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This is from wikipedia brah:
The play is set in Troezen, a coastal town in the northeastern Peloponnese. Theseus, the king of Athens, is serving a year's voluntary exile after having murdered a local king and his sons. His illegitimate son Hippolytus, whose mother is the Amazon Hippolyta, has been trained here since childhood by the king of Troezen, Pittheus.
At the opening of the play Aphrodite, Goddess of love, explains that Hippolytus has sworn chastity and refuses to revere her. Instead, he honors the Goddess of the hunt, Artemis. This has led her to initiate a plan of vengeance on Hippolytus. When Hippolytus went to Athens two years previously Aphrodite inspired Phaedra, Hippolytus' stepmother, to fall in love with him.
Hippolytus appears with his followers, and shows reverence to a statue of Artemis, a chaste goddess. A servant warns him about his overt disdain for Aphrodite, but Hippolytus refuses to listen to him.
The chorus, consisting of young married women of Troezen, enters, and describes how Phaedra is not eating or sleeping. Phaedra, sickly, appears with her Nurse. After an agonized discussion, Phaedra finally gives into her nurse's demands and confesses why she is ill; she loves Hippolytus. The Nurse and the Chorus are shocked. Phaedra explains that she must starve herself and die with her honor intact. However, the Nurse quickly retracts her initial response and tells Phaedra that she has medicine to cure her. However, to one side she states that she has other plans.
The nurse tells Hippolytus of Phaedra's desire, after making him swear an oath that he will not tell anyone else. He reacts with a furious, misogynistic tirade on the 'poisonous' nature of women. Since the secret is out, Phaedra believes she is ruined. After making the Chorus swear secrecy, she goes inside and hangs herself.
Theseus returns and discovers his wife's dead body. Since the Chorus is sworn to secrecy, they cannot tell Theseus why she killed herself. Theseus discovers a letter on Phaedra's body, which clearly places the blame for her death on Hippolytus. Theseus takes this to mean he raped Phaedra and, enraged, he curses his son to death or at least exile. He calls upon Poseidon, his father who has promised him three curses, to enforce the curse. Hippolytus enters and protests his innocence, but cannot tell the truth because of the binding oath that he swore. Taking his wife's letter as proof Theseus exiles his son.
The Chorus sings a lament for Hippolytus.
A messenger enters and describes a gruesome scene to Theseus; as Hippolytus got in his chariot to leave the kingdom, a bull roared out of the sea, frightening his horses, which dashed his chariot among the rocks dragging Hippolytus along. Hippolytus seems to be dying. The messenger protests Hippolytus' innocence but Theseus refuses to believe him.
Theseus is pleased with Hippolytus' suffering, until Artemis appears and tells him the truth. She explains that his son was innocent and that it was Phaedra who lied. Although she attacks Theseus' decision, she ultimately recognizes that the blame must be placed on Aphrodite. Hippolytus is carried in half-alive and Artemis promises to kill any man Aphrodite holds dearest in the world. Finally, Hippolytus absolves his father of his death and dies.
Basically, what happened was that Phaedra was in love with Hippolytus, but Hippolytus swears an oath of chastity (no sex) and chooses to worship a Goddess that is also a chaste God. While he is away, Phaedra stop's eating and when the Nurse asks her why she states that she loves Hippolytus and feels that if she makes herself sick enough the Hippolytus will realize how she feels and reconsider his feelings of chastity. The Nurse then tells her to just take the medicine and get better but Phaedra tells the audience she won't. Later, she is found dead by her husband Theseus and sees a letter next to her body saying she loved Hippolytus and could not live without him in her life. He misinterprets this to mean she was raped by Hippolytus. Theseus flips a bitch and calls on Poseidon, his father, to enforce one of the three curses that he is allowed by being Poseidon's son. Hippolytus tries to profess his innocence but Poseidon doesn't listen. Hippolytus and Theseus are also brothers. As Hippolytus lays dieing Artemis shows up and tells Theseus the truth, that Phaedra lied and Hippolytus did nothing as many people were influenced by Aphrodite in this story. Artemis promises Hippolytus that she will kill the one who Aphrodite holds dearest in this word, and on hearing this Hippolytus absolves Poseidon of all fault and dies.
The whole way that you feel about Phaedra after writing this letter, is completely your opinion. That is the basic story though and she ACTUALLY wasn't raped.
