Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Phaedra

Georges Barbier, 1882-1932, Hippolyte et Phèdre.
Nurse (to Phaedra):
So, you will die for love! And all the others
who love, and who will love, must they die, too?
How will that profit them? The tide of love,
at its full surge, is not withstandable.
Upon the yielding spirit she comes gently,
but to the proud and the fanatic heart
she is a torturer with the brand of shame.
She wings her way through the air; she is in the sea,
in its foaming billows; from her everything,
that is, is born. For she engenders us
and sows the seed of desire whereof we're born,
all we her children, living on the earth.
Hippolytus 442-451 (Euripides, trans. by David Green)



Lovesick Phaedra
Museum Collection: British Museum, London, United Kingdom
Ware: Apulian Red Figure
Shape: Calyx krater
Painter: Attributed to the Laodamia Painter
Date: ca 350 BC
Period: Late Classical

SUMMARY
The lovesick Phaidra is plagued by a winged Eros. Beside her stands her elderly nurse.

via Theoi.com

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