The crude facts of the story are almost repulsive on the face of them. Phædra, the young wife of Theseus, King of Athens and Trozen, had fallen in love with her husband’s illegitimate son Hippolytus. That is the initial situation; and the further data of the old Attic legend do not soften it. For we know that Phædra’s love was unrequited, a fact which, with curious unreason, seems to accuse her; and we know too that when her love was betrayed to Hippolytus, she took her own life in shame and fear, first making a false charge against him which she knew would bring upon him the punishment of death. Such, in harsh outline, is the story of unhappy love and wild impulse which has been made by this poet who was before all things a seeker of truth, into a work of supreme spiritual beauty. More wonderful still, Phædra, who by conventional canons would seem to have forfeited all claim to respect or sympathy, is found to be a woman of sweet and gentle purity, cruelly betrayed by forces without and within, and driven by desperation to a frantic attempt to save her honour. The means to such an end are interesting, although behind them all lies the explanation of them all—the poet’s higher and broader perception of truth. He has seen the passion which ruled Phædra as a great world-force, an elemental power which could neither be escaped nor overcome. This power is personified as Aphrodite or Cypris, goddess of love; and she is conceived as the mortal enemy of Hippolytus, because he has scorned her in his spiritual pride and refused her her need of worship. The key to the tragedy lies in this conception of Cypris, and in the mystical, ascetic spirit of Hippolytus against which she has set her offended godhead. They represent eternally opposing forces, and warfare between them is inevitable and deadly. For that reason, the opening monologue of the Drama is of great importance. The scene is placed before the castle of Theseus at Trozen. A statue of a goddess stands on either side—that of Artemis, chaste Moon-goddess, on the one hand, decked with flowers and carefully tended; and on the other hand, bare and unhonoured, is the statue of Aphrodite. While beside the latter, musing in evident anger, is the gleaming form of the goddess herself. We learn the cause of her anger as she speaks. She is grieved on account of Hippolytus, who in his excessive devotion to Artemis, despises Aphrodite and looks upon love as a thing unclean. His arrogance and neglect are an unbearable insult, and she has determined to punish him, swiftly and without mercy. She has already prepared the pitfall, long ago in Athens, when Hippolytus came to be solemnly initiated into the Mysteries.