This is a review of W.S. Barrett's commentary on Euripides' "Hippolytos", a Greek tragedy that dramatizes the origin and the grave consequences of the mythic love of Phaedra for her stepson Hippolytus. The commentator originally published this edition in 1964, and his overriding concern throughout is with establishing the text of the play as Euripides wrote it and defending his editorial choices in this endeavor. The notes therefore are dense with detailed analyses of manuscript readings, metrical matters, and the conjectures of other textual critics of the play. Alongside this substantial textual criticism, the commentator also devotes significant attention to making Euripides' Greek comprehensible for the student reader. The commentator does an excellent job of anticipating where a 4th or 5th year student or non-specialist reader of Greek will run into difficulties with Euripides' diction and syntax. Rare was the occasion when I turned to the notes seeking help and did not find the phrase in question translated into elegant English and its underlying grammar explained. Thus, even though this is a very dense and in some respects old-fashioned commentary on the play, it is nevertheless an effective aid for reading through the play efficiently and productively.
This edition includes of a 94 page introduction that covers a discussion of the mythic tradition of Hippolytus before Euripides, the cultic role played by Hippolytus in ancient Athens and Troezen, an analysis of the relationship of this version of Euripides's "Hippolytus" to its tragic antecedents, a discussion of the evidence for these antecedents, an engaging and sweeping history of the textual transmission of Euripides' plays in general and the "Hippolytus" in particular, and a decidedly arcane and lengthy exposition of the relationships between the surviving manuscripts and papyrus fragments of the play. The Greek text of the play occupies about 55 pages and the commentary proper another 267 pages. The final 30 or so pages are taken up by short appendices on meter and enclitics, a section of addenda to the original edition, and indexes.
Beyond discussing issues related textual criticism and providing help with translation, the notes in the commentary also include a lot of incisive literary criticism that illuminates both the play's plot developments as well as the psychology of its characters. I was particularly taken with the commentator's argument that Hippolytus' rejection of Aphrodite and preoccupation with sexual purity is motivated by his self-consciousness about the illegitimacy of his birth, a biographical fact that is mentioned obliquely several times in the play. The commentator also discusses other tragedies and the conventions of the genre, the original performance context of the "Hippolytus", basic elements of staging, and obscure religious/cultural references. But it should be emphasized that the commentator mostly discusses these aspects of the play only when doing so can help him either establish the correct reading of the Greek or provide translation assistance. Indeed, readers looking for detailed and cutting edge treatments of how the text of "Hippolytus" translates into live theatrical performance, its later reception and influence on subsequent literature and drama, and the politics of its representation of gender/sexuality will not find much of that in this edition.
On the whole, then, Barrett's commentary on the "Hippolytus" ultimately holds up well as a resource for reading this complex and fascinating play in the original Greek. At the very least, it is a more than adequate starting place on the road to more fully appreciating the depths and nuances of this play.
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