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Phaedra (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Phaedra /ˈfiːdrə, ˈfɛdrə/ (Ancient Greek: Φαίδρα, Phaidra) (or Fedra) was a Cretan princess. Her name derives from the Greek word φαιδρός (phaidros), 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 Hippolytus (which Poseidon does), and then she killed herself.

Phaedra

Crete, later Athens

Minos and Pasiphae or Crete

Catreus, Ariadne, Androgeus, Xenodice, Acacallis, Glaucus and Deucalion; the Minotaur

Theseus

Acamas and Demophon

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[edit]

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.

Phaedra with attendant, probably her nurse, a from Pompeii circa 60–20 BC

fresco

Figure 8 Phaedra, wall painting, early first century CE, Pompeii, now Antiquarium di Pompeii, Pompeii, inv. no. 20620,[3]

[2]

Second century Roman Sarcophagus of in the Camposanto in Pisa. This was the model for Nicola Pisano's work on the Pisa Baptistery in the mid-thirteenth century.

Beatrice of Lorraine

's Phaedra (1880)

Alexandre Cabanel

; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Phaedra"

Smith, William

Aeneid VI.445; Ovid, Metamorphoses XV.497

Virgil

Racine, Jean (1958). Phaedra. Librairie Droz.  978-2-600-04472-1.

ISBN

.

"Phaedra and Hippolytus"

The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Phaedra)

Media related to Phaedra at Wikimedia Commons