Phaedra

“Come, Goddess, show me your favour!—The barking dogs

Deliver the sign: I am called to the woods.

This way, this way, I shall go

Where the path makes a long journey short.”

Hippolytus concludes his long ode to hunting and the natural world by invoking his patron goddess Diana, whom he asks for “favour” in his ventures. Hippolytus is deeply immersed in the natural world, in the woods with hunting dogs. He views this world as welcoming, while other characters—especially Phaedra—view it as hostile. There is something foreboding about Hippolytus’s path that “makes a long journey short;” Hippolytus’s life, like his “journey,” will be cut short by the events that are about to unfold in the play.

“There are two ways to be good. First: want the right thing, no straying.

The second is knowing and setting a limit to one’s sins.”

The Nurse explains her philosophy as she advises Phaedra on her sudden passion for her stepson, perhaps reflecting the Stoic sentiments of the play’s author. However, a true Stoic would hardly have approved of the excesses eventually perpetrated by the Nurse. The Nurse’s attempt to bring Hippolytus and Phaedra together and her suggestion that Phaedra accuse Hippolytus of rape show that she sets a very liberal limit to her sins.

“But even if the holy powers favour you, and hide

Your wicked sexual acts, and if adultery

Is guaranteed the safety that great crimes never get—

What of your instant punishments: bad conscience and fear,

And a guilty heart which always fears itself?

Women may sin unpunished, but never get off scot-free.”

The Nurse warns Phaedra of the dangers of guilt, even more terrible than the all-seeing power of the gods: Even if Phaedra escapes the gods, she can never escape her conscience.