Trachiniae

Roles

• Heracles - Adult (36-50), Senior (>50), Male

About this piece

Heracles laments his pain

Summary

The play deals with Deianeira's jealousy for her Heracles', her husband, attraction for a younger woman, Iole. Iole is a young woman that Heracles brings back to Trachis as a slave after having won a battle. Determined to keep her husband, Deianeria tries a love charm on Heracles but accidentally injuring him. Realizing what she has done, she kills herself. Heracles, being in agony, asks to be killed by being burned alive. The love charm that Deianeira performs on her husband consists of a robe dipped in the blood of a centaur. In a monologue to the Chorus, we learn that in one episode that happened years before, she was being carried by a centaur across a river. The centaur, Nessus, made a pass on her and he was killed by Heracles. Before dying, Nessus told her that his blood could be used by her as a love charm to make her husband love her and no one else. Therefore she decides to smear Nessus' blood on a robe that she will give as a gift to her husband. This however turns out to be a trick by the centaur. His blood is not a love potion, it turns into acid. The robe, therefore, ends up injuring Heracles. In this monologue, Heracles is in agony and laments his fate to his son and the Chorus.

Tone

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