The Women Of Trachis, 4

Heracles, unconscious, is brought in to Hyllus.  He awakens, but in agony.  He begs to be killed by any around him-- and then specifically by Hyllus when he recognizes him.  And then he lashes out at Deianira for having killed him (as he sees it, anyway)-- even asking that she be brought out to him so he can inflict on her the same pain he feels himself.  The venom of the hydra that eats at him reminds him of all the beasts he has conquered before.

Hyllus attempts to speak with Heracles to inform him of some of the developments.  First of all, Deianira is dead, by her own hand.  Moreover, she did not intend Heracles's death, but was tricked long ago-- she actually was trying to woo him back.  Heracles recognizes the duplicity of Nessus the centaur long ago, and also recognizes the work of the gods throughout the whole ordeal.  He reveals the prophecy that had him being finished with his toils at this moment-- and recognizes that it ends not with rest but with death.

As his final act, Heracles extracts promises from Hyllus.  First, Hyllus must burn Heracles alive on a funeral pyre to end his agony.  Hyllus refuses, but agrees at least to bring him to the pyre where Heracles may set the fire himself.  Next, he must marry Iole.  "No other man but you must ever have her who has lain with me at my side."  [Gross.]  Hyllus is unnerved at the command again, but ultimately agrees.

Heracles is taken away to his final death.  Zeus has willed it.

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First of all, would it have killed the translator to use the phrase "poisoned shirt" at least once?  You know, to trigger a little cultural memory in the reader with a phrase that they might actually recognize?  On the other hand, I'm not sure I actually had the poisoned shirt mentally hooked up with Heracles's death, so it might not have mattered.

Having re-read the introductory essay, there is an interesting point here.  Unlike the other Greek plays I have read so far, the action does not center around one character and the way fate catches up to him or her.  Instead, the fate just kind of happens to everyone in turn.  Fate doesn't befall them because of their faults, or their disobedience, or their self-destruction, it just kind of happens because the gods don't really care about the actions of humans at all.  The theme of the play is the disinterest of the gods in the affairs, expectations, and desires of men-- even the greatest of men are ultimately minor characters, mere playthings.  The title of the play, otherwise completely incongruous, does stress that the focus of this play isn't on Heracles or his wife or his sun, it is on the action of fate working around all human lives.  I can acknowledge the validity of that point.  You win again, classics.

The Women Of Trachis, 3

Deianira enters in a panic.  She had wiped Nessus's blood on the cloak with a small piece of wool.  When she threw that piece on the ground in the sun, it shrivelled, decayed, and brought forth from the earth a terrible bilious poison.  She realized the centaur had been lying to her when he gave it to her-- and why would he do otherwise?  He wouldn't offer her a tool to woo Heracles, his murderer; he offered instead a tool of revenge.

It was a trap the whole time.

The Chorus tells her to wait and see.  Maybe it will all be OK.

Hyllus immediately enters in agony, though, accusing Deianira of murdering Heracles.  He witnessed it himself: Lichas approached Heracles with the cloak as he was preparing a sacrifice to the gods.  During the sacrifice, in front of the flames, the poison did its work.  Heracles first accused Lichas of treachery, who tried to explain only what he knew.  Heracles swung him by his ankle and smashed his head against a rock anyway.  In great pain, Heracles called for Hyllas to carry him home.

Hyllas formally accuses Deianira of killing the best of men.  Deianira slinks away.

The Chorus realizes the prophecy has come true in the bad way.  It actually said that the twelve years would bring an end to the toils of Heracles-- and so they have.  And done in by the jealousy of a woman!  Looks like Aphrodite is behind it all.

Nurse enters.  Deianira killed herself on her wedding bed, stabbed through with a sword.  (When she pulled out the sword, the nurse ran to tell Hyllas.  Instead of, you know, getting the sword out of her hands.)  Having lost his mother and father on the same day to a murder-suicide, Hyllas is distraught, and partly blames himself for being so hard on Deianira.

The Chorus is looking for some good news among the misery, and not finding it.  Finally, a throng of men carrying the body of Heracles enter, bringing him home at last.

The Women Of Trachis, 2

The messenger pulls Deianira aside to give her additional information.  It seems Lichas wasn't being entirely truthful with his story about Heracles sacking the city for revenge, nor about the identity of the particularly pretty girl.  Lichas had been telling others in the village-- and the messenger overheard him-- that Heracles had sacked the city solely out of love for the girl, Iole.  Deianira feels betrayed.  The Chorus is pissed at Lichas.  The messenger expects a tip again.

Deianira confronts Lichas on his way out again.  He's not budging from his story, and can't figure out why anyone in the house wouldn't believe him.  I mean, geez!  [Almost an exact quote.]  But Deianira coaxes it out of him, partly by saying she knows all about Heracles's conquests of other women, and partly by playing on Lichas's sense of his own honor being at stake.  The Chorus joins in the coaxing.  "Obey her.  What she says is good.  You will have no cause to complain later, and you will gain our thanks."  [Who is the Chorus again?  What might they mean by that?]

Lichas spills it.  The whole sacking of the city was a feint to get at Iole.  The Chorus, now apparently omniscient, describe the battle between Heracles and Achelous over Iole, with Cypris the goddess of love refereeing.  Heracles won.

Deianira re-emerges with her last desperate plan.  She cannot have a younger consort within her own household, feeling as if she-- Heracles's only wife!-- has been replaced at home.  Men!  Luckily, when she was a girl, she was carried by [the centaur] Nessus across a river on her way to meet Heracles for the first time.  He molested her on the way over.  Zeus Heracles killed him for it.  And as a penance Nessus offered her the blood from his wound, which would at all times entice Heracles to her.  Using it for the first time, she has now dipped a cloak in this blood, and sends Lichas out with it to give to Heracles.  When he puts it on, her place in the household will be secure again.

The Chorus is excited for Heracles's return once again.

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This story is getting more and more ridiculous.  Although it seems the parts that were ridiculous last time turned out to be a fabrication, so who knows anymore.  Sexual politics has emerged as a theme in a big way, and that might be new among everything I've read so far.

It occured to me while reading this that I have paid no attention whatsoever to the lyrical structure of these plays.  As in, I haven't looked for a poetical meter at all.  So I made a conscious effort to pay attention to that, and simply couldn't see it at all.  I suck.  Or the translator sucks.

Edit, 2/16: Apparently, I badly misread the details in the story about Nessus yesterday.  The edited details above are hugely important for the following action.

The Women Of Trachis, 1

Deianira, wife of Heracles, frets.  She had been saved from a miserable future when Heracles had taken her from home and married her.  But since then he has always been away, on one gods' adventure after another.  Currently, he has been gone over a year, with no word of his whereabouts.

Deianira's nurse suggests she ask her son, Hyllus, if there is any news of his father.  Hyllus: "Oh, Heracles?  Yeah, he was a slave to a Lydian woman.  Now he's in Euboea fighting Eurytus.".  Deianira: "Huh.  That's exactly what the prophecy said he'd be doing."  Hyllus: "What prophecy?"

[The lack of communication before today is absurd.]

Hyllus goes to find more information.  The Chorus enters and commiserates with Deinira, but ultimately reproves her for her pessimism: this is Heracles, after all, and he's made it through worse scrapes before.  But Deinira explains that when he left this last time, he had told her that in a little more than a year, he would either be finished with the tasks forever or he'd be dead.  That day of reckoning has now arrived.  [Which kind of explains why everything came to a head all of a sudden.]

A messenger arrives with news from Heracles's herald, Lichas.  Heracles is on his way back home.  The messenger expects a tip.

And there was much rejoicing.

Lichas himself arrives with a gaggle of captured women in tow.  Heracles is taking care of some divine promises, but will be home shortly.  It seems Heracles had visited Eurytus in peace, but was dissed badly while he was there.  Shortly after, he killed Eurytus's son Iphitus in a fit of rage, by throwing him off a cliff.  As punishment, Zeus handed him over to the Lydian woman for a time.  When that was through, Heracles went back to get his revenge on Eurytus who got him into the trouble in the first place.  Simple.  And utterly ridiculous.

The women, meanwhile, are the pillage from the victory, and are screwed.  Deinira pities them, and focuses especially on one young, possibly noble girl [named Iole].  She asks Lichas for the details about this one, but he knows nothing-- she's been silent since her capture-- and can't figure why she'd care anyway.  The women are sent inside.

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I've read this about five different times, and simply can't get interested in the story.  Partly, it's because the Heracles mythology is kind of coming out of nowhere.  He's been referenced, of course, in many of the previous works, but this particular episode is totally new, and doesn't seem to have any importance at all.  So far.

Or maybe it's the translation, by a guy (Michael Jameson) I haven't read before.  The introduction, at least, was impenetrable-- like he was writing an analysis just to fill out the assignment, and couldn't care less if what he said was interesting or not.  I've written papers like that myself.

So far, this play is a dud all around.

Sophocles

A bit of research shows that only seven of Sophocles' 123 plays have survived.  Somehow, I managed to collect the whole set.  Huzzah!

The first book contains Ajax, The Women of Trachis, Electra, and Philoctetes.  Translations are by John Moore, Michael Jameson, and David Greene-- all unknown to me, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  I'm pretty sure I originally bought this for my freshman seminar, but it's possible that I got it for my Ancient Philosophy course at the University of Chicago, along with the Iliad.  In either case, I can't remember actually reading anything out of it.  Shame on me.

The second book contains the Theban plays: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone.  I picked this up at Half Price Books when I bought my Aeschylus.  Translations are by Paul Roche again.  Solid.

The overall chronology of authorship, it seems, is Ajax - Antigone - Women of Trachis - Oedipus the King - Electra - Philoctetes - Oedipus at Colonus, so that's the order I'm going in.  That means I'm reading the book with the Theban plays out of order, but they weren't written together anyway, so what's the dif?  We'll see what Roche's introduction has to say about it, though.

Incidentally, what I do remember from freshman seminar is watching a bizarre video  in the library on a crummy VHS and old tube TV starring Morgan Freeman in some sort of retelling of the Oedipus saga in a church or something.  (Which would seem to imply that I got the first Sophocles book there-- but that book doesn't have the Oedipus plays in it.  So now I don't know what happened.)  Anyway, I finally managed to track down what in the hell that was all about.  Feast your eyes on "The Gospel at Colonus" starring, indeed, Morgan Freeman.