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Phaedra (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Phaedra ( grc, Φαίδρα, ) (or Fedra) was a Cretan princess. Her name derives from the Greek word (), which means "bright". According to legend, she was the daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë, and the wife of Theseus. Phaedra fell in love with her stepson Hippolytus. After he rejected her advances, she accused him of trying to rape her, causing Theseus to pray to Poseidon to kill him, and then killed herself. The story of Phaedra is told in Euripides' play '' Hippolytus'', Seneca the Younger's ''Phaedra'', and Ovid's ''Heroides''. It has inspired many modern works of art and literature, including a play by Jean Racine. Family Phaedra was the daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë of Crete, and thus sister to Acacallis, Ariadne, Androgeus, Deucalion, Xenodice, Glaucus and Catreus and half-sister to the Minotaur. She was the wife of Theseus and the mother of Demophon of Athens and Acamas. Mythology Much of what we know about the mythology and story o ...
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Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates and is the capital of the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state. It was a centre for the arts, learning and philosophy, and the home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum. It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, largely because of its cultural and political influence on the European continent—particularly Ancient Rome. In modern times, Athens is a large cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime, political and cultural life in Gre ...
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Greek Mythology
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, nature of the world, the lives and activities of List of Greek mythological figures, deities, Greek hero cult, heroes, and List of Greek mythological creatures, mythological creatures, and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' own cult (religious practice), cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece, and to better understand the nature of myth-making itself. The Greek myths were initially propagated in an oral tradition, oral-poetic tradition most likely by Minoan civilization, Minoan and Mycenaean Greece, Mycenaean singers starting in the 18th century BC; eventually the myths of the heroes of the Trojan War and its after ...
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Glaucus (son Of Minos)
In Greek mythology, Glaucus (Ancient Greek: Γλαῦκος ''Glaukos'' means "greyish blue" or "bluish green" and "glimmering") was a Cretan prince as the son of King Minos. Family Glaucus' mother was Queen Pasiphaë, daughter of Helios, and thus, brother to Acacallis, Ariadne, Androgeus, Deucalion, Phaedra, Xenodice, and Catreus. Mythology One day, while playing with a ball or chasing a mouseApollodorus3.3.1/ref> Glaucus fell into a jar of honey and died. Unable to find their son, his parents went to the Oracle at Delphi who told them "A marvelous creature has been born amongst you: whoever finds the true likeness for this creature will also find the child." They interpreted this to refer to a newborn calf in Minos' herd. Three times a day, the calf changed color from white to red to black. Polyidus (or Asclepius, god of medicine) observed the similarity to the ripening of the fruit of the mulberry (or possibly the blackberry) plant, and Minos sent him to find Glaucus. ...
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Deucalion (Cretan)
In Greek mythology, Deucalion or Deukalion (/dju:keɪli:ən/; Ancient Greek: Δευκαλίων τῆς Κρήτης), was a king of Crete. He was counted among the Argonauts and the Calydonian Hunters. Family Deucalion was the eldest son of Minos either by Pasiphae or Crete and thus grandson of Zeus. He was the brother of Acacallis, Ariadne, Androgeus, Xenodice, Phaedra, Glaucus and Catreus. By Cleopatra, Deucalion fathered Idomeneus who succeeded him and led the kingdom into the Trojan War. He was also the father of Crete and of an illegitimate son Molus. In Diodorus' account, Deucalion and Molus were brothers and their sons Idomeneus and Meriones led the Cretans to Troy. : "Minos’ sons, they say, were Deucalion and Molus, and to Deucalion was born Idomeneus and to Molus was born Meriones. These two joined with Agamemnon in the expedition against Ilium with ninety ships..."Diodorus Siculus4.62.1' Mythology Theseus in Crete It is said that when Theseus was about ...
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Jean Racine
Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ) (; 22 December 163921 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western tradition and world literature. Racine was primarily a tragedian, producing such "examples of neoclassical perfection" as ''Phèdre'', ''Andromaque'', and ''Athalie''. He did write one comedy, '' Les Plaideurs'', and a muted tragedy, ''Esther'' for the young. Racine's plays displayed his mastery of the dodecasyllabic (12 syllable) French alexandrine. His writing is renowned for its elegance, purity, speed, and fury, and for what American poet Robert Lowell described as a "diamond-edge", and the "glory of its hard, electric rage". Racine's dramaturgy is marked by his psychological insight, the prevailing passion of his characters, and the nakedness of both plot and stage. Biography Racine was born on 21 December 1639 in La Ferté-Milon ( Aisne) ...
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Phèdre
''Phèdre'' (; originally ''Phèdre et Hippolyte'') is a French dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677 at the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris. Composition and premiere With ''Phèdre'', Racine chose once more a subject from Greek mythology, already treated by Greek and Roman tragic poets, notably by Euripides in '' Hippolytus'' and Seneca in ''Phaedra''. As a result of an intrigue by the Duchess of Bouillon and other friends of the aging Pierre Corneille, the play was not a success at its première on 1 January 1677 at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, home of the royal troupe of actors in Paris. Indeed, a rival group staged a play by the now forgotten playwright Nicolas Pradon on an almost identical theme. After ''Phèdre'', Racine ceased writing plays on secular themes and devoted himself to the service of religion and the king until 1689, when he was commissioned to write ''Esther'' by Madame de Maintenon, the m ...
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Heroides
The ''Heroides'' (''The Heroines''), or ''Epistulae Heroidum'' (''Letters of Heroines''), is a collection of fifteen epistolary Epistolary means "in the form of a letter or letters", and may refer to: * Epistolary ( la, epistolarium), a Christian liturgical book containing set readings for church services from the New Testament Epistles * Epistolary novel * Epistolary poem ... poems composed by Ovid in Latin elegiac couplets and presented as though written by a selection of aggrieved heroines of Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology in address to their heroic lovers who have in some way mistreated, neglected, or abandoned them. A further set of six poems, widely known as the ''Double Heroides'' and numbered 16 to 21 in modern scholarly editions, follows these individual letters and presents three separate exchanges of paired epistles: one each from a heroic lover to his absent beloved and from the heroine in return. The ''Heroides'' were long held in low esteem by literary ...
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Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists.Quint. ''Inst.'' 10.1.93 Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus banished him to Tomis, a Dacian province on the Black Sea, where he remained a decade until his death. Overview A contemporary of the older poets Virgil and Horace, Ovid was the first major Roman poet to begin his career during Augustus's reign. Collectively, they are considered the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian described Ovid as the last of the Latin love elegists.Quint. ''Inst.'' 10.1.93 He enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, but the emperor Augus ...
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Phaedra (Seneca)
''Phaedra'' is a Roman tragedy written by philosopher and dramatist Lucius Annaeus Seneca before 54 A.D. Its 1,280 lines of verse tell the story of Phaedra, wife of King Theseus of Athens and her consuming lust for her stepson Hippolytus. Based on Greek mythology and the tragedy '' Hippolytus'' by Euripides, Seneca's ''Phaedra'' is one of several artistic explorations of this tragic story. Seneca portrays Phaedra as self-aware and direct in the pursuit of her stepson, while in other treatments of the myth, she is more of a passive victim of fate. This Phaedra takes on the scheming nature and the cynicism often assigned to the nurse character. When Seneca's plays were first revived during the Renaissance, the work that soon came to be known as ''Phaedra'' was titled ''Hippolytus.'' It was presented in Latin in Rome in 1486. The play has influenced drama over the succeeding two millennia, particularly the works of Shakespeare and dramas of 16th- and 17th-century France. Other nota ...
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Seneca The Younger
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (; 65 AD), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, dramatist, and, in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca was born in Córdoba in Hispania, and raised in Rome, where he was trained in rhetoric and philosophy. His father was Seneca the Elder, his elder brother was Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, and his nephew was the poet Lucan. In AD 41, Seneca was exiled to the island of Corsica under emperor Claudius, but was allowed to return in 49 to become a tutor to Nero. When Nero became emperor in 54, Seneca became his advisor and, together with the praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus, provided competent government for the first five years of Nero's reign. Seneca's influence over Nero declined with time, and in 65 Seneca was forced to take his own life for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero, in which he was probably innocen ...
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Hippolytus (play)
''Hippolytus'' ( grc, Ἱππόλυτος, ''Hippolytos'') is an Ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides, based on the myth of Hippolytus, son of Theseus. The play was first produced for the City Dionysia of Athens in 428 BC and won first prize as part of a trilogy. Euripides first treated the myth in a previous play, ''Hippolytos Kalyptomenos'' ( – ''Hippolytus Veiled''), which is now lost; what is known of it is based on echoes found in other ancient writings. The earlier play, and the one that has survived are both titled ''Hippolytus'', but in order to distinguish the two they have traditionally been given the names, ''Hippolytus Kalyptomenos'' and ''Hippolytus Stephanophoros'' ( – "Hippolytus the wreath bearer"). It is thought that the contents to the missing ''Hippolytos Kalyptomenos'' portrayed a shamelessly lustful Phaedra, who directly propositioned Hippolytus, which apparently offended the play's audience.Euripides. ''Hippolytus''. Bagg, Robert. Introduction. Oxford Uni ...
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Euripides
Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy i ... of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the ''Suda'' says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete (''Rhesus (play), Rhesus'' is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declinedMoses Hadas, ''Ten Plays by Euripides'', Bantam Classic (2006), Introduction, p. ixhe became, ...
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