Talk:The Bull from the Sea

Hippolyta

I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure that Hippolyta and Theseus were never married in the novel. Worth double-checking, anyway. Nareek 15:03, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

You could be entirely right. I'm also not entirely sure of the ending--even though I read it just a few months ago, all I could remember is that Theseus lived on an island or something. I have the book at home and will check it out ASAP. -- Merope ^Talk 15:24, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

This is correct; Theseus and Hippolyta never married. I have edited the article. I also removed the line about Hippolytus being Theseus' "firstborn" son, since he was not. He was only one of a large number of illegitimate sons of Theseus. Fumblebruschi 22:28, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Theseus reflecting Renault's attitude towards women and Phaedra in particular

Hello! I have put in some added comments about both Mary Renault's attitude to women in the biography. I do feel that with the exception of the boyish Hippoylata, women are treated very harshly in the Theseus novels. A women writing so dismissively of other women is rather like a black man writing contemptuously of other black men. Don't misunderstand me, I would expect a patiarchal king bent on destroying the matriarchal order to regard women as second class citiziens, 'war prizes' etc and I do accept that Renault thought as a pre feminist who had rejected the then acceptable 'female role', but Theseus' attitude seems to reflect the very negative attiude to women that even the admiring David Sweetman concedes in Renault. Theseus' attiude towards women does not seem to be treated ironically by the author but to reflect her own. Sexual women who enjoy being women, Persephone, Ariadne, Phaedra, etc, are depicted as being underhand, untrustoworthy, malicious and capable of outbursts of savagery. The only women who are shown as worthy of respect (apart from Theseus' mother, who is ineffectual and seemingly deprived of a sex life) are ones like Chryse and Hippoylata, rather mannish, though why Hippoylata, a women broght up purely amongst women should be mannish goes unexplained... Reanult seems to despise Phaedra in particular, though the poor woman was put in a wretched situation, partly through the agreement of the supposedly independent minded Hippoylata that Theseus must extend his power base at all costs! Whether through error I am unsure - the novel seems to show signs of haste - but the incipient love between the child Phaedra and her bull fighter hero depicted in 'The King Must Die' is not allowed to develop when they marry, so that one gets the impression that the author wanted the'feminine'Phaedra to be an object of contempt while Theseus' admiration and affection is reserved solely for the 'boyish' Hippoylata, who typically despises her pregnant body and doesn't get on with other women save for the equally boyish Chryse. Theseus is supposed to be a wrestler, one who practised the 'no holds barred' sort that must have involved strangling and throttling as separate attacks. As a one time nurse Renault surely must have known the difference between strangulation (cutting off the blood supply to the brain) which leads to unconsciousness in seconds, and the slow, agonising business of choking which Theseus uses to kill Phaedra. Accordingly, her subjecting her character to this horrible end is rather sinister, as is the fact that Theseus expresses no remorse for the remainder of the novel. Sorry to be so wordy, but I do think that Renault's hostility for her own sex needs examination. I think that because she was a lesbian, people cannot see blatant instances of this in her writing.

```` — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jessica Holsgrove (talk • contribs) 16:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)