After Phaedra decides to kill herself, the choir gives what I think is a little prayer or poem to free Phaedra from this all-consuming love, but they tell the story of how she got there to Athens from her native Crete and the fact that she found nothing but misery in Athens. Just before she commits suicide, they end with: “And therefore her soul was broken / by the terrible illness of Aphrodite, / by unholy love” (762-765). In Euripides' Hippolytus, love is described as an illness. A metaphor for his feelings towards Hippolyte and his illicit character. Today, the metaphor helps explain why people fall in love, but it is mostly used to talk about the dark and forbidden aspect of love. The Greek plays are what I consider to be a very important text. Indeed, they allow people today to understand what Greek playwrights and their audiences thought or believed, as well as what life was like at the time. Nature was one of those subjects that the Greeks found a way to explain, today we have science to explain things to us like; why people get sick, or why the sun rises and sets. For the Greek people this was not the case, they were polytheists and practically had one god for everything, the most popular being Zeus, Apollo, Artemis and Aphrodite. These gods represented things like the sun, music, hunting and love. People prayed to different gods, hoping to please them and that the specific god they invoked would hear their pleas and grant their prayers. The gods were also blamed for everything and were often seen as mischievous and intrusive in literature. Sometimes they would play with a mortal's life or with their emotions, which usually resulted in tragedy. As a writer, Euripides uses ...... middle of paper ...... consequences. I think that if Phaedra and Hippolyta had started a relationship, Theseus would have killed or exiled them both, because their actions would be considered unforgivable. The dark and forbidden aspect of love is greatly looked down upon both in ancient Greece and today. It is considered a disease, an all-consuming love that only leads to unhappiness. In Hippolytus, Euripides uses the word disease to describe the illegitimate desires Phaedra had for his stepson Hippolytus. At present, love as a disease can also be used to describe illicit love, which is still despised. Euripides' use of the gods to eliminate some responsibility is excused by the fact that in ancient Greece it was common to believe that the gods controlled human lives. Now this excuse is no longer enough and in today's society people are fully responsible for their actions..