Back To School Replay: When Poisoned Shirts Have Got You Down, Deianeira & the Women of Trachis (Heracles & Sophocles’ Trachiniae Part 3)

This episode originally aired in March 2022. In the finale of the Trachiniae series, Deianeira deals with what she has inadvertently done, and Heracles finally returns to Trachis. AVAILABLE NOW! The Odyssey: a Modern Retelling. https://geni.us/TheOdysseyBook Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby. Enter ourpodcast guest https://www.mythsbaby.com/contact form if you'd like to be on the show as a conversation guest! CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. I try to provide direct warnings when there is reference to anything with overtly traumatic themes but be aware that Greek mythology regularly features assault, death, and many other potentially triggering events. Sources: Theoi.com; Sophocles' Women of Trachis/The Trachiniae, translations by Robert Torrance, George Theodoridis, and Peter Meineck. Quote from the Meineck unless otherwise noted in the episode. Thanks to Ash Strain https://twitter.com/ashstrain_?s=21 for researching the play, as always! Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here:mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. 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.

• 1:05Liv Albert?

  Oh, hi, hello, welcome. This is Let's Talk About Myths, baby! And I am your host, Liv, back once more with stories of Heracles and Deianeira, and specifically the finale episode of Sophocles's tragedy, The Trachenei, The Women of Trachis. Oh, oh, oh, oh, how I love Greek tragedy. I love it more with every single one that I read for this show. Every one I break down for all of you gets me more excited for future episodes with future plays. They're just, they're so beautiful and interesting and complex, and they can be interpreted and

• 1:47Liv Albert?

  understood in so many different ways. And as much as I wish I could read ancient Greek, and hopefully one day will be able to, reading so many translations and working off of Ash's notes as well, provides so much nuance, really opens up all the intricacies that exist in these ancient works. Fucking love it. But, well, today, we're coming to the end of Heracles and Deianeira's story. And oh, does it end. Just a trigger warning, this is a Greek tragedy, and so, aside from the wartime enslavement, there is also suicide. Once more, I feel the

• 2:31Liv Albert?

  need to preface by explaining that I've written and recorded this episode well in advance of when it's being released. Everything is moving so fast lately, and often in horrifying ways, that who the fuck knows what's going to happen when this airs. Still, at least we have this tragedy of Sophocles to distract us from the world's horrors and tragedies by providing, well, some ancient horror and tragedy. Where did we last leave Deianeira? Well, her husband, Heracles, had been gone for over a month, and she had absolutely no idea where he was, or what he'd been doing. She was not having a good time. But finally, a messenger arrived

• 3:11Liv Albert?

  with news of Heracles. He's alive, woo-hoo! He's been in Echalia, and also Lydia, but he's on his way home. Of course, that's the simplest answer. What comes before is that not only had he been away, but he'd spent a year living enslaved to a queen of Lydia, who we know to be Amphale, though she isn't named in this play. And then he'd gone and sacked Echalia, because the king wouldn't let him marry his daughter Ioli, because, well, in this case, he's already married. Deianeira, meanwhile, hears all this through convoluted circumstances,

• 3:51Liv Albert?

  having to basically force Heracles's herald, Lycaus, to tell her the truth after he'd first lied about why Heracles was there in Echalia, and what his intentions were. This being after he brought Ioli and a number of other now enslaved women from Echalia home with him to Trachis. It's been a good time for Deianeira. Even still, she understands what Heracles is like, and what it's like to be a woman in that world. She doesn't even care that he's had lovers, other women, other children, and all his travels. No, she only draws the line at him bringing

• 4:29Liv Albert?

  another woman into their house to live with them, almost as a part of their marriage. That, she says, quite reasonably, is too far.

• 4:56Liv Albert?

  This is episode 159, When Poisoned Shirts Have Got You Down: Deianeira and the Women of Trachis.

• 5:19Liv Albert?

  Deianeira is reeling. She has been unhappy for so long, anxious and worried about her husband and her life, just like, all the time. So to hear that not only has he fallen in love with another younger woman, but that he literally destroyed this woman's city and killed everyone in it just so he could take her home to be his, what? His concubine, his lover, his second wife? That is just too much for Deianeira, and the woman has put up with an awful lot already. She is kindly, quite understanding when it comes to Ioli herself. It's refreshing,

• 6:03Liv Albert?

  the lack of woman blaming that's involved, given it's Greek mythology. No, she knows that this is on Heracles. Still, she doesn't get angry. This isn't a Medea situation. It isn't Clytemnestra. She isn't overcome with rage. She isn't flying around in a fury or plotting revenge. She is just sad, and she wants to make it better. And fortunately, she has something that she understands will make this situation better. She has the blood of Nessus, the centaur, who, all those years ago, just after she and Heracles had gotten

• 6:45Liv Albert?

  married, told her to, quote, "use this as a charm on the mind of Heracles, so he will never see a woman he loves more than you."

• 6:58Liv Albert?

  Deianeira only wants to make Heracles fall back in love with her. She wants him to see only her, to forget about this love for Ioli, and all the trouble he's caused over this other woman. She just wants love and comfort from her husband. She wants the happy life that she hasn't yet had a chance to experience. When Lycaus returns to Deianeira, having said his goodbyes to the women inside, she hands him a box containing a robe that she's made for Heracles. Sometimes it's called a shirt. She hands it to him, and she tells him to take

• 7:41Liv Albert?

  it to Heracles, that it is a gift she's made for him with her own hands. She tells Lycaus to instruct Heracles that "he's the only one that should wear it, and that it mustn't see the light of the sun or sacred flame until he's shown it, worn it, in front of everyone." She says he must present himself in the clothing to the gods on his day of sacrifice. She tells Lycaus specifically that, quote, "I have made this oath. If I should see or hear that he is safe and coming home, then, as is my right and duty, I would clothe him new in a new robe for the gods to see as my offering."

• 8:26Liv Albert?

  Deianeira is so kind-hearted, so well-intentioned, so completely and utterly naive. That she has no idea what she's doing, that she only wants her husband to love her, really adds to the tragedy of this play. I'll say it again, because it's, it's just so true and poignant, but she is not a Clytemnestra figure, not a Medea. She is almost unique in these women of tragedy. She just wants things to be as they were. She wants her husband to love her, and she doesn't want to live alongside his other woman. This blood of Nessus, she believes,

• 9:07Liv Albert?

  will have that effect. That is, after all, what he told her. With this, Deianeira sends Lycaus off, hurrying him on his way to return to Heracles with her message and the box. But she adds before she goes, "Make sure you tell him how well we're doing here, and what a warm welcome that I gave to these people that you brought with you." "Oh, yes," he replies, "that much I have seen very clearly. You gave them a warm welcome, indeed." And so, Heracles's herald, Lycaus, returns to the hero where on Euboea he is worshiping and sacrificing to the gods in advance of finally, finally, returning to his

• 9:50Liv Albert?

  home, his wife and children, in Trachis. Deianeira returns to her home, leaving the chorus of women to sing of what's been happening. They sing, quote, "The son of Zeus and Alcmeni is speeding homeward, bearing trophies, rewards for every kind of excellence." They sing of his time away, how they didn't know where he was, or whether he was even safe and alive. They continue, quote, "Bring him home, bring him home, o ship of many oars, and do not rest till he has reached this city."

• 10:44Liv Albert?

  Deianeira rushes from the palace in a panic. She's frantic as she comes to the chorus, telling them that she's worried she may have just made a horrible mistake. “What is it?” they ask her. “Is it about the gift you've just given to Heracles?” “It is,” she tells them, “and what's happened was so strange you might not even believe me.” Then Deianeira explains what's gotten her so worried. She returned to her rooms when Lycaus had gone off with Heracles' gift, and she came upon some of the leftover wool that she'd used to make his robe.

• 11:22Liv Albert?

  “It's disappeared,” she says, “it devoured itself, wasted itself away, turned to dust, and blew off the high stone shelf.” She tells them that how she'd made the robe, that she'd done as Nessus had described to her all those years ago, smeared his blood on the wool and then made it into this robe. She'd kept it out of sunlight and away from the flame, just as he'd told her. She'd done it all right. But she said, “It turned out there was a leftover piece of wool she hadn't noticed because it wasn't the robe itself, and she'd accidentally tossed this piece into the sunlight.”

• 12:05Liv Albert?

  Then, “As it grew warm, it completely disappeared, crumbled into the earth. It was just like seeing dust fall in showers from the blade of a woodworking saw. And so it lay scattered on the ground. And there, where it lay, gouts of foam bubbled up from the earth like the thick juice of gleaming ripe grapes squeezed out on the ground from the dark fruit of Bacchus.” This is when Deianeira realizes what she's done, even if she had no idea what she was doing until that moment, until it was too late.

• 12:48Liv Albert?

  “Why was I stupid enough to think that Nessos was doing me this kindness?” she asks herself, with the chorus there looking on. “Why would he do something nice for me? It's so obvious now that his intention was to kill the man who'd killed him, to kill Heracles for what he'd done.” She is horrified and so upset. “How can I have realized too late?” she asks pointlessly. “I've figured it out, but it doesn't matter now. It won't do any good.” She recalls that the same arrows that struck and killed Nessos, Heracles' arrows, had also injured another, Chiron, the godly centaur himself.

• 13:33Liv Albert?

  “Whatever beast it touches, it kills.” She speaks of the black poison of the blood oozing out of wounds. “How could it not destroy his killer too? I think it will.” Before she even lets the chorus utter a word, Deianeira has run through all of these horrifying facts and scenarios out loud. She learns the truth, all in a rush of speech, realizing everything that had happened without her noticing, the things she hadn't put together, things that seem so obvious in hindsight. Of course Nessos would want to hurt her, to hurt Heracles.

• 14:15Liv Albert?

  She can't believe she's done something so horrible, and she won't live with it. “If Heracles is going to die because of what I've done,” she says, “I will die too.” Sophoclean tragedy loves a woman dying by suicide. The chorus tries to talk her down, to say that she should wait and see what happens. Maybe it isn't as bad as she thinks. Maybe Heracles won't be killed. “Be quiet,” they tell her. “Don't say a word unless you intend to tell your son, Hylus, because...” Well, there he is. And Hylus is there, there with news.

• 14:58Liv Albert?

  Because remember, time moves very differently in Greek tragedy, and we mustn't trouble ourselves with understanding when it might be that this time passes. The chorus' song earlier when everyone had left or gone inside is used to mark this passage of time. Enough time that Hylus' first words to his mother are, “There are only three things I could wish for you now: to be dead, or if you stay alive, to be anyone else's mother than my own, or that you'd exchanged your mind for something better than the one you have now.” Ugh! Deianeira, for her part, either doesn't realize it could have happened so quickly, or just

• 15:42Liv Albert?

  can't fathom her son knowing about her mistake or saying this to her, because she just asks him what she's done to become so loathsome to him. “You've killed your husband,” he says, “my father. Just today, you've killed him. You've killed Heracles.” “You've killed Heracles,” Deianeira's son, Hylus, tells her. And even though she knows it to be true, she just concluded the same thing herself, she can't believe it. Can you believe it? It's Heracles! Who could even think that such a hero was capable of dying? This son of Zeus, dead. She can't believe it, though. She wonders whether it's hearsay.

• 16:26Liv Albert?

  “Who told you this?” she asks her son. “I saw it myself,” he tells her. “I saw it. It was terrible. I saw what happened to father with my own eyes.” “But where were you?” she asks him. “Were you close to your father when this happened?” And so Hylus sets out to explain to his mother everything that happened. After he sacked Akalia, Hylus tells her, he'd carried off his prizes and plunder. He'd gone to the edge of Euboea and built altars, a sacred grove, all dedicated to his father, Zeus. “That's where I first saw him,” Hylus says. “I was filled with pure happiness at the sight of him. I'd wanted to see him for so long, to know that he was all right.

• 17:11Liv Albert?

  He was about to sacrifice, then, so many cattle there, and thanks to the gods. And that's when Lycaus appeared.” “Lycaus arrived, bringing with him the gift you had given to your husband, to my father. And then Heracles put it on, just as you had directed. He followed your instructions, and he started to sacrifice the cattle, bringing them in one at a time. He was happy. He was sacrificing to the gods, and he was wearing beautiful clothes that had just been gifted to him by his wife. He was so happy with all of it.” Hylus really twists the knife in poor Deianeira's heart. Then, “As soon as the solemn ritual caught fire, and a flame shot over the blood from

• 17:55Liv Albert?

  the pitch-drenched pine, then sweat rose on his skin, and that cloak started sticking to his sides, as if it had been glued by a craftsman to every limb. A biting pain shot through his bones in spasms. Then it was cruel, as if he was being dissolved by the venom of a snake that had attacked him.” From there, Hylus tells his mother that Heracles, understandably, screamed out at Lycaus, blaming him for what was happening. Lycaus, of course, had no idea what was going on, and he told Heracles as much, saying he'd only followed your, your Deianeira's instructions.

• 18:39Liv Albert?

  So, well, Heracles grabbed him by the ankle and smashed him against the rock so hard his head burst open. And then, the poor man's agony got even worse and even more disgusting. Heracles' death, or his act of dying, isn't pretty or clean or noble at all. It isn't the death of a hero like Heracles. “He notices his son in the crowd, though,” Hylus tells his mother. He notices Hylus, and he calls out for his son's help to take him away so he doesn't die there on the cliffs of Euboea, watched by everyone. And Hylus does. He brings Heracles to his ship, and he sails home with him.

• 19:22Liv Albert?

  And so Heracles, dead or dying, is home now, after all this time, all this horror. “You'll see him soon,” Hylus tells his mother, either dead or alive. Deianeira wants to rush off. She doesn't want to hear any more of this. But before he lets her leave, lets her sit with this news, this horrifying news. Hylus tells her that she's been caught out in her plot, believing that she'd planned all of this. And he curses her, curses her to be visited by the Furies, those goddesses of justice and punishment. Hylus' last line to his mother Deianeira is,

• 20:07Liv Albert?

  “He was the best man on earth, and you killed him. You will never see a man to equal him.” So Deianeira leaves the stage, and the chorus sings. They sing of Heracles, his actions in life and now in death. They sing of Deianeira, how she weeps, how she took the advice of a stranger and now weeps at the destruction caused by it. They sing and sing of Heracles, of pain and horror, and they finish their song by blaming Ioli. “It's all her fault,” they decide. “Heracles fell for her. His love for her caused all of this.

• 20:50Liv Albert?

  So naturally, it's her fault.” Fortunately, their song of blame for Ioli is interrupted. Unfortunately, it's interrupted by Dionera's servant woman from the beginning of the play, crying out from inside the house. Dionera is dead. She's killed herself with a sword.

• 21:25Liv Albert?

  This episode is brought to you by Quince. You know the drill. Quince makes elevated, everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and premium stretch denim. I have been speaking into a microphone about Quince for a while now, and I have no complaints. I have a bunch of their stuff. I've got a couple cute sweaters that, I mean, it's nearing sweater season, so those will be back in the rotation anytime now. And I have this leather bag that I absolutely love. It's like this braided leather, and I use it like basically every day. Because that's the thing, they have really great basics.

• 22:09Liv Albert?

  Like, they have really great things that you can wear with so many other things. Just the options are endless. And as the weather gets colder, like all the sweaters in my closet, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe, from warm, responsibly sourced down jackets, and cozy cashmere scarves and gloves, to beautiful 14 karat gold jewelry that adds the perfect finishing touch. And of course, everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you're paying for quality, not brand markup. And if we haven't learned anything in the last 10 years, isn't it just getting rid of the middlemen, you know? Making things more affordable?

• 22:52Liv Albert?

  So find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was me. Let's talk about myths, baby. It's the best way to support the show.

• 23:30Liv Albert?

  The chorus can't believe what they've just heard. Deianeira, dead? They ask the woman to confirm a few too many times, just unable to comprehend what they're hearing. It's all coming at them so fast. Finally, they concede this must be true, and they ask how it happened. The woman tells them what she saw. "When Deianeira was inside, she caught sight of her son, Hyllos, preparing a litter, a stretcher, for his dying, or perhaps already-dead, father. She saw him putting this together with care. She saw how distraught he was, and this broke her. Hiding herself from view, she went to her familiar altars, looking at them for the last

• 24:15Liv Albert?

  time, seeing some of her favorite servants crying out at them in anguish, knowing it would be her last. And then she went to their bedroom. It's referred to as Heracles's bedroom, but to me, it's pretty clear that they shared it, at least some of the time. She starts throwing blankets and pillows atop of the bed before climbing up herself. "My bed," she says, "never will I sleep here with my husband again." She is, she is just so tragic. It's heartbreaking. There's something about having this woman who doesn't have anger, just sadness, that makes it so much more emotional.

• 25:00Liv Albert?

  She didn't want any of this. She just wanted him to love her as he once had. The woman telling this to the chorus says, "When she saw Deianeira doing this, climbing atop the bed, and eventually pulling a pin from her dress, she knew she had to do something. So she went to get Hyllos, to bring him back, to stop his mother. But it was too late. By the time the pair of them arrived back at the bedroom, Deianeira had already done it. She'd thrust a double-edged sword through her side. Poor Hyllos had to see it. And not only that, but the woman tells the chorus that Hyllos also learned and believed

• 25:44Liv Albert?

  that Deianeira didn't kill Heracles on purpose, that it was all a mistake, a trick by Nessos, the centaur." I could go on, but frankly, this is one of the most heartbreaking and depressing bits of Greek tragedy that I have ever read. How much do you really need to hear about how Hyllos mourned? How he'd become an orphan in the course of a day? By horrific and just plain tragic means? How he thought about the last words he spoke to his mother? So I will stop here. You get it. My heart can't take it. But, well, if you think this is the end of the tragedy of this play, strap the fuck in. Where does everyone stand in Trachis?

• 26:29Liv Albert?

  Deianeira, who never wanted any of this, who wanted only for her husband to love her, to not bring another woman literally into their bed, that was truly all she asks, and, well, she accidentally, truly and completely accidentally, killed her husband. Fucking Heracles. And in her grief, and her horror, and her guilt, she ended her own life, in the place where she felt him most. And her son, her son had to witness it, just a short time after he'd had to witness his father in a similarly horrible situation, fabric poisoning and burning his skin. Poor fucking Hyllos. For real.

• 27:10Liv Albert?

  Sophocles really coming at us with the horrible, distressing, and depressing feels. The chorus sings over the death of Deianeira, the tragedy of the whole situation. "Which is sadder?" they ask. "Her death or his?" But they can't find a distinction. The fates of the two are equally sad. Still, they and the audience have yet to actually see Heracles, to witness what has and is happening to him. Just as Deianeira's death happens offstage, allowing the imagination to do the work, so has the horror of Heracles.

• 27:51Liv Albert?

  But now, he is coming, the chorus knows, and they sing, quote, "I pray for a breeze, a fair wind at our hearth, to carry me away from this place, so that I won't die of horror, merely from catching the sight of him, the powerful son of Zeus." A procession of people nears the chorus, finally. Heracles is near. He's arrived home after so long. He's being carried on a stretcher by men in his army, with an old man attending to him. Hyllos cries out. The poor boy doesn't know what to do, how to handle himself. There's his father, dead or dying, he isn't even sure yet, and he's just witnessed his

• 28:32Liv Albert?

  own mother's death from sadness, her own grief, and guilt having killed her. The old man attending Heracles shushes Hyllos, saying that, yes, he is alive, but he's sleeping, and if he wakes, then the madness will come rushing back to him. I think the use of the idea of madness here is critical. It's describing the experience he's having, the pain and burning of the poisoned clothes, and how it's affecting his mind, but it's also linking back to his long, long history of madness, of mental illness, that's caused so much tragedy in his past.

• 29:14Liv Albert?

  But of course, Heracles does wake up, because we must finally, finally, hear the voice and words of Heracles himself, even though he's near death. He cries out, lamenting everything. What thanks he's gotten for his sacrifice, his gift to the gods. He calls to his father, Zeus, and laments the harm that's been done to him. He links it all to Zeus, without outright blaming him, but it's important. He's been called the son of Alcmenes so many times in this play, but now, now he's calling to his father, for good or bad.

• 29:55Liv Albert?

  He is completely out of it, just racked with pain, his mind completely affected by it. He calls out, "Let me go, let me go." He wants to sleep, but he can't. The pain is too bad. "It's so hard," he says. Hyllos tries to move him to alleviate his pain, but it doesn't do any good. It makes it worse. It reminds Heracles of the pain. His entire body has been affected by the fiery poison of Nessos's hydra-infused blood. He's crying out, not at anyone in particular. It's like he doesn't see Hyllos or the man attending him.

• 30:38Liv Albert?

  He's not fully aware of anything. Still, he cries, quote, "You men in Greece, are you really Greeks? Real Greeks would treat me fairly. For you, I scoured clean the sea and all the forests. I gave my whole wretched life to make them safe for you." What a line. If Sophocles does anything with the Heracles of this work, it's to remind people of the humanity, of even the strongest and most famous of heroes. He's still dying, and he's looking back on his life and wondering whether it was all worth it in the end.

• 31:34Liv Albert?

  Finally, Heracles regains enough consciousness to ask for Hylus, calling out to his son. Hylus helps him, does what he can, but nothing can really help Heracles now. The pain is constant. He's suffering horribly, like all his skin is on fire. He asks Hylus to end his pain, to take a sword to his throat and finish him, put him out of his misery. He's desperate to die. That is the type of pain that he, Heracles, the man who's withstood just about everything, is experiencing.

• 32:18Liv Albert?

  And then his pain turns to anger and he speaks of his wife, blaming her for what she's done, asking that she suffer the same fate. Here, Heracles launches into a monologue. He starts just comparing everything he's done and experienced in his life to this moment, this pain that he's in. "None of my labors ever tormented me like this," he says. "Nothing Hera ever did caused such suffering, nor Eurystheus and the labors he assigned to me. Nothing has been as bad as what my wife, Deianeira, has done to me." He says, quote, "It's plastered to my ribs, gnaws into me, eats my muscles, it's glued

• 33:01Liv Albert?

  to my windpipe, it sucks the air out of my lungs, slurps up the bright blood, wastes my frame completely." It's so visceral, so gory, so utterly horrifying. A word I'm overusing in this episode, but is there a better way to describe it? I don't think so. He continues, "Nothing on the battlefield has ever done anything like this. No giants or beasts or Greeks or foreigners, nothing has done the damage of, quote, 'a woman.' However, a female woman, a coward by birth."

• 33:42Liv Albert?

  I'm recording this on International Women's Day. He turns to Hylus, repeating his earlier request. He wants to see Deianeira. He wants her hauled out of the house and brought before him to suffer the same pain that he now suffers. But he doesn't let Hylus respond, doesn't hear the news of his wife, he just keeps going. "It burns," he says, a raging, blind spasm. He asks Hades to take him away, pleads to the brother of his own father to strike him down. He recites more from his past, his heroic history, reminding the audience who he is, what he's done, what he's seen, reiterating time and time again that with all he has

• 34:27Liv Albert?

  done and seen, he has never felt like this. It's really just so horrifying. It's just pain and torment and terror and it's just completely and utterly awful the whole way through. The play turned when Deianeira died and now it's just this, more and more of this. Finally, though, Heracles pauses long enough for Hylus to speak, and he begins to, but Heracles can't stand listening to him. He can't understand when he speaks like this. His pain has overtaken him and he's just being mean and impatient. But Hylus tries to explain anyway. He tries to explain to Heracles that what Deianeira

• 35:09Liv Albert?

  did wasn't on purpose. She didn't mean to hurt him. It was an accident, involuntary. It was the work of Nessos, the centaur, and not the will of Deianeira. Of course, Heracles doesn't take this well. He doesn't want to hear that she isn't to blame. He doesn't want to hear Hylus defend her. But Hylus remains strong, unlike so many other children of these tragedies. He does understand that Deianeira did not do it on purpose. He doesn't stay mad at her. He defends her even to his dying and belligerent father. He says that it would be wrong for him to stay silent, and when Heracles counters with, "Sure, let's not stay silent about her crimes against me," Hylus counters with, "then I

• 35:54Liv Albert?

  won't stay silent about the things she's just done." So, he tells Heracles, he tells him that Deianeira is dead, that she's killed herself. Heracles is mad, only mad that he didn't get to do it himself, but Hylus continues to press him with the truth. "You wouldn't feel this way if you understood what happened," he tells his father. "You wouldn't be this angry." He says, quote, "In a nutshell, she went wrong trying to do right." And if that isn't the perfect way to describe so many moments of Greek myth, so many misunderstood prophecies and well-intentioned accidents. Hylus continues to push against Heracles's anger, his lack of desire to hear anything

• 36:38Liv Albert?

  that Hylus has to say about Deianeira, but he gets it out. He tells him what happened, that Deianeira thought it was a love charm, that she just was trying to make her husband love her, and that it was the long-dead centaur Nessus who was at fault, who tricked Deianeira, who killed Heracles. At this, Heracles reveals another prophecy that he had been told. There are so many now, and all told through Zeus at the oracle of Dodona. I think we can assume they were all told at once, but this one is pretty different from what Deianeira had heard and told us. He says that he was told that he would die at the hands of one who was already dead.

• 37:18Liv Albert?

  Now, he knows what it means. Nessos, the centaur who died so, so many years ago now, was killing him all the same. Then he reiterates the other part of the prophecy, the one that Deianeira had known, that either at that time he would die or be released from his labors. But of course, this means the same thing, which he now understands. He was never going to be released from his labors while still alive. So he forms a plan. Heracles experiences some lucidity and he takes full advantage. "Do you know the mountain Ieta?" he tells Hylus. Of course, Hylus tells him, "It's where they sacrificed Zeus regularly."

• 38:02Liv Albert?

  "Bring me there," Heracles instructs. "Bring me there and construct a pyre from the oak trees of Zeus and the wild olive trees. Lay me on it," Heracles tells Hylus, "and set it alight. Do this without shedding a tear. I want no mourning, no suffering, just do it." Yes, Heracles has just asked his own son, who's already experienced more grief and horror than anyone should ever have to deal with, to set him on fire. Hylus tries to fight him on this, but there's no use. Finally, he agrees to take his father there and to build the pyre, but he, someone else, will light the match. Okay, it's not a match. However, they were gonna light the fire.

• 38:47Liv Albert?

  Heracles is happy with that. As long as he's going to die in this way, to be free from his torment, that's enough. But first, he says, "I have some life instructions for you." Strap in there, gross. Heracles tells Hylus that he must take Ioli to be his wife, that because Heracles has already had sex with her, no other mortal man can marry her but his son. Yeah. Ick. Seriously, ick. In Hylus's defense, he sees a few issues with this. "How could I marry her?" he asks. "She's the one who caused my mother's death and yours

• 39:30Liv Albert?

  too," which, I mean, not really, but I get where he's coming from, and regardless of who's at fault, he absolutely should not marry Ioli. That's fucking weird. He adds that it would be better if he were dead than to live in marriage to an enemy. But no, Heracles will not be turned, and he guilts the absolute fuck out of Hylus for even suggesting that he doesn't want to follow his father's instructions. So, though hesitantly, Hylus finally agrees. What Ioli thinks about the matter is, of course, unsurprisingly, not of anyone's concern. With this decided, it's time. Heracles wants Hylus to move quickly, to get him to the mountain and atop his funeral pyre before the next wave of pain hits him.

• 40:15Liv Albert?

  So they rush. They move quickly, with the help of the same soldiers who carried Heracles in. They prepare to head to the mountain to build the funeral pyre for Heracles, this strongest and best of the heroes, and there, they will set him on fire. And so, as they prepare for this, Hylus says, quote, "What is to come is not for anyone to see, but what stands now is pitiful for us and shameful for them, but most harsh for him of all men, the one who bears this rage." Then he turns to the chorus leader, the head of these women of Trachis, these Trachenei,

• 40:57Liv Albert?

  and he speaks the play's final words, quote, "Do not leave this home, young woman. You have seen majesty in death and novelty, much suffering, and suffering in new forms, and nothing in this is not Zeus." Nothing in this is not Zeus.

• 41:36Liv Albert?

  Oh, nerds, nerds, nerds. What a fucking heartbreaking ending. Just absolutely no lightness, no redeeming moments. It's just horrible tragedy that never ends and only gets worse. And nothing in this is not Zeus. What's so interesting, too, and I'm discussing it more with a guest on this week's conversation episode that's upcoming, so stay tuned because I won't get into too much here because, oof, my guest has way too much amazing stuff to say. But this is not the traditional end for Heracles, or at least not all of it. Yes,

• 42:13Liv Albert?

  he dies. We are to imagine that this play ends with Heracles set on fire, or at least he is basically on fire from the pain and then they're going to actually set him ablaze. So yes, yes, he dies. He dies horrifically and tragically, but in the end, he's meant to be apotheosized. That is, turned into a god and brought to live on Mount Olympus with Zeus and the others because he's Heracles. He will marry a nice goddess named Hebe and presumably live happily ever after as a god. But that was too nice for Sophocles, too uplifting

• 42:52Liv Albert?

  and redeeming. And so instead, he just went for utter and complete, just abject tragedy.

• 43:01Liv Albert?

  Ugh, but I don't want to leave you on this intensely tragic note because not only is it a bummer generally, but it's an extra bummer given the state of the world right now. Are we living through the end of days? I mean, slowly, but surely. I'm thinking yes. So instead, I want to look at what exactly Disney did with Heracles's story in light of this play and the details that I shared before the play. Because Disney manages to pull little bits and pieces from so many of his disparate stories and nestle them into the movie. It's, it's well done. The writers handled it well, even if I wish he was called fucking Heracles and not Hercules. But what kind of debate do we think went on in the

• 43:41Liv Albert?

  writers' room in this decision to name the love interest Meg? Okay, like some executive was like, all right, Heracles has got to have a love interest. This is the 90s and isn't that the crux of basically everything? Love. So what do we call her? Well, we should name her based off of Heracles's myth, obviously, but who to go with? Well, there's his most famous wife, one of the writers maybe chimed in, Deianeira. We could name her Deianeira. That's an awful, long and tricky name, the exec must have replied, because again, the 90s. How does her story go again? He would ask. Well, she accidentally kills him. Okay, maybe not Deianeira. Who else do we have? Well, his first wife was named Magara, someone else

• 44:25Liv Albert?

  might chime in. Perfect. Thanks, the exec. We can call her Meg. That sounds American and we don't want to bother the kids with pesky Greek names, just like Philoctetes will be called Phil and Phobos and Demos will be called Pain and Panic. Magara will just be Meg. Dumb it down, writers. So, wonders the exec. How does Meg's story go with Hercules?

• 44:47Liv Albert?

  And then I like to think the writers were already so annoyed that the exec wanted to get rid of so much of the Greek mythology from this movie, based on Greek mythology, that they just kind of lied to him. We're like, oh, Meg, she died, but we don't have to put that in the movie. And of course, the exec didn't bother to ask why or how she died, because women die all the time. And why bother wondering why? So we all just got to sit back and watch this adorable children's movie full of happy songs and love, features romance between characters, one of whom will go on to murder the other and their children, because the nice mommy up in the clouds sends him to a state of madness.

• 45:29Liv Albert?

  Lovely. Fucking love that movie. Well, as I mentioned, stay tuned because later this week, I'm bringing you a conversation episode about the Trachiniae with past guest and all around, very entertaining person, Amy Pistone. We spoke about Sophocles last year, so of course I brought Amy back to talk Trachiniae. How could I not? There's some incredibly fascinating stuff in this conversation. Ugh, it, I can't wait for y'all to hear it. Let's talk about myths, baby, as written and produced by me, Liv Albert. Michaela Smith runs the YouTube account where episodes are being uploaded and captions are being added for greater accessibility. Michaela also handles promotional images and so, so, so much more, including research for an upcoming series of episodes in the vein of Atlantis.

• 46:13Liv Albert?

  It's gonna be a while now, but you're gonna fucking love it. The podcast is hosted and monetized by the nice people at Acast. Thank you all so much. As always, I couldn't do this without you. I am Liv and I absolutely love this shit. Fucking Greek tragedies are the goddamn best, you know?

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