RE-AIR: Conversations: A Most Sophoclean Prophecy, Women & Wordplay in Sophocles’ Trachiniae w/ Amy Pistone

This episode originally aired in the spring of 2022. Liv speaks with returning guest Amy Pistone who specializing in Sophoclean tragedy. Amy shares some of the complexities hidden within the Trachiniae and they discuss Sophoclean prophecies (ie., the origin of Never Trust the Oracle). Follow Amy on Twitter https://twitter.com/apistone. CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com grouptrip.

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• 2:10Liv Albert?

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• 3:36Liv Albert?

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• 4:02Speaker 02

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• 5:03Liv Albert?

  Here with yet more on Sophocles' Trachiniae, because how could I cover this incredible play without speaking to an expert who also loves it? This actually started way back when I first had Amy on the podcast to talk all things Sophocles back in the summer. We briefly touched upon Trachiniae in that conversation, but I hadn't read it at the time. So as soon as I started reading it, I just knew I had to bring Amy back on the show. It's really becoming a favorite play of mine. It's just so interesting, and Dionera is so complex and sympathetic, and just so different from the other important women of Greek tragedy.

• 5:45Liv Albert?

  I love her. I love this play, and I was so thrilled to talk to Amy about it. She provides some insights into the Greek of it all, how it would have been performed, and then she shares theories, so many good theories, and so much more, particularly when it comes to how Sophocles plays with prophecies from oracles. Ugh, it's so good.

• 6:07Liv Albert?

  Now, I did record this episode just as I was writing the script for the final episode of Trachiniae. So, the second half of that episode, like after Heracles arrives, was written after our conversation. And I think some of our conversation affected the way I told that bit, and in a good way. But now you can kind of see where that came from. But also, it means I didn't fully know the ending of the play when we spoke. Like, I did, because I mean, I know the story of Heracles's death, but not the way the play handles it. The Zeus of it all. Ugh. We also go on a whole tangent about The Rocks Hercules movie, and I kept that in because I thought it was fun. And now it kind of holds me to finally watching that movie. Similarly, Amy mentions the Movies

• 6:50Liv Albert?

  We Dig podcast, which is a full-blown coincidence, because I recorded last week's episode and this week's at totally different times. But isn't it perfect? You can catch Amy's episode of Movies We Dig, which, if you don't remember, is last week's guest's podcast. And Amy's episode is all about the Mummy trilogy. And yes, I was really mad that someone got to that before I did. I also kept in a big bit of Amy talking about building a course around gender in the ancient world, because I mean, that's just so insightful and cool. And if courses like that existed when I was in university studying classics, I could have started this whole career probably a lot earlier. And so many of you are always asking about my experience studying classics. So, you're gonna get a lot more relevant

• 7:32Liv Albert?

  information out of hearing from a current university teacher of classics like Amy, because I graduated 10 years ago. Anyway, that was a lot of behind-the-scenes info, but it felt interesting and pertinent. On to the episode. Ugh. Sophocles, Dionara, Heracles, Ioli, Zeus. Ugh, Zeus.

• 8:08Liv Albert?

  Conversations, a most Sophoclean prophecy. Women and wordplay in Sophocles' Trachiniae with Amy Pistone.

• 8:31Liv Albert?

  Dive right into the Trachiniae.

• 8:32Speaker 04

  Yay. This is, this is really fun. I'm, I'm looking forward to it.

• 8:36Liv Albert?

  It's so exciting. I've finally read, I'll admit, most of it. I'm working on the last episode right now. So I'm like, I'm just towards the end and I was like, I could just speed read all of it. I know what happens. It's fine. So I like, but I, I took a play that I didn't know very well and turned it into like, okay, three episodes of me obsessing over it, which is what I do with every new play that I read. But this one.

• 8:59Speaker 04

  Well, I'm so excited to get to talk about it because like, it's one of these plays that for the longest time, nobody, like it was, it was always like, uh, like kind of the black sheep of the Sophocles family. And it's, it might be my favorite. I mean, like there are, Oedipus Rex is, you know, like classic Antigone. Like they're, they're, they deserve to be classics, but this is probably just like my personal favorite of, of his plays. So I'm, I am so excited to have an excuse to get to speak out about it with somebody.

• 9:23Liv Albert?

  I could see why it would be like, it's definitely turning into one of my favorite plays for sure. Just because, I mean, and I don't really have like a structure for how we're going to do it. So just kind of, you know, talk about the play generally. A cat just jumped up in my lap. So that you always have to make a sound when he does it too.

• 9:39Speaker 04

  Oh, sweet baby.

• 9:41Liv Albert?

  Um, yeah. So, I mean, I basically just want to like dive right into everything, but Dianeara, I think is the obvious reason why this play is just so good. Like she's just so great.

• 9:53Speaker 04

  So can I, can I give you like a fact that might make you even more like just obsessed with Deianara in this? So two, two facts. One is like an etymological fact that her name and different translations like sometimes explain this and sometimes don't, but her name more or less like etymologizes or translates out to man killer. And so there's this, this kind of idea that we see in a lot of tragedies about how like someone's name, you know, this like nomin omen, like somebody's name like has something to say about the kind of person they're going to be or the kind of person they are. And like you see this with Helen that people like kind of pun or like etymologize her name to being from a verb for to take, to seize. And then so sometimes like translators do all kinds of fun stuff

• 10:37Speaker 04

  to try and translate the pun, which is famously hard to translate puns. But they like, you know, of course, like hell, she was, you know, Helen, she was hell to ships, hell to the men, hell to the city. And essentially in the Greek, it talks, it's like, you know, like she's, she's a taker, right? She's the person who sees the gold and this war took, took so much from us and we should have, there's kind of this weird way of like, we should have seen this coming because it's right in her name. It was right there. Which, so Deianara, like, nobody really comments much on it in the play. They're not like, oh, we should have known. But the fact that there's this kind of built in, like, yeah, she's not going to be able to avoid destroying in some way the, the man in her life, her

• 11:21Speaker 04

  husband. And so that, that is just a side fun, like etymological tidbit. But then the part that I love is, so for a lot of plays, we can kind of deduce who, like which roles the same actor would have played, just in terms of exits and things. And for this play, we're like, pretty much the, I don't know if there might be some debate, but we, for the most part are pretty convinced that the actor that plays Deianara is the same actor that plays Heracles.

• 11:48Liv Albert?

  I was just gonna guess that when you said it, because like, she's on the stage like the whole time until she's not.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  Which is like, it's so great because you get this like, right, that that this too, because it's really, it's like the story of her and then the story of him and that they never, they're never there together. And the whole play is about their, like, their relationship. And that they're never, they never talk to each other. They never like, look at each other. They're never on stage together. Um, but it also makes this like, really, um, I think this sort of really powerful. And I saw a staged production a while back and they had the same actor play both of them. And like, being able to see that is, is just kind of really makes you think about, like, the relationship between them. And like, are they, you know, are they versions of the same person in some sense? Are they like, are they, does that highlight how different they are? But it, it kind of forces you to think about that when you're like, oh, that's, that's the same

• 12:38Speaker 04

  body. That's the same, like, that's the same person that I just saw as, as Diana era. And like, she left and then her husband comes in.

• 12:45Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah. The moment you said that, I was like, wait, oh, I bet it's gotta be Harry. Please, that's so cool. Because yeah, I mean, I've just, i- in the writing of the scripts, um, for when this is gonna air, or when the, my story of it is gonna air, I've just gotten to the part where Diana era dies. And then I was like, basically, my brain just kept staring at the screen like, okay, I have to write more. But also, I've kind of, I've already written like, 3,000 words of this tragedy today, and maybe I'm gonna take a moment.

• 13:17Speaker 04

  Well, and this is one of the, like, okay, so, quick, quick side note tangent. Um, and, and I apologize if this is like, stuff you've already talked about, and you're just like, oh,

• 13:25Liv Albert?

  I always love it, don't worry.

• 13:27Speaker 04

  So, one of my, my constant things I come back to is that I, Aristotle's Poetics, which like, totally shapes how much we read tragedy. And all of the best tragedies, like, don't fit what he thinks they should be. And this is like a classic two-part tragedy, which he's like, no, plot should be single. Like, it should be one plot. It, we don't want these dumb, like, half this, half that, kind of plots. Like, that's, that's poor writing. And It's like, this is such a good play. And the fact that, and you know, you get a lot of these where it is, it's exactly the thing that he's complaining about in in plot structure. And like, it's such a good play. If if you don't think that good plots can be written like this, then I question your ability to know if, like, what a good play is, because this is such a compelling story. But like this part where, you know, any of these plays where there's, there's a clear split in the middle.

• 14:12Speaker 04

  Hippolytus is one of these where, you know, Phaedra is there at the beginning and then and then she dies. And now it's a play about Hippolytus and it's a play about Theseus and things like that. And I mean, same deal with with this play that it's, it's this very, and I, in a lot of ways, I find those two part structures to be great because it's, it's sort of a play that's about two different things and and your brain has to be like, how do those things react or interact with one another? Like, what am I supposed to do about the juxtaposition of these two different storylines? So like grief or loss or, you know, but it's always like something happened and then someone is is reacting to it, which is kind of fundamentally what I think tragedy is about, is about how we react to terrible things happening.

• 14:55Speaker 04

  So, yeah, I, anyway, I can't miss a chance to complain about Aristotle being bad at reading tragedy.

• 15:01Liv Albert?

  I mean, yeah. I mean, if he thinks this one's bad, then I I don't think I've ever read. I feel like I had to have read some of Poetics in school, but that would have been at least 10 years ago and it's all lost my, left my brain. I make habit of not reading a lot of philosophers.

• 15:16Speaker 04

  Well, and like the, if I'm being generous, I will say that Aristotle is, and I don't, I don't often feel generous towards Aristotle, but I will say that he is, there's good reason to think that he's more talking about lost tragedies that like are a later time period. He's not talking about like our major tragedy and he's talking about people who are writing at his time, so like his contemporaries who are, and he's like, oh, like these plays suck and like, we don't, we don't have these plays. So, I mean, maybe they do and maybe he's accurately pinpointing these problems with the plays of his time. But A lot of the examples he uses are are major tragedies that we have. And so it it doesn't let him entirely off the hook.

• 15:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 15:57Speaker 04

  There is, there is, there are those who would say that it's more about he's not writing primarily for us. And thinking about these plays, he's primarily using this as a way to tell tragedians of his time, like, be better. Here are the things you're doing that are bad. But yeah, I still, I still think he's. But this play, people have hated until very recently. Like, it's just having this, like, moment of people realizing how great it is. Because for the longest time, it didn't fit what people wanted. Like, there was a whole tradition of, like, the Sophoclean hero and what people thought that meant. And like, what, what the Sophoclean hero exemplifies, um, which is, I could psychoanalyze so many of these scholars

• 16:41Speaker 04

  who are like writing about like the, you know, the heroic temper. We have all of these works where it's this very, a hero who stands out against his civilization and his society. And he's like the lone man who gets it in all society. And like, you can just see people in like the middle of the 1800s, like, like, they think they are the Sophoclean hero. And you can just see them putting themselves into the scholarship in ways that I find to be very, because like, I, I think that it causes people to misread when you were reading for the Sophoclean hero. You, you have to force ambiguity and complexity and messiness of these plays to fit what you want this type of hero to be.

• 17:20Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 17:21Speaker 04

  And so I think, like, but, and this didn't fit that, right? Like, this didn't fit that model at all. Like, we have, you know, Deonera, and then she accidentally kills Heracles. And then, like, we have no resolution. It's just this bleak ending. And people didn't think it was appropriately Sophoclean. And there were some people who suggested, like, maybe it's forged, like, maybe it's not really Sophocles. Maybe it's like inaccurately attributed to him. And it was a long time before it found a home in the more, like, no, this is a legit Sophoclean tragedy. It's a really good one, and we haven't, we haven't given it a fair shake.

• 17:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah. It's so interesting because I think, because I'm not in the academic side of it, I don't, like, I don't have a good frame of reference on even what that Sophoclean hero would be. Like, is it all around Oedipus? Which I'm like, is he meant to be a hero?

• 18:11Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, that's part of, because like, so I mean, if you think about like Ajax and his story, you know, that you have like, oh, like Ajax, like this, you know, he's too, he's too good for this world. It's kind of a lot of the vibe that people come at this with, that like, a man who comes into reconcile, maybe a woman, I guess, Antigone, ugh, right? Like there's, but it's very much like a man who like, society doesn't get him. I'm like, he, he gets it. I'm like, society, he is coming into conflict with his, his society. And I guess, I mean, that's a way to read some of these plays, but it, it flattens and it takes so much out of it if you're trying to, to say that these heroes are all somewhat the same, like, Philoctetes or Neoptolemus or whatever, like, are, are they like Oedipus, who's like,

• 18:56Speaker 04

  Antigone, who's like Ajax, like, I, that whole project and like that whole history of, of engaging with these plays, I think, does a disservice to the texts, which are so much messier, like, they're so much messier. And I, I think there was a period in scholarship and it was, if you get into a whole like, you know, a certain type of like elite man, white man, um, you know, largely British, um, or other like European elites who, yeah, uh, who have never been wrong about anything ever. And,

• 19:30Speaker 04

  but you, like, they are not necessarily looking, they, they don't want to see all of the, the messiness and the complexity of some of these texts. And part of that is, you know, like, the rational greed, like, we don't want to think about the, the more irrational stuff and the more, um, like, there is a thing that we look for in antiquity and, and we're reading for that. And it, I think there has been, thankfully, I mean, over the last, you know, fifty, seventy-five, a hundred years, like, we've really done a much better job of, of seeing the richness of these texts. But yeah, this play like, For so long, people were not, they just didn't think it was good. And they're so wrong about that because it's so good.

• 20:12Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and I can see kind of why, I mean, because Dionera is what makes it so good. But she's not like, she's not a heroine like many of the other more famous Greek tragedies. She is not Clytemnestra, she is not Medea. And that's what makes her so interesting, but also like makes her, I would say, probably unique in a way that would might annoy people who are looking for a more traditional tragedy of like, the woman is bad, like the woman must be bad, or she must be antiquity. There is no in-between.

• 20:47Speaker 04

  Right, like you have to be this kind of like masculine type of hero, like you have, you know, that there's, she just doesn't fit into any of those. And then our hero, like our, you know, like our Greek hero guy, like, you know, we, I mean, we don't even gesture at the idea that he becomes a god. Like you get to the end and, you know, in the back of our mind, there's all this like, yeah, I mean, he becomes a god, but we don't see any of that. He is screaming in pain and agony and he's in like the register that men never go in in tragedy. Like he's in this like super like, oh my God, this is very bad, kind of meter and like register, he's up, he's up in the very emotional range. And we get no resolution, like we get nothing, there's no solace, there's no consolation.

• 21:29Speaker 04

  It's just like, wow, this, and then at the end, either the chorus or Hylas, his son, like just says like, and this is Zeus. And we, and seen, like that's, that's, you know, and it doesn't explain, like it's just like, wow, that's, they just kind of throw it in your face that this is Zeus, Heracles' dad, like, and we keep getting reminded throughout that this is his dad, who was letting all of this happen to him and is looking on, is not doing anything. And we never even get a mention of. Oh, and he's definitely like, we're gonna go put him on a pyre and he'll become a god now. Like, we don't, we don't talk about that. That would give us something to fall on as like, oh, it's okay then. Nope, he's just screaming and he's on fire. He is burning to death and,

• 22:15Speaker 04

  and I think we're done here. That's a, that is a bleak way to end a play.

• 22:19Liv Albert?

  And, and like a play generally, but then also when you take into account like, yeah, it, it's Heracles, like he's the hero, like the number one, the most universal, the most beloved. Like, he is the guy and he ends on fire and in pain. And that alone is so interesting. And I, you know, love it for all my love to hate heroes. Because I think it's just so much more interesting than all of their, the other stories around them of, or, or it is so much more interesting than the idea that like, yes, Heracles dies, but oh, up he goes into Mount Olympus and he lives with a nice lady named Tebe and we all just don't even

• 23:00Liv Albert?

  have to think about it, you know, like, meanwhile, I, I found myself, I realized it after I'd already done a couple of episodes, like, leading up to this play where I was like, I kept saying that Dianara was his last wife. And I was like, I think I'm just like, gonna just forget, apparently, that like, he does go up and marry a goddess, like, becomes this whole thing. But it does feel so different. And it's like, that's such a way, like a clean way of ending his story, when it seems so much more interesting and complex and like, more indicative of the life he led, to have him end on fire, you know, especially after this play, because they don't make him look very good. Like, it's very much, I mean, you know,

• 23:40Liv Albert?

  you can still see the way that the Heracles of it all in there, but it's so much like, Dianara is just trying to have a decent life. Even she's, you know, she's not even trying to have like, a great life, or like a great marriage. She just wants to not be sad and anxious, like, all of the time. And even when she finds out about Ioli, she's just like,

• 24:04Liv Albert?

  I mean, it'd be fine if he just like went off and was in love with women elsewhere. But like, just don't bring her into my house. And you're like, oh, my god, that's bare minimum.

• 24:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's such a, like, it's such a low bar that she's asking. And the fact that she's so specifically is like, I don't want to be, I mean, I feel like there's such a a reference to like, to the Clytemnestra's of the world. Like, I don't want to be a Clytemnestra. Like, I don't, you know, I, I, and she, I mean, there's some specific lines where she's, she's like referencing how she doesn't want to be that kind of woman. She wants to protect her marriage. Like, she's not trying to kill her husband. And I think like the part of the tragedy of it is that she's very specifically trying not to kill her husband. And she still ends up killing her husband.

• 24:47Liv Albert?

  Yeah. And she just, yeah, I mean, it's so explicit that all she wants is to just have him love her and not bring another woman into their house. Like, not even just only love me. It's like, love me and also just don't bring another woman into my bed. Like, absolute bare minimum. And then, and, oh, yeah, it's her naive day, or it's just like the fact that she just fully doesn't know what she's doing. She just really thinks she's just trying to get something good and like, just trying to help her situation. And she just has no idea that it's gonna kill him. And then even when she does, she realizes immediately and like, immediately feels bad.

• 25:30Liv Albert?

  And that's so interesting, too, where it's like, there's no anger in her at all. It's all just like longing to have a halfway decent life and love.

• 25:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. And like, I don't know how you can't find that to be such a compelling plot. Like, that's, I don't know, I find the plots that I find the most gripping and like, the most tragic are the ones where, like, everyone's making a decision that you understand every step of the way. Like, you know, there, there's no point where you're like, yeah, you, you shouldn't have done that. Like, maybe people should have known better about some. Aspects of like, do I think the centaur blood is probably a good thing? But I think the play does such a beautiful job of looking at how reasonable it is that she thinks all of the things that she thinks. Like, she doesn't do anything wrong. She wants to protect her house and her marriage and her family, which is fundamentally the thing that women like are allowed to

• 26:27Speaker 04

  act in the, you know, in the sphere of like in tragedy, like the house is their place. And so like she's trying to be like, to act in the place that she is allowed to act and protect her child and her hus- like her marriage and that that backfires on her. Like, that's so, I mean, just such like a beautifully crafted, but really tragic plot.

• 26:50Liv Albert?

  And she's so sympathetic from the very beginning, too. So I think it just immediately introduces that idea of like, this is just a woman, not only trying to get by, but yeah, do right by her family and her husband and her house. And she does everything right. You know, even the, with the centaur blood, the poisoned robe or whatever it ends up being like, she made it. She made it by hand and with love and okay, it happened to be poisoned, but like she didn't know that and she just made it. But even the way it opens with like her story, uh, you know, of the river god and everything, but also just like her sadness, like the play just opens with her sadness in a way that I was not expecting and like really was powerful for me reading it for the first time, which I

• 27:36Liv Albert?

  love and hate to do for the podcast because I feel totally thrown in, but also I think it makes for good episodes and then I get to read the play.

• 27:43Speaker 04

  Yeah. And you're, I mean, you're reacting like authentically in the moment as opposed to, yeah, I feel like some plays that I've read and taught and talked about so much, like I, my react, like I kind of, I know how I feel about the play and you know, this is, this is the part that I always want to talk about. And I feel like when you're, you're engaging with something for the first time, like you're, you're feeling the, like the rawness of the intensity of those emotions and I don't know. I mean, in some ways like that's. If we're thinking about these as things that were originally performed, like you're you're getting like your first time watching a movie. Like you are reacting how an audience would react. Like you're like, oh, no, Dianna, no. Like, that's, you know, the 20th time you read a play, you're like, yeah, this is like, you know,

• 28:27Speaker 04

  maybe I get some clever wordplay I didn't notice before because oh, that's foreshadowing, I see. But you're not getting that that actual authentic reaction. So I don't know. I think it's great. You're reading it for the first time here.

• 28:37Liv Albert?

  It's very fun and it makes my life easier than having to read it and then write an episode reading it again. So I just do it. But one thing that really surprised me from like just the Greek mythology of it all is the way that Dionera is so sympathetic to Iole. Like before and after, she knows the truth of why she's there. Like she's just kind to her and she's just like, you look really sad. You look particularly sad. Who are you? Why are you so sad? And then even when she finds out, it's just like, you're really sad. Like, that was just surprising to me just from Greek mythology as a whole. But also, I don't know. I suppose I'm just so used to going to Euripides for

• 29:20Liv Albert?

  nice women who don't hate everyone.

• 29:24Speaker 04

  Well, and that's, you know, that she would be justified in being mad at, like this, I mean, this is the thing that's causing the problem. Like this is, you know, like Ioli is is the threat to to her marriage. And the fact that she doesn't take that out on her, I think, and I mean, this is a somewhat anachronistic way to to think about this, but I very much see it like the impulse to like get mad at the other woman or, you know, as opposed to, I mean, if you're mad at anyone, you're mad at Heracles. Like, and you're not even mad at Heracles, even though you deserve to be mad at him. But that I only didn't choose this. Like she she had no say in any of this. Like Heracles fell in love or lust or, you know, whatever.

• 30:08Speaker 04

  But like, and he did all of this and took her. I mean, this is not, and I think there's something so, I don't know, like aspirational or relatable in an aspirational way that she isn't, she isn't mad at Iole. And, you know, that this is, if anything, this is Heracles fault. That we're not meant to be like, oh, Iole, this homewrecker, which is fundamentally not fair. And I think in some ways, like Cassandra and Clyde of Nestor, we think about like, Like Cassandra is perceived as a threat, like Clytemnestra's not happy that that this woman's coming home, even though she's enslaved. She has no choice about it. But I, in a lot of ways, I think Clytemnestra still thinks of her as a, as a threat.

• 30:51Speaker 04

  And Daenerys, in so many different ways, is really explicit about like, she doesn't want to be Clytemnestra. And, you know, and not that there's, I mean, I love Clytemnestra, but that I think the fact that, that Daenerys is so intentional about, like, that's not what I'm doing. I am not trying to ax my husband when he gets home. I am trying to, to do something different. I want to save this marriage. I don't want to destroy him.

• 31:16Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I'm just, I feel like I'm mostly just impressed with Sophocles for actually conveying that so incredibly well. Because I find it to be very, I mean, very believable that she fortunately does look and say like, no, this was not Iole's decision. She does not want to be here. But it's more rare that anyone would actually convey it in ancient Greek work. I'm like, oh, yeah, well done.

• 31:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, like, it's a very, like, yeah, like, high five Sophocles. Like, that is a astonishingly enlightened view that you have, you know, and whether or not he's thinking about this in the same terms we are, like, there is something, like, really great about that.

• 31:53Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I mean, he certainly had to have been thinking about it enough to get there. So I'm like, hey, you know, well done.

• 31:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, good, good on him.

• 32:00Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I don't hate her, except, well, not even except, but I don't, I don't hate her really at any moment. There's a couple of lines where you're like, oh, they're really like tossing around. I guess there's just some interesting lines about the enslaved people around. And like, the, the translation says nurse. I never know what to really describe that as a person. But she, you know, has this great idea and, and Daenerys is like, oh, you had a really good idea, even though you're enslaved. How lucky you're, you can be smart too. And I was like, okay, I don't think that needed to be said.

• 32:34Speaker 04

  Unnecessary. Didn't need that comment.

• 32:37Liv Albert?

  Said nothing at all. That would have been just fine.

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• 34:12Liv Albert?

  Yeah, such a back-cutting compliment.

• 34:14Speaker 04

  Yeah. Oh, you're smarter than you look. Like, okay, rude.

• 34:17Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Not necessary. Just say, "good idea." Oh, yeah. Oh, it was just, I don't even know. The whole thing is just so, so interesting. Greek tragedy is always so, it's just always so eye-opening to me, the way that they're able to tell these stories, but in such interesting ways, the way that we often don't have other versions to look at, like other versions of the myth. And so we have all these questions over, like, what is purely from the myth backstory that Sophocles is working off of? And like, what did he invent? I think this is a good example of that. Like, we have the idea of what happens.

• 34:59Liv Albert?

  But even as I'm thinking about it, like, we don't have a lot pre-Sophocles of what happens. We have a lot after.

• 35:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, like a lot of this is his, or as far as we can tell, like a lot of this is his own interventions as opposed to, you know, some stories like they're, they're out there, there's versions out there. But yeah, this is one that like we don't have, we don't have that many like particularly specific details, like a lot of this is Sophocles' own thing.

• 35:26Liv Albert?

  Yeah, which is always one of the things I think about too, as soon as I start a tragedy of like, what does the audience already know going in? And then how does that affect the play? And so I'm kind of curious in this case, like, how much of, of Dionera like causing the death, but then also Heracles' death generally, like I'm curious how much of that did exist before, like, or how much did end up surprising the audience? I imagine there isn't a good answer for that, but.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I think for a lot of it, and to be fair, I also, I often tend to be on the side of like,

• 36:06Speaker 04

  we shouldn't assume people, you know, even though like some of the versions that we have out there about this and that, I tend to a lot of times be on the side of like, well, you don't know, I mean, there's, there's versions out there and we don't know what we've lost and we don't know what the most common version was. So I tend to be a little bit more agnostic about some of those things. But I do think people, people are assuming this story ends with apotheosis.

• 36:27Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 36:28Speaker 04

  And so I think that is one of the places where the fact that that's so specifically not included, like it has to be an intentional choice because I think this story naturally ends with apotheosis and, and that's not what we get here.

• 36:43Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I mean, I thought it did. I thought it ended with apotheosis because of course it's Heracles, like he ends up a god, we all know that.

• 36:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's what happens.

• 36:49Liv Albert?

  Yeah. It reminds me of the end of, of Iphigenia at Aulis.

• 36:56Liv Albert?

  Which to me does feel so like tacked on because we get this like weird Deus ex machina that's like, oh, look, she's fine and it's all good. And it's like, it, it, I'm, I'm sort of, I prefer when plays don't have that, which is why I love things like Madea and Backeye and now this, because it's so much more enjoyable. And maybe it's just my personality or what, but like, I much prefer to just have this straight up horrific tragedy to end on. And this one's

• 37:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, you sit with it. Like you just, you have to sit with it. And, and it's, it's ugly and it's, it hurts and it's like, and, and that is a part of like, and you did it with everybody else. Like you did this with all your friends and you went through this thing that was like, really sad. And then you're just gonna kind of sit there and, and be like, oh, okay, that, that, that just happened. And, you know, then, I mean, you talk about it or you work through it or you whatever, but like, I, yeah, I really like when plays end, you know, like, Oedipus at Colonus is like, it's fine, but it's sort of a, you know, it's a kind of a happily ever after. Like, he probably becomes a god or whatever. Like, we don't know for sure, but like, it's this very resolution

• 38:08Speaker 04

  to a story as opposed to like, no, it is bad. Like, I just found out horrible things about who I am, and I blinded myself and my wife slash mom is dead. And, oh, God, what are we gonna do now? And like, and I'm not giving you anything that makes it better. We just, you know, end scene.

• 38:26Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Yeah. That one's so much more preferable to me. And like, yeah, this one too, it's like, it's not only tragedy, it's not only sad, it's also horrifying in a way that not a ton of great tragedies have. Like, they all have the sad, they do that pretty well. Obviously some better than others, but like, The description of Heracles from the moment he puts on the clothing is like hardcore. It is so much to take in and I haven't even gotten to like him being on stage yet in my reading of it. And I'm still like, holy shit.

• 39:08Liv Albert?

  So I just can't even imagine, you know, the more of it, what, what is the rest to come. But also like watching that and hearing about not only, not just anybody experiencing that kind of pain. And like, it's also just gross, like it's gory, it's nasty, it's horrifying. And not like to think of anyone experiencing that, but then also Heracles, like this guy that does everything that you think of as the man who can do everything, who has, who's traveled the whole of the Greek world, like just the most universal of heroes. And it's like, this is his end, fully by accident, like so unintentional and horrifying.

• 39:53Speaker 04

  Well, and that's such a like, I, I kind of love when heroes get like spectacularly unheroic deaths. Like Jason, like doesn't, Medea doesn't kill him, like at least that would be, I feel like in some way that's a better ending for him. Then she took everything from you and now you're just a dude who like, you don't have Medea. So what, I mean, can't accomplish that much and you're going to die when your boat falls on your head. Like a piece of rotting wood from your boat is going to fall on your head. Like way to take any like heroic oomph out of that guy's story. And it's, I feel like you get kind of the, the same, like he's Heracles and he's going to die from an accident, a misinterpretation.

• 40:33Speaker 04

  Like that is there in some way, like it's just so chef's kiss of like, ah, I love it. Like it's the least, it's such an unheroic death for someone. And one of, um, someone I went to grad school with, Catherine Lu, she wrote her dissertation on Heracles. And one of the things that she like saw in his story is about how he.

• 40:57Speaker 04

  Like the violence that he does to monsters and things like that external facing violence. Like it's the story of like, that is really destructive in domestic sphere, right? And like that, and I, that's something that ever since she told me, like, I want to make sure he gets credit because it is like so informed, the way I read a lot of different things about like, Odysseus or something, right? With it, like, the skills that keep you safe at war and that make you good at heroing out there are, are so out of place in, at home. And the fact that like Heracles kills all these monsters and then is, is brought down by like this constant like domestic strife that, you know, he kills his, his first wife and children

• 41:37Speaker 04

  and his wife kills him and they, that, that's sort of the cost of this like type of hero that we built. Like they goes and kills monsters to make the world safe. Like, you can't, you can't turn that off. Like there is, if, if you are like a violent monster slayer, like you can't come home and leave all your, your violence outside and that it's, it's inevitably going to have consequences like domestically. And I think, I think you see that so much in this play that someone who is out there having, and who in a lot of ways, like he's the pinnacle of masculinity, but also we get a lot of these stories where he's sort of gender bending and cross dressing and there's a kind of fluidity that, um, that we see in his character and like, that his death comes in this kind of gender,

• 42:22Speaker 04

  you know, that it, he and Hera have always been at it and that, you know, relationship to his wife and that this, that it, it is around women that his death comes about. Like, I, I feel like that is in some ways kind of poetically just as well. That his story is so much this like masculine killing monsters, doing hero stuff. And, and it feels like there's this oversight about, about women and about home. And, and that that's what keeps getting him is these, these kind of like interpersonal domestic family things are, are what keep bringing him down when he's like doing such amazing things in these other parts of his life.

• 43:04Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and just even the way you phrase that made me think too, like it's almost, it's a little bit full circle too, you know, he kills his wife and children in a mad rage. And then when he marries another one, she ends up killing him not in a mad rage, like truly just accidentally. Like, we don't even have that same kind of explanation that he gets from, from his other family. And yeah, that's, I mean, it's so true. And I think this is what makes Greek mythology and Greek tragedy so much more complex than the most of the, certainly like the popular, like adaptations and reception of it. Like, it's

• 43:48Liv Albert?

  just so much more cut and dry in versions now. And granted, I have not seen the Hercules with the rock, which I really need to.

• 43:55Speaker 04

  Can you please watch it and then we can talk about it? Please? Can we be movie discussion buddies? Because it is my favorite. I love it so much.

• 44:02Liv Albert?

  You definitely told me to watch it the last time we talked. So yes, absolutely. I will watch it and you can come on and we'll just talk about it.

• 44:09Speaker 04

  Excellent. I'm always so when people like, do you want to what, like, discuss a movie with me? I'm like, yeah, please let me like the movies we dig podcast. They're like, you know, here's all the movies we can talk about. I'm like, what about Rockeley's? I want to talk about Rockeley's. And like, somebody already talked like, oh, that's, that's the one movie I have really strong opinions about. I'm not like a film person. I don't have classy, like sophisticated opinions about movies. I'm like, oh, big explosions, things go boom. Like, that's, that's my, like, I love Fast and the Furious. That's my, that's my lane of movies. And I just really, I, I want to talk about the, the rock Hercules movie because it is, oh, let's, let's do this again. After you've seen it, please, I would, I, I could talk about that movie forever. Not just for like dumb explosion reasons, but like, a,

• 44:54Speaker 04

  as what it's doing in the realm of like, thinking about what mythology does, it's, oh, God, it's so good. It's so good.

• 45:00Liv Albert?

  I keep hearing good things, so I need to just sit down and do it. I think the problem was as soon as I decided that it was off streaming services here. So I'm just going to pay some money and I'll watch it and I'm fine with that.

• 45:09Speaker 04

  Okay. Then, then we can discuss it.

• 45:11Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

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• 46:44Liv Albert?

  Well, completely aside from that movie, my thoughts on the connection or like the sort of the way that they, movies about mythology just tend to do the opposite of this. Like they don't make, they make heroism what we think of it now. Like these just, these great men going off and killing monsters and saving the day and coming home and living happily ever after with these pretty ladies. But meanwhile, like that isn't realistic. Like the realism is that a guy like Heracles could not live a normal life. Like he just couldn't. And even I told, in the way I sort of, it was hard to decide how to tell the lead up to their story before the play because I wanted to get in the backstory,

• 47:29Liv Albert?

  but also like so many different versions kind of have it told differently. Or, or they just don't give you a timeline because it's Greek mythology and no one likes a timeline.

• 47:36Speaker 04

  Right.

• 47:37Liv Albert?

  So I basically told the like, Ioli origin aside from like the version that are not in the play beforehand. But what really stuck out to me was like, I think it was mostly Apollodorus because I think he's kind of one of the only like full sources of it. And of course, he's so brief. Somebody once called him the TLDR of mythology and I think about that all the time. So true. But he describes it as like that Heracles, you know, went and he tried to win this or he did win this archery contest against Ioli's father and and her brothers.

• 48:15Liv Albert?

  And that was supposed to mean that he got to marry her and her father was like, no, you killed your last wife and children. Like you can't.

• 48:23Speaker 04

  Which like fair dad.

• 48:24Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 48:25Speaker 04

  Reasonable point.

• 48:26Liv Albert?

  Exactly. And that just felt so real of like, yeah, like Heracles is not the guy you want marrying your daughter. Like even in ancient Greece where it was kind of like, well, how much did we care what the women ended up doing? Like, no, no, even that it's like, no, he, we all know. He killed his wife and children and like he's been atoning for it all these years and like, that doesn't mean that he just suddenly gets to, you know, marry anyone he wants. And it's just so interesting the way that like, that is just so real and how you would think of a human in real life. Whereas yeah, in the in all the versions of, I mean, obviously Disney's Hercules is like something else entirely. I love it desperately. It does not show much of like the sort of the real darkness involved as a cartoon.

• 49:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's it's doing something different. It's not trying to to do the Greek thing.

• 49:15Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah. But then like, you know, say Clash of the Titans, which is also not good, but like it is a better example of like what we think of of what heroes do. But even still, you know, people get a happy ending. But it's like, honestly, yeah, I mean, the PTSD alone, like you deal with stuff like that. You're kind of, you know, you're a changed human and and this is such a great example of of. Yeah, Heracles not not being able to do regular person things and then dying from it, which is all where I started talking about this, but it's just so interesting. Like it's just so real. I love Greek tragedy so much. I think about this every time I get into it. And then it's like, I forget for another few months when I'm out and then I'm like, man, it's all just so good. And like, it's just so great.

• 49:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was so hard. I was assigning some plays to my students this semester and like trying to like pick just a few.

• 50:04Liv Albert?

  I can't imagine.

• 50:05Speaker 04

  How can I not do this one? Because then like, like this class is supposed to talk about so many things that aren't just Greek tragedies. But I'm like, but you know, if we can, if we look at this, then we got to look at this place. You know, they pair so well together. Then we also got to look at this story over here. And it's so hard. It's so hard to just pick like, just like two plays that we're gonna read.

• 50:23Liv Albert?

  I can't imagine having to pick and like, and decide which ones that people learn because there are just so many and there's so many, they're fascinating for so many different reasons. What did you pick?

• 50:33Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, well, this is, this is a sex and gender in the ancient world class. And so we looked at Medea and Agamemnon. But it's killing me that we didn't, because you know, there's so much, like I'm trying to do like sexuality and, and also thinking about gender. And I, we're going to be looking at Lysistrata and like, is this a feminist rallying cry thing? Or like, is that not really like, is it weird that we keep talking about this? It's like the feminist dream play. And, um, and so then it's killing me that we didn't do humanities because it's so, you know, we've had, I mean, Athena comes up so much.

• 51:12Speaker 04

  And, um, you know, people had questions about like, how come she does stuff that isn't like, you know, women like don't really do war? And how come she's a goddess of war? I'm like, ah, I, okay, I have to like, I gotta come back to the humanities again. Cause I gotta talk about how like Athena is this like mean girl and she doesn't, you know, she always is gonna side with the man because she doesn't have a mom. And like, you know, so it's, I've been thinking about goddess, but you know, I wanted to read the Homeric hymn to Demeter. And it's not like we haven't read a lot of mythology, but you know, we did some Homer and we did Homer and Kim. And then we did, uh, Medea and Agamemnon. And you know, then we're also trying to talk about like real life women and you know, looking at historical sources and looking at some. And we talked about monsters and monsters that are coded female and.

• 51:56Speaker 04

  It's it's so it was so hard to to settle on just like a handful of things. Yeah. You could you could talk you could do a class about like sex and gender that's entirely just looking at tragedies as as long as you don't care about the parts of life that are not represented accurately in tragedies, which is a lot of it, but um yeah, it's it was it was really hard. Yeah. Can I I don't mean to I don't mean to totally derail this, but can I go on like a tiny little rabbit hole of a thing that I think is so cool about this play? There's a chapter I wrote I wrote a whole chapter in my dissertation, like this was my road into this play. Um, and I like, I love it a lot, and I just want to like point out how cool this is because it it plays into a lot of this other stuff, but it's like a very nitty gritty, like linguistic-y, like

• 52:36Speaker 04

  close reading of some of the text and um, so one of the basically my my dissertation was about how gods speak in so like oracles and things and like how because in Sophocles, like one of, you know, as much as you can't like the Sophocles and hero this and that. The thing that like is pretty is in fact like seven for seven across Sophocles is the divine tries to communicate and people screw it up terribly. Like people just swing and a miss and or they think, you know, they think they understand it and they don't, or they understand it and they try and avert it and they can't, but like miscommunications with the divine is like that is that is a thing that Sophocles seems very concerned with.

• 53:15Speaker 04

  And so one of like this was the first play I started working on because I I tried to write about Euripides and my advisor was like the the questions you want to ask are not Euripides questions. Like I think they're actually Sophocles questions. So she's like, you know, look at some of these. And so I was looking at this a lot from the perspective of like, why do these miscommunications happen so much? Like, you know, with Oedipus, we have like kill your father and sleep with your mother and how that works out. And so one of the things that I think is really actually like a real driving force throughout this play is that we have this prophecy that either like and we have like a there's a timeline, like a like a countdown time of sorts and like at this moment.

• 53:56Speaker 04

  Um, and we get we get this like there's sort of five different versions of a prophecy about Heracles. Um, that he got from Zeus, which is weird to get it from Zeus and not Apollo in the first place. Yeah. And it's kind of, I mean, it kind of highlights like what a dick move it is that like Zeus it like he goes, he gets it from Zeus at Dodona, which is one of the, I mean, it's, you know, usually it's Apollo and Apollo is like famously tricky and we can't tell what he means and he's, you know. It's Heracles' dad that gave this like imprecise and confusing prophecy that that sets all. I think this like really does kind of drive, drive the plot along in a way that like. So at this moment, like and Deianera says it and we get it from the chorus and she even mentions like she wrote it down.

• 54:41Speaker 04

  Like we get this mention like, you know, this, this was written down. Um, and that at the present moment, either um, Heracles would die or he would have a rest from his, his labors.

• 54:54Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 54:55Speaker 04

  Right. And so you get this, and I think that a lot of her actions are sort of motivated by the fact that as one reasonably would, you think like it's A or B. Okay. Well, he's not dead. He's coming home. So he's going to have a rest from his toils. So he's going to be home finally. And like it, it matters that I protect my house because he's going to be here. Like if he's off doing whatever, not my problem, but he's done with his toils. And so I think like she very reasonably interprets this as saying, like it's either this or this, but not both.

• 55:29Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 55:29Speaker 04

  Um, and it turns out as Heracles and like people, people mentioned this later, like, oh, the only rest from toils is death. It, it wasn't an either or. It was actually like a, it was a both.

• 55:41Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 55:41Speaker 04

  And the fact that like this extremely plausible misinterpretation, like it's, it's the natural way to read it.

• 55:49Speaker 04

  That I think that makes her, that, that drives some of her actions because she's not worried about him dying. So maybe she would think harder about this weird centaur blood if she didn't think that he was safe, but he isn't dead. So she doesn't like that. It's the other option. And this kind of thinking about like how, how that either or works in a way that is kind of misleading. Right. And it's kind of, and you could say like, are the gods, is Zeus just being mean? Like, is he trying to set this up as a riddle of some sort? But you have exactly the same kind of like misinterpretation. And I think we see a similar, like, I think Sophocles is really interested in how language works. As part of my, like, my dissertation was on this, but because Oedipus, we get a similar, right?

• 56:34Speaker 04

  That he can't solve like the riddly type prophecy that he gets. And he's the guy that famously solves riddles, like, that's his thing. And that he can't solve the riddle. And so I think like Sophocles is really interested in how, how communication and miscommunication works, like how language works. And this is a time like the Sophus Athens, like, we've got, like, how language works is a really, it's stressing a lot of people in Athens out that you can teach people to make bad arguments sound good, like people can be deceptive with words and how does language, like, how does communication even work? And, but it's with the story about Nessus and the cent, like the centaur, you get like an exact little microcosm of the thing that, that is happening in the play

• 57:16Speaker 04

  as a whole, that we think, we think Sophocles is, or we think Heracles is safe. Because we think he's at rest to his toils, which isn't the same as death. Until we find out they are. And Nessus is like, this will make sure that he will never love any woman more than you. Which, again, like, the natural way to interpret that is like, oh, he'll love me, he'll love me the most as opposed to like, no, he'll never love anyone but you because he's dead. He can't love anyone because he's dead. And like, that's, like, there's the same kind of like, there are riddles that she doesn't realize are riddles. And the fact that like, I, I think that that is this like little kind of subtle trope that runs through here.

• 58:01Speaker 04

  But I think, you know, and you contrast that with, um, Lycus, the messenger is, is just straight up lying, right? And like, that's a different, like, he's lying for motivations. There's language that we misunderstand for very reasonable, like, no one thinks they in there screwed up, like, it makes sense that you would, you know, you would think that this means that because that's the most obvious interpretation. And so I think it's this kind of really subtle thing about this play, but it, it's really cool in the way that I think Sophocles is really interested in how. Like how people make meaning. When I say something, how do you decide how to interpret it? You know, are you going to interpret it maliciously? Are you going to interpret it at face value? Are you going to like, think about it and be like, hmm, this feels like a riddle. Maybe I should figure out if I know what's going on here. And that the fact

• 58:46Speaker 04

  that people don't, don't think harder about, that they just take things at face value, is kind of, if we want to talk about there being some like tragic flaw, like, you know, that people always come back to this, like, oh, the tragic, like, in Sophocles, people's mistake they make most of the time is thinking that they understand something that they don't understand. I'm like, that's a gut, like, that's so relatable. Like, I'm never gonna have to worry about, you know, sleeping with my mom and killing my dad, but, God, the fact that, like, the idea that I could walk myself into a terrible situation because I thought I, I thought I knew what was going on and I don't, like, oof. And, you know, and you see this in all of his plays in different ways, that I think he's kind of obsessed

• 59:28Speaker 04

  with the way that, that language works, at this time when everyone is thinking about how rhetoric and language and persuasion are, are operating. Like, I think, so I just, that's one of the things that I love about this play, is that you get these like little, like, riddles, or like, tricksy phrasing, that like, the gods never technically lie, but they sure do make you, you know, make you, like, you, you misinterpret them a lot, because you are, you are operating in the way that we all do without thinking about it. And I think his plays force you to think about that aspect, while also doing all of these other, like, pulling your heartstrings and like, oh, Deonera, and you don't hate Iola, you could hate her, but you don't. And like, it does, I think this play works on so many really interesting, different levels. So I just, I, I can't, I can't talk

• 1:00:13Speaker 04

  about this play without talking about how, like, this prophecy is such a, like, a cool thing that operates throughout this, as it's going along.

• 1:00:20Liv Albert?

  No, thank you for bringing it up. I did, I, I mean, I feel like I didn't harp enough on the, on the prophecy, and now I'm gonna look at my, my script for it. But, because the centaur thing, like, the Nessus's line, to me, is so, like, obvious but not obvious. Like, it's obvious because we know. But yeah, if you're, if you're in Diner's position, it's not obvious that, like, yeah, you're the last person he's ever gonna love, because he's going to be dead. The oracle in Oedipus is one of my favorite things, and I, you know, kind of inadvertently introduced. Way too many listeners to the idea that like you literally can never trust the oracle. And it's really because of like Edith and I'm like, so like, that's not totally true.

• 1:01:02Liv Albert?

  I'm sorry. It's, it's to the point where, and it's adorable and hilarious, but like, I will post a picture of Delphi and people will be like, what, what did you do? You went and you went to the oracle and like every time. And I'm like, okay, like it's fine. Like the real oracle, they kind of did trust. It's just like in Sophocles, I guess primarily.

• 1:01:21Speaker 04

  Which is such a, well, like, okay, so here's the thing that I'm like, and not everyone agrees with me on this, but that disclosure aside. So I think like, cause they do trust the, and, and most questions that you actually gave to the actual oracle at Delphi, were like simple yes or no questions. And yet in Sophocles and Herodotus, who happened, like, we know that they were, you know, we have accounts that they're friends. I think this is a thing that they're talking about. Like, I think, like, we see this as a literary trope that shows up in both of them, but not really before that. And I think this is like a Sophocles, Herodotus, at the time when everyone is starting to like, kind of freak out about where like, cause like oracles never lie to you, right?

• 1:02:05Speaker 04

  Like they never lie, but they are, they are misleading in a way that like technically true, but never what you would think it would mean. Um, and I think, like, I think that that is such a, like a thing of that moment when like, both these guys are hanging out in Athens and allegedly they're hanging out with each other. Like I just, I realized like this, I can't ever prove any of this, but I'd like to think that they're like hanging out, drinking wine, being like, dude, have you ever noticed like how words are so weird? And like having this, because it's, you see it all the time, like in like Herodotus has these, you know, if you attack, a great empire will fall. And then it comes back and he was like, but you said I would win. He's like, did I say you would win? I said an empire would fall. Did your empire not fall?

• 1:02:50Speaker 04

  And it's like, ah, darn it. You got me, Delphi. Like, and so I, yeah, that like. But again, like, people react in the way that you absolutely would. Like, someone tells you you're gonna kill your dad and sleep with your mom, you get as far away from who you think are your mom and dad as possible. Like, yeah, you didn't have all the information you, you know, who you think mom is, is wrong. Like, you have a fundamental mistake under there. But that's the most reasonable thing to do, is get so far away from mom and dad that this could never happen. And so, and I get, like, I think another thing we see in how these miscommunications happen, people are, like, the way that emotional investment, like, that people hear what they want to hear,

• 1:03:32Speaker 04

  or they, they don't think more about it because they are angry, or sad, or whatever, afraid, right? And, like, yes, technically, you know, as, as Delphi inherited this, is always like, you should have asked a follow-up question. And Crease is like, oh, no, you're totally right. And, but like, I mean, imagine someone hearing the prophecy that, that Oedipus gets, and being like, okay, but who are my mom and dad? Like, no one would do that. No one would do that. You are going to, like, have your breath taken away and be like, no, that can't be true. No way. And then you're just gonna book it. Like, you're just gonna get out of town.

• 1:04:12Speaker 04

  And so I feel like it's this, like, we get the ways that, like, on a language, like, on word level, you can misunderstand things, but also how the way that you feel about things fundamentally shapes the way that you, you receive things. Like, like, someone tells you something and you're mad at them, so you're not gonna believe them. Or, you know, like, when Tiresias tries to tell people things, and like, Oedipus is mad at Tiresias because he thinks that Tiresias is plotting. So of course he's gonna be like, you know what, screw you, buddy. Like, absolutely, I, no, no, you're wrong, and you're plotting, and I hate you, and I don't have to listen to anything you say. And like, outside the play, we're all like, oh, Tiresias is always right, but...

• 1:04:50Speaker 04

  Someone in that situation where, you know, you're doing all this stuff and you think people are plot like you are in a very plausible state to not hear what someone is saying, even if they're trying to tell you the truth. And so I think, you know, if you want to talk about there being like a sophoclean thing, it's not some weird idea of what the hero is. It's like, it's that people react in exactly the way you expect they would.

• 1:05:15Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:16Speaker 04

  And it destroys them. Like, people doing exactly the normal thing to do in that situation, and it destroys you. Like, oh.

• 1:05:23Liv Albert?

  Yeah. And it's so much more tragic that way, right? Like, that's so much more of a human tragedy of just behaving in a human way. But also, I think in the case of Oedipus and and this one, like, it's that they all, I mean, they behave, they definitely react in the most common way, the most natural human reaction to these kinds of oracles. But then on top of that, too, like, in order for for either of them, you know, either of the the prophecies to be taken, like, accurately, to have avoided this, the person listening would have had to just go to the worst case scenario immediately. Like, that that would be the only way, you know, like,

• 1:06:08Liv Albert?

  sure, Dionera could have understood this oracle from Dodona. If like, she could have understood it accurately, but she would have had to have been like a nihilist. Like, she would have had to just been like, my life is shit. So this must be shit. This must be the absolute shittiest

• 1:06:23Speaker 04

  And the gods, the gods are being dicks, like, for no reason. And like, yeah, in a way that if that's not the answer, you look like an absolute, like, paranoid, like, you you look, you know, you look like you're a conspiracy theorist about like, no, maybe the word that said this wasn't really that. And like, you look like you're connecting like, red yarn or, you know.

• 1:06:44Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it's it's that meme. Exactly. It's like, yeah.

• 1:06:48Speaker 04

  But but then, like, that's, you know, I mean, you only sound paranoid if you're wrong.

• 1:06:54Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:54Speaker 04

  You know, and yeah, so I feel like that there's like such this cool, like, sub, like, just under the surface about like, all of all of this kind of stuff. And then at the end, like, the person who gives the prophecy and the play, like, lest we forget, the last lines are, there is nothing here that isn't Zeus. Hmm. And like, we cannot forget, like Zeus set this in, like, why? Like, are the gods just monsters? Like, I mean, maybe, like, but you know, what do we? What are we supposed to make of that? That at the end of all of he's on fire and, you know, we've, it's every, everything is terrible. Like, the worst possible outcome of everything has happened here. Hylas is supposed to marry Eoli?

• 1:07:35Speaker 04

  That's a super weird, like, son, could you marry my would have been, like, slave slash wife? Like, and also, I, I'm gonna go die or, or not, who knows, really? But probably gonna go die now. And then Hylas, like, I, I like to read, the, the manuscripts aren't sure if, like, it's the chorus or Hylas at the end, who's saying the last lines, but somebody ends with, yep, that's all Zeus.

• 1:08:03Speaker 04

  Like, it like forces you to just stare at, like, the bleak nihilism of this. Like, what kind of Zeus would do this? To his son, like, not even just to a random hero, to his son.

• 1:08:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah. And his, like, most famous son, you know? Like, his most beloved.

• 1:08:19Speaker 04

  Hero.

• 1:08:20Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:20Speaker 04

  Like, oh.

• 1:08:22Liv Albert?

  Yeah. That just reminds me too, because the, the first lines of the play really struck me also, which are just like Dionera saying that, you know, they say you can never tell if your life has been good or bad until it ends in death. And like, that is also just so indicative of, like, the whole of the play, but also just the very end, like, another, it's kind of another full circle moment of that. But just to stray a tiny bit, that you just reminded me of a question I had, which I realize I can ask you. Um, the, the name of Hylus versus the name of Heracles' boyfriend, Hylas, is there, what is the connection there in terms of the Greek? Is it?

• 1:09:02Speaker 04

  That is, so, um, there's, but I think, I think the vowels are the same. Let me just double, let me double check with the spelling.

• 1:09:09Liv Albert?

  Because in English, they have an A versus an O, but I don't know about the Greek, I didn't learn.

• 1:09:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, um, so let me just, um.

• 1:09:19Speaker 04

  So I'm gonna double check what the Greek for both of these is. Um, okay. So they are, um, so there's, there's slightly different. Um, so it's like upsilon lambda lambda omicron sigma. Um, so it's where we get for, for Heracles son.

• 1:09:36Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:37Speaker 04

  Um, is usually spelled. So there's, there's like two L's in it.

• 1:09:39Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:40Speaker 04

  Um, as opposed to upsilon lambda alpha sigma.

• 1:09:44Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 1:09:45Speaker 04

  So they are different, but I mean, by most of our reconstructions of what like they're, they're not so different.

• 1:09:53Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:53Speaker 04

  Um, and so, yeah, I think the, like, I think, I think people must have, I don't, I don't know offhand of any stories that say that like Heracles named his son after Hylas.

• 1:10:06Liv Albert?

  It just feels so likely, feels so possible, you know?

• 1:10:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, it seems like, and especially given how much, you know, going back to like Helen's name being in like people punning on like Deianira and this and that, like Greeks in ways that constantly amaze me. I, I don't have to write a book, but if I did, I would, I would want to write a book about the weird insistence on like wordplay at times that it feels so inappropriate for puns.

• 1:10:34Speaker 04

  I am just low key obsessed with how, you know, you get this in the Baka about like Pentheus and Pentha, like the, the word for like grief and suffering and like, you know, man, you're sure suited to your name. And like, this is a weird time. Like you're threatening him and it just seems like a weird time to be like Pentheus, do you get it? Do you get what I did there? Pentheus? Cause your name like, that's not, that's not very threatening. Like you're just goofy. And you know, you get like, you know, Deianira or like Helen, but you get a lot of these places where, especially in tragedies where things are always going terribly. And you, you get these kind of people like thinking about like, ah, cause the word.

• 1:11:12Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:11:13Speaker 04

  And so I, I don't know of anyone who, but it would be like, that's very much the kind of thing that someone like obscure Alexandrian or like some like Byzantine scholar would be out there being like, well, actually I've done some research on this and I'm pretty sure that those are connected. But I don't know of any attestations of that, but I will, I will check and get back to you.

• 1:11:35Liv Albert?

  Please.

• 1:11:35Speaker 04

  Because it is a very good question and a I mean, yeah, it's it's a little weird.

• 1:11:41Liv Albert?

  Yeah, a lot of a coincidence, you know, it is like, hmm, that feels a stretch. I had to explain it in the episode because of course, all of it, all it is is like vocal. So I'm like, I'm not saying hylos here, I'm saying hylos, but also they're spelled very similarly. Cause in the works I've had, like the, the English transliteration is exactly the same. It's like H Y L A S or H Y L L O S. You're like, hmm, like that's, yeah.

• 1:12:08Speaker 04

  My, my instinct is that I would pronounce those exactly the same.

• 1:12:11Liv Albert?

  Exactly.

• 1:12:12Speaker 04

  You know, there are, I mean, sure, like, look at the accent and the, like, but I mean, at the same, like, they're so, they are so similar that I have to, yeah. Now, I know I'm going to go, I can add this to my list of, of weird, weird wordplay that I find deeply out of place and, and strange the more you look at it.

• 1:12:32Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it's just so interesting just because like, I mean, Hylos is definitely Heracles' most kind of famous boyfriend, but also the one that like died a tragic death. It wasn't his fault, which is pretty rare for men with young boyfriends in Greek mythology generally like.

• 1:12:47Speaker 04

  Well, and anyone close to Heracles dying from not his fault is also like strange.

• 1:12:55Liv Albert?

  Oh my God, just reminds me of the, I mean, in both, in Sophocles and in the myths surrounding it, like the way that Iphitus dies is like, how are you like this, Heracles? Like in Sophocles, it's like he kicked him off a cliff. And in the rest of the myths, it's like he threw him against a wall. You're like, okay, well, both are great. You seem like a cool guy.

• 1:13:19Speaker 04

  You seem super well adjusted. Love this for you. But like, I feel like it is like, I feel like so much of it comes from that, like, you can't, like, that's the cost of, of having, you know, of, of being someone who can like, do all of this violence and you know, that like. Sometimes the violence comes out when it's not supposed to. Like, it comes out at times when it's not appropriate. And, and I think that is, like, that is part of the cost of, like, if you are, like, if you are a weapon of a person, like, sometimes that weapon, like, there's going to be people who get hurt that aren't, aren't supposed to be. Like, it's not, you know, he's not a monster.

• 1:14:00Liv Albert?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:14:01Speaker 04

  Heroes are supposed to kill monsters. And, um, and, and you fundamentally are, like, misdirecting that. And I, that's one of the things I think is so cool about tragedy, especially, that you see, like, you really see kind of the cost of, of heroes, like, the cost of heroism, that, you know, Ajax and his honor, like, he takes his own life. And then we spend the second half of the play seeing what that did to his, like, wife and child.

• 1:14:26Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:27Speaker 04

  Um, like, you, you have to, you see the cost of, like, oh, so these heroic heroes seem cool to you, huh? Well, like, let me, let, let me show you what that actually looks like. When we start thinking about, like, what happens after the, the hero adventure ends? And he has to, like, he goes home, or he goes, you know, he's like, what happens after the, the, like, happily ever after? He got the thing he was supposed to go, and he did his hero thing. And like, you know, I mean, it was with, like, Jason and the Argonauts stories, which, like, that, the kinds of things that, that were fine when you're out questing, like, oh, you're, you are seducing a woman to, or like charming a woman into helping you out. Like, well, try that at home.

• 1:15:11Speaker 04

  Like, you're, you're gonna, you're gonna try and charm, like, you're gonna, you're trying to marry a princess to, to upgrade in life? Like, that, that works when you're out there. That doesn't work when you're, when you're in here. And I think, like, you see so many different variations of, you know, you don't get to kill all the suitors. Like, you're the king. You can't kill all the suitors, you absolute maniac. Like, you can't do that.

• 1:15:34Liv Albert?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:34Speaker 04

  And, and it's not even like us as modern people saying that. It's, like, inside the story, like, we get to see the suitors in the underworld being like, that was weird. What happened? Why, why did that happen? And like, the whole town is mad. Like, Athena has to come and be like, guys, be cool, because it's so clearly out of line. Like, no one's like, oh, no, that's fair, they deserved that. No one says that.

• 1:15:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:56Speaker 04

  Inside the story itself, we get all of the people being like, no, you can't, you can't do that. And so, yeah, I think like tragedy especially does such a good job of like taking the the stories that we sometimes, and if we look at closely at Homer, I mean, I think he problemizes a lot of this stuff as well, but these stories that we might uncritically think are like so cool and like, oh, what a hero. And then when we think about the implications of that and what it like, what the cost to family and self and whatever, like what all the costs of of heroism is like, maybe society needs Heracles, like those monsters were eating people, like maybe, maybe we do need

• 1:16:38Speaker 04

  a Heracles, but there is a real cost to it. Like we have, we should at least think about the trade off there. Like, we should think about the trade off of like the trauma of young men going to war. Like, we should think about the cost of, I don't know, you know, any of these number of different things that like, when you, when you pit a person against society, like their family, their obligations to family and society, like, it doesn't end well. Like, there is a cost to, to any of these decisions that we make. And like, we need to look at, like, with, you know, with our open eyes, like, we need to look dead at, like, all of the, the costs that are associated with these things that we think are important. And I think tragedy, again, like, not just tragedy,

• 1:17:21Speaker 04

  and I hate to be like a tragedy exceptionalist, but tragedy and a lot of what I love about tragedy is that it, it shows you what the maybe unintended consequences or the costs of these things are. And I think, and then it just leaves you to sit with it. Like, it just ends, like, yep, that sucks, doesn't it? Well, you and all of your fellow citizens, I guess, walk out of here and go talk about what you think we should do about this, because the play is not going to give you any answers. The play is just going to tell you that, like, man, this is a shitty situation, isn't it?

• 1:17:51Liv Albert?

  I think that is what makes tragedy so unique, because it can do that so much, like, with so much more detail and first person of it all, you know, compared to, to Homer, or the myths, or whatever, right? Like, it, it does have like a unique viewpoint into all of this, because you get it from the person's voice, or you get to just see Happening or hear about it happening more like, you know, rarely do we get the violence anywhere on stage, but you you hear about it from these voices. And so, and it, yeah, I mean, I can see what you mean, though, about it being, it is, it is different from the way that they might make the same, a similar points in other works, but tragedy does it in this like much more sort of powerful and visceral way, but just because of the format and because of the way they can like

• 1:18:37Liv Albert?

  add so much more detail to the story too, because of it's just dialogue or people get their own monologues. You get to hear from the chorus and all these different reasons.

• 1:18:46Speaker 04

  Well, and I think the fact that you also, like, the fact that the action is offstage, that you are experiencing it the same way the characters are experiencing, like horrible thing that happened, like a messenger is coming in and telling you about it. And like you, as the audience are experiencing that tragedy, the same way that that their main characters are. And then you can't help that, like, you are in a similar position to them, thinking about, how am I reacting? How would I react in that situation? That it it puts you in there as a, as a part of of this conversation, as opposed to me saying like, well, it's important to understand that, you know, like I'm, I'm not preaching at somebody. But I'm like, you are a part of that story and then you have to like grapple with like,

• 1:19:30Speaker 04

  but I think Heracles is important, like we need it, we need Heracles, like, you can't have hydras roaming around the countryside, like that's a problem. But also like this is really bad and how do we, like, I don't know what the answer is. But, and I think part of like that you you grapple with that more or less in silence, like you're watching a plane. And then you, but you're doing this with all of the citizens. And I think there's something really important in terms of sort of civic discourse about, we all went through this like really rock and a hard place kind of situation of like, well, we can't not have this, but we can't not have that and they can't coexist, like, ah, how do, like, what, what would have been the right answer in this situation? And then, then you and all your citizens go out and and talk about this together.

• 1:20:14Speaker 04

  And I think that that is an important part that sometimes get lost when we read them on paper that like, All, you know, or the vast majority of, of people in the city are, are experiencing these plays and people from other cities and, and that it is a place where people can grapple with some of these questions, a little bit removed, right? A, a step or two, like it's not their own life. We're not saying like, what should we do about the Peloponnesian War? But we are thinking about what the cost to, you know, the cost of violence, like the cost of, you know, I mean, a ton of these plays were performed during the Peloponnesian War that we're thinking about, like, what, what is the cost of, you know, military violence? And what is that costing us at home? And what is that costing us as a people and our

• 1:20:57Speaker 04

  empire and our whatever? Like, that it gives you this invitation and this kind of inroad to thinking about these important questions. And you're coming from a place of like, how do they viscerally react to seeing this, this situation that is kind of like important questions that I'm thinking about as a citizen? So I think there's something like really fundamentally important about that.

• 1:21:17Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm. It's like when you walk away from a movie or a play and you just have to discuss it with somebody.

• 1:21:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, the first thing like you walk out, like, what'd you think?

• 1:21:24Liv Albert?

  Yeah. And you just have to sort of decompress or, or that's not the right word, but you know, yeah, just, just talk about it afterwards. Oh, it's so beautiful and fascinating.

• 1:21:33Speaker 04

  This was so wonderful.

• 1:21:34Liv Albert?

  Yeah, thank you so much.

• 1:21:36Speaker 04

  And I, we will, we will chat more in the future. I have like so many more things we could chat about, but um, thank you so much. My hottest takes about things can be found on Twitter. I'm at Apesstone on Twitter. And other than that, I, I mostly just teaching and thinking about tragedy these days. So um, if you're in the Pacific Northwest, we're doing a production of the media this, uh, this spring. So if for anyone that's in the Pacific Northwest, come, uh, end of April, come, come visit and um, also new, I also knew the info. So yeah, come out. Yeah, I, I have a guest room. You're welcome to come stay and we could, we could go hang out. We're, I'm organizing a little symposium to go along with it. So it'll, it'll be, it'll be really cool.

• 1:22:21Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I'm gonna have to talk to you about this more for sure.

• 1:22:23Speaker 04

  Excellent. Well, thank you so much. As always, this was a huge pleasure and I look forward to doing this again sometime. And you've seen the movie with The Rock and Hercules.

• 1:22:48Liv Albert?

  Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to Amy for coming on the podcast. It was so much fun to chat, as you can tell in the episode you just listened to. I just want any excuse to talk about Greek tragedy and to hear from people who have studied it so, so much more than I have, and who know the ancient Greek. Ugh, just so cool. So huge thanks. You can follow Amy on Twitter, like she said, and I've put her handle in the episode's description. And especially if you're interested in studying classics in university or college, as you Americans say, I'd recommend following Amy and a lot of my guests, really, because, but Amy is really active in student outreach and just generally classics outreach. And so many of my guests are, in the absolute best of ways, the most welcoming and inclusive of ways. So if you are a Twitter person,

• 1:23:33Liv Albert?

  it's, it's really nice to interact in those spaces and you really get a sense of like, how classics can be. And if you love tragedy as much as I do, and are in university or high school in Canada or the US right now, stay tuned, because Amy and I recorded a little announcement of something that is just super duper cool, something that you can partake in, that's coming soon. Let's talk about Myth, baby. Is written and produced by me, Liv Albert. Michaela Smith is the Hermes to my Olympians and also handles so many podcast-related things, from running the YouTube to creating promotional images and videos, to editing and research. The podcast is hosted and monetized by Acast.

• 1:24:16Liv Albert?

  Thank you all. As always, I fucking love my job. I am Liv and oh my gods, I love Greek tragedy so much.

• 1:25:51Speaker 06

  Enemy of My Dreams by Jenny Williamson is a historical romance novel set in the time of the late Roman Empire, where Alaric, a brutal Gothic warlord, and Julia, a Roman princess with a love of good wine, team up to take down Rome.

• 1:26:08Speaker 07

  The much awaited sequel, Game of Thieves, comes out December 8. In this sequel, Julia and Alaric must overcome centuries of conflict to work together, or the turbulent riptides of rebellion and the demons of their past will tear them apart.

• 1:26:22Speaker 06

  And now, for a limited time, when you preorder Game of Thieves through Burning Pages Bookstore, you'll get a signed book plate and a free art print of one of Jenny's favorite spicy scenes from across the series.

• 1:26:36Speaker 07

  Get this amazing artwork only from Burning Pages at burningpagesnc.com/game-of-thieves. Don't wait. Order your copy from Burning Pages today at burningpagesnc.com/game-of-thieves.