1 Sophocles' Antigone Introduction, translation, and notes by ...

putting Aegisthus' death second. It is that death that remains in the audience's mind as the
play ends. Thus we have more sympathy for the children in Sophocles. Aeschylus and
Euripides put Clytemnestra's death last and thereby arouse horror in the audience with
that final image of matricide.
The Trachiniae shows us Heracles, another hero, in fact a demigod, between gods
and men, but also in his actions between men and beasts. He was a monster who slew
other monsters, making a world safe for a civilization in which he could not share. He,
like Ajax, like Oedipus, and like Philoctetes, is one who is needed and rejected; aside
from their time of usefulness they are not considered fit for the conventional society of
the Greek polis.
Heracles slew monsters but was defeated by erotic passion: "He defeated all by
the strength of his hands, but he was finally defeated himself by Eros" (488-89). He
committed the fatal error of introducing a foreign princess into his house "to lie under the
same blanket" with his lawful wife (539-40). We, the audience, know what this can lead
to, having had the example of Agamemnon who brought Priam's daughter Cassandra
home to be part of his household. So also in Euripides' Andromache, Neoptolemus
imported Hector's wife as his concubine and mother of his only child. After this, he was
not to rest easy in his home and marriage to Hermione, Menelaus' daughter. As both
Agamemnon and Neoptolemus learned, one does not bring a princess home to share a
wife's bed. Both died because of their wives' intrigues.
Hoping to regain his love, Deianeira (whose name means man-slayer) sends her
husband Heracles a cloak imbued with a drug given her by the centaur Nessus.
Simulating the fire of love itself, with concomitant agony, sunlight activates the power of
this drug. It is fatal for Heracles and eats into him like an acid (or love). The "disease" of
love turned out to be deadly (544). Heracles, in his single-mindedness, perpetuates his
passion by insisting his son marry Iole. His desire shapes his destiny and he even intends
to shackle the next generation.
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