Hippolytus or, Phaedra: 'Shall all the world be shocked with prodigies….''
By Seneca
()
About this ebook
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, more readily known as Seneca the Younger, was born at Córdoba in the Roman province of Baetica in Hispania in approx 4 BC.
Seneca attests that he was taken to Rome at a young age and educated in literature, grammar, and rhetoric; the standard education of high-born Romans. He also received philosophical training.
Much of his life is not well documented but accounts do lean towards a pattern of ill-health at times. His breathing difficulties are thought to be the result of asthma and during his mid-twenties he contracted tuberculosis.
He was sent to Egypt to live with his aunt, whose husband, Gaius Galerius, was Prefect of Egypt. In 31 AD he returned to Rome with her and, with her influence, was elected quaestor and with it the right to sit in the Roman Senate.
Seneca's early career as a senator was successful and he was fulsomely praised for his oratory. A story related that emperor Caligula was so offended by Seneca's oratorical success that he ordered him to commit suicide. Seneca’s ill-health prevented that.
In 41 AD, Claudius became emperor, and Seneca was promptly cited by the new empress Messalina of adultery with Julia Livilla, the sister of Caligula and Agrippina.
After trial the Senate pronounced a death sentence, which Claudius then commuted to exile. Seneca was to now spend the next eight years in Corsica. From this period of exile survive two of his earliest works—both consolations.
In 49 AD Agrippina married her uncle Claudius, and through her Seneca was recalled to Rome. Agrippina appointed him, as tutor to her son, the future emperor Nero.
Nero's early rule, during which he followed the advice of Seneca and Burrus, was competent. However, within a few years both Seneca and Burrus had lost their influence.
In 58 AD the senator Publius Suillius Rufus made a series of public attacks on him saying that, Seneca had acquired a personal fortune of three hundred million sestertii. In response, Seneca brought a series of prosecutions for corruption against him. Suillius was dispatched into exile.
After Burrus's death in 62 AD, Seneca's influence further declined. He adopted a quiet lifestyle at his country estates, concentrating on his studies and seldom visiting Rome. It was during these final few years that he composed two of his greatest works: ‘Naturales Quaestiones’—an encyclopedia of the natural world; and his ‘Letters to Lucilius’—which document his philosophical thoughts.
In AD 65, Seneca was caught up in the aftermath of the Pisonian plot to kill Nero. Nero ordered him to kill himself. Seneca followed tradition by opening several veins in order to bleed to death.
It was a sad conclusion for a man who has been called the first great Western thinker on the complex nature and role of gratitude in human relationships.
Seneca
The writer and politician Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BCE–65 CE) was one of the most influential figures in the philosophical school of thought known as Stoicism. He was notoriously condemned to death by enforced suicide by the Emperor Nero.
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Hippolytus or, Phaedra - Seneca
Hippolytus or Phaedra by Seneca
A translation by Frank Justus Miller
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, more readily known as Seneca the Younger, was born at Córdoba in the Roman province of Baetica in Hispania in approx 4 BC.
Seneca attests that he was taken to Rome at a young age and educated in literature, grammar, and rhetoric; the standard education of high-born Romans. He also received philosophical training.
Much of his life is not well documented but accounts do lean towards a pattern of ill-health at times. His breathing difficulties are thought to be the result of asthma and during his mid-twenties he contracted tuberculosis.
He was sent to Egypt to live with his aunt, whose husband, Gaius Galerius, was Prefect of Egypt. In 31 AD he returned to Rome with her and, with her influence, was elected quaestor and with it the right to sit in the Roman Senate.
Seneca's early career as a senator was successful and he was fulsomely praised for his oratory. A story related that emperor Caligula was so offended by Seneca's oratorical success that he ordered him to commit suicide. Seneca’s ill-health prevented that.
In 41 AD, Claudius became emperor, and Seneca was promptly cited by the new empress Messalina of adultery with Julia Livilla, the sister of Caligula and Agrippina.
After trial the Senate pronounced a death sentence, which Claudius then commuted to exile. Seneca was to now spend the next eight years in Corsica. From this period of exile survive two of his earliest works—both consolations.
In 49 AD Agrippina married her uncle Claudius, and through her Seneca was recalled to Rome. Agrippina appointed him, as tutor to her son, the future emperor Nero.
Nero's early rule, during which he followed the advice of Seneca and Burrus, was competent. However, within a few years both Seneca and Burrus had lost their influence.
In 58 AD the senator Publius Suillius Rufus made a series of public attacks on him saying that, Seneca had acquired a personal fortune of three hundred million sestertii. In response, Seneca brought a series of prosecutions for corruption against him. Suillius was dispatched into exile.
After Burrus's death in 62 AD, Seneca's influence further declined. He adopted a quiet lifestyle at his country estates, concentrating on his studies and seldom visiting Rome. It was during these final few years that he composed two of his greatest works: ‘Naturales Quaestiones’—an encyclopedia of the natural world; and his ‘Letters to Lucilius’—which document his philosophical thoughts.
In AD 65, Seneca was caught up in the aftermath of the Pisonian plot to kill Nero. Nero ordered him to kill himself. Seneca followed tradition by opening several veins in order to bleed to death.
It was a sad conclusion for a man who has been called the first great Western thinker on the complex nature and role of gratitude in human relationships.
Index of Contents
HIPPOLYTUS or PHAEDRA
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
THE SCENE
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
THE INFLUENCE OF THE TRAGEDIES OF SENECA UPON EARLY ENGLISH DRAMA
SENECA – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY
SENECA – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY
HIPPOLYTUS or PHAEDRA
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Hippolytus, Son of Theseus and Antiope, an Amazon.
Phaedra, Wife of Theseus and stepmother of Hippolytus.
Theseus, King of Athens.
Nurse of Phaedra.
Messenger.
Slaves and Attendants.
Chorus of Athenian Citizens.
THE SCENE: In the court in front of the royal palace at Athens; and the action is confined to the space of one day.
Theseus had wed Antiope, the Amazon, and of their union had been born Hippolytus. This youth grew up to love the chase, austere and beautiful, shunning the haunts of men, and scorning the love of women. Theseus had meanwhile slain Antiope, and married Phaedra, Cretan Minos' child.
And now, for four years past, the king has not been seen upon the earth, for, following the mad adventure of his bosom friend, Pirithoüs, he has descended into Tartara, and thence, men think, he never will return.
Deserted by her lord, the hapless Phaedra has conceived a hopeless passion for Hippolytus; for Venus, mindful of that ancient shame, which Phaedra's ancestor, Apollo, had exposed, has sent this madness on her, even as Pasiphaë, her mother, had been cursed with a most mad and fatal malady.
ACT I
HIPPOLYTUS [In hunting costume, assigning duties and places to his servants and companions of the hunt]
Up comrades, and the shadowy groves
With nets encircle; swiftly range
The heights of our Cecropian hills;
Scour well those coverts on the slopes
Of Parnes, or in Thria's vale
Whose chattering streamlet roars along
In rapid course; go climb the hills
Whose peaks are ever white with snows
Of Scythia. Let others go
Where woods with lofty alders stand
In dense array; where pastures lie
Whose springing grass is waked to life
By Zephyr's breath, dew laden. Go,
Where calm Ilissus flows along
The level fields, a sluggish stream,
Whose winding course the barren sands
With niggard water laps. Go ye
Along the leftward-leading way,
Where Marathon her forest glades
Reveals, where nightly with their young
The suckling mothers feed. Do you,
Where, softened by the warming winds
From southern lands, Acharnae melts
His snows, repair; let others seek
Hymettus' rocky slopes, far famed
For honey; others still the glades
Of small Aphidnae. All too long
That region has unharried lain
Where Sunium with its jutting shore
Thrusts out the curving sea.
If any feels the forest's lure,
Him Phlye calls, where dwells the boar
Now