Il corpo al prezzo della dote: per un’indagine sulle ragioni della riluttanza alle nozze nel Fetonte di Euripide, in L. Austa (a cura di), The Forgotten Theatre II. Mitologia, drammaturgia e tradizione del dramma frammentario greco-romano. Atti del secondo Convegno Internazionale (Università di Torino, 28-30 Nov. 2018), Baden-Baden 2020, pp. 99-114

From the surviving fragments of Euripides’ Phaethon it is evident that Euripides has innovated the traditional myth of the charioteer, Helios’ son, by composing a dense net of family motifs. In particular, this paper aims to focus on two topics: the marriage between Phaethon and an unidentified goddess and the unknown reasons of Phaethon’s aversion to get married. It is possible that Phaethon is refusing to marry a goddess to preserve his chastity like Hippolytus, or to retain his freedom and to reject a licentious passion like Bellerophon, or again to lead a quiet life like Ion. By stressing the possible and different motivations of Phaethon’s reluctance to marry, I propose to consider an Aeschylean example, the Suppliants, who refuse the marriage with their cousins because they fear the prospect of incest. Therefore, it should not be excluded that also Phaethon tried to avoid an incestuous marriage: perhaps, in fact, the bride-to-be could be his half-sister, the daughter of Helios.