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| Character | Heracles | |
|---|---|---|
| Gender | Male | |
| Age Range(s) | Adult (36-50), Senior (>50) | |
| Type of monologue / Character is | Angry, Crying, Dying, Gives orders, Depressed, Lamenting, Complaining | |
| Type | Dramatic | |
| Period | Ancient Greek | |
| Genre | Tragedy, Drama | |
| Description | Heracles laments his pain | |
| Location | End of play | |
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.
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.
Written by Administrator
| Excerpt |
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| HERACLES Ah, fierce full oft, and grievous not in name alone, have been the labours of these hands, the burdens borne upon these shoulders! But no toil ever laid on me by the wife of Zeus or by the hateful Eurystheus was like unto this thing which the daughter of Oeneus, fair and false, hath fastened upon my back,- this woven net of the Furies, in which I perish! Glued to my sides, it hath eaten my flesh to the inmost parts; it is ever with me, sucking the channels of my breath; already it hath drained my fresh lifeblood, and my whole body is wasted, a captive to these unutterable bonds. Not the warrior on the battle-field, not the Giants' earth-born host, nor the might of savage beasts, hath ever done unto me thus,- not Hellas, nor the land of the alien, nor any land to which I have come as a deliverer: no, a woman, a weak woman, born not to the strength of man, all alone hath vanquished me, without stroke of sword Son, show thyself my son indeed, and do not honour a mother's name above a sire's: bring forth the woman that bare thee, and give her with thine own hands into my hand, that I may know of a truth which sight grieves thee most,- my tortured frame, or hers, when she suffers her righteous doom! Go, my son, shrink not- and show thy pity for me, whom many might deem pitiful,- for me, moaning and weeping like a girl;- and the man lives not who can say that he ever saw me do thus before; no, without complaining I still went whither mine evil fortune led. But now, alas, the strong man hath been found a woman. Approach, stand near thy sire, and see what a fate it is that hath brought me to this pass; for I will lift the veil. Behold! Look, all of you, on this miserable body; see how wretched, how piteous is my plight! Ah, woe is me! The burning throe of torment is there anew, it darts through my sides- I must wrestle once more with that cruel, devouring plague! O thou lord of the dark realm, receive me! Smite me, O fire of Zeus! Hurl down thy thunderbolt, O King, send it, O father, upon my head! For again the pest is consuming me; it hath blazed forth, it hath started into fury! O hands, my hands, O shoulders and breast and trusty arms, ye, now in this plight, are the same whose force of old subdued the dweller in Nemea, the scourge of herdsmen, the lion, a creature that no man might approach or confront; ye tamed the Lernaean Hydra, and that monstrous host of double form, man joined to steed, a race with whom none may commune, violent, lawless, of surpassing might; ye tamed the Erymanthian beast, and the three-headed whelp of Hades underground, a resistless terror, offspring of the dread Echidna; ye tamed the dragon that guarded the golden fruit in the utmost places of the earth. These toils and countless others have I proved, nor hath any man vaunted a triumph over my prowess. But now, with joints unhinged and with flesh torn to shreds, I have become the miserable prey of an unseen destroyer,- I, who am called the son of noblest mother,- I, whose reputed sire is Zeus, lord of the starry sky. But ye may be sure of one thing:- though I am as nought, though I cannot move a step, yet she who hath done this deed shall feel my heavy hand even now: let her but come, and she shall learn to proclaim this message unto all, that in my death, as in my life, I chastised the wicked! |
