The suppliant’s power that is stored there
will go under with him. And if anyone
comes from the army to pull you away,
damn him, let him lie unburied out
in nowhere, his people cut off at the roots
the way I cut this lock. Take it. Let no one
move you. Hold on to him. Don’t let go.
And you, don’t stand around like women
but as men! Keep close. Defend him 1360
until I return, after I’ve made a grave
for this man, no matter who forbids it.
TEUKROS leaves.
CHORUS
(severally)
When, when will these wandering years
add up to something, anything
to put an end
to this spear-driving backbreaking work
on the plains of Troy
whelmed in the shame and sorrow of the Greeks.
He should have been sucked up into the sky
or plunged into the black hole 1370
of ever open Hades—
the man who taught Greeks
to combine forces with hateful arms
for making war,
exhaustion reviving exhaustion
to kill men.
The thrill of myrtle garland
brimming shallows of wine bowls
sweet crescendos of flutes
all that that man has taken from me, 1380
taken my sleep
and love making love into the night.
I’m left out here, who cares?
my hair sopping wet, sodden with night dew,
never to let me forget
I’m here, in miserable rotten Troy.
Was a time massive Aias held off
nightmares, and waves of arrows.
Now he is given up
to the brute demon that pursued him. 1390
Ahead
what joy can I see?
O to be blown homeward
to the wooded headland towering up
over the beating sea.
To sail! under the high
tableland of Sounion
hailing all praise to blessed Athens.
TEUKROS returns.
TEUKROS
Watch it! I hurried back seeing
Agamemnon’s almost here! For sure 1400
he’ll be running off at his mindless mouth.
AGAMEMNON enters, followed by MENELAOS and Armed Attendants.
AGAMEMNON
You there! With the big mouth insulting us.
Think you’ll get away with it? Yes, you.
Son of a slave. To think how you’d strut
and sound off if your mother were well-born—
nobody that you are, standing up for
something that’s a nothing. And to claim
we have no authority, on land or at sea,
to command you—that Aias sailed here
as his own chief! Dangerous talk, 1410
coming from a slave.
Your great man,
where did he go, where stand, that I did not?
Was he the only man in the Greek army?
It may be we’ll regret the day we held
a contest for Achilles’ armor—if Teukros
denounces us because he won’t accept
the judges’ decision, a clear majority,
but keeps backstabbing, tearing us down
the way lowborns do. What laws would hold up 1420
if we overruled judges, replacing the winners
with losers? This has to be stopped.
It’s not the burly broad-shouldered who
come out on top, but those with brains.
A big strong ox is kept on the road
by a little whip. You may get some of that
yourself, if you don’t listen to reason.
You, who are so insolent defending
a shadow man.
Get hold of yourself, 1430
Teukros, know your place. A free man’s
qualified to plead your case. Go find one.
I can’t understand your barbarian babble.
LEADER
You should both be sensible.
That’s the best I can tell you.
TEUKROS
(turning his back on AGAMEMNON)
Wonderful! That’s gratitude for you. You’re
dead, and gratitude has turned tail: a traitor.
This man hasn’t one word to say for you
Aias, the man you fought for at spear
point . . . put your life on the line for. 1440
It’s all gone. Tossed off.
(wheeling round to face AGAMEMNON)
. . . And you!
going on and on, glib and mindless: you don’t
recall backing across the ditch, falling behind
your barricades? You, down to nothing?
Aias only, all alone, came to save you!
With flames leaping up over the sterns
roiling the decks, Hektor striding the ditch
bounding over barricades toward the ships,
and who stopped him? Wasn’t this the work 1450
of one who, you say, went nowhere but
where you went too?
You won’t admit
he served you honorably? Not when he fought
Hektor hand-to-hand? Not that he had to.
He cast his own lot into the plumed helmet.
Not wet clay that breaks up, either, but baked
hard and light, so it could rise to the top
when the helmet was shaken up.
That’s who he was. 1460
And I stood with him. Me, the slave,
the son of a barbarian mother.
Where are you looking? at what?
to go on this way? You don’t know
your father’s father, old Pelops, was born
a Phrygian barbarian? Atreus who
fathered you fed his own brother a meal
so ghastly—his brother’s own children!
Your own mother, a Cretan woman,
was caught by her own father in bed 1470
with a slave! For that he ordered her
drowned in the silence of fishes. That’s
where you’re from. And you talk about
my origins? I
am the son of Telamon. My mother
is royal blood, born of Laomedon. She,
the most precious war spoil, was awarded
to Telamon by Herakles himself,
son of Alkmene. I, as the son
of two such noble parents, cannot 1480
dishonor this man, my own blood,
who died so badly—while you, shameless
would throw his body away unburied.
Now hear this. Wherever you dump him
you’ll have to dump our three bodies, too.
There’s more honor dying for him
out here, for all to see, than lost in war
for your wife. Or was it your brother’s wife?
Watch out! For yourself, not me.
One move toward me you’ll wish 1490
you had been a coward.
ODYSSEUS arrives.
LEADER
Lord Odysseus, just in time! If you mean
to loosen this knot, not yank it tighter.
ODYSSEUS
What’s going on, my friends? Way back there
I could hear the sons of Atreus shouting over
this brave man’s corpse.
AGAMEMNON
Only because, Lord Odysseus, we’ve been hearing
outrageous rant from this man here.
ODYSSEUS
for a man who answers insults with outrage. 1500
AGAMEMNON
I insulted him all right. For acting against me.
ODYSSEUS
O? How did he wrong you?
A
GAMEMNON
He says he won’t let this corpse lie there,
he’ll bury it. To defy me.
ODYSSEUS
As a friend, may I speak the truth
yet keep rowing in time with you?
AGAMEMNON
Of course. I’d be foolish to say no.
Of all the Greeks, you’re my greatest friend.
ODYSSEUS
Listen. Keep faith with the gods. Don’t,
so coldly, throw this man out exposed 1510
naked to the world. Don’t let the violence
so seize you with hate, you crush
justice under your foot. To me, too,
he was an enemy, the worst in the army,
from when I won Achilles’ armor.
Yet despite that, I had to admit,
of all the Greeks who came to Troy, none
could equal him. Except Achilles.
There’s no justice in disrespecting him,
you can’t hurt him more—but you could 1520
break the everlasting law of the gods.
It’s horribly wrong to harm a brave man
when he’s dead. However much you hate him.
AGAMEMNON
You, Odysseus? Side with him against me?
ODYSSEUS
I do. Yet hated him
when it was honorable to hate.
AGAMEMNON
Then why not step on him, now he’s dead?
ODYSSEUS
O son of Atreus, what honor is there
gloating over such a triumph?
AGAMEMNON
For the ruler, it’s hard to show piety. 1530
ODYSSEUS
It’s not hard to respect friends
who give him good advice.
AGAMEMNON
A loyal man defers to those who rule him.
ODYSSEUS
Easy now! You have the best of it
when you listen to your friends.
AGAMEMNON
Think what man you’re standing up for!
ODYSSEUS
That man was my enemy. But a noble one.
AGAMEMNON
What’s that mean? Respect a dead enemy?
ODYSSEUS
Yes. His greatness weighs more with me
than our enmity. 1540
AGAMEMNON
The man changes like that.
ODYSSEUS
Many men are friends. Then enemies.
AGAMEMNON
You approve such men as friends?
ODYSSEUS
I wouldn’t approve an obstinate one.
AGAMEMNON
You’ll have us looking like cowards.
ODYSSEUS
No. All Greeks will see us
as brave, and just.
AGAMEMNON
You’re saying I should let them bury him.
ODYSSEUS
Yes. One day I will have the same need.
AGAMEMNON
So. In all things man works for himself. 1550
ODYSSEUS
Of course. Who else?
Then this will be your doing, not mine.
ODYSSEUS
However you put it, you’ll do what is right.
AGAMEMNON
For you I will do this—and would do
much more, believe me. But him,
as in life, so in the shadows below,
I hate. Do what you want with him.
AGAMEMNON, MENELAOS, and Armed Attendants leave.
LEADER
Whoever says you weren’t born wise
in your very bones, Odysseus, is a fool.
ODYSSEUS
If I may . . . I want to tell you 1560
Teukros: much as I was his enemy,
now I’m ready to be his friend.
I want to help you bury the dead,
to share your concerns—do what
is necessary, and right, to honor
this towering man among men.
TEUKROS
Noble Odysseus, I salute you for this.
I misjudged you, completely. Of all the Greeks
his worst enemy, you were the only one
to come forward and stand up for him. 1570
You hadn’t the heart, here, to heap
the insults of the living on the dead—
unlike that mad, arrogant commander,
him and his brother, who’d filthy up
the corpse rather than bury it. For that
may Zeus, lord of Olympos, and the
unforgetting Furies, and Justice that puts
an endpoint on everything . . . doom them
to the abomination they wished on him.
Except, son of old Laertes, I’m afraid 1580
I can’t let you prepare, or touch, the body.
That might offend the dead. Help in
any other way is welcome, though.
Bring others from the Greek army.
Now I have work to do. Just know
you are, to us, a magnanimous friend.
ODYSSEUS
I’d wanted to help. But as that’s your
wish, I understand. I will leave.
ODYSSEUS leaves.
TEUKROS
We’ve lost too much time. Hurry.
Some of you dig the grave, others 1590
set the tall tripod for the caldron
over the fire, ready to heat
the holy cleansing bath. Someone else
bring his body armor from the tent.
You too, boy, with what strength you
can muster, and with love, put your hand
on him, and help me, I need your help
to lift your father’s body—easy now,
the warm veins are still welling
his black blood out. 1600
Come
everyone who called him friend,
hurry!
perform this service for this man
who was as noble as they come.
Funeral procession forms.
CHORUS
What men see, they know.
But until the future arrives
no one can see it coming
nor what is in it.
ALL leave, carrying the body of AIAS.
Women of Trakhis
INTRODUCTION
“YOU’VE SEEN NOTHING THAT IS NOT ZEUS”
In Sophocles’ Women of Trakhis, Deianeira is an ordinary woman married to Herakles, a canny and violent enforcer who carries the ideal of Greek manhood to its logical (and superhuman) conclusion. To cope with her anxiety about his labors and escapades, yet keep his affection and preserve her marriage, she tolerates his conduct. But ultimately her actions—given her predicament, plus the nature and history of her husband, the most feared and storied hero of the ancient world—destroy not only her but Herakles as well.
By the time Sophocles wrote this play, Herakles had become a widely worshipped cult figure. (As the son of Zeus and Alk-mene—the mortal wife of Amphytrion of Thebes—Herakles displayed his strength and resourcefulness at an early age: he strangled two snakes sent by Zeus’ revengeful goddess wife Hera to kill him in his cradle.) His reputation as a savior and benefactor of humankind swelled over centuries. Mythmakers invented countless improbable monsters and obstacles for him to overcome. But egomania and vengefulness were also part of the legend. In Women of Trakhis, Sophocles undermines reverential accounts of the hero’s selfless service to his fellow Greeks by taking equal notice of his crimes and his brutal, deceitful, selfish acts. When Herakles finally appears, he is writhing in a robe smeared with clinging, burning, penetrating acid, yet Sophocles makes it difficult for an audience to feel sorry for him.
Deianeira is a shadowy or absent figure in the earliest versions of the Herakles myth. By making her the driving force, Sophocles succeeds in dramatizing the destructive side of his culture’s fascination with hero cults and especially with Herakles himself. He creates in Deianeira one
of the most sympathetic and realistic female characters in Greek drama, and presents a Herakles who, though blessed with immense strength and resourcefulness, is also egomaniacal and cruel.
As the play begins, Deianeira explains to the chorus of Trakhinian women how painful it is loving “the best” man alive. “People have a saying that goes way back,” she explains. “You don’t know your own life, / whether it’s good or evil—not / until it’s over. Mine I know now. / It’s unlucky and it’s harsh” (1–5). Deianeira has missed Herakles. She resents his latest fifteen-month absence. But until now—when she is confronted by Iole, an attractive and aristocratic young slave whom Herakles has sent ahead to become his third wife—she has tolerated his sexual conquests and his neglect. Sophocles renders, with striking realism, Deianeira’s struggle to reconcile passion, devotion, and jealousy as she reacts to the girl’s sudden arrival at her house. Pondering how to deal with the threat posed by Iole, Deianeira remembers a “love charm” given her by Nessus, a centaur who was attempting to rape her when Herakles pierced his chest with a poison-soaked arrow. Dying, Nessus promised that the gore from his wound, if carefully preserved, could be used to keep Herakles “from seeing and loving” anyone but her. Deianeira, having saved the gore all these years, will now rub it into a robe and have a messenger take it to Herakles as a homecoming gift. In so doing, she inflicts on him a horrible, unquenchable agony. This epitome of warrior culture is rendered helpless at the hands of a “frail woman, / born with no male strength” (1192–93). “She beat me—only she,” says Herakles. “And didn’t even need a sword” (1094–95). When Deianeira hears from her son Hyllos what her love potion has done to her husband, whose passion she craves and fears, she plunges a shortened sword into her heart.
Deianeira insists she has never resented her husband’s other women, whose number she claims exceeds those of any other mortal. But imagining that she will sleep “under the same blanket” with Herakles and his new bride is more than she can bear. Sophocles could easily have given Iole a chance to speak for herself, thus enlivening the drama with a face-off between the two women. He chose instead to show Herakles’ lover as visibly nubile but utterly intimidated, seemingly incapable of speech. In this play, as in most versions of the myth, Iole is brought to Trakhis against her will. Iole’s silence and Deianeira’s instinctive pity for her allows the audience to focus on the conflict between the loyal wife and the husband wedded to his own legend. The drama thus takes off on a collision course of conflicting passions, Deianeira’s to keep her husband’s love, and Herakles’ to make his latest conquest permanent.