Hippolytus; The Bacchae

Two tragedies by the same poet juxtapose human stubbornness and divine vengeance. In the first, a youth devoted to a virgin huntress goddess rejects the power of love, provoking the love-goddess to instigate a fatal passion in his stepmother, whose subsequent accusation leads the youth to a tragic death and a father's remorse. In the second, a god returns to assert his cult, provoking a king's refusal and the god's orchestration of female frenzy; the king is lured to his destruction by his own relatives and the community suffers a terrible revelation. Both plays examine the clash between order and ecstatic release, pride and piety, and the moral ambiguity of divine punishment.