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Delahoyde & Hughes
Orpheus
THE WOMEN OF TRACHIS
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The Women of Trachis begins with Deianira, the wife of Heracles,
musing to the Nurse about her woeful life: first, courted by the protean
river Acheloüs before Heracles did combat for her; now, outcast in
Trachis with their children and Heracles an absentee father for the most
part. The Nurse recommends sending son Hyllus to find his father. The kid
has heard that dad has been in the service this past year of a Lydian
woman and that now he is in Euboea campaigning against the city of
Eurytus (75). Hyllus will go off and find out what he can.
The Chorus chides Deianira about her pessimism, but she responds that
Heracles left a will in case he did not return after a year and three
months and had died. A messenger immediately announces that Heracles is
alive. His envoy, Lichas, and captive women including Iole enter -- the
women Heracles selected for himself and the gods when he sacked Eurytus.
Lichas reports that most of the time he had been a bought slave to
Omphale, a queen of Lydia. His war was vengeance for the long
humiliation. Deianira detects noble upbringing in Iole's demeanor, but
Lichas nervously claims he doesn't know anything about her. When the
crowd enters the house, the messenger calls Deianira aside and accuses
Lichas of lying. The truth, he says, is that the war was fought for Iole;
when Heracles could not persuade Iole's father "to give to him the child
for his secret bed, / he fabricated a petty complaint, an excuse / to
campaign against the girl's country" (85). Deianira grills Lichas and
seems despairing but reasonable, resigned to an extent but not resentful.
Lichas fesses up and says the cover-up was his, not Heracles' (90).
The Chorus recounts the battle of Heracles with the river Acheloüs.
Deianira laments her lot:
Hyllus returns and says that Heracles is dying, poisoned and being eaten
away by the robe. He has bashed Lichas' brains out. Hyllas curses his
mother Deianira. Deianira kills herself, as the nurse reports, with a
sword on her marriage bed. Heracles is brought in on a litter and begs
for mercy killing. Hyllus reveals Deianira's mistake and requests that
Heracles not burden him with patricide. Heracles says Hyllus would be a
healer, curing his suffering (116). But Hyllus agrees to prepare
everything for Heracles' death, and Heracles makes him promise to marry
Iole. Hyllus delivers the resigned and dismayed final words: "there is /
nothing here which is not Zeus" (119).
For here I have taken on a girl ...
She then tells of an old episode in which the centaur Nessus touched her
"lustfully" during a river crossing. Her cry prompted Heracles to shoot
Nessus with an arrow. The dying centaur told her that a robe dipped in
his blood would work as a love charm. Deianira gives this long-stored
robe to Lichas to take to Heracles. Afterwards, she tells the Chorus that
a piece of wool she used to anoint the robe disintegrated when it hit the
sun, so she's a bit worried now. Besides, she thinks, why would the
centaur have given her a gift unless it was a ruse to destroy his killer.
. . . as
a ship's master takes on cargo, goods that outrage my heart.
. . .
For I see her youth is coming to full bloom
while mine is fading. The eyes of men love to pluck
the blossoms; from the faded flowers they turn away. (92)
Powell, Barry. Classical Myth. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 2001.
Sophocles. The Women of Trachis. Trans. Michael Jameson. Sophocles II. Ed. David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957. 63-119.