Theseus abducts Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons, who will become the mother of Hippolytos

A stock motif: woman falls in love with step-son Stheneboia falls for Bellerophon Potiphar’s wife falls for step-son Phaedra falls for Hippolytos

The protagonists of Euripides’ Hippolytos all share a peculiarly intense relation with eros Hippolytos rejects it Phaedra surrenders herself to it against all reason Theseus symbolically defeated it (in killing the Minotaur, the symbol of monstrous sexuality)

Phaedra’s genealogy disposes her to an aberrant sexuality MINOS-PASIPHAE-Bull of Poseidon (whom Minos refused to sacrifice to Poseidon and wanted to keep to himself) AriadnePhaedraMinotaur

Phaedra’s sister, Ariadne, was abandoned by Theseus (her love for Theseus was rejected, as Phaedra’s love for Theseus’ son will be rejected)

But the tale of Ariadne also provides a redemptive view of eros (the only one in this entire family saga): Ariadne will become Dionysos’ lover, and wife... forever after. Ariadne and Dionysos constitute an exceptionally successful model of a marriage between a god and a mortal woman

In fact … Ariadne’s choice as wife of Dionysos will earn her the privilege of becoming a constellation: the crown which Dionysos gave her as a wedding present is one of the stars you can still see today in the night sky

Like Mother, like Son as his mother Hippolyta rejected the condition of women as wives who marry and stay at home so her son rejects the condition of young men who are expected to grow up into men and marry and produce children

The death of Hippolytos … and the return of the Bull (from the sea, Poseidon’s realm) Looking to shore, where the breakers hit, we saw a huge strange holy wave plant itself on the sky— … Then swelling and spattering foam and sea on every side it went boiling towards shore where the chariot was. At the height of the surge it put forth a bull—wild weird thing!

Hippolytos to his horses: “Stand! You were fed at my mangers, do not annihilate me!”

Poseidon is god of the sea, god of untamed power, expressed here sexually

Both Actaeon and Hippolytos “wronged” the idea of virginity (one by seeing Artemis in her bath; the other, by clinging to her as to a lover) and die killed by their own animals

Artemis, goddess of virginity

Orion, archetypal hunter and rapist: here as a constellation forever pursuing the Pleiades (part of the Taurus cluster)

Atalanta and Hippomenes

Hippolytos’s devotion to Artemis earns him a cult …. within Aphrodite’s sanctuary Artemis: “And to you, my poor catastrophe, against such evils I shall give the greatest honors in Trozen. Unyoked girls before their marriage will cut their hair for you. For all time to come you will reap the great grief of their tears. Girls will make songs to tell your story and Phaidra’s love for you will not go unremembered.”