32 pages • 1 hour read
SophoclesWomen of Trachis
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Deianeira
Heracles’ wife, Deianeira is portrayed living in Trachis as a guest while he travels around Greece completing his labors. It is implied that she has been waiting patiently and loyally through many returns and departures. When the play opens, she hopes that her husband will return home and stay, having completed his tasks, yet she also fears that something will prevent his return.
Though Heracles won her by competing against another suitor, Achelous, Deianeira is depicted as loving her husband. Sophocles describes Deianeira struggling to accept having to share her husband with Iole. She does not want to blame either Iole or Heracles, as she recognizes the hands of Love and Fate in their meeting. At the same time, she is distraught and voices her dismay that Heracles has not taken her feelings into consideration.
Though she claims that she accepts her circumstances, she attempts to twist events in her favor, using what she thinks is a love potion to rekindle Heracles’ affections. Instead, she brings about the realization of her own fear: She becomes the obstacle to Heracles’ successful return and the instrument through which his fate is sealed: He is released from his labors because he is released from life.
Heracles
Heracles looms large in classical myth, his story threaded through various narratives as a standard against which other heroes are measured. In Women of Trachis, Heracles is evoked from the beginning as Deianeira’s anticipated and longed for husband, but he only appears for the final quarter of the play, when the poisoned robe has wrecked his body and is causing him unendurable agony.
Deianeira’s love for Heracles can seem inexplicable, as he has been frequently away for much of their marriage. Moreover, now that he is on the cusp of returning, he has sent a concubine to wait for him in his marital home, an unwelcome development that causes Deianeira to despair. Like Heracles, however, Deianeira is in the grip of Love.
Heracles’ cruelty is described extensively. He sacked a city to capture a girl he desires then sends her home almost as a perverse gift to his wife. When the robe begins to destroy him, he dashes Lichias’ body against the ground, virtually breaking it apart. He rails against Deianeira, angry that she has killed herself and robbed him of the pleasure of taking her life. His arrogance provokes him to compel Hyllus to marry Iole, who he considers the enemy of his family, because Heracles does not want her to take another lover outside of his family.
Heracles’ excesses exemplify the intensity and strength that burdened Earth and compelled Zeus to bring the age of heroes to an end. Thus, while his suffering may seem inexplicable to him, within the cosmic order, it looks like an act of balance.
Related Titles
By Sophocles
