Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology (Facts on File Library ...

Trachiniae
comes to domestic matters—women <strong>and</strong> children
in particular. In a famous fit <strong>of</strong> madness, he
slew his entire family (the subject <strong>of</strong> Euripides’
HeracLes). Here, it is a domestic matter—a
wife’s neglected love—that brings an end to the
labors <strong>and</strong> to the hero himself. In general, Heracles
has more trouble with women than with
male adversaries. Omphale, to whom Heracles
was sold as a slave, provides another example
<strong>of</strong> humiliation at the h<strong>and</strong>s <strong>of</strong> a woman. Or
was he humiliated? It is perhaps significant in
the present context <strong>of</strong> Heracles’ womanizing
that some versions <strong>of</strong> the Omphale story make
Omphale into Heracles’ mistress during the
duration <strong>of</strong> his servitude. According to another
story, however, he ended up wearing women’s
clothing at Omphale’s behest—a humiliation
for this most masculine <strong>of</strong> heroes. In a more
serious vein, Heracles proclaims that the atrocious
physical pain inflicted on him by the
poison <strong>of</strong> Nessus has made him like a woman,
<strong>and</strong> that after defeating so many monsters, he
is being defeated by feminine wiles.
In cultic terms, the rites <strong>of</strong> Heracles are
known for their focus on male initiates—
ephebes (young men on the verge <strong>of</strong> manhood
<strong>and</strong> military service)—<strong>and</strong> for explicitly excluding
women. The structure <strong>of</strong> the present play,
in a certain sense, replicates the ritual exclusion
<strong>of</strong> women in Heraclean cult. The first portion
<strong>of</strong> the action consists largely <strong>of</strong> the dialogue
between Deianira <strong>and</strong> the Chorus <strong>of</strong> Trachinian
women; the latter part, after Deianira is dead,
consists <strong>of</strong> the exchange between two men,
Heracles <strong>and</strong> his son Hyllus. The play’s dramatic
structure, in other words, itself embodies
the radical division between husb<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> wife,
Heracles <strong>and</strong> the world <strong>of</strong> women. Heracles
<strong>and</strong> Deianira never speak to each other <strong>and</strong>
effectively inhabit different worlds.
At the play’s end, Heracles is even more
pr<strong>of</strong>oundly divided from his wife. She is dead
<strong>and</strong> apparently no longer much <strong>of</strong> a concern
to him. His own life is ending, <strong>and</strong> at the
same time, a major mythological sequence is
coming to an end. Zeus, who brings things to
their completion, oversees the terrible process.
The Heraclean mythology is eminently serial
in nature—a long series <strong>of</strong> labors, one after
another, <strong>and</strong> he succeeds at each one only to
commence another. In Euripides’ aLcestis,
we meet him between labors—one <strong>of</strong> the few
moments that Heracles might be inserted
into a narrative that does not form part <strong>of</strong> his
canonical labors. He is constantly defined by
the ongoing sequence <strong>of</strong> tasks. Thus, bringing
that sequence to an end requires a special
situation, a culminating labor or task distinct
from the rest. Zeus, who in the iLiad is the one
who brings things to the final end/completion/purpose
(telos), is thus somehow behind
everything that happens to his suffering son,
yet he is also strangely <strong>and</strong> disturbingly absent.
The relation <strong>of</strong> Zeus <strong>and</strong> Heracles’ final end
are metonymically signaled on more than one
occasion when a character, without apparent
awareness <strong>of</strong> the fatal significance, refers to
Mount Oeta as being sacred to Zeus.
The last, uncanonical labor <strong>of</strong> Heracles that
culminates there, however, does not feature a
positive task to be accomplished or a foe to be
overcome. Mount Oeta will witness only the
horrors <strong>of</strong> the hero’s own self-consuming body.
Reduced to suffering, Heracles experiences the
purest labor he has had—relentless, unimaginable
pain—<strong>and</strong>, rather than having an outlet
for his aggressive, masculine valor, the hero is
turned in upon his own nature <strong>and</strong> resources.
Heracles does the best he can, given the circumstances,
<strong>and</strong> assumes control <strong>of</strong> his own
death. By having himself burned alive, he forces
himself to endure the ultimate in pain to escape
his present humiliation. We might compare
Ajax, who escapes the grotesquery <strong>of</strong> his deeds
<strong>and</strong> subsequent mental anguish by suicide, or
Philoctetes, whose unbearable wound makes
him wish for death. In being thus turned onto
himself <strong>and</strong> his own suffering, grotesque body
as the object <strong>and</strong> goal <strong>of</strong> his final labor, Heracles
becomes a truly Sophoclean hero.
The big question that surrounds this
end is the question <strong>of</strong> Heracles’ apotheosis.