Mythological Background and Sources: Phaedra’s Fatal Letter

The myth of Hippolytus and Phaedra was well known in antiquity, and is fully attested in the tragedies of Euripides and Seneca.¹ It is acknowledged that there once existed at least two other famous plays focusing on Hippolytus’s myth, namely, Sophocles’s Phaedra and Euripides’s First Hippolytus (or Hippolytos Kalyptomenos, “Hippolytus Veiled”), of which only a few fragments are extant.² The main points of the narrative can be easily summarized: Phaedra, Theseus’s wife, falls in love with her stepson, Hippolytus, who rejects her love; as a consequence of this, Phaedra kills herself; before committing suicide, however, Phaedra accuses Hippolytus of rape or attempted rape; Theseus thus curses his son, causing his death.³ Scholars agree that the main variation between the two Euripidean tragedies lies mostly in their depiction of Phaedra. The heroine is more virtuous and more concerned with sophrosyne in the second and only extant drama by Euripides: Hippolytos Stephanophoros (“Hippolytus the Wreath-Bearer”; 428 BC); by contrast, she would have been more audacious and provocative in the previous drama.⁴ In the First Hippolytus, it seems that Phaedra openly confessed her love to Hippolytus, who, ashamed, covered his face with a veil (which is why the play is known as “Hippolytus Veiled”). Because of the shock that Phaedra’s direct confession and Hippolytus’s self-covering caused the audience, Euripides reportedly had to rewrite the play, offering a different version in which the most shameful content was expunged or modified.⁵

There is also agreement that Ovid mainly drew his own Phaedra from the First Hippolytus, particularly with respect to the attitudes of the heroine, who does not seem particularly concerned with morality or public opinion.⁶ However, certain elements of Heroides 4 clearly recall the extant Hippolytus, such as the ironic reference to Phaedra’s writing as an epistula (3), which may be read as an allusion to the writing tablet mentioned at Hippolytus 856. Phaedra’s writing played a very crucial role in the Hippolytus: it was on the “writing tablet” (δέλτος, 856) that Phaedra left as a postmortem message to Theseus before killing herself that the heroine set out her accusation against Hippolytus, who, she claimed, had raped her—while, as the audience knows, Phaedra herself had fallen in love with him (following Aphrodite’s intervention).⁷ Seeing the tablet, Theseus at first understood that it might contain “the instructions” (ἐπιστολὰς, 858; see the Latin word epistula) that Phaedra had left to him for the care of their children and household before committing suicide; by contrast, the Euripidean tablet reported the false charge against Hippolytus, provoking Theseus’s anger and causing Hippolytus’s death.⁸

The mention of the written message at Hippolytus 1311–1312 (ψευδεῖς γραφὰς ἔγραψε καὶ διώλεσεν / δόλοισι σὸν παῖδ᾽, ἀλλ᾽ ὅμως ἔπεισέ σε; [Phaedra] wrote a false letter and destroyed your son by treachery, but she nevertheless persuaded you) can be read vis-à-vis Heroides 4. The tragic consequences caused by the reading of the written tablet at Hippolytus 1311 are ironically recalled by the expression “quid epistula lecta nocebit?” (what will the reading of a letter harm?) at Heroides 4.3, where epistula indicates the material and concrete letter that the Ovidian Phaedra is writing, while also alluding to the Euripidean deltos (“writing tablet,” 856) and thus activating an intertextual (and lexical) link with the Euripidean ἐπιστολὰς (“instructions,” 858).⁹ Moreover, the opposition between Ovid’s emphasis on reading at 4.3 (epistula lecta, “the reading of a letter”) and Euripides’s emphasis on writing (γραφὰς ἔγραψε, 1311: literally, “[she] wrote a piece of writing,” with a figura etymologica) articulates the antitheses “speech/silence” and “writing/reading” that are pivotal in Heroides 4. The references to Euripides’s Hippolytus create a moment of dramatic irony, since educated readers know that it is precisely the written message contained in the Euripidean deltos that determines Hippolytus’s death.¹⁰ By hinting at Euripides’s writing tablet, Ovid’s Phaedra plays with the metapoetic and intertextual value of her writing, since she refers both to the (Ovidian) epistle she is writing and to her Euripidean message to Theseus.

These cross-references, as well as the metapoetic agency bestowed upon the letter, both as an intertext and a material object, suggest that Heroides 4 constitutes a sort of performative act by Phaedra,¹¹ who, instead of confessing her love openly (as in the First Hippolytus and, to a certain extent, in Seneca’s later Phaedra),¹² entrusts her words to the written text. The letter functions as an intermediary between Phae‑ dra and Hippolytus, and is therefore a proxy for Euripides’s nurse, who confesses Phaedra’s love to Hippolytus in the (extant) Euripidean drama but is not mentioned by (Ovid’s) Phaedra.¹³ The absence of any open references to such an important character within Euripides’s Hippolytus, namely, the nurse, encourages us to view the epistle as an “adjunct” character within Heroides 4. Besides being personified, the letter functions as a performative proxy for Phaedra’s confession to Hippolytus, which on the Euripidean stage would have been spoken either by Phaedra herself (First Hippolytus) or by the nurse (Second Hippolytus).¹⁴ The blurring of boundaries between fictional persona, or writer, and the literary object can be found in other passages of the Heroides (e.g., Her. 15.1–2, 217–220), as well as Ovid’s exile works (e.g., Tr. 3.1, 3.7.1–2), and lends a quasi-human agency to Phaedra’s epistle (and Ovid’s literary creation).¹⁵ While maintaining features of the epistolary genre, this letter thus reflects the definition of “dramatic monologues” that has been given to the Heroides, as it literally speaks in the place of the heroine.¹⁶Heroides 4 is a result of a mixture of previous sources, and it also represents an expression of Ovid’s poetic agenda in the Heroides: in Phaedra’s epistle, a tragic heroine is changed into a letter writer and at the same time an elegiac character (whereas in chapter 1 we saw the “metamorphosis” of the epic Penelope into an elegiac poet).¹⁷

In the letter’s opening couplet (“quam nisi tu dederis, caritura est ipsa, salutem / mittit Amazonio Cressa puella viro,” With wishes for the welfare which she herself, unless you give it to her, will ever lack, the Cretan girl greets the son of the Amazon; 1–2), the expression Cressa puella establishes an intertextual and dialectic relationship with Euripides’s παῖ Κρησία (“Cretan girl,” 372). The chiastic construction Amazonio Cressa puella viro not only points at the elegiac liaison between the puella (a word that is an “index of the elegiac code”)¹⁸ and the vir, but also presents a further implication.¹⁹ By referring to herself as Cressa puella and to Hippolytus as Amazonius, which represent, respectively, geographic provenance and lineage, Phaedra seems to completely forget, or rather to strategically ignore, the fact that the most direct way to address Hippolytus would be as “son.” The heroine rejects her quasi-maternal relationship with Hippolytus and establishes from the very beginning of the epistle an ironic discourse, in which her words are characterized by double meaning and allusivity.

While the phrasing Cressa puella/Amazonio viro is not exactly what knowledgeable readers of Euripides’s drama would expect from the letter opening, Phaedra does not actually state anything false. By means of omission and allusion, the heroine simply distorts the truth to present herself as an elegiac puella addressing her lover (rather than a stepmother addressing her stepson), thus complying with a programmatic elegiac pattern.²⁰ Moreover, Phaedra’s phrasing in this opening couplet also brings motherhood to the fore, as Amazonio is a way of referring to Hippolytus’s mother. A highly ambiguous character from the outset of her letter, Phaedra skillfully juggles two balls at the same time: she is both the elegiac puella and the elegiac poet, that is, the fictional author of her epistle. The blurring of boundaries between writing and being written, as well as elegy and tragedy, makes us reflect upon the interplay between literary creation and (pro)creative potential, erotic passion and maternity, within the epistle.

Before further analyzing the text of Heroides 4, it is beneficial to focus on certain aspects, as well as scholarly interpretations, of Phaedra’s and Hippolytus’s incestuous relationship, which are relevant to my argument. As mentioned, the coexistence of speech and silence is a trait d’union between Ovid’s epistle and Euripides’s play. While speech can be seen as a marker of agency and free expression (for women), silence denotes passivity. Specifically, female silence articulates women’s reification and subordination to phallogocentrism, that is, the dominance of masculine discourse—which in Lacanian terms can be indicated as the law of the Father. Moreover, female speech was, in some cases, related in the ancient world to a malicious attitude and a sexually active role.²¹ Accordingly, speaking or voicing their thoughts out loud is for women both a means of empowerment and a danger, insofar as it leads to a displacement of their traditional function (i.e., passive and merely procreative) within a patriarchal society, and therefore results in their marginalization. Given this significance of female speech (and silence), the confession of the Euripidean Phaedra articulates both her self-empowerment and her debacle, which begins with the loss of her honor and culminates with her suicide. In Heroides 4, the oral speech that women were (and often still are) prevented from voicing is replaced by the written text, which, as we have seen, ambiguously refers both to the actual letter Phaedra is writing and to the letter the heroine leaves to Theseus in Euripides’s drama.

Developing this intertextual level of allusions, and accordingly transposing the Ovidian letter into the Euripidean universe, Heroides 4 can be read as either another, different letter that Phaedra wrote before the Euripidean deltos, or as the same letter that we find in Euripides’s play. Despite this intended ambiguity, the tragic irony that characterizes the opening of Heroides 4 (“quid epistula lecta nocebit?” 3) seems to suggest that Phaedra’s epistle should be interpreted as a distorted rewriting of Euripides’s deltos, as it contains an entirely different text, with a different intention, addressee, and focus. By playing with Euripides’s drama, (Ovid’s) Phaedra posits a challenge to her Euripidean Doppelgängerin, thereby empowering herself to recast her narrative.²² Phaedra’s decisional power and self-determination therefore appear significantly increased in Heroides 4, which allows the heroine to completely rewrite her story. If the letter is a rewriting of the deltos and at the same time a substitute for the Euripidean nurse, then the absence of this intermediary figure empowers Phaedra to take on a more central role: on the “Ovidian stage” that the epistle itself represents (as opposed to the Euripidean stage), the heroine is the only one responsible for her acts as well as performance. The voice of (Ovid’s) Phaedra thus appears boosted by her écriture féminine. Through her writing, Phaedra can tell and shape her own narrative without pronouncing a single word aloud, without truly breaking the patriarchal inhibition on female speech. This power of the written text is articulated by the physical presence of the body of the text that Phaedra is writing, namely, her letter, which is materialized by the cross-references to the Euripidean writing tablet.²³ The materiality, and the agency, of Phaedra’s writing, which are stated at the beginning of her letter, amplify the heroine’s ability to intervene in her text, and accordingly in her story. By writing, Phaedra rediscovers herself and redefines her identity; through her storytelling, she reveals (to herself and readers) who she is.²⁴

In addition to the motif of speech, silence, and writing, it is worth focusing on another motif, hunting, that characterizes both Euripi‑ des’s Hippolytus and Heroides 4. Belonging to the sphere of aristocratic leisure activities, hunting is usually performed outside the city and for a limited amount of time: anthropological readings have demonstrated that hunting is particularly suitable for educative purposes in a temporary stage of life, thus playing a crucial role in the performative rites of passage to adulthood.²⁵ Hippolytus’s exclusive passion for hunting—which represents almost his only activity—articulates his marginality with respect to civic habits, as well as his inability to overcome a transitional stage of his life and participate in society. Hippolytus’s alterity, exemplified by his extreme devotion to hunting and chastity, thus makes his social and civic status as a (Roman) man appear precarious and challenges his masculinity.²⁶ In Heroides 4, Ovid has Phaedra emphasize, and build upon, this aspect of Hippolytus’s precarious manhood, thereby accomplishing her reconceptualization of gender roles, as well as erotic and familial relationships.

This precarious masculinity is also conveyed by Hippolytus’s sojourns in wild places, such as woodlands, which, particularly in Ovidian poetry, have been interpreted as spaces in the feminine sphere, where men are perceived as intruders.²⁷ The wilderness is also a prominent feature of the Cretan, proto-Greek, and almost primitive context of savagery and violence, to which Phaedra’s family belongs.²⁸ Accordingly, Heroides 4, and more specifically Phaedra’s erotic drive toward her stepson, must be re-situated in this border space, which is suspended between the world she knows (which is subject to traditional social and family rules) and a sort of “other-world” where, as Phaedra will state later in her letter (Her. 4.129–140), incestuous relationships are permitted and sanctioned by the gods. In this light, Phaedra’s desire to go hunting with Hippolytus (see, e.g., Eur. Hipp. 215–238; Her. 4.37–50), which expresses her wish to follow Hippolytus and enjoy his company, is also an actual attempt to construct a sort of upside-down world, thereby relocating herself beyond the borders of the androcentric, Greek culture–based, and Olympian system.

The last motif worth introducing at this stage is Phaedra’s death, which in Euripides is accomplished through self-hanging, but in Heroides 4 is not even mentioned or implied by Phaedra. While hanging is the most common way that women killed themselves or were killed in the Greco-Roman tradition, death by sword was conceived as a male and heroic way to die (see, e.g., Sophocles’s Ajax).²⁹ The absence of any references to Phaedra’s suicide, a central element in the previous sources, creates a narratological vacuum within Ovid’s letter. This omission further contributes to Phaedra’s departure from previous traditions, as well as stereotypically feminine traits, and would be developed in a different version of the heroine’s self-murder by Seneca.³⁰ In the homonymous drama, Seneca gives Phaedra a heroic and masculine death, as she commits suicide with a sword,³¹ perhaps due to the influence of Ovid’s Dido (Her. 7) and Canace (Her. 11)—which we will explore in the next two chapters. This blurring of boundaries between genders and genres, speech and writing, and tradition and irony, is articulated by Phaedra’s rejection and reinterpretation of her (step)motherhood in Heroides 4, which contribute to her self-empowerment and agency. The reconceptualization of (step)motherhood is a means for Phaedra to reframe both linguistic and ontological categories.

Ovid’s Phaedra and Her (Step)Motherhood

After introducing herself as a Cressa puella (“Cretan girl,” 2), instead of the stepmother (noverca) that she is, Phaedra maintains that an epistula lecta (“the reading of a message,” 3) cannot be dangerous for Hippolytus, and that he may even find something pleasant within it (“te quoque in hac aliquid quod iuvet esse potest”; 4).³² In this opening, the heroine ambiguously hints at the Euripidean drama, where the deltos (“writing tablet”) is what caused Hippolytus’s death. Through the emphasis on the effects of amor and the strength of her passion (9–20), Phaedra continues her allusive discourse, as well as enhancing the dialectic between speech and silence, and speech and writing.³³

The blurring of boundaries between spoken and written words is linked to the antithesis between pudor (“decency”) and amor (“love”) at lines 9–10,³⁴ where it is worth noting the emphatic epanalepsis and figura etymologica between amori and amor.³⁵ By addressing, reinterpreting, and reshaping a pivotal motif of the Euripidean drama, (Ovid’s) Phaedra seeks to persuade Hippolytus that pudor and amor, modesty and passion, are compatible.³⁶ Although pudor prevents Phaedra from expressing her passion aloud (see dicere, 10), as she noticeably does in the First Hippolytus, this prescription concerning the spoken language is overcome by the use of the written text, that is, the epistle.

As it breaks the taboo of incest, her love cannot be confessed openly through her voice, but finds expression in Phaedra’s writing. According to a widespread topos in elegy, Phaedra’s verses are dictated by amor, who appears personified and is addressed as a ruling god, even among the gods themselves (11–12).³⁷ By attributing the responsibility of letter writing to amor, Phaedra seems, in the first instance, to reject her active role as the author of her letter: “ille mihi primo dubitanti scribere dixit: / ‘scribe! dabit victas ferreus ille manus’” (He told me to write, when first I was hesitant: “Write! The iron-hearted one will yield his defeated hands”; 13–14).³⁸Amor made Phaedra write, ventriloquizing her. This attribution of the poetic composition to amor further contributes to positioning Phaedra’s letter within the elegiac universe, as well as linking the heroine to Ovid’s programmatic self-representation in Amores 1.1.1–4, where the poet witnesses Cupid’s intervention in his writing.³⁹ By making her own voice speak via amor and likening herself to Ovid’s poetic persona in the opening lines of the Amores, Phae‑ dra performs a sort of self-investiture as an elegiac poet, rather than downplaying her role as an author. Thus, the heroine creates an overlap between the fictional female persona and the male poet, as well as enhancing the polyphony intrinsic to her entire epistle.⁴⁰

The relationship between Phaedra’s authorial voice, her literary creation, and her motherhood can be further investigated through analysis of narrative processes within female storytelling. By allowing women to report their subjective experience of reality, female writing challenges reification by heteronormative, patriarchal discourse. Through the adoption of a programmatic elegiac language, as well as the perspective of the (male) poet, Phaedra accomplishes a process of self-definition and self-determination, and expresses her subjectivity through her literary creation.⁴¹ As a literary production, writing parallels actual (re)production and replaces (pro)creation with a different kind of childbirth, one that is literary and fictional.⁴² By displacing the normative procreative function of women, female writing threatens the delicate balance sanctioned by the patriarchal system between social roles and sexual tasks. Therefore, on a first-level reading, the heroine’s initial rejection of her (step)motherhood is a rhetorical strategy that aims to deny her incestuous relationship and facilitate her love. Concurrently, the lack of an open reference to her quasi-parental relationship to Hippolytus, and the insistence on amor as a guarantee of her elegiac love and her status as an elegiac poet, suggest that (step)motherhood is seen by the heroine—at least at this point in her letter—as a potential obstacle to the expression of her passion and her (pro)creative ability as the author of a literary text.⁴³ While Phaedra constructs herself as an elegiac poet, Heroides 4 is characterized by the continuous overlap of her words and Ovid’s ironic voice.

The expression socialia foedera is somewhat peculiar and ambiguous, as the adjective socialis does not appear in poetry before Ovid, whereas the substantive foedus has a highly programmatic value in elegy.⁴⁴ While foedus indicates sexual union, the adjective socialis can refer both to a kind of political alliance (societas) and to an erotic relationship.⁴⁵ Given this context, Phaedra may be playing with the conflation of the two meanings and underscoring the contractual nature of her marriage, rather than her genuine erotic engagement with Theseus. Along with the adjective socialis, the verb rumpo lends a legal connotation to the reference to Phaedra’s union with Theseus, as it evokes the idea of the damage to or infringement of a property, which—in the view of the heroine—does not take place.⁴⁶ The overlap of the elegiac and legal meanings of socialia foedera increases the ambiguity and, simultaneously, the effectiveness of Phaedra’s argument. As an elegiac character, Phaedra cannot be said to break any rules, as adulterous relationships are precisely the rule in elegy. From a legal perspective, Phaedra is also entitled to deny that she is violating her marital contract, perhaps simply because she sees Hippolytus as a Doppelgänger, a proxy of Theseus.⁴⁷ Through her ambiguous language and rhetorical strategies, Phaedra reinterprets the meaning of the marital contract within Roman society and masks Ovid’s provocative engagement with contemporary Augustan legislation.⁴⁸ Therefore, the coexistence of the voices of the (male) poet and (female) heroine that characterizes this passage represents, in its conflation, a similar aim: the subversive deconstruction of existing norms and regulations, whether the taboo of incest or Augustan family policy.

This deconstruction is further developed in the lines that follow and finds expression in Phaedra’s distorted (re)interpretation of the concept of virginity (21–36). In most of Heroides 4, Phaedra seemingly forgets, or pretends to forget, her previous relationship with Theseus, as well as the children she had with him.⁴⁹ By addressing the idea of virginity, she presents herself as similar to the virginal Hippolytus and aligns her condition, and her identity, with her stepson.⁵⁰ Phaedra’s literary “forgetfulness” concerning her liaison with Theseus is counterbalanced by her literary memory, and awareness, of Hippolytus’s strong devotion to virginity and corporeal pureness. The mention of the nova servatae … libamina famae (“the fresh first-offerings of a preserved honor,” 27), alongside the allusions to her good reputation as an offer to her stepson,⁵¹ suggests that the heroine’s alleged virginity (and purity) not only pertains to her body but also signifies a moral value. The end of this professed virginity would destroy both Phaedra’s and Hippolytus’s purity, as well as honor: “et pariter nostrum fiet uterque nocens” (And both of us will be equal in our guilt; 28) alludes both to Phaedra’s awareness of the consequences of her relationship with Hippolytus and to Ovid’s, and the educated reader’s, (fore)knowledge of their tragic destiny.⁵²

After having further emphasized her purity through the depiction of her passion as an untouched love (29–34), the heroine mentions that she would not even prefer Jupiter to Hippolytus (35–36). Beyond playing with a famous topos of erotic discourse,⁵³ this couplet contains a reference to the incestuous relationship between Jupiter and Juno (fratremque virumque, “brother and husband,” 35), which foreshadows the excursus on the realms of Saturn and the following age (131–140), the age of Jupiter, wherein incest is depicted as a legitimate and normal practice.⁵⁴ Although Phaedra still does not openly acknowledge the incestuous nature of her relationship, she strongly emphasizes that Jupiter and Juno are both siblings and partners, which shrewdly anticipates, and prepares the ground for, her argument that incest is not such a serious crime. Moreover, in addition to failing to notice the incestuous nature of her love at this stage, Phaedra eagerly defends her reputation against the potential charge of committing adultery with her stepson (27–36). The heroine’s strong concern about her potential adultery, rather than her incest, seemingly reflects the central focus (and preoccupation) of contemporary Augustan legislation, which supported legitimate parenthood and punished extramarital unions.⁵⁵ However, as we know, Phaedra’s letter eventually contravenes that legislation, since adultery is not enough to make the heroine refrain from pursuing her passion. While this emphasis on adultery may articulate Phaedra’s (and Ovid’s) rather impertinent attitude toward current Augustan policies regulating sexual behaviors, the heroine’s denial of the incestuous nature of her relationship paves the way to her self-presentation as an elegiac lover, and poet, and to the rejection of her (step)motherhood at large.⁵⁶

Together with the rejection of her motherhood, Phaedra’s insistence on virginity is aimed at constructing herself as a counterpart of both the goddess Diana (worshipped by Hippolytus) and Hippolytus himself. This attempt to align herself with Diana, Hippolytus, or even an Amazon (as Hippolytus’s mother was) is particularly clear in Phaedra’s description of her desire to go hunting (37–52), as well as her self-depiction as a sort of huntress (“ignotas mittor in artes,” I am launched upon pursuits I did not know; 37).⁵⁷ Like Hippolytus, Phaedra seems to be stuck in a liminal phase, where she is ignorant of her previous sexual relationships, her marital status, and her (step)motherhood.⁵⁸ On the one hand, hunting represents the heroine’s attempt to depict herself as a version of Hippolytus and persuade him to start a relationship with her, as well as expressing a rejection of her (step)motherhood.⁵⁹ On the other hand, hunting articulates Phaedra’s desire to cross boundaries and escape from domestic settings, evading the closed space of the house, to which women are confined. This evasion and search for agency parallel Phaedra’s self-expression as a writer and elegiac poet of her epistle, as hunting and writing can be seen as hypostases of both this process of escape and liberation from physical, linguistic, psychological, and symbolic boundaries.⁶⁰ In this conflation of spatial and textual dimensions, where the open space of the woodland overlaps with Phaedra’s “room of her own” (i.e., the “free” niche of subjective writing), the heroine can (re)shape her quasi-maternal identity, by first rejecting, then reappropriating, and finally deconstructing it.⁶¹

Phaedra’s negation of her (step)motherhood is strengthened by what appears, at first, as a rejection of her mother’s motherhood.⁶² At lines 57–62, the heroine refers to her mother, Pasiphaë, who fell in love with a bull, and to her sister, Ariadne, deceived by Theseus.⁶³ This catalogue (53–62) of Phaedra’s female relatives (Europa, Pasiphaë, Ariadne) can be seen as a rewriting Hippolytus 337–341 but here appears to be modified according to the rhetorical purposes of the (Ovidian) heroine. Having listed the doomed destinies of three female members of her family (Europa, carried off by a bull; Pasiphaë, who develops an unnatural passion for a bullock; and Ariadne, abandoned by Theseus), who correspond to three generations, Phaedra states that she is the last to come under the law of her stock (61–62). Given her family’s inclination toward illicit relationships, Phaedra falling in love with her stepson complies with the “laws of her family”: “in socias leges ultima gentis eo” (I am the last one of my stock to follow the laws of my family; 62). The expression socias leges (which can indicate familial, social, marriage laws)⁶⁴ recalls the socialia foedera at 17, and emphasizes Phaedra’s distortion and overthrow of the “norms” regulating marriage and, more broadly, familial relationships. By exploiting the coexistence of social, familial, and legal connotations of socius/socialis, Phaedra rightfully maintains that she did not violate any socias leges, since she is in fact obeying the laws of her family, wherein perverted passions seem to be customary (see 62).⁶⁵ These distorted norms were clearly established by Pasiphaë’s childbirth (57–58), which is defined as a crimen (“crime”) and onus (“burden”).⁶⁶ The phrasing at line 58, “enixa est utero crimen onusque suo” ([she] brought forth in travail her crime and burden), which echoes Heroides 11.64 (see chapter 4) and recalls Phaedra’s own crimen at 18, suggests a sort of alienation of the mother from the child through the impersonal reference to the fetus or newborn as crimen and onus.

This depersonalization of the fetus articulates Phaedra’s rejection of her mother both as a parental figure and as a reflection of her own abnormal maternal relationship with Hippolytus. Both Pasiphaë’s monstrous childbirth and Phaedra’s (step)motherhood are linked to the idea of pregnancy, and motherhood, as simultaneously dangerous and attractive. The pregnant body is something in between natural laws of perpetuation of the species—which are recognized as socially acceptable and even supported (see Augustan legislation)—and, conversely, abnormality and uncanniness. The pregnant woman is perceived as unexplainable and mysterious; “othered” and reified, she embodies the patriarchal “myth of femininity”;⁶⁷ her location is “on the threshold between nature and culture, biology and language”— in Julia Kristeva’s words.⁶⁸ Phaedra’s fear of and hostility toward (step)motherhood, which is implied in her reference to Pasiphaë’s monstrous childbirth, articulate her attempt to deconstruct well-established and conventional conceptions of women, the female body, and maternity. The heroine’s subversion of social and familial relationships, as well as gender roles, continues at lines 71–84, which feature Phaedra’s description of Hippolytus.

Widely studied and variously interpreted, this passage has been attributed to the “topos of erotic composition, … namely, the distorted manner in which a lover can visualize his beloved.”⁶⁹ Indeed, this description resonates with Ovid’s precepts at Ars amatoria 1.509–511 (“forma viros neglecta decet; Minoida Theseus / abstulit a nulla tempora comptus acu; / Hippolytum Phaedra, nec erat bene cultus, amavit,” An uncared-for beauty is appropriate to men; Theseus carried off Minos’ daughter, with his temples adorned with no clasp; Phaedra fell in love with Hippolytus, but he was not elegant at all), which suggest that Hippolytus’s rusticitas (“rudeness”), as well as his verecundus … rubor (“blush of modesty,” 72) and chastity, is precisely what Phaedra finds attractive.⁷⁰ While Ovidian intertextuality enhances Phaedra’s function as praeceptor amoris, this passage also features a gender role reversal, with Phaedra becoming an active observer of Hippolytus’s body, an attitude that very closely recalls the “scopophilic,” lustful male gaze of elegiac poets.⁷¹

Taking the role of the elegiac poet once again, Phaedra focuses in particular on the visual and coloristic aspects of Hippolytus’s physical appearance:⁷²vestis … candida; his locks bound round with flowers (71);⁷³ the verecundus … rubor (72), a reference to Hippolytus’s virginity, coloring his “sun-browned face” (72);⁷⁴ his vultum, severe and fierce, appearing “strong” to the heroine’s eyes (74). Phaedra concludes her description by saying that she prefers roughness and toughness to effeminate attire (75–76).⁷⁵ Reflecting a principle that is also enunciated by Ovid in his didactic works (e.g., Medic. 23–26; Ars am. 3.107–108, 127–128), this couplet further contributes to Phaedra’s self-construction as a praeceptor amoris, and elegiac poet, writing her own “art of love.” Lines 75–76 also articulate a blurring of the boundaries between femininity (75) and masculinity (76) in the description of Hippolytus. His beauty, which is characterized by sacredness, purity, and virginal delicacy (candida vestis; praecincti flore capilli; verecundus … rubor / flava … ora), is ephebic; his appearance and virginity have a feminine component, which, alongside his isolation from social life, questions his status as an adult male. Therefore, Hippolytus’s rusticitas can be seen as a marker of hypermasculinity (see 75–76), while at the same time hinting at his precarious and undeveloped manhood.

Hippolytus’s masculinity is further threatened, and questioned, by Phaedra’s exercise of her “scopophilic” (male) gaze, which “projects its fantasy onto the [fe]male figure, which is styled accordingly.”⁷⁶ Phae‑ dra shows a scopophilic attitude toward the “feminized” body of Hippolytus, thus transforming him into the unreachable candida puella featured prominently in the poetry of male elegists;⁷⁷ concurrently, Phae‑ dra also builds her visualization of Hippolytus on the basis of her own desires, expectations, and fantasies. Beyond displaying Hippolytus’s body to the reader,⁷⁸ Phaedra’s description also operates as an active scopophilic pleasure, which leads to an identification with the visualized object.⁷⁹ The scopophilic gaze produces two different kinds of gender role reversals: first, a reversal between Phaedra as a lover and [fe]male observer, and Hippolytus as a scopophilic (fe)male object; second, Phaedra’s self-identification with her stepson (see 37–52) and, accordingly, appropriation of his image and tasks. This identification is a consequence of the progressive development of Phaedra’s self-awareness, which implies an initial rejection of her status as a (step)mother.

Phaedra’s rejection of her (step)motherhood is also linked to the negation of her status as the wife of Theseus, whose mention as Phaedra’s husband is delayed until lines 109–116. This reference to Theseus, who will remain away for a long time (“abest aberitque diu,” He is absent, and will be absent long [with polyptoton]; 109), is highly rhetorical and aims to underline his offenses to Phaedra, as well as placing him in a bad light: he preferred Pirithous’s companionship to that of both Phaedra and Hippolytus (109–112);⁸⁰ he offended Phaedra’s family by killing her brother, the Minotaur (115–116), and abandoning Ariadne (59–60),⁸¹ as well as Phaedra and Hippolytus, because of his mission (or relationship) with Pirithous (“in magnis laesi rebus uterque sumus,” We were both damaged [by him] in deep injuries; 114).⁸² While at line 28 the pronoun uterque referred to the fact that both Phaedra and Hippolytus were guilty (uterque nocens, 28), at 114 Phaedra and Hippolytus are placed (again) on the same level, only this time in respect to the damage they both suffered from Theseus.

As a culmination of this damage, Theseus is accused of having killed Hippolytus’s mother, who, as the “first in virtue among the battle-axe-bearing girls” (i.e., the Amazons), gave birth to Hippolytus (117–118). This periphrastic reference to the Amazons (117), a female community from which male presence was almost entirely excluded (the only exception being the need for procreation), hints at Hippolytus’s hatred of “the other sex,” which he seems to inherit from his race—and his mother in particular.⁸³ At the same time, this couplet is characterized by further ambiguity, as the expression securigeras … puellas at line 117 (“battle-axe-bearing girls”) rather contradictorily combines a quasi-elegiac mention of the puellas with a reference to violent battle. Accordingly, the mighty Amazonian puella turns into a mother “worthy of her son’s force” (nati digna vigore parens, 118), both in terms of strength and, perhaps, rejection of the “other sex.”⁸⁴ Killed by Theseus’s sword (119), which is a weapon suited to kill male, epic warriors, Hippolytus’s mother becomes a symbol of Theseus’s unjust behavior:⁸⁵ the murder of his mother should convince Hippolytus to take Phaedra’s side against Theseus. At the same time, the mention of Antiope is rhetorically aimed at reminding Hippolytus that Phaedra is not his (actual) mother. By stressing the lack of any parental bond between herself and Hippolytus, Phaedra denies her (step)motherhood for the last time within her letter—before she starts to accept and reconceptualize it.

After saying that Hippolytus was not a sufficient “assurance” (pignore, 120) to save his mother from Theseus’s sword, the heroine suddenly acknowledges her status as the wife of Theseus, mother of their children, and Hippolytus’s stepmother. This reappropriation of her role(s) is anticipated by the choice of the ambivalent word pignus (120), which can be translated as both “assurance/guarantee/pledge” and “child.”⁸⁶ Hippolytus’s ambivalent status as a “child” and “guarantee” parallels Phaedra’s ambiguous stepmotherhood. Once acknowledged, stepmotherhood is treated at first as a mere literary and cultural topos. As stepmothers were (and in some cases in popular culture still are) widely believed to be hostile to their stepchildren, with designs to usurp their inheritance, the heroine specifies that Theseus—not Phaedra herself—wanted to recognize his children with Phaedra as legitimate: “addidit et fratres ex me tibi, quos tamen omnis / non ego tollendi causa, sed ille fuit” (He even added brothers to you from me, but the reason for rearing them all as heirs has been not myself, but he; 123–124), where the verb tollere, here in the gerund, is a technical, and legal, term to indicate the acceptance of a child by the father.⁸⁷ The references to legitimate unions and the legitimacy of childbirth represent two elements that, once again, have a legal connotation and may thus recall contemporary Augustan legislation (and concerns) about familial relationships. The status of illegitimate children (the so-called filii iniusti or filii naturales) underwent some modifications under Augustus, which were in agreement with the princeps’s policy against adulteries.⁸⁸ While Phaedra’s Ovidian voice plays with the main features of contemporary legislation concerning marriage, women, and children, as an elegiac poet Phaedra underlines her complete lack of responsibility for Theseus’s choices, thereby denying her alignment with the traditional motif of the dira noverca (“cruel stepmother”; see 129, 140), as well as challenging the significance of parental relationships, and accordingly her stepmotherhood.⁸⁹

With a cunning rhetorical strategy, the heroine justifies the damage that she may have caused to Hippolytus by marrying Theseus; she also rejects her marital union to appear more desirable to her stepson, in agreement with the virginal frame that characterizes the first part of her epistle. At the same time, Phaedra’s mention of her children with Theseus also anticipates her desire to reacquire full possession of her own persona through the acknowledgment, reshaping, and reappropriation of her (step)motherhood.⁹⁰ As we shall see, this reappropriation is reached in the last part of the epistle, where Phaedra establishes her ‘law of the Mother’ (as opposed to the Lacanian law of the Father), thereby challenging and reconceptualizing the traditional concepts of motherhood and stepmotherhood.

Phaedra’s New Order: The “Law of the Mother”

After consistently ignoring and strategically omitting open references to her status as a married woman and a stepmother of Hippolytus, at line 129 finally Phaedra acknowledges her stepmotherhood. The heroine points out the opposition between the rustica … regna of Saturn (“rustic realms,” 132), in which incestuous relationships were not allowed, and the aevus futurus (“the age to come,” 131), that is, the present age, where incest and adultery are said to be ratified by gods themselves. The negative connotation of the realm of Saturn, which was traditionally linked to the Golden Age, is functional to Phaedra’s argument that incest is sanctioned by the Olympian gods.⁹¹ This negative connotation also has a programmatic value within Ovid’s elegiac poetry, where rusti‑ citas (“roughness”) is rejected, while cultus—“cultivation,” in manners and love, along with moral freedom—is welcomed. This reversal of the traditional features of the two ages articulates Phaedra’s reinterpretation of well-established conceptions, which suits both her arguments and her view of familial and social relationships.

By stating that noverca (“stepmother”) and privignus (“stepson”) represent nomina vana, that they are merely empty definitions and do not have any actual value (129–130),⁹² Phaedra further develops the ambiguity of speech, concepts, and writing that characterizes her entire letter (see, e.g., her hesitation to openly pronounce Hippolytus’s name, and her own, at the very beginning of the epistle).⁹³ This rejection of well-acknowledged and conventional definitions also anticipates the ensuing opposition between the rustica … regna (“rustic realms”) and the aevus futurus (“age to come”), where kinship seems to have lost its normative value. The reference to “the empty names” at 130, that is, mere words without any real significance, can be read against Kristeva’s semiotics as a traditional mark of écriture féminine. Since, according to Kristeva, female writing is characterized by the lack of a binary link between signifier and signified, and implies something deeper than what can be gathered from a surface-level reading,⁹⁴ so Phaedra’s writing is ambiguous and polysemous, insofar as it has multiple meanings, which aim to dismantle binary oppositions as well as subvert gender and social categories. Through this fictional form of female writing, Ovid has Phaedra create a separate space, an enclave, wherein traditional definitions lose their mono-dimensionality, and are reconceptualized, thus acquiring various meanings. While seemingly provided with a certain agency, Phaedra’s voice is neither clear nor entirely open but rather remains hidden, as it is still hindered to some extent by preexisting, traditional, binary definitions, which belong to the symbolic and linguistic space of patriarchal discourse: the law of the Father.⁹⁵

This law of the Father is subtly and progressively disavowed through the (re-)creation of a reality where the rules established by a patriarchal society, as well as the Olympian system, are not fully denied but recast, readapted, and reinterpreted. This new reality is not represented by the rustica regna of Saturn, the stereotypical and highly stylized Golden Age (celebrated by Vergil in Ecl. 4). In fact, it originates from the subversive content that can be found even in a fictional world dominated by the order of the “father” of the gods, Jupiter, and in a real world ruled by the “father of the state,” the pater patriae Augustus. Despite this normative society shaped by men, the maternal component—the “law of the Mother”—thus persists in a more implicit form within écriture féminine:⁹⁶a subtle, undefined, and undetermined force that reinterprets and undermines the rules of the patriarchal, and Olympian, order.

Accordingly, the vetus pietas (131), which characterized kinship and social relationships in the rustica … regna (132), would disappear in subsequent times, that is, the present (aevo moritura futuro, 131). Jupiter himself is said to have established as pium (“virtuous”) what is able to give pleasure (133), and everything is sanctioned as fas (“divine law”), incest in particular (since the sister, Juno, has married her brother, Jupiter; 134).⁹⁷ Such a bond of kinship (generis iunctura, 135) is firmly tied (coit; see also 129)⁹⁸ with a chain knotted by Venus herself (135–136), so that the culpa (“fault”; a programmatic word to indicate an adulterous affair) can be hidden by the name of kinship (138).⁹⁹ By pointing out the inconsistency between the rules imposed by morality or social customs and the norms established by gods, Phaedra questions and challenges the current, well-acknowledged system of values. While representing an ironic reinterpretation of the Olympian schemes, Phaedra’s subversive attitude also appears highly problematic in the hic et nunc of Ovid’s contemporary context. Frequently described as the “new” Golden Age brought back by Augustus, the age of Saturn became an embodiment, a literary symbol for the return of peace, wealth, and morality under the princeps. After reassessing the existing system of values through the enclosed space of her écriture féminine, Ovid’s Phaedra uses this space to provocatively engage with Augustus’s ideological frame through her reinterpretation of definitions (see the nomina vana at 130), familial relationships, and what was considered the Golden Age (i.e., the realms of Saturn).

As words have lost their binary, “symbolic” meaning, and traditional definitions have no significance, there is no need to refrain from referring to things, people, and concepts by their proper names. Phaedra’s initial vagueness about her status as a stepmother shifts to open acknowledgment, as well as legitimation, of her (step)motherhood at the end of her letter. The Cressa puella (“Cretan girl,” 2), who abstained from pronouncing her own name (as well as mentioning her role within the family) at the beginning of the epistle, is no longer afraid to be called a noverca, “a stepmother loyal to her stepson” (see privigno fida noverca meo, with a chiastic construction, at 140); the incestuous bond, which should have hindered Phaedra’s love, now becomes a means to cultivate her relationship.¹⁰⁰ This part of the letter shows how the two voices, one of the poet and the other of the heroine, entirely overlap and converge to the same aim.¹⁰¹ While Phaedra’s persona infringes on the rules sanctioned by a patriarchal system of values and, accordingly, perpetuates the subversive content of her quasi-feminine writing, Ovid plays with the norms established by the “father” Augustus, the pater patriae, thereby positing a subtle challenge to the dominant political and social discourse.¹⁰² Phaedra’s reappropriation of her stepmotherhood is an expression of this dissent and subversive attitude (129–130, 140): maternity, like other social norms established by the institutions or authority, is first accepted, only to be subsequently deprived of its objective significance and provided with a new, subjective meaning.

The traditional elegiac topoi are also reinterpreted and incorporated within the writing of the heroine, who toward the end of the epistle performs a programmatic plea like an elegiac lover (149–164).¹⁰³ This return to a more authentic elegiac attitude is a consequence of Phaedra’s temporary trespass outside of the limits imposed by her stepmotherhood and social norms. The heroine’s acceptance and reappropriation of her (step)motherhood coincide with the rehabilitation of her own mother, who, distinct from lines 55–58, is mentioned as a good example to follow (165–166). If her mother was able “to pervert the bull” (corrumpere taurum, 165), Phaedra wonders why she should be unable to do the same with Hippolytus.¹⁰⁴ Ovid’s educated reader, who is supposed to be aware of Hippolytus’s reaction to Phaedra’s passion in other sources (culminating in his famous misogynistic speech reported by both Euripides and Seneca), already knows that Phaedra’s attempts will be frustrated. The tragic irony of the (Ovidian) heroine serves to question the previous literary tradition, alongside well-established normative categories concerning familial, social, and political relations. By prospecting a different outcome to the story, Phaedra posits her challenge to what is customary and well recognized.

Phaedra’s inclusion of elegiac motifs in her rhetorical strategy continues in her final prayer (167–174), where she wishes for Hippolytus to survive and have success in his undertakings. In this ironic readaptation of such a programmatic formula, the concessive of lines 173–174, quamvis odisse puellas / diceris (“although you are said to hate womankind”), can be read as an implied reference to the extended misogynistic speech of Hippolytus in both Euripides (601–668) and, later, Seneca (672–697). The brevity and tangentiality of this reference are striking when contrasted with the length and elaborate nature of Hippolytus’s speech in the Euripidean drama, particularly given his famed hatred for women, notable in the literary tradition.¹⁰⁵ The final disavowal and overthrow of readers’ expectations are certainly in agreement with the tone of the entire letter, which, as we have seen, is highly ironic, ambiguous, and polysemous. By incorporating this polysemy into what is a de facto monologue, Phaedra’s persona is cooperating with Ovid’s voice to accomplish a (partial) deconstruction of reality. While Ovid’s reality consists of his contemporary historical and political context, Phaedra’s subversive discourse challenges wider social and mental constructions. This double-voiced discourse takes place in a limited space, namely, the subtext of the epistle, where Phae‑ dra’s process of rejection, reappropriation, and overcoming of the traditional idea of (step)motherhood is finally accomplished. Through her écriture féminine, Phaedra thus sanctions the “law of the Mother” and establishes a new gnoseological, discursive, and ontological order, which is antithetical to the law of the Father, and accordingly the current sociopolitical system.

1. See Wotke in RE XIX 1543–1552, s.v. “Phaidra.”

2. Barrett 1964, 15–45; for the extant fragments of Sophocles’s Phaedra, see TGF 4.675–693.

3. For a short overview, see Barrett 1964, 1–2, 13–15.

4. Barrett 1964, 10–15; Halleran 1995, 25–27.

5. See Barrett 1964, 11–12, 37–38; Halleran 1995, 26–27.

6. Jacobson 1974, 144; Knox 2002, 130–132.

7. For the function and agency of the deltos in this passage, see Mueller 2011, 151–157; also Barrett 1964, 326–335; Halleran 1995, 221–225.

8. Mueller 2011, 151–152; on ἐπιστολὰς as “a message, whether written or verbal; esp. one giving instructions,” see Barrett 1964, 327.

9. Jacobson 1974, 146; Davis 1995, 41–42.

10. After having read the tablet and realized that Hippolytus had (allegedly) raped Phae‑ dra, Theseus engages in a violent dialogue with his son (Hipp. 856–1101), who does not reveal the truth, since he previously swore to the nurse that he would keep the secret (601–615). Theseus therefore curses Hippolytus, causing his son’s horrible death (the so-called sparagmos), which is described by the messenger (1173–1254).

11. For the performative power of the deltos, see Mueller 2011, 172–174.

12. For Phaedra’s confession to Hippolytus in Seneca, see Pha. 646–671, with Coffey and Mayer 1990, 148–151; Casamento 2011, 198–200.

13. See Landolfi 2000, 19.

14. At Hipp. 877 (βοᾷ βοᾷ δέλτος ἄλαστα, the tablet cries aloud, it cries aloud of horror!), Euripides already blurred the lines between speech and written text: for an object-oriented reading of the deltos in Euripides’s drama, see Mueller 2011, 148–177. For the theatrical potential of the Heroides, see Curley 2013, 59–95.

15. See Martorana 2020b, 138–141.

16. See Rosati 1989, 6; Auhagen 1999, 12, 45–63; also Steinmetz 1987, 128–145.

17. See Rosati 1985, 113–131; De Vito 1994, 324–325.

18. Casali 1995a, 2.

19. For the variant reading non est habitura instead of caritura est ipsa, see Nanni 2007–2008, 39–40, with bibliography (see Met. 9.530). The word Cressa (for this form, see Barchiesi 1992, 148) is attributed also to Pasiphaë, Phaedra’s mother, and recalls her unnatural love for a bull: see Am. 1.7.16; Her. 2.76; Ars am. 1.327; for Amazonio viro, see Eur. Hipp. 10, 351: ὅστις ποθ᾽ οὗτός ἐσθ᾽, ὁ τῆς Ἀμαζόνος (“whatever his name is, son of the Amazon”).

20. Jacobson 1974, 147.

21. Rabinowitz (1987, 128) observes that “in Hippolytus’ view, women are counterfeit coin, they are oversexed, and they talk too much”; for Phaedra’s speech vis-à-vis the broader issue of female speech in Greek drama, see McClure 1999, 112–135; see above, chapter 2.

22. Casali 1995a, 1: “Phaedra is a character who (in literary history) has already written a famous letter”; pace Torresin (1998, 172), who downplays the influence of the tragic model on Her. 4.

23. On embodied texts and the materiality, or corporeality, of writing, see Derrida 1976, 35; Derrida 1978; Derrida 2005 (esp. 4–18); Reynolds 2004, 29–30.

24. On storytelling as a rediscovery of one’s identity, see Cavarero (2000, 14–15, 18), who builds on Barthes; on female autobiographical storytelling within Ovidian poetry, see Sharrock 2022, 283–306.

25. One example is the final rite of passage young aristocratic Spartans performed to become adult Spartiates, which consisted of kidnapping and killing one or more helots in nightly hunting; this practice was defined as krypteia (Plut. Lyc. 28; see, e.g., Jeanmaire 1913, 121–150; Vidal-Naquet 1968, 55–56; Cartledge 2001, 151–152). For the isolation and dangerous purity of the woodlands within Euripides’s Hippolytus, see Segal 1986a, 165–221; for hunting as a denial of Hippolytus’s sexuality as well as an expression of isolation, see Goldhill 1986, 120–121.

26. Segal 1986b, 106–110.

27. Fabre-Serris 2014, 281.

28. Armstrong 2006, 71–108; see also Fulkerson 2005, 133, on Cretan loves as “deviant.”

29. See Jocasta and Penelope’s maidens, who also die by hanging (Hom. Od. 22.462–473; Soph. OT 1237–1285). For how gender affects ways of dying, particularly within tragedy, see Loraux 1987 (7–30, for the dichotomy between the “rope and the sword”); on Phaedra’s death, and its visual representations, see Doria and Giuman 2016, 1–34.

30. Many parallels between Seneca’s Phaedra and Ovid’s Her. 4 have been signaled by the various commentators: Grimal 1965; Coffey and Mayer 1990; Casamento 2011. For the influence of Ovid’s mentions and representations of Phaedra on Seneca, see Trinacty 2014, 67–79.

31. See Segal 1986b, 130–179.

32. For the lecta epistula as a reference to Euripides’s writing tablet, see Casali 1995a, 1–2.

33. For a similar personification of amor as an elegiac adviser, see Ov. Am. 2.1.3; Her. 20.230, with Fulkerson 2005, 136.

34. For the dichotomy between speech and writing within the Heroides, see Spentzou 2003, 140–143.

35. The opposition between pudor and amor was a central theme in Euripides’s Hippolytus; see Cairns 1993, 314–340; Craik 1993, 45–59. For Ovidian parallels, see Am. 3.10.28–29; Her. 15.121; Met. 1.618–619; but, especially, Byblis’s episode, which presents significant analogies with Phaedra’s letter: “coget amor, potero! vel, si pudor ora tenebit, / littera celatos arcana fatebitur ignes” (love will urge me: I will be able to do that; or, if shame will hold my mouth, a private letter will confess my hidden passion; Met. 9.515–916).

36. By contrast, Phaedra’s capitulation to amor will end up in a tragedy: see Casali 1995a, 5.

37. See De Vito 1994, 313–314. The possible capitalization of the word Amor is a matter of editorial choice rather than a substantial difference: the form amor, which is preferred by, e.g., Goold to Amor, does not deny the personification of amor as an agent and/or a god of love.

38. The adjective ferreus often has a negative connotation within an elegiac context (see, e.g., Tib. 1.2.65–66; Prop. 2.8.12; Her. 1.58, 3.138, 10.107, 12.183, 17.136–137).

39. See Am. 1.1.1–4: “Arma gravi numero violentaque bella parabam / edere, materia conveniente modis. / par erat inferior versus—risisse Cupido / dicitur atque unum surripuisse pedem” (Arms, and violent wars, I was making ready to sound forth in weighty numbers, with matter suited to the measure. The second verse was equal to the first, but Cupid, they say, laughed and stole away one foot); for the personification of Amor and/or amor as a divine entity (cf. the Greek Eros), see TLL online, I 0, 1973, s.v. “Amor.”

40. For an overview of Phaedra as an elegiac poet, see Michalopoulos 2006, 11–16, with notes.

41. For female (particularly autobiographical) writing as an expression of subjectivity, see Cavarero 2000, 70; on the Heroides, see Spentzou 2003, 85–122.

42. Cavarero 2000, 127. The imagery of books as children (or personifications) is a recurring motif in Ovid’s exile poetry (e.g., Tr. 1.1–4, 115–116; 1.7.35–40; 2.1–2; 3.1.1–10, 65–68); for the materiality of writing—and literary (pro)creation—within the Heroides, see Spentzou 2003, 151–160.

43. This point resonates with modern feminist discussions, as per De Beauvoir: “In the case of most of the women who have had a vocation to write, they have been spared the identification with the mother” (in Moi 1987, 26).

44. For foedus as a marital relationship, see Her. 5.101; in elegy, foedus is widely used to indicate the agreement between two lovers or a sexual liaison: see Tib. 1.5.7; Her. 4.147, 20.188, 21.241.

45. Within Ovid’s poetry, socialis seems to be equivalent to coniugalis, except, perhaps, in one case: Ov. Am. 3.11.45, lecti socialia iura, where the lectus should not necessarily be understood as a marriage bed (see OLD, s.v. “socialis”: “of or belonging to marriage partners, conjugal”); Treggiari 1991, 250: “Ovid frequently uses the idea of partnership. Socius is a favourite adjective, applicable to any sexual union but especially to the marriage-bed.”

46. Berger 1953, 686.

47. Phaedra’s perception of Hippolytus as “another” Theseus appears very clearly from Sen. Pha. 646–647 (“Hippolyte, sic est: Thesei vultus amo / illos priores, quos tulit quondam puer,” Hippolytus, it is like this: I love the face of Theseus, that earlier face he had as a boy).

48. See Martorana, forthcoming. On irregular unions in (Augustan) Rome, see Rawson 1986b, 32–37; Treggiari 1991, 262–275; Moreau 2002, 344–348.

49. Jacobson 1974, 148; on Phaedra’s (fictional) construction of her own virginity, see Pearson 1980, 112–120; Armstrong 2006, 269–271.

50. According to Rosati (1985, 116), this fake purity claimed by Phaedra refers to the fact that the relationship with Hippolytus would represent her first affair. Fulkerson (2005, 131) maintains that Phaedra “envisions herself as a virgin because she knows virgins are desirable, and she has learned this from her sister Ariadne.”

51. The (Vergilian) word libamen pertains to the sacral sphere (see Verg. Aen. 6.245–246); here, it indicates the offer of virginity Phaedra is making to Hippolytus (see Meijer in TLL online, VII 2, 1257–1258, s.v. “libamen”).

52. See Casali 1995a, 12; also Torresin 1998, 219.

53. See, e.g., Catull. 70.1–2, 72.1–2; also Plaut. Cas. 323–324; Ov. Met. 7.801; Rosati 1989, 114.

54. For incestuous relationships between gods, see Moreau 2002, 77–79. The iunctura of fratremque virumque recalls a widespread epithet for Jupiter and Juno, first employed by Homer (e.g., Il. 16.432, 18.356); for the nexus in Ovid, see Met. 3.265–266, 13.574; Fast. 6.27–28.

55. See Cass. Dio 56.1.2; Suet. Aug. 34; see, e.g., Rawson 1986b, 32–35; Evans Grubbs 2015, 117.

56. Pearson 1980, 112–120.

57. See Eur. Hipp. 215–231; for Phaedra’s attempts at resembling Diana, see Armstrong 2006, 100–101.

58. For a connection between virginity, Diana, and “the forest world,” see Segal 1986b, 60–76 (106–114 for Hippolytus’s suspension between the male and female spheres).

59. For Phaedra’s self-representation as a female version of Hippolytus, see Jacobson 1974, 152.

60. For the potentially subversive value of female writing and its opposition to traditional female tasks, see De Beauvoir in Moi 1987, 29–30.

61. On self-narration as a construction of one’s identity, see Cavarero 2000, 134–138.

62. On the reunion of the “woman-mother” with the body of her mother as a denial of the Symbolic order, see Kristeva 1980, 239. Phaedra will acknowledge, manipulate, and reappropriate her (step)motherhood later in her letter.

63. For Pasiphaë in Ovid, see Met. 8.131–137; for Theseus as perfidus, see Catull. 64.132–133; Ov. Ars am. 1.536; Fast. 3.473. “Theseus is indeed notorious for perfidy, but not to Phaedra. Theseus’ behavior towards Ariadne has become transformed by exigencies of the moment into abandonment of her sister Phaedra” (Fulkerson 2005, 133). For Phaedra’s catalogue, see Casali 1995a, 10–12; Armstrong 2006, 274–277.

64. Palmer (1898, 309) translates as “laws of marriage”; see OLD, s.v. “socialis.”

65. I further develop this point, along with Phaedra’s cunning use of Roman legal concepts, in Martorana, forthcoming.

66. See Scherling in RE XVIII 2069–2082, s.v. “Pasiphae.”

67. See Moi 1999, 80, with Thomson, Kehily, Hadfield, and Sharpe 2011, 6. For a contrasting view in poststructuralist and anti-essentialist feminist thought, see Moi 1999, 35–36: “All forms of sexual reductionism implicitly deny that a woman is a concrete, embodied human being … and not just a human being sexed in a particular way.”.

68. Moi 1986, 297. On monstrous childbirth as well as ideas of the pregnant female body as a receptacle for monsters, see Worth-Stylianou 2018, 64–67.

69. Jacobson 1974, 150.

70. Landolfi 2000, 33–36.

71. See, e.g., Ovid’s description of Corinna in Am. 1.5.17–20, 1.7.11–18 (see also Ars am. 3.769–788), with Davis 1995, 45–47; see Greene 2005, 223–238, on Prop. 2.9. For the elegiac puella as a “written woman” vis-à-vis the possibility of extracting a feminist discourse from Augustan elegiac poetry, in spite of its male perspective, see Wyke 2002, 11–45.

72. See Sen. Pha. 651–670.

73. For similar expressions, see Hor. Sat. 2.8.70; Ov. Fast. 3.669. Binding the hair with flowers was a religious devotees’ act, which can refer to Eur. Hipp. 73–83. However, this may also pertain specifically to females (see, e.g., Prop. 3.10.16); moreover, the colors of Her. 4.71–72, red and white, recall a virginal and female aspect (see Narcissus in Met. 3.423; also Catull. 61.185–188; Prop. 2.3.9–12; Tib. 3.4.29–34; Lavinia’s blush in Aen. 12.64–70, with Lyne 1983, 55–64; Dyson 1999, 281–288).

74. See, e.g., Daphne at Met. 1.484; Hermaphroditus at Met. 4.329–330; also Sen. Pha. 652.

75. It would be intriguing to read nobis as a real plural, so that Phaedra seems to try to keep other males away from the sexually attractive Hippolytus, who looks like an erōmenos here, while Phaedra seems to play the part of the male lover. For a similar situation in Her. 15, where Phaedra is replaced by Sappho, and Hippolytus by Phaon, see Gordon 1997, 276–280; Hallett 2005, 7–8 (§§29–31).

76. Mulvey 1989, 19; see also Fredrick’s (1997, 172–193) application of Mulvey’s theory in Latin elegy; Michalopoulos 2006, 42–43, with notes.

77. See Fredrick 1997, 174.

78. “In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey 1989, 19).

79. “The second [kind of scopophilic pleasure], developed through narcissism and the constitution of the ego, comes from identification with the image seen” (Mulvey 1989, 18).

80. The form aberit may imply a reference to the fact that Theseus is in the underworld (see Herter 1971, 63–64). The idea that Theseus is intentionally spending time with Pirithous may have been drawn from Sophocles’s Phaedra (see TGF 4.686). In this context, Phaedra’s implied reference to a homoerotic relationship between Theseus and Pirithous (see De Vito 1994, 316–317) is aimed at putting her passion for Hippolytus in a better light.

81. See Ov. Her. 10.96; Catull. 64.152–153.

82. The Minotaur has gone from being a crimen (58) to being depicted as Phaedra’s brother (115): this shift is a consequence of the heroine’s rhetorical argument at this point in the epistle, which aims to outline Theseus’s responsibilities with respect to her family.

83. For Hippolytus’s mother, whose name varies according to the attestations of the myth, see Barrett 1964, 8–9, with notes.

84. Hippolytus’s misogyny is very well known in the literary sources: see, most notably, Eur. Hipp. 601–668; Sen. Pha. 672–697.

85. This Heroidean version of the myth, according to which Theseus kills Antiope (Hippolytus’s mother), will influence later accounts: see Apollod. Epit. 1.17; Sen. Pha. 927; Hyg. Fab. 241.

86. For the child as a pignus in the Heroides, see, e.g., Her. 6.122, 130; 11.113; 12.192; see OLD, s.v. “pignus,” 3 and 4.

87. See OLD, s.v. “tollo”: “(spec., of a father) To pick up (a new-born child) from the ground in the process of formal recognition”; Ter. Haut. 626–627; Hor. Sat. 2.5.46; Livy 4.54.7.

88. Treggiari 1991, 317–319; also Treggiari 2005, 130–147; McGinn 2008, 1–32; see also Dig. 2.4.5 (“pater … is est quem nuptiae demonstrant,” the father … is the one whom marriage designates) for the necessity of a legal marital union for the recognition of legitimate childbirth.

89. See Martorana, forthcoming.

90. Under the realm of the Symbolic, motherhood is what satisfies the expectations of the society for a woman, as well as what maintains order and hierarchies: a negation of this model leads to a negation of the symbolic position of a woman/mother within the patriarchal society; see Kristeva 1980, 241–243.

91. For the realm of Saturn as a Golden Age opposed to the following age of Jupiter, see, e.g., Ov. Am. 3.8.35–50; Fast. 5.19–34; Met. 1.89–112; Tib. 1.3.35–50; Prop. 2.32.49–52. For one of the most notable celebrations of the Saturnia regna in the Augustan age, see Verg. Ecl. 4: “iam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturna regna” (Now the Virgin, too, returns, now the realms of Saturn return; 6). While the rustica … regna (132) are depicted with negative accents by Phaedra, these were acknowledged as a positive topos in the contemporary literary and artistic tradition. This negative depiction of the Saturnia regna is aimed at reinforcing Phaedra’s argument, that Jupiter’s realm has brought an improvement insofar it has sanctioned the lawfulness of incest.

92. See Byblis in Met. 9.551–555; also TGF 5.433, with Knox 2002, 131n54. On this passage, see Landolfi 2000, 37–42.

93. See Myrrha in Met. 10.346–348, 467–468, who refers quite openly to her incest with her father as an impiety.

94. In Kristeva’s words (in Moi 1987, 112), “First, every time I read a text by a woman, I am left with the impression that the notion of the signifier as a network of distinctive marks is insufficient.”

95. Lacan 1989, 74, 207–245.

96. Relevantly, Kristeva (in Moi 1986, 207): “Is it because, faced with social norms, literature reveals a certain knowledge and sometimes the truth itself about an otherwise repressed, nocturnal, secret and unconscious universe? Because it thus redoubles the social contract by exposing the unsaid, the uncanny? And because it makes a game, a space of fantasy and pleasure, out of the abstract and frustrating order of social signs, the words of everyday communication? … This identification with the potency of the imaginary … also bears witness to women’s desire to lift the weight of what is sacrificial in the social contract from their shoulders, to nourish our societies with a more flexible and free discourse, one able to name what has thus far never been an object of circulation in the community: the enigmas of the body, the dreams, secret joys, shames, hatreds of the second sex.”

97. The word fas etymologically relates to speech (see Vetter in TLL online, VI 1, 287–296, s.v. “fas”) and recalls the antithesis between speech and written text, which characterizes Her. 4 as well as Phaedra’s narrative more broadly.

98. The verb coeo can be used for both sexual and marital unions: see Bannier in TLL online, III 0, 1415–1421, s.v. “coeo,” n3; Ov. Ars am. 1.564; Her. 19.67.

99. Line 137, which is corrupt, has been reconstructed in different ways (see Goold 1977, 54). For culpa alluding to an adulterous affair in elegy, see Catull. 11.22, 68a.139, 75.1; Ov. Am. 2.2.55, 2.8.26, 2.19.13, 3.14.6, 3.14.43; Ars am. 2.389, 2.572; Her. 17.50, 68, 146, 183.

100. Landolfi 2000, 41.

101. This process may be connected to the concept of Bakhtinian dialogism or heteroglossia: “Heteroglossia … serves two speakers at the same time and expresses simultaneously two different intentions: the direct intention of the character who is speaking, and the refracted intention of the author” (Bakhtin in Dentith 1995, 218).

102. For Augustus as pater patriae, see, e.g., Suet. Aug. 58; also Met. 15.860, where Ovid refers to the princeps by saying “pater est et rector uterque” (he is both father and emperor).

103. On Phaedra’s plea, see Armstrong 2006, 273–274.

104. For the use of corrumpo in an elegiac context, see, e.g., Am. 2.4.35, 3.8.30; Prop. 1.8a.21.

105. While representing an Alexandrian footnote, the word diceris enhances the vagueness of the reference: see Her. 6.1–2, 131–132; 9.73–74; 17.195–196; Tr. 4.3.49; Pont. 2.3.66, 2.5.7–8.