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Her beauty was the ruin of her life
SOPHOCLES, THE WOMEN OF TRACHIS, LINE 465; LEWIS CAMPBELL TRANSLATION
Introduction
The Women of Trachis (Tray-kus; also called The Trachiniae) tells the story of the final days of Heracles (Hercules) from the perspective of his final wife as a mortal, Deianira (according to outside sources, Heracles would be made a god after his death and marry Hebe, the goddess of youth). The play is named after the Chorus, a group of Trachinian women.
All quotes from The Women of Trachis are from the Lewis Campbell translation which is in the public domain. I had to rely on the Michael Jameson translation for line numbers, so they may not be 100% accurate.
As always, I encourage you to readThe Women of Trachisfor yourself. You can do it! Read the publicly available Campbell translation, which might be difficult if you’re not used to verse translations. If you prefer a modern translation, Richmond Lattimore and David Grene also translated and/or edited the plays of Sophocles (and other Greek playwrights) and compiled them into multiple volumes. Lastly, I just recently discovered a modern translation that the translator Ian Johnston offers for free! He’s also translated other ancient Greek works like the Iliad and the Odyssey. You can find them here.
Summary
Deianira, the wife of Heracles and Queen of Trachis, sits at home wondering where Heracles is. She recalls how she came to be his wife and the worry he put her through as he went through his famous Twelve Labors. However, once those Labors were finished and Heracles settled in Trachis, he’s left again and has been gone for fifteen months without any word as to his whereabouts.
An Attendant suggests she send one of her sons, Hyllus, to see if he could find Heracles. Hyllus enters and Deianira asks him if he can go search for his father. Hyllus tells her he’s already heard reports that Heracles was first someone’s slave in Lydia and now he’s laying siege to Oechalia, ruled by King Eurytus.
Deianira is concerned to hear this news, as there was an oracle concerning Heracles that he would either die around this time or survive and live a peaceful and prosperous life afterward. Deianira then asks her son to go to Heracles and help him with the siege, which Hyllus agrees to and leaves.
A Chorus of Trachinian Women enter and console Deianira. Deianira tells the Chorus about the propechy and reveals she’s worried because, just before Heracles left, he instructed her how to divide up his property among herself and their sons.
Just then a Messenger approaches with good news: Heracles’ herald Lichas has returned proclaiming that Heracles is alive and he’s coming back home victorious from the siege. Deianira is delighted to hear this and praises the gods. The herald Lichas approaches with captured women in tow. Deiranira asks him about Heracles. Lichas tells her Heracles had been sold into slavery to the queen of Lydia for a whole year after he used trickery to kill Iphitus, the son of King Eurytus. He killed Iphitus after the king dishonored him by denying him a prize after winning an archery contest. After Heracles’ year was up, he raised an army and sacked Eurytus. The captured women are prizes from the siege.
Deianira is glad to hear the news, but feels sorry for the captured women. There’s one in particular that stands out and Deianira asks about her lineage. Lichas is unsure and none of the women are willing to speak. Deianira sends everyone inside her house and is about to enter herself when the Messenger stops her. He tells Deianira that Lichas either lied to her or lied to the people. Lichas told the people of Trachis that the woman who stood out is the reason Heracles besieged Oechalia—not because he was enslaved in Lydia. When her father, King Eurytus, refused to give her to Heracles, Heracles used some trifling excuse to sack Oechalia, kill the king, and take the princess for himself. This princess, Iole, hasn’t been sent to the house to be a servant, but to be a concubine.
Deianira is devastated to hear this. The Chorus advises her to question Lichas about what the truth is and Deianira asks the Messenger to stick around. Lichas comes back outside and Deianira begins questioning him again about who the woman is. Lichas again claims ignorance and the Messenger accuses him of lying. The Messenger interrogates Lichas about what he said in the market square to the people and Lichas tells Deianira the Messenger is lying. Deianira demands Lichas tell her the truth and he concedes and admits that everything the Messenger told her is the truth. It wasn’t Heracles’ idea to conceal the truth, but his own, out of fear of hurting Deianira. He then advises that, for everyone’s sake, Deianira should treat Iole well because Heracles is completely in love with her. Deianira agrees and has everyone, except the Chorus, go inside the house.
The Chorus praises Deianira’s character and recall how she came to be Heracles’ wife. She was initially the target of the river god Achelous’ affection. However, Heracles challenged him to a duel to see who would win the hand of Deianira. Heracles won and took her for his wife.
Deianira returns and confesses to the Chorus that she’s afraid Heracles will essentially put her aside in favor of Iole who is younger, and more beautiful, than her. She has a plan though that might make Heracles more favorable toward her and she wants the Chorus’ honest opinion. When she was newly wedded to Heracles, a centaur named Nessus had captured her and tried to carry her away. Heracles killed the centaur with his bow, and as the centaur died, he told her to collect some of his blood in a jar. If the blood is given to Heracles, he will never love anyone else but Deianira. Deianira has now applied this blood to a robe and plans on giving it to him as a gift. The Chorus tells her it’s a great idea.
Lichas comes back outside and Deianira gives him the box with the robe in it, asking him to give it to Heracles as a gift from her and with strict instructions to not open the box and that no one else is to wear the robe but Heracles. Deianira goes back inside her home only to return outside shortly after and tells the Chorus that she has an uneasy feeling about the robe. The centaur was strict in his instructions to her regarding his blood: don’t let sunlight or heat touch it. So, she’s kept it hidden in her closet the whole time, and made sure she was indoors when she applied it to the robe. After securing the robe in its box, she tossed the piece of wool she used to apply the blood outside. That piece of wool is now nothing but dust and the area around it is frothy. She realizes that the centaur may have deceived her in order to get revenge on Heracles and remembers that Heracles’ arrows are poisoned with a strong enough substance to kill practically anything. That must mean the poison would be strong enough to kill Heracles.
Hyllus returns and curses his mother. Heracles, after giving a grand sacrifice to Zeus to celebrate his victory against Oechalia, was presented the robe that Deianira sent to him by Lichas. Heracles put on the robe and it immediately stuck to him and began burning his flesh. Heracles raged at Lichas, accusing him of treachery. When Lichas told him it was a gift from Deianira, Heracles grabbed Lichas and threw him, splattering his head on a nearby rock. Heracles then began convulsing and screaming in agony. When he regained some of his sanity, he implored Hyllus to return him to Trachis because that’s where he wants to die. Hyllus tells Deianira he hopes she pays for what she did and Deianira reenters her home without a word. Hyllus leaves shortly after.
As the Chorus laments the turn of events, a cry is heard inside the home. An old Nurse comes outside to inform the Chorus that Deianira has committed suicide. After saying cryptic things to many people within the home, she went into her own room, laid down on her bed, and prepared for her suicide. The old Nurse rushed off to tell Hyllus what was happening, but it was too late: Deianira had stabbed herself to death. Hyllus wept over his mother and blamed himself for her suicide, having learned too late that his mother had been deceived by the centaur and his father’s death was accidental.
Heracles, asleep, is then brought in on a litter accompanied by his grieving son Hyllus. Heracles wakes up and cries out to his father Zeus, lamenting that he’s dying and that no one is willing to end his misery, and finally curses Deianira for what she did to him. Hyllus tells Heracles about Deianira’s suicide and how she was deceived by the centaur Nessus. Heracles is shocked to hear this and reveals that it was prophesied that Heracles would be killed by someone who was dead. Heracles then realizes that the prophecy declaring he would be released from his toils didn’t mean living the rest of his life in peace, but that once all his toils were over with he would die. He then makes Hyllus swear an oath that he would take Heracles to a sacred spot to Zeus, build a pyre, and burn Heracles on it. Hyllus is distraught to hear this and promises to do everything for Heracles except light the fire. Heracles agrees to this and makes one more request: for Hyllus to marry Iole. Hyllus at first refuses: Iole is the reason his mother is dead and his father is about to die! Heracles insists Hyllus do this, even threatening a curse for disobeying him, and Hyllus reluctantly agrees. Hyllus then commands everyone to lift up Heracles and get everything ready for the pyre.
The Haunting Words of Deianira
The epigraph for this post, “Her beauty was the ruin of her life”, was said by Deianira in reference to Iole, the princess Heracles had fallen in love with and taken by force. On the surface, this statement points out the obvious: because Iole was young and beautiful, she caught the eye of Heracles, and suffered as a result. Her city, where she was a princess, was sacked, her father the king killed, and her herself taken to be Heracles’ concubine. Iole’s beauty became something of a curse.
However, there is a lot more to that statement and it seems like Sophocles intended it that way.
That statement could also be applied to Deianira herself.
On the one hand, we learned in the play that Deianira was being wooed by a river god, Achelous, due to her beauty. He wouldn’t leave her alone:
But I sate quailing with an anguished fear,
Lest beauty might procure me nought but pain,
Till He that rules the issue of all strife,
Gave fortunate end – if fortunate!Sophocles, The Women of Trachis, lines 24-26; Lewis Campbell translation
Heracles comes around, wins a duel against Achelous, and takes Deianira as his wife. Deianira’s beauty first brought her unwanted attention, then it was enough to catch the attention of the strongest man in the world at that time. However, it’s not all rosy:
For since,
Assigned by that day’s conquest, I have known
The couch of Heracles, my life is spent
In one continual terror for his fate.
Night brings him, and, ere morning, some fresh toil
Drives him afar.Sophocles, The Women of Trachis, lines 27-30; Lewis Campbell translation
Heracles comes and goes all the time putting his life in danger. He’s had children with Deianira, but is basically an absentee father.
This is the reward for Deianira’s beauty.
It gets worse though.
Deianira is older now. She’s had some children. Her beauty is fading. And then Heracles comes home with a younger, more beautiful woman whose body has not experienced childbirth yet.
But who that is a woman could endure
To dwell with her, both married to one man?
One bloom is still advancing, one doth fade.
The budding flower is cropped, the full-blown head
Is left to wither, while love passeth by
Unheeding. Wherefore I am sore afraid
He will be called my husband, but her mate,
For she is younger.Sophocles, The Women of Trachis, lines 546-551; Lewis Campbell translation
Deianira is afraid of being unwanted, of being cast aside, of being Heracles’ wife in name only. This leads Deianira to commit a terrible wrong and be driven to suicide. “Her beauty was the ruin of her life.” In this case, it was Deianira’s fading beauty (and her insecurity about it) that ruined her.
One last interesting detail I want to point out is the fact that Deianira accepted the centaur’s blood—the blood that would poison and eventually kill Heracles—and kept it safe for all those years. She believed the centaur had her good intentions in mind—even though he had just tried to kidnap and rape her and then get mortally wounded by Heracles. She didn’t question the centaur’s lie, that his blood could be used as a love charm, until after she applied the blood to Heracles’ robe and sent it off to him.
This is either a contrived plot point on Sophocles’ part, or he’s trying to convey that Deianira had doubts about Heracles’ faithfulness from the beginning. She knew what kind of man Heracles was based on his reputation. She knew that her beauty would fade one day and she would need a way to keep Heracles’ love for herself. She needed a way to beat nature and reform a man set in his ways.
Even though Deianira committed the wrong, though with innocent intentions, Heracles brought his demise on himself due to his behavior.
The Man, the Myth, the Legend… Is Not What You Think
If you know anything about the stories of Heracles/Hercules, you know that he was nothing like how he was portrayed in the popular TV show starring Kevin Sorbo. Hercules in the TV show was a fairy tale princess compared to the stories about him in Greek legend. Yes, Heracles rid the world of terrible and monstrous beings that no other mortal was able to, thus allowing some semblance of order to settle in and civilization to begin flourishing. Yes, Heracles suffered for much of his life and seemed to have gotten the short end of the stick. Yes, Heracles was extremely loyal to his friends.
However, Heracles was also a philanderer, murderer, pillager, rapist, and a bit unstable. He left a lot of bastard children on the earth. He often lost his temper and killed innocent people. He took whatever he wanted by force.
We see some of the positive and negative about Heracles in The Women of Trachis. We don’t have to look outside this play to know that Heracles was not some gallant hero dreamed up by a medieval poet or comic book artist. In this play alone we learn:
About some of his famous Labors: the slaying of the Nemean Lion, the slaying of the Hydra, the slaying of the Erymanthine Boar, the capture of the three-headed dog Cerberus, and the theft of the golden apples in the garden of the Hesperides guarded by a dragon.
He killed Iphitus, a prince of Oechalia, through trickery.
He sacked the city of Oechalia and killed its king just to take the princess as his lover when the king refused to give her to Heracles.
He killed his herald Lichas in anger after putting on the poisoned robe—even though Lichas was innocent.
It’s always… surprised me? bothered me? that the ancient Greeks held men like Heracles in high regard. I think the same way about men like Achilles, Agamemnon, and Odysseus (although I find myself the most sympathetic with Odysseus thanks almost exclusively to the Odyssey… you’ll see what I mean when I get to the final two plays of Sophocles and some of the plays of Euripides).
From my perspective, it seems like the ancient Greeks cared more about the exceptional feats these men performed than their actual character. As far as I’m concerned, if your amazing feats are not matched with a good morality, then what is there to look up to? What am I suppose to learn from someone like Heracles? What am I supposed to emulate? What am I suppose to point to and tell younger generations to emulate?
Is the lesson I’m suppose to learn, “be really powerful or exceptional and you’ll be able to do whatever you want and get whatever you want?” Or, “do amazing things and your name will live on forever—even if your character is rotten?”
This could just be me, a modern American man, chafing at an ancient world I’m unfamiliar with.
It could also be that the ancient Greeks wanted their people to emulate the positive traits of someone like Heracles while learning valuable lessons about his defects so as not to become like him.
There’s another facet that the ancient Greeks seemed to like to tie to exceptional people as well. Maybe this is what balances their heroic feats and bad morals?
Exceptional People are Exceptionally Burdened
One of the trends I’ve noticed so far in my journey through the Great Works is that these larger-than-life people the stories follow tend to have the most troubling lives. Let’s look at some of these characters:
Achilles (from the Iliad) – An exceptionally strong warrior who fought in the Trojan War. Lost his best friend. Fated to die young (but have his name live on forever).
Helen (from the Iliad) – The most beautiful woman in the world during her time. Wooed, sought after, and in some cases kidnapped, due to her beauty. All the best men of the world wanted to marry her. Her seduction (or her kidnapping, depending on the source) by Paris, a prince of Troy, launched the Trojan War leading to many men’s deaths.
Odysseus (from the Odyssey) – One of the most cunning men alive during his time. Kept from home for 20 years, due to a war and a grueling journey home where he lost his whole crew, only to have to defend his home and his wife from over 100 suitors. Even after that, he’d still have to go on a journey later in his life rather than spend the rest of his days peacefully at home.
Agamemnon (from the Oresteia) – The commander of the Greek army during the Trojan War and a king. His great grandfather, grandfather, and father, were all murderers. Had to sacrifice his daughter to appease the gods. Came home victorious from the war only to be murdered by his wife and her lover.
Oedipus (from The Theban Plays) – King of Thebes and (adopted) son of the king of Corinth. Conqueror of the Sphinx. Was fated before he was even conceived to commit the unspeakable horrors of killing his father and having children with his mother. His life is utterly ruined and is only redeemed by his death.
Heracles (from The Women of Trachis). One of the most powerful men in existence. Suffered over and over at the hands of the goddess Hera (outside sources say the worst suffering was when she drove him temporarily insane and he killed his first wife and their children). Had to undergo his famous Twelve Labors, killing powerful and dangerous monsters, and performing feats no one else could do. Once his labors were over, he was killed off.
It makes me think often of what exactly the ancient Greeks were trying to get at. From a storyteller’s perspective, a character is considered dull if they don’t experience conflict. Adversity or suffering are some of the primary ways a protagonist grows and also one of the primary reasons the antagonist becomes a villain. Storytellers, and their audiences, deem that a character is just not “three dimensional” or “real” or “interesting” if they haven’t suffered some negative experience and grow from it or face a challenge and overcome it. This is often considered part of the Hero’s Journey. Audiences have also been demanding something similar for villains—that the “bad guy” have some justification for his villainy or evil that may also garner some level of sympathy. Villains are considered “one-dimensional” if they’re simply evil for evil’s sake.
I wonder if it goes deeper than that, though? One of the major themes that appears across the works I’ve read so far for this blog is that “Life is suffering.” Or, perhaps, it’s more like “Don’t expect to go through your life without suffering. You will, and you better be ready for it.” I don’t really point it out because it’s such an obvious observation. I would like to meet the person who doesn’t know that so I can marvel at them.
Anyway, I wonder if what the ancient Greeks were observing was that the amount of suffering you experience in life is in proportion to your significance. Maybe significance isn’t the right word. In proportion to the impact you make?
For example, a childless man (like myself), will never experience the suffering of watching his child be hurt or sick, experience disappointment, fail, etc. A childless man will never be a parent who experiences the tragedy of losing a child. However, that childless man doesn’t make an impact on life like the parent does. The childless man will die and perhaps leave behind a legacy. The parent, on the other hand, will leave behind the future. What good is a legacy if there is no future?
This could extend to other areas: the more people you know, the more likely you’re going to experience loss. The more businesses you start, the more likely you’re going to experience bankruptcy. The more new activities you try, the more likely you’re going to experience failure. The more knowledge you accumulate, the more negatives about the world you’ll be exposed to. The more you impact the world, the deeper your suffering might be.
Another lesson could be that those who are born with significance have to bear it responsibly. Achilles and Heracles were born powerful due to their lineage. Odysseus was born with a mind for cunning. Helen was born with beauty. Using those traits irresponsibly can cause suffering—not only for others, but for themselves as well. It’s easy to want to use those traits selfishly, irresponsibly. At some point, though, the poor use of those traits will cause results the user doesn’t want. Results the user can’t reverse.
I’ll have to give this more thought. There’s a lot more I could write, but I would be reduced to rambling and throwing out barely formed thoughts—if I’m not doing that already.
That's all for The Women of Trachis.
May your days be filled with grace.
-Andronikos
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Thumbnail: Deianira by Evelyn De Morgan, 1878. Public domain.