Justice confirm, we shall fulfil it

as our destined portion when it comes. But check your disastrous intention. What if the

noble daughter of Phoenix, maiden with love in her name, bore you, peerless among

mortals, after union with Zeus under the brow of mount Ida? Why, the daughter of

wealthy Pittheus bore me after drawing close to the sea-god Poseidon, when the violet-

crowned Nereids gave her a golden veil. Therefore, warlord of the Cnossians, I tell you

to curb an insolence which will bring much sorrow; for I should not wish to see the

lovely light of immortal Dawn if once you had forcibly assaulted any of this youthful

band; sooner than that we shall display the might of our hands, and God will decide the

outcome.’

So spoke the spear-valiant hero, and the seafarers were astonished at the man’s proud

boldness; but the son-in-law of Helius felt anger in his heart and set about weaving a

new plan, and he said, ‘Mighty father Zeus, hear me: if the white-armed Phoenician

maiden indeed bore me as your son, send from heaven now a swift fire-tressed

lightning flash, a sign clearly recognisable; as for you, if Troezenian Aethra in fact bore

you to earth-shaking Poseidon, fetch from the depths of the sea this splendid gold

ornament of my hand, boldly flinging yourself into your father’s home. And you will

learn whether my prayer is heard by the thunder-lord, Cronus’ son, ruler of all.’

Mighty Zeus heard the prayer, found it blameless and fathered a surpassing honour for

Minos, wishing to make it visible to all men for the sake of his dear son, and he flashed

his lightning; and when the hero, staunch in battle, saw the welcome portent he

stretched his hands to the glorious sky and spoke: ‘Theseus, you see these clear gifts of

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mine given by Zeus; so for your part plunge into the deep-roaring sea, and Cronus’ son,

lord Poseidon, your father, will achieve for you supreme fame throughout the well-

wooded earth.’

So he spoke, and the other’s heart did not recoil: he took his stance on the well-built

sterndeck and leapt, and the precinct of the sea gave him kindly welcome. Zeus’ son

was astonished in his heart, and he gave orders to keep the cunningly-made ship on

course before the wind; but Fate was preparing another course. The swiftly-moving

bark raced on, as the northerly breeze blowing astern sped it along; but the whole

group of young Athenians had trembled when the hero sprang into the sea, and they

shed tears from their lily-bright eyes, expecting a woeful doom. But sea-dwelling

dolphins were swiftly carrying great Theseus to the house of his father, god of horses,

and he reached the hall of the gods. There he was awe-struck at the glorious daughters

of blessed Nereus, for from their splendid limbs shone a gleam as of fire, and round

their hair were twirled gold-braided ribbons; and they were delighting their hearts by

dancing with liquid feet. And he saw his father’s dear wife, august ox-eyed Amphitrite,

in the lovely house; she put a purple cloak about him and set on his thick hair the

faultless garland which once at her marriage guileful Aphrodite had given her, dark

with roses. Nothing that the gods wish is beyond the belief of sane mortals: he appeared

beside the slender-sterned ship. Whew, in what thoughts did he check the Cnossian

commander when he came unwet from the sea, a miracle for all, and the gods’ gifts

shone on his limbs; and the splendid-throned maidens cried out with new-founded joy,

and the sea rang out; and nearby the youths raised a paean with lovely voice.

God of Delos, rejoice in your heart at the choirs of the Ceans and grant a heaven-sent

fortune of blessings.

Ariadne’s Letter to Theseus

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Ovid, Heroides 10 (Ariadne to Theseus)

Ovid envisions Ariadne’s reaction after she discovers that Theseus has abandoned her on Naxos.

Gentler than you I have found every race of wild beasts; to none of them could I so ill

have trusted as to you. The words you now are reading, Theseus, I send you from that

shore from which the sails bore off your ship without me, the shore on which my

slumber, and you, so wretchedly betrayed me—you, who wickedly plotted against me

as I slept.

’Twas the time when the earth is first besprinkled with crystal rime, and songsters hid

in the branch begin their plaint. Half waking only and languid from sleep, I turned

upon my side and put forth hands to clasp my Theseus—he was not there! I drew back

my hands, a second time I made essay, and o’er the whole couch moved my arms—he

was not there! Fear struck away my sleep; in terror I arose, and threw myself headlong

from my abandoned bed. Straight then my palms resounded upon my breasts, and I

tore my hair, all disarrayed as it was from sleep.

The moon was shining; I bend my gaze to see if aught but shore lies there. So far as my

eyes can see, naught do they find but shore. Now this way, and now that, and ever

without plan, I course; the deep sand stays my girlish feet. And all the while I cried out

“Theseus!” along the entire shore, and the hollow rocks sent back your name to me; as

often as I called out for you, so often did the place itself call out your name. The very

place felt the will to aid me in my woe.

There was a mountain, with bushes rising here and there upon its top; a cliff hangs over

from it, gnawed into by deep-sounding waves. I climb its slope—my spirit gave me

strength—and thus with prospect broad I scan the billowy deep. From there —for I

found the winds cruel, too—I beheld your sails stretched full by the headlong southern

gale. As I looked on a sight methought I had not deserved to see, I grew colder than ice,

and life half left my body. Nor does anguish allow me long to lie thus quiet; it rouses

me, it stirs me up to call on Theseus with all my voice’s might. “Whither dost fly?” I cry

aloud. “Come back, O wicked Theseus! Turn about thy ship! She hath not all her crew!”

Thus did I cry, and what my voice could not avail, I filled with beating of my breast; the

blows I gave myself were mingled with my words. That you at least might see, if you

could not hear, with might and main I sent you signals with my hands; and upon a long

tree-branch I fixed my shining veil—yes, to put in mind of me those who had forgotten!

And now you had been swept beyond my vision. Then at last I let flow my tears; till

then my tender eyeballs had been dulled with pain. What better could my eyes do than

Ariadne’s Letter to Theseus

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weep for me, when I had ceased to see your sails? Alone, with hair loose flying, I have

either roamed about, like to a Bacchant roused by the Ogygian god, or, looking out

upon the sea, I have sat all chilled upon the rock, as much a stone myself as was the

stone I sat upon. Oft do I come again to the couch that once received us both, but was

fated never to show us together again, and touch the imprint left by you—’tis all I can in

place of you!—and the stuffs that once grew warm beneath your limbs. I lay me down

upon my face, bedew the bed with pouring tears, and cry aloud: “We were two who

pressed thee—give back two! We came to thee both together; why do we not depart the

same? Ah, faithless bed — the greater part of my being, oh, where is he?

What am I to do? Whither shall I take myself—I am alone, and the isle untilled. Of

human traces I see none; of cattle, none. On every side the land is girt by sea; nowhere a

sailor, no craft to make its way over the dubious paths. And suppose I did find those to

go with me, and winds, and ship—yet where am I to go?

My father’s realm forbids me to approach. Grant I do glide with fortunate keel over

peaceful seas, that Aeolus tempers the winds—I still shall be an exile! ’Tis not for me, O

Crete composed of the hundred cities, to look upon thee, land known to the infant Jove

ever since my father and the land ruled by my righteous father—dear names!—were

betrayed by my deed. When, to keep you, after your victory, from death in the winding

halls, I gave into your hand the thread to direct your steps in place of guide, then you

said to me: “By these very perils of mine, I swear that, so long as both of us shall live,

thou shalt be mine!

We both live, Theseus, and I am not yours! if indeed a woman lives who is buried by

the treason of a perjured mate. Me, too, you should have slain, O false one, with the

same bludgeon that slew my brother; then would the oath you gave me have been

absolved by my death. Now, I ponder over not only what I am doomed to suffer and all

that any woman left behind can suffer: there rush into my thought a thousand forms of

perishing, and death holds less of dole for me than the delay of death. Each moment,

now here, now there, I look to see wolves rush on me, to rend my vitals with their

greedy fangs. Who knows but that this shore breeds, too, the tawny lion? Perchance the

island harbours the savage tiger as well. They say, too, that the waters of the deep cast

up the mighty seal! And who is to keep the swords of men from piercing my side?

But I care not, if I am but not left captive in hard bonds, and not compelled to spin the

long task with servile hand—I, whose father is Minos, whose mother the child of

Phoebus, and who —what memory holds more close—was promised bride to you!

When I have looked on the sea, and on the land, and on the wide-stretching shore, I

know many dangers threaten me on land, and many on the waters. The sky remains—

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yet there I fear visions of the gods! I am left helpless, a prey to the maws of ravening

beasts; and if men dwell in the place and keep it, I put no trust in them—my hurts have

taught me fear of stranger-men.

O, that Androgeos were still alive, and that thou, O Cecropian land, hadst not been

made to atone for thy impious deeds with the doom of thy children!a and would that

thy upraised right hand, O Theseus, had not slain with knotty club him that was man in

part, and in part bull; and I had not given thee the thread to show the way of thy

return—thread oft caught up again and passed through the hands led on by it. I marvel

not—ah, no!—if victory was thine, and the monster smote with his length the Cretan

earth. His horn could not have pierced that iron heart of thine; thy breast was safe, even

didst thou naught to shield thyself. There barest thou flint, there barest thou adamant;

there hast thou a Theseus harder than any flint!

Ah, cruel slumbers, why did you hold me thus inert? Or, better had I been weighed

down once for all by everlasting night. You, too, were cruel, O winds, and all too well

prepared, and you breezes, eager to start my tears. Cruel the right hand that has

brought me and my brother to our death, and cruel the pledge—an empty word—that

you gave at my demand! Against me conspiring were slumber, wind, and treacherous

pledge—treason three-fold against one maid!

Am I, then, to die, and, dying, not behold my mother’s tears; and shall there be no one’s

finger to close my eyes? Is my unhappy soul to go forth into stranger-air, and no

friendly hand compose my limbs and drop on them the unguent due? Are my bones to

lie unburied, the prey of hovering birds of the shore? Is this the entombment due to me

for my kindnesses? You will go to the haven of Cecrops; but when you have been

received back home, and have stood in pride before your thronging followers,

gloriously telling the death of the man-and-bull, and of the halls of rock cut out in

winding ways, tell, too, of me, abandoned on a solitary shore—for I must not be stolen

from the record of your honours! Neither is Aegeus your father, nor are you the son of

Pittheus’ daughter Aethra; they who begot you were the rocks and the deep!

Ah, I could pray the gods that you had seen me from the high stern; my sad figure had

moved your heart! Yet look upon me now—not with eyes, for with them you cannot,

but with your mind—clinging to a rock all beaten by the wandering wave. Look upon

my locks, let loose like those of one in grief for the dead, and on my robes, heavy with

tears as if with rain. My body is a-quiver like standing corn struck by the northern blast,

and the letters I am tracing falter beneath my trembling hand. ’Tis not for my desert—

for that has come to naught—that I entreat you now; let no favour be due for my

Ariadne’s Letter to Theseus

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service. Yet neither let me suffer for it! If I am not the cause of your deliverance, yet

neither is it right that you should cause my death.

These hands, wearied with beating of my sorrowful breast, unhappy I stretch toward

you over the wide seas; these locks—such as remain—in grief I bid you look upon! By

these tears I pray you— tears moved by what you have done—turn about your ship,

reverse your sail, glide swiftly back to me! If I have died before you come, ’twill yet be

you who bear away my bones!

Philostratus on Ariadne

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Philostratus, Imagines 15. Ariadne

We met Philostratus in the 4 element readings. In addition to his Gymnaticus, Philostratus penned a

series of descriptions of works of art. Here we have a painting of the abandoned Ariadne, a popular topic

then (and now).

That Theseus treated Ariadne unjustly—though some say not with unjust intent, but under the

compulsion of Dionysus—when he abandoned her while asleep on the island of Dia, you must

have heard from your nurse; for those women are skilled in telling such tales and they weep

over them whenever they will. I do not need to say that it is Theseus you see there on the ship

and Dionysus yonder on the land, nor will I assume you to be ignorant and call your attention

to the woman on the rocks, lying there in gentle slumber.

Nor yet is it enough to praise the painter for things for which someone else too might be

praised; for it is easy for anyone to paint Ariadne as beautiful and Theseus as beautiful; and

there are countless characteristics of Dionysus for those who wish to represent him in painting

or sculpture, by depicting which even approximately the artist has captured the god. For

instance, the ivy clusters forming a crown are the clear mark of Dionysus, even if the

workmanship is poor; and a horn just springing from the temples reveals Dionysus, and a

leopard, though but just visible, is a symbol of the god; but this Dionysus the painter has

characterized by love alone. Flowered garments and thyrsi and fawn-skins have been cast aside

as out of place for the moment, and the Bacchantes are not clashing their cymbals now, nor are

the Satyrs playing the flute, nay, even Pan checks his wild dance that he may not disturb the

maiden’s sleep. Having arrayed himself in f

ine purple and wreathed his head with roses, Dionysus comes to the side of Ariadne, “drunk

with love” as the Teian poet says of those who are overmastered by love. As for Theseus, he is

indeed in love, but with the smoke rising from Athens, and he no longer knows Ariadne, and

never knew her, and I am sure that he has even forgotten the labyrinth and could not tell on

what possible errand he sailed to Crete, so singly is his gaze fixed on what lies ahead of his

prow. And look at Ariadne, or rather at her sleep; for her bosom is bare to the waist, and her

neck is bent back and her delicate throat, and all her right armpit is visible, but the left hand

rests on her mantle that a gust of wind may not expose her. How fair a sight, Dionysus, and

how sweet her breath! Whether its fragrance is of apples or of grapes, you can tell after you

have kissed her!

Ovid’s advice to Ariadne

14

Ovid, Ars Amatoria 3.26-36

Smaller sails become my bark. Naught save wanton loves are learnt through me; I will

teach in what way a woman is to be loved. A woman wields neither flames nor savage

bows: seldom do I see these weapons hurting men. Often do men deceive, tender maids

not often; should you inquire, they are rarely charged with deceit. Perfidious Jason sent

away the Phasian, already a mother; another bride came to the bosom of Aeson’s son.

So far as concerned thee, O Theseus, Ariadne fell a prey to the sea-birds, left desolate in

an unknown spot!

525-564

Lo! Liber summons his bard; he too helps lovers, and favours the flame wherewith he

burns himself. The Cretan maid wandered distractedly on the unknown sand, where

little Dia is lashed by the sea waves. Just as she came from sleep, clad in an ungirt tunic,

barefoot, with yellow hair unbound, she cried upon Theseus over the deaf waters, while

an innocent shower bedewed her tender cheeks. She clamoured and wept together, but

both became her; nor was she made less comely by her tears. Again she beats her soft

bosom with her hands, and cries, “He is gone, the faithless one; what will become of

me?” “What will become of me?” she cries: then o’er all the shore cymbals resounded

and drums beaten by frenzied hands. She fainted for fear, and broke off her latest

words; no blood was there in her lifeless frame. Lo! Bacchanals with tresses streaming

behind them, lo! wanton Satyrs, the god’s forerunning band; lo! drunken old Silenus

scarce sits his crookbacked ass, and leaning clings to the mane before him. While he

pursues the Bacchanals, and the Bacchanals flee and again attack, and while the

unskilful horseman urges his beast with a rod, he falls off the long-eared ass and

topples head-foremost and the Satyrs cry, “Come, get up, father, get up!” And now on

his car, that he had covered with grape-clusters, the god was giving the golden reins to

his yoked tigers: voice, colour—and Theseus, all were gone from the girl; thrice she

tried flight, thrice fear stayed her. She shuddered, as slender stalks that are shaken by

the wind, or as the light rush that trembles in the watery marsh. “Lo, here am 1,” said

the god to her, “a more faithful lover; have no fear, Cretan maid, thou shalt be the

spouse of Bacchus. For thy gift take the sky; as a star in the sky thou shalt be gazed at;

as the Cretan Crown shalt thou oft guide the doubtful bark.” He spoke, and lest she

should fear the tigers leapt down from the chariot; the sand gave place to his alighting

foot; and clasping her to his bosom (for she had no strength to fight) he bore her away;

easy is it for a god to be all-powerful. Some chant “Hail, Hymenaeus!” some shout

“Euhoe, Euhion!” So do the bride and the god meet on the sacred couch.

Theseus and his son

15

Euripides, Hippolytus 852-

wife#2, Phaedra, Ariadne’s sister, accuses Theseus’ illegitimate son, Hippolytus, of trying to

seduce her; Theseus’ reaction is terminal

Theseus: What’s this? What can it be, this tablet hanging from her dear hand? Does it

want to tell me of something I do not know? Has the poor woman written me a

message of entreaty about our marriage and children? Fear not, poor creature:

there is no woman who shall take possession of the bed and house of Theseus.

(He takes up the tablet.)

See, the impress of the dead woman’s gold-chased seal charms my eyes! Come, let me

open its sealed wrappings and see what this tablet wishes to tell me!

He opens the tablet and reads it silently.

Chorus: ! Oh! This is some fresh disaster the god is sending as successor to the other! …

For I say that the house of my king has perished, ah me, is no more. [O fate, if it

is at all possible, do not overthrow this house but hear my prayer. For from some

quarter I see, prophet-like, an evil omen.]

Theseus: O woe! What second pain on top of pain is this, pain unendurable,

unspeakable! What misery is mine!

Chorus Leader: What is it? Speak, if I may hear it.

Theseus: (sung) The tablet cries aloud, it cries aloud of horror! How shall I escape from

the weight of my misfortunes? I am utterly undone, such is the song I in my

wretchedness have seen whose tune sounds in the writing!

Chorus Leader: Ah me! The word you utter is one that foretells woe!

Theseus: (sung) No more shall I hold this ruinous bane, hard <for Words> to utter

though it is, within the gates of my mouth!

(spoken in a loud voice, calling everyone in earshot to Witness)

City of Trozen! Hear me!

Bystanders enter quickly by Eisodos B and gather around.

Theseus and his son

16

Hippolytus has dared to put his hand by force to my marriage bed, dishonoring the

holy eye of Zeus!

But, father POSEIDON, those three curses you once promised me—with one of them kill

my son, and may he not live out this day, if indeed you have granted me curses I

may rely on!

Chorus Leader: My lord, I beg you by the gods, take back your prayer! For you will

learn in time that you have made a mistake. Take my advice!

Theseus: It cannot be. And what is more, I shall banish him from this land, and of two

fates one shall strike him: either Poseidon, honoring my curses, will send him

dead to the house of Hades or being banished from here he will wander over

foreign soil and drain to the dregs a life of misery.

Enter hippolytus by Eisodos B.

Chorus Leader: Look! Your son Hippolytus is here himself, a timely arrival! Abate your

harsh anger, my lord Theseus, and deliberate about what is best for your house!

Hippolytus: I heard your cry and came in haste, father. But what it was that brought

forth your groan, I do not know but would gladly hear from your lips.

He sees the corpse of Phaedra.

But what can this be? I see your wife, father, dead. This causes me the greatest

astonishment. Just now I left her, and it was no long time ago that she was

looking on this light of day. What has happened to her? How did she die? Father,

I want to learn this from you. (Theseus is silent.) What, silent? Silence is no use in

misfortune. [For the heart that longs to hear all things is proved greedy in

misfortune as well.] It is not right to hide your troubles from those who are your

kin, no, more than kin, father.

Theseus: O foolish mankind, so often missing the mark, why do you teach crafts

numberless and contrive and invent all things when there is one thing you do

not understand and have not hunted after, how to teach the senseless to be

sensible!

Hippolytus: That is a formidable expert you mention, who is able to force insensate

fools to show sense. But since these finespun disputations of yours, father, are

unseasonable, I fear that your misfortunes have caused your tongue to run amok.

Theseus: Oh, there ought to be for mortals some reliable test for friends, some way to

know their minds, which of them is a true friend and which is not, and each man

ought to have two voices, the one a voice of justice, the other whatever he

Theseus and his son

17

chanced to have, so that the voice that thinks unjust thoughts would be convicted

of falsehood by the just voice, and in this way we should never be deceived!

Hippolytus: But has one of my kin been slandering me in your ear and are my fortunes

ill though I have done nothing wrong? I am astonished. Your words, cast adrift

from all sense, astonish me.

Theseus: Oh, the heart of mortals, how far will it go? What limit can be set to audacity

and brazenness? If it grows great in the course of a man’s life, and he who comes

after overtops his predecessor in knavery, the gods will have to add another land

to the world to hold the criminal and the vile!

Look at this man! He was born from my loins, and yet he disgraced my bed and is

clearly convicted of utter baseness by the dead woman here!

Hippolytus turns away.

Come, show your face to your father, eye to eye, since in any case I have already

involved myself in pollution. Are you, then, the companion of the gods, as a

man beyond the common? Are you the chaste one, untouched by evil? Your

vauntings will never persuade me to be so wrongheaded as to impute folly to the

gods. Continue then your confident boasting, adopt a meatless diet and play the

showman with your food, make Orpheus your lord and engage in mystic rites,

holding the vaporings of many books in honor! For you have been found out. To

all I give the warning: avoid men like this. For they make you their prey with

their holy-sounding words while they contrive deeds of shame.

She is dead. Do you think this will save you? This is the fact that most serves to convict

you, villainous man! For what oaths, what arguments, could be more powerful

than she is, to win you acquittal on the charge? Will you claim that she hated you

and that the bastard is always regarded as an enemy to the true-born? You make

her a poor merchant of her own life, then, if she destroyed what was most

precious to herself for enmity of you. But will you say that folly is not to be

found in men but is native to women? I know young men who are no more

stable than women when Cypris stirs their young hearts to confusion. But their

standing as males serves them well.

And so now—but why do I wage this contest against your words when this corpse,

witness most reliable, lies near? Go forth from this land at once into exile, and

come no more either to god-built Athens or to the borders of any land ruled by

my spear! For if I am to be bested by you when you have done this to me,

Theseus and his son

18

Isthmian Sinis shall no longer attest that I killed him but say it was an idle boast,

and the Skironian rocks near the sea shall deny that I am a scourge to evildoers!

Chorus Leader: I do not know how I could say that any mortal enjoys good fortune. For

what is noblest is now overthrown.

Hippolytus: Father, the angry vehemence of your heart is dreadful. Yet though the case

you argue provides such persuasive arguments, it is not persuasive in fact if one

examines it closely. Now I am not skilled in making speeches to a crowd but

have more ability to address my age-mates and the few. This too is as fate wills

it, for those who are of no account among the wise are often more inspired

speakers before the multitude. Yet since disaster has come upon me, I must

loosen my tongue. I shall begin to speak from the point where you first attacked

me, expecting you would destroy me with not a word to say in reply. You see the

light of the sun, you see the earth. Upon this sun-lit earth there is no man—deny

it though you may—more chaste than I. I know how to reverence the gods and

how to make friends of those who try to commit no wrong, friends who scruple

to give evil orders and to render base services to those in their company. I am no

mocker of my companions, father, but the same man to friends both absent and

present. By one thing I am untouched, the very thing in which you think you

have convicted me: to this very moment my body is untainted by sex. I do not

know this act save by report or seeing it in painting. I am not eager to look at it

either, since I have a virgin soul.

But suppose that my chastity does not persuade you. I waive the point. You ought then

to show how I was corrupted. Did her body surpass all other women’s in

beauty? Or did I hope that by taking an heiress as mistress I would succeed to

your house? [I was foolish then, nay completely out of my mind. But will you say

that to be king is a tempting pleasure even to the virtuous? Not at all, since

kingly power has corrupted the minds of all those who love it.] I for my part

would wish to be first in the Greek games but in the city to be second and to

enjoy continuous blessedness with my noble friends. For not only is there scope

for accomplishment, but the absence of danger yields a greater pleasure than

being king.

One more point remains to be made, you have heard all else. If I had a witness to what

manner of man I am and if I were pleading my case while she was still alive,

your careful investigation would have discovered in very truth who is the guilty

party. As things stand, I swear by Zeus, god of oaths, and by the earth beneath

me that I never touched your wife, never wished to, never had the thought. May

I perish with no name or reputation, [citiless, homeless, wandering the earth an

Theseus and his son

19

exile,] and may neither sea nor earth receive my corpse if I am guilty! What the

fear was that made her take her life I do not know, for it would not be right for

me to speak further. But she showed chastity, though she could not be chaste,

while I, who could, have used it to my hurt.

Chorus Leader: You have made a sufficient rebuttal of the charge against you in

swearing by the gods, no slight assurance.

Theseus: Is this man not a chanter of spells and a charlatan? He is confident that by his

calm temper he will overmaster my soul, though he has dishonored the father

who begot him.

Hippolytus: I feel the same great wonder at you, father. For if you were my son and I

your father, I would not have banished but killed you, if you had dared to touch

my wife.

Theseus: How like you these words are! Not thus will you die, according to the rule

you have just laid down for yourself—for swift death is a mercy for a man in

misfortune—but as a wanderer from your ancestral land. [On foreign soil you

will drain to the dregs a life of misery. For that is the penalty for an impious

man.]

Hippolytus: Ah, what do you mean to do? Will you not even wait for Time to give

evidence about me but banish me from the land?

Theseus: Yes, beyond the Euxine Sea and the Pillars of Atlas, if I could, so much do I

hate you!

Hippolytus: But won’t you examine my oath and sworn testimony or the words of

seers? Will you banish me without a trial?

Theseus: This tablet contains no divination by lot, and its charge against you is

convincing. As for the birds that fly above my head, I bid them good day!

Hippolytus: O gods, why do I not then open my mouth, seeing that I am being done to

death by you towards whom I am showing piety? But no, I would not convince

those I must and would break for nothing the oath I swore.

Theseus: Oh! Your holy manner will be the death of me! Leave your father’s land at

once!

Theseus and his son

20

Hippolytus: Where am I to turn, unhappy man that I am? What host’s house shall I

enter when I am exiled on this charge?

Theseus: Someone’s who likes to entertain seducers of their wives and men who keep

at home plotting evil!

Hippolytus: Oh! That stroke cut me to the heart! It is nearly enough to make me weep if

I am regarded as base and seem so to you.

Theseus: The time for groans and forethought was when you dared to commit outrage

against your father’s wife!

Hippolytus: O house, would that you could utter speech on my behalf and bear me

witness whether I am base!

Theseus: How clever of you to take refuge in witnesses that are dumb, while the facts,

mute as they are, betray your baseness!

Hippolytus: Oh! Oh! Would that I could stand apart and look at myself so that I might

weep at the misfortunes I am suffering!

Theseus: You are far more practiced in worshiping yourself than in being just and

acting piously toward your father.

Hippolytus: O unhappy mother, O unwelcome birth, never may any friend of mine

have a bastard’s life!

Theseus: Drag him away, servants! Have you not heard me long since proclaim him an

exile?

Hippolytus: Any of them who touches me shall regret it. Rather you yourself, if you

have the heart to, cast me forth from the land.

Theseus: I shall if you do not obey my words. No pity for your exile moves my heart.

Hippolytus: My fate, it seems, is fixed. O how luckless I am, seeing that I know the

truth but not how I may tell it! Dearest of gods to me, daughter of Leto, you I

have sat with, you I have hunted with, I shall leave glorious Athens as an exile.

Now farewell, city and land of Erechtheus! O land of Trozen, how many are the

blessings you have for a young man! Farewell: this is my last look at you and my

last greeting!

Theseus and his son

21

Come, you my young age-mates of this land, bid me farewell and speed me from the

land! For you will never see a man more chaste than I, even though my father

does not think so.

Exit Hippolytus and the young members of the crowd by Eisodos A. Exit theseus into the palace.

Chorus: Whenever thoughts about the gods come into my mind, they greatly relieve

my pain. But anyone who hopes for understanding fails to find it as he looks

amid the fortunes and the deeds of mortals. From one quarter comes one thing

and from another another, and men’s life is a shifting thing, ever unstable.

O that in answer to my prayer destiny might give me this gift from the gods, a fate that

is blessed and a heart untouched by sorrow! No mind unswervingly obdurate

would I have, nor yet again one false-struck, but changing my pliant character

ever for the morrow may I share in happiness my whole life through!

For my mind is no longer untroubled: beyond all expectation are the things I behold.

We have seen Greece’s brightest star, have seen him go forth sped by his father’s

wrath to another land. O sands of our city’s shore, O mountain thickets where

with his swift hounds he slew the wild beasts in company with holy Dictynna!

No more shall you mount behind a pair of Venetian horses and tread the race course

about the Mere with the feet of your racing steeds. The music that never slept

beneath the frame of the lyre strings shall cease in your father’s house. Bare of

garlands will be the resting places of Leto’s daughter in the deep greenwood.

The rivalry of maidens to be your bride has been brought to an end by your exile.

But I for my part because of your misfortune shall live out in tears an unhappy fate. 42 O

unhappy mother, it was to no purpose that you bore him. Oh, I am angry with

the gods! Ye Graces that dance your round, why do you send the poor man,

guilty of no mad deed, from his father’s land and from this house?

Enter as messenger one of Hippolytus’ men by Eisodos A.

Chorus Leader: But look, I see a servant of Hippolytus, with gloomy face, rushing

toward the house!

Messenger: Women, where must I go to find Theseus, this land’s king? If you know, tell

me. Is he in the palace?

Enter Theseus from the palace.

Chorus Leader: Here he comes out of the house.

Theseus and his son

22

Messenger: Theseus, I bring you news that will cause solicitude to you and all the

citizens who dwell in Athens and in the land of Trozen.

Theseus: What is it? Has some recent disaster befallen the two neighboring cities?

Messenger: Hippolytus is dead, as good as dead; he still has life but by a slender

thread.

Theseus: At whose hand? Could it be that someone whose wife he ravished as he did

his father’s became his enemy?

Messenger: His own chariot destroyed him, and the curses of your mouth which you

uttered against your son to your father, lord of the sea.

Theseus: (stretching out his hands, palms upward, in prayer) Merciful gods! So after all

you are truly my father, Poseidon, since you heard my prayer! How did he

perish? Tell me, how did the cudgel of Justice strike him for dishonoring me?

Messenger: We were scraping and combing the horses’ coats near the wave-beaten

shore and weeping at our task. For a messenger had come saying that

Hippolytus would no longer tread the soil of this land, being sent into miserable

exile by you. Then he came, singing the same tearful burden, to join us at the

shore, and a countless throng of friends and age-mates at his heels came with

him. When some time had passed, he ceased his lamenting and said, “Why

should I be distraught at this? I must obey my father’s words. Servants, get the

yoke-horses ready for my chariot, for no longer is this my city.”

Thereupon every man worked in haste, and more quickly than one could describe we

set the horses in their gear beside the master. He seized the reins from the chariot

rail and fitted his feet right into the footstalls. First he spread his hands palms

upward in prayer to the gods and said, “O Zeus, may I no longer live if I am

guilty! But whether I am dead or look on the light may my father come to know

that he dishonors me!”

So saying he took the whip into his hand and applied it to his horses all together. We

servants, on the ground beside the chariot, accompanied our master, keeping

abreast of his bridle, along the road that makes straight for Argos and Epidaurus.

When we struck deserted country, there is a headland beyond our territory, lying out

towards what is at that point the Saronic gulf. There a great noise in the earth,

like Zeus’s thunder, roared heavily—it made one shudder to hear it! The horses

Theseus and his son

23

pricked up their heads and ears to heaven, while we servants were taken with a

violent fear, wondering where this voice came from. When we turned our eyes to

the sea-beaten beach, we saw an unearthly wave, its peak fixed in the heavens, so

great that my eye was robbed of the sight of Skiron’s coast, and the Isthmus and

Asclepius’ cliff were hid from view. And then as the sea-surge made it swell and

seethe up much foam all about, it came toward the shore where the four-horse

chariot was. With its very swell and surge the wave put forth a monstrous,

savage bull. The whole land was filled with its bellowing and gave back

unearthly echoes, and as we looked on it the sight was too great for our eyes to

bear. At once a terrible panic fell upon the horses. My master, who had lived

long with the ways of horses, seized the reins in his hands and pulled them, as a

sailor pulls an oar, letting his body hang backwards from the straps. But they

took the fire-wrought bit in their teeth and carried him against his will, paying

no heed to their captain’s hand or the harness or the tight-glued chariot. If he

held the helm and directed their course toward the softer ground, the bull

appeared before him to turn them back, maddening with fear the four-horse

team. But if they rushed with maddened senses into the rocks, it drew near and

silently accompanied the chariot until it upset and overthrew it, striking its

wheel rims on a rock. All was confusion: the wheels’ naves and the axle pins

were leaping into the air, and the poor man himself, entangled in the reins,

bound in a bond he could not untie, was dragged along, his head being smashed

against the rocks and flesh being torn, uttering things dreadful to hear: “Stay,

horses my mangers have nourished, do not blot me out! O wretched curse of my

father! Who will stand by the best of men and save him?”

Many of us would have, but we were outsped, and our feet lagged behind. He was cut

loose from the reins of leather and fell upon the ground I know not how, with

scarcely any breath of life still in him. The horses vanished and so too did the

monstrous bull to some place I know not where in that rocky land.

I am, I know, a slave of your house, my lord, but I shall never be able to believe that

your son is guilty, not even if the whole female sex should hang themselves and

fill with letters tablets made from all the pine wood that grows upon Mount Ida!

For I know that he is good.

Chorus Leader: Alas! New misfortunes have been brought to pass, and there is no

escape from fate and destiny!

Theseus and his son

24

Theseus: For hatred of the man who has suffered these things I took pleasure at your

words. But now in respect for the gods and for him, since he is my son, I feel

neither pleasure nor pain at these misfortunes.

Messenger: How shall we act? Shall we bring the unhappy man here, or what shall we

do, to please your heart? Think this out: but if you take my advice, you will not

be savage toward your son in his misfortune.

Theseus: Bring him so that I may look him in the face and with my words and the

misfortunes sent by the gods give him the lie, the man who denies he violated

my bed.

Exit messenger by Eisodos A.

Chorus: You lead captive the unyielding hearts of the gods, Cypris, and of men, and

with you, surrounding you with his swift pinions, is he of the gleaming wings.

Eros flies over the earth and over the loud-roaring salt sea, he bewitches the one

upon whose love-maddened heart, winged and gold-gleaming, he flies; he

bewitches the whelps of the mountain and those of the sea, what the earth brings

forth and what the blazing sun looks down upon, and likewise mortal men. Over

all these, Cypris, you alone hold royal sway.

Artemis appears on the theologeion above the skene.

Artemis: Nobly born son of Aegeus! Listen, I command you! It is I, Artemis, Leto’s

daughter, who address you. Why, unhappy man, do you take joy in these things?

You have killed your son in godless fashion, persuaded of things unseen by the

false words of your wife. But all too clearly seen is the ruin you have won for

yourself! You should hide yourself beneath the earth’s depths in shame or

change your life for that of a bird above and take yourself out of this pain! In life

lived among good men you have no share.

Hear, Theseus, the state of your misfortunes. And yet I accomplish nothing by this, and

merely cause you grief. But it was for this purpose that I came, to make plain that

your son’s heart is guiltless so that he may die with a good name, make plain,

too, the maddened frenzy of your wife or, if I may call it so, her nobility. For she

was stung by the goad of that goddess most hated by us who take pleasure in

virginity and fell in love with your son. When she attempted to conquer Cypris

by her resolve, she was destroyed all unwitting by the contrivances of her nurse,

who told your son under oath of her malady. He, as was right, did not fall in

with her words, nor yet again, godly man that he is, did he break the firm bond

Theseus and his son

25

of his oath, though he was reviled by you. Phaedra, fearing lest she be put to the

proof, wrote a false letter and destroyed your son by guile, and though it was a

lie, she persuaded you.

Theseus: O woe!

Artemis: Does this tale sting you, Theseus? Hold your peace so that you may hear the

rest and groan the more. Do you know that you were given by your father three

curses certain of fulfillment? One of these you took, base man, to use against

your son when you could have used it against an enemy. Your father, the sea

lord, kindly disposed as he was toward you, granted what he had to grant seeing

that he had promised. But in his sight and in mine you are proved base since you

did not wait either for confirmation or for the word of a prophet, you did not put

the charge to the proof or grant to Time the right to investigate it, but more

rashly than you ought you let loose this curse upon your son and killed him.

Theseus: Lady, let me die!

Artemis: You have done dreadful things, but for all that it is still possible for you to win

pardon for these deeds of yours. It was Cypris, sating her anger, who willed that

things should happen thus. Among the gods the custom is this: no god will cross

the will of another, but we all stand aside. For you can be sure that if I had not

been afraid of Zeus, I would never have endured such disgrace as to allow the

man I love most among mortals to die. Ignorance acquits your mistakes of

baseness, and further your wife by dying made it impossible to test her words,

and thus she persuaded your mind.

It is chiefly upon you that these misfortunes break, but I too feel grief. The gods do not

rejoice at the death of the godly, but the wicked we destroy, children, house, and

all.

Enter Hippolytus by Eisodos A supported by his servants.

Chorus Leader: Look, here comes the unhappy man, his young flesh and golden head

all mangled. Oh, what trouble has afflicted this house! What a double grief has

been brought to pass for it, seizing it by the will of heaven!

Hippolytus: What agony! Wretched man that I am, I am shamefully treated by the

unjust utterance of an unjust father! I am gone, alas, alas! Pains dart through my

head and spasms leap in my brain! (to one of his servants) Stop, so that I may

rest my exhausted body! O agony! O hateful horses my own hand has fed, you

Theseus and his son

26

have destroyed me, have killed me! Oh! Oh! I beg you by the gods, servants,

handle my wounded flesh gently! Who is standing at my right side? Lift me

carefully, draw me with muscles ever tensed, me the wretch, cursed by his

father’s mistake! Zeus, Zeus, do you mark this? Here am I, the holy and god-

revering one, the man who surpassed all men in chastity, plainly going to my

death! I have lost my life utterly, and all in vain have been my labors of piety

toward men.

(sung) O agony! And now the pain, the pain, comes over me! Let me go, wretched man

that I am, and may death come to me as healer! Kill me, kill the wretch that is

me! I long to be cut in half by a two-edged blade and to lay my life to rest. O ill-

fated curse of my father! Some bloodstained calamity within the family,

committed by ancestors long dead, breaks forth and does not stay, and it has

come against me. Why, when I am guilty of no wrong? Alas! What am I to say?

How free my life painlessly of this disaster? O that the dark necessity of death’s

night would lay me, unhappy man, to rest!

Artemis: O poor man, to what a calamity you are yoked! Yet it was the nobility of your

mind that destroyed you.

Hippolytus: But what is this? O breath of divine fragrance! Though I am in misfortune I

feel your presence and my body’s pain is lightened. The goddess Artemis is in

this place!

Artemis: Poor one, she is, dearest of gods to you.

Hippolytus: Do you see me, lady, see my wretched state?

Artemis: Yes, but the law forbids my shedding tears.

Hippolytus: No more do you have your huntsman and your servant!

Artemis: No, but though you die, I love you still.

Hippolytus: No one to tend your horses or your statue!

Artemis: No, for knavish Cypris willed it so.

Hippolytus: Ah, now I learn the power that has destroyed me!

Artemis: The slight to her honor galled her, and she hated your chastity.

Theseus and his son

27

Hippolytus: One power destroyed us three, I see it now.

Artemis: Your father, you, and Theseus’ wife the third.

Hippolytus: Therefore I groan for Theseus’ fate as well.

Artemis: He was deceived, a god contrived it so.

Hippolytus: How great, unhappy father, your misfortune!

Theseus: I am gone, my son, I have no joy in life.

Hippolytus: For your mistake I pity you more than me.

Theseus: Would I could die, my son, instead of you!

Hippolytus: Poseidon your father’s gifts, what woe they brought!

Theseus: Would that the curse had never come to my lips!

Hippolytus: You would have killed me still, such was your anger.

Theseus: Yes, for the gods had robbed me of my wits.

Hippolytus: Oh! Would that the race of men could curse the gods!

Artemis: Let be! For though you are in the gloom under the earth, even so you will get

revenge for the wrath that has fallen against you by Cypris’ design, and this will

be the reward of your piety and goodness. That mortal of hers she loves the most

I shall punish with these inescapable arrows shot from my hand. To you,

unhappy man, I shall grant, in recompense for these sorrows, supreme honors in

the land of Trozen. Unmarried girls before their marriage will cut their hair for

you, and over the length of ages you will harvest the deep mourning of their

tears. The practiced skill of poetry sung by maidens will for ever make you its

theme, and Phaedra’s love for you shall not fall nameless and unsung.

But you, child of old Aegeus, take your son in your arms and embrace him. For you

were not responsible for killing him, and when the gods so ordain, it is to be

expected that men will make disastrous mistakes. As for you, Hippolytus, I urge

you not to hate your father. For the manner of your death is set by fate. Farewell:

Theseus and his son

28

it is not lawful for me to look upon the dead or to defile my sight with the last

breath of the dying. And I see that you are already near that misfortune.

Exit Artemis.

Hippolytus: And farewell to you in your going, blessed maiden! Yet how easily you

leave our long friendship! Still, at your bidding I end my quarrel with my father.

For in times past too I obeyed your words.

Oh, oh! Darkness is coming down upon my eyes! Take me, father, and lay my body

straight!

Theseus: Alas, my son, what are you doing to me?

Hippolytus: I am gone. I see the gates of the Underworld!

Theseus: And will you leave me with my hands unclean?

Hippolytus: Oh no, for of this murder I acquit you.

Theseus: What is this you say? You set me free of murder?

Hippolytus: The conquering bow of Artemis be my witness!

Theseus: How noble you are to your father, dearest son!

Hippolytus: I wish you, father, plenteous joy as well!

Theseus: Oh, what a noble, godly heart is lost!

Hippolytus: Pray that your true-born sons may be as good!

Theseus: Do not desert me, son, but struggle on!

Hippolytus: My struggle is over, father: I am gone. Cover my face, and quickly, with

my garments!

He falls silent. Theseus covers his face.

Theseus: Glorious territory of Erechtheus and Pallas, what a man you will be bereft of!

Unhappy me, how well I shall remember, Cypris, the woes you have brought to

pass!

Theseus and his son

29

Exit Theseus into the palace, accompanied by servants carrying the body of his son.

Chorus Leader: This grief has come unlooked for upon all the citizens in common.

Floods of tears shall come over us again and again. For tales of grief about the

great have greater power to move.

Exit Chorus by Eisodos B.

Philostratus on Hippolytus

30

Philostratus Imagines 2.4. Hippolytus

A lively painting, vividly described.

The wild beast is the curse of Theseus; swift as dolphins it has rushed at the horses of

Hippolytus in the form of a white bull, and it has come from the sea against the youth

quite unjustly. For his stepmother Phaedra concocted a story against him that was not

true, to the effect that Hippolytus loved her,—but it was really herself that was in love

with the youth—and Theseus, deceived by the tale, calls down upon his son the curse

which we see here depicted.

The horses, as you see, scorning the yoke toss their manes unchecked, not stamping

their feet like well bred and intelligent creatures, but overcome with panic and terror,

and spattering the plain with foam, one while fleeing has turned its head toward the

beast, another has leaped up at it, another looks at it askance, while the onrush of the

fourth carries him into the sea as though he had forgotten both himself and dry land;

and with erect nostrils they neigh shrilly, unless you fail to hear the painting. Of the

wheels of the chariot one has been torn from its spokes as the chariot has tipped over

upon it, the other has left its axle and goes rolling off by itself, its momentum still

turning it. The horses of the attendants also are frightened and in some cases throw off

their riders, while as for those who grasp them firmly about the neck, to what goal are

they now carrying them?

And thou, O youth that lovest chastity, thou hast suffered injustice at the hands of thy

step-mother, and worse injustice at the hands of thy father, so that the painting itself

mourns thee, having composed a sort of poetic lament in thine honour. Indeed yon

mountain-peaks over which thou didst hunt with Artemis take the form of mourning

women that tear their cheeks, and the meadows in the form of beautiful youths,

meadows which thou didst call “undefiled,” cause their flowers to wither for thee, and

nymphs thy nurses emerging from yonder springs tear their hair and pour streams of

water from their bosoms. Neither did thy courage protect thee nor yet thy strong arm,

but of thy members some have been torn off and others crushed, and thy hair has been

defiled with dirt; thy breast is still breathing as though it would not let go of the soul,

and thine eye gazes at all thy wounds. Ah, thy beauty! how proof it is against wounds

no one would have dreamed. For not even now does it quit the body; nay, a charm

lingers even on thy wounds.

Herackles

31

Aelian, On the Characteristics of Animals 6.40

Born at Praeneste in central Italy (an area long colonized by the Greeks, and where Greek culture

continued to thrive), Aelian (175-235 CE) preferred Greek to Latin. His 14 book, anecdotal

Various History (containing biographical sketches, maxims, and paradoxa) survives largely only

in epitome. But his On the Characteristics of Animals, in 17 books, is a collection of allogorcal

and moralizing tales inspired by the natural world. On the Charcateristics of Animals owes

much to Aristotle and was in turn an important source for Medieval Bestiaries.

There is an island (unidentified) in the Black Sea named after Heracles which has been

highly honoured. Now all the Mice there pay reverence to the god, and every offering

that is made to him they believe to have been made to gratify him and would not touch

it. And so the vine grows luxuriantly in his honour and is reverenced as an offering to

him alone, while the ministers of the god preserve the clusters for their sacrifices.

Accordingly when the grapes reach maturity the Mice quit the island so that they may

not, by remaining, even involuntarily touch what is better not touched. Later when the

season has run its course they return to their own haunts. This is a merit in the Pontic

Mice. But Hippon, Diagoras, and Herostratus, and all the rest in the tale of heaven’s

enemies, how would they have kept their hands off the grapes or other offerings—men

who preferred by one means or another to rob the gods of their names and functions.

Herakles gives Dionysus directions to the Underworld

32

Aristophanes, Frogs 108-164

Aristophanes (446-386 BCE) of Athens is the sole surving author of Attic Old Comedy (the politically

charged, socially biting type—in contrast with the milquetoast of Menander’s superficial accounts of star-

crossed lovers and wayward sons). In the Frogs, performed in 405 BCE, recieved first place. Dionysus, the

god of drama, despairs of the abysmal state of tragedy in contemporary Athens and decides to travel to the

underworld to bring back Euripides from the dead (Euripides had died the year before). There is a great

debate between Euripides and Aeschylus (Dionysus serves as judge), and since Aeschylus’ verses are

“heavier” it is decided that he, Aeschylus, should return to help save the Atehnians from the Spartans.

Here Heracles gives Dionysus directions to the Underworld)

Dionysus: Well, the reason I’ve come wearing this outfit in imitation of you is so you’ll

tell me about those friends of yours who put you up when you went after

Cerberus, in case I need them. Tell me about them, about the harbors, bakeries,

whorehouses, rest areas, directions, springs, roads, cities, places to stay, the

landladies with the fewest bedbugs.

Xanthias: But not a word about me!

Heracles:You madcap, would you dare to go there too?

Dionysus:Drop that subject; just give me the directions, my quickest route down to

Hades, and don’t give me one that’s too hot or too cold.

Heracles:Let me see, which one shall I give you first? Hmm. Well, there’s one via rope

and bench: you hang yourself.

Dionysus:Stop it, that way’s too stifling.

Heracles: Well, there’s a shortcut that’s well-beaten—in a mortar.

Dionysus:You mean hemlock?

Heracles:Exactly.

Dionysus: That’s a chill and wintry way! It quickly freezes your shins solid.

Heracles: Want to hear about a quick downhill route?

Dionysus: Yes indeed; I’m not much for hiking.

Heracles: Then stroll to the Cerameicus—

Dionysus: Then what?

Heracles: and climb the tower, the high one.

Dionysus: And do what?

Herakles gives Dionysus directions to the Underworld

33

Heracles: Watch the start of the torch race, and when the spectators cry “they’re off,”

then off you go too.

Dionysus: Where?

Heracles: Down!

Dionysus: But I’d be wasting two brain croquettes. I’d rather not stroll that route.

Heracles: Then how will you go?

Dionysus: The same way you went.

Heracles: That’s a long voyage. First you’ll come to a vast lake, quite bottomless.

Dionysus: Then how will I cross it?

Heracles: An ancient mariner will ferry you across in a little boat no bigger than this, for

a fare of two obols.

Dionysus: Wow, what power those two obols have everywhere! How did they make

their way down there?

Heracles: Theseus brought them. After that, you’ll see an infinity of serpents and beasts

most frightful.

Dionysus: Don’t try to shock or scare me off; you’ll not deter me.

Heracles: Then you’ll see lots of mud and ever-flowing shit; in it lies anyone who ever

wronged a stranger, or snatched a boy’s fee while screwing him, or thrashed his

mother, or socked his father in the jaw, or swore a false oath, or had someone

copy out a speech by Morsimus.

Dionysus: And by heaven, we should add anyone who learned that war dance by

Cinesias.

Heracles: And next a breath of pipes will waft about you, and there’ll be brilliant

sunlight, just like ours, and myrtle groves, happy bands of men and women, and

a great clapping of hands.

Dionysus: And who are those people?

Heracles: The initiates.

Xanthias: And I’m the damn donkey who carries out the Mysteries! But I’m not going

to put up with it any longer. (tossing down the baggage)

Heracles: They’ll tell you everything you need to know. They live right beside the road

you’ll be taking, at Pluto’s palace gate. So bon voyage, my brother.

Herakles gives Dionysus directions to the Underworld

34

Heracles goes inside.

Herakles and Hot Springs

35

Aristophanes, Clouds 1050-1052

Worse Argument: But where have you ever seen Heraclean cold baths? And yet who was ever

manlier?

Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.23.1

Upon his arrival in Sicily Heracles desired to make the circuit of the entire island and so set out

from Pelorias in the direction of Eryx. While passing along the coast of the island, the myths

relate, the Nymphs caused warm baths to gush forth so that he might refresh himself after the

toil sustained in his journeying. There are two of these, called respectively Himeraea and

Egestaea, each of them having its name from the place where the baths are.

HERODOTUS 7.176

As touching Artemisium first: the wide Thracian sea draws in till the passage between

the island of Sciathus and the mainland of Magnesia is but narrow; and this strait leads

next to Artemisium, which is a beach on the coast of Euboea, with a temple of Artemis

thereon. The pass through Trachis into Hellas is at its narrowest fifty feet wide. Yet it is

not here but elsewhere that the way is narrowest, namely, in front of THERMOPYLAE and

behind it; at Alpeni, which lies behind, it is but the breadth of a cart-way, and the same

at the Phoenix stream, near the town of Anthele. To the west of Thermopylae rises a

high mountain inaccessible and precipitous, a spur of Oeta; to the east of the road there

is nought but marshes and sea. In this pass are warm springs for bathing, called by the

people of the country The Pots, and an altar of Heracles stands thereby. Across this

entry a wall had been built, and formerly there was a gate therein; it was built by the

Phocians for fear of the Thessalians, when these came from Thesprotia to dwell in the

Aeolian land which they now possess; inasmuch as the Thessalians were essaying to

subdue them, the Phocians made this their protection, and in their search for every

means to keep the Thessalians from invading their country they then turned the stream

from the hot springs into the pass, that it might be a watercourse. The ancient wall had

been built long ago and time had by now laid the most of it in ruins; it was now built up

again, that the foreigners’ way into Hellas might thus be barred. Very near the road is a

village, called Alpeni, whence the Greeks reckoned that they would get provender.

STRABO 9.4.13 (Thermopylae)

The passage is called Pylai ["Gates"], Stena ["Narrows"], and Thermopylai ["Hot Gates],

because there are hot waters nearby that are honored and sacred to Herakles.