In classical mythology Phaedra was the wife of
Theseus, who had a son
Hippolytus. She fell in love with him but he rejected her. (Depending on the version of the tale, she reveals her lust herself, or her nurse does.) She makes a false accusation that he had violated her. Hippolytus is rejected by Theseus and destroyed by the sea god as he drives his chariot along the coast.
Title of a play on this subject by Seneca, and another (as Phèdre) by Racine (1677). Tony Harrison created a play Phaedra Britannica in 1975; and there is also Phaedra's Love by Sarah Kane (1996), an updated version with plenty of oral sex. These go back in a chain of homage; the original is the Hippolytus of Euripides (429 BCE).
To be distinguished from Phaedrus, the friend of Socrates who gives his name to one of Plato's dialogues.