Cretan Tales; Hippolytus

CC 303 Intro to Classical Mythology - Fall 2009
Department of Classics, University of Texas at Austin, Prof. Lawrence Kim

Hippolytus, Phaedra, Europa, Phoenicia, Scylla, Minos, Daedalus, Icarus, Athens

1. Europa, Minos
   • Princess of Phoenicia
   • Zeus (as bull) carries her to Crete
   • Mother of Minos (see last lecture), sister of Cadmus (next lecture)
   • Minos comes of age and desires to become King
   • Minos marries Pasiphaë
   • Two daughters: Ariadne and Phaedra
   • Prays to Poseidon to confirm his rule
   • Poseidon sends a bull from the sea, to be sacrificed
   • Minos switches bulls
   • Poseidon makes Pasiphaë fall in love with the bull
2. Pasiphaë, Daedalus and Icarus
   • Pasiphaë asks the inventor Daedalus to construct a fake cow
   • Daedalus: an Athenian exile
   • Had killed his nephew Perdix and taken refuge in Crete
   • Pasiphaë, in the fake cow, is impregnated by the bull
     
   • Gives birth to the Minotaur, half-man, half-bull
   • Minotaur is imprisoned in the Labyrinth, also built by Daedalus
   • After Theseus' success, Daedalus and his son Icarus are imprisoned by Minos
   • D. devises wings to fly to safety to Sicily: Icarus dies
   • Minos finds D. by posing a riddle - threading the spiral sea-shell
3. Scylla and Minos
   • Minos besieges Megara, whose king is Nisus
   • Nisus' daughter Scylla falls in love with Minos
   • Betrays father (cuts the purple lock of hair)
   • Minos spurns her as traitor; she turns into bird
   • The Folktale Pattern of the Helper-Maiden
     1. The Situation: A Hero from abroad arrives on a quest
     2. The King opposes the Hero
     3. Deadlock
     4. The Daughter of the King falls in love with the Hero
     5. The Daughter helps the Hero defeat the King
     6. The Daughter is abandoned by the Hero
        
   • Examples:
     1. Scylla, the daughter of Nisus, and Minos
     2. Medea, the daughter of Aeëtes, and Jason
     3. Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, and Theseus
4. Phaedra and Hippolytus
   • Hippolytus: Theseus' (illegitimate?) son by the Amazon Antiope
   • As son of Amazon, H. worships Artemis, disdains women and love
   • H. thus angers Aphrodite
   • Phaedra, new wife of Theseus
   • Sister of Ariadne, daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë
   • Phaedra falls in love with her stepson Hippolytus
   • Spurned, she kills herself, leaves note accusing H. of rape
   • Theseus finds note, curses Hippolytus
   • Poseidon sends bull from the sea to kill Hippolytus
     
   • Potiphar's Wife Folktale (Joseph in Genesis)
   • Compare the Bellerophon Myth
     
   • Euripides' Hippolytus:
   • Tragedy about Passion: Power and vengeance of Aphrodite
   • Sympathetic portrayal of Phaedra
   • Explores H.'s unthinking intolerance and its results

1. Europa and Zeus (as bull). Attic Red-figure bell krater by the Berlin Painter, c. 500-490 BCE.
2. The Rape of Europa (detail). Noël-Nicolas Coypel, 1726-27. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
3. *The Rape of Europa. Titian, 1562. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.
4. Pasiphaë and Daedalus. Giulio Romano. Salotto di Psiche, Palazzo del Tè, Mantua.
   
5. Pasiphaë and Baby Minotaur.  Etruscan red-figure cup, c. 400-350 BCE. Paris.
6. Daedalus and Icarus. Bas-relief. Villa Albani, Rome.
7. Daedalus and Icarus. Ludovico Lana (1597-1646). Galleria Doria Pamphili, Rome.
8. *Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. Pieter Brueghel, the Elder, c. 1558. Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels.
9. *Icarus. Henri Matisse. From the illustrated book, "Jazz", published 1947.
10. Phaedra and Hippolytus. Pierre-Narcisse Guerin, 1802.
11. The Death of Hippolytus. Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1611. National Gallery, London.