Sophocles Women of Trachis

Transcription

1 Sophocles Women of Trachis

2 Plot and dramatic action 1-93: Prologue 1-48 (pp ): Deianeira s opening monologue:

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5 Plot and dramatic action 1-93: Prologue (pp ): Consolation by Nurse and advice to Deianeira. Enter Hyllus (intertext?) Heracles whereabouts. The written oracle that Heracles has left behind: That either he is about to come to the end of his life, or he will accomplish this ordeal and for the future live from now on happily

6 Parodos (94-140; pp ) First strophe and antistrophe (94-111, p ): Address to the Sun to reveal where Heracles is. The passion, longing and fears of Deianeira. Second strophe, antistrophe and epode ( , pp ): Comparison of the life of Heracles with the effect of the waves in a rough sea. Life is a cycle of happiness and sorrow. The changeability of human affairs. Confidence about Zeus providence and plan.

7 : First episode (pp ): Deianeira s monologue: The heroine s anxious wait and the written tablet that records the oracle from Dodona: when he had been absent for a year and three months, he was fated either to die at that moment or to survive that moment of crisis and for the future live a life free from pain (vv.165-8, p. 147). The realisation of the oracles is imminent (pp ): The joyful news: The messenger announces Heracles imminent arrival. The source of the news is Lichas (pp ): Short ode: The marriage song that turns into Bacchic revelry. Let the house that is to receive the bridegroom utter a cry of joy, with shouts of triumph at the hearth! And let a song from the men also go up in honour of him of the fine quiver, Apollo the protector, and do you raise up the paean, the paean, O maidens! Call upon his sister, Artemis of Ortygia, the shooter of deer, the bearer of torches, and her neighbouring nymphs!

8 I rise up, nor shall I reject the pipe, you who are the ruler of my mind! See, the ivy excites me Euoi! whirling me around in the Bacchic rush! Oh, oh, Paean! See, see, dear lady! You can look on this before your eyes, in all clarity (pp ): Deianeira deceived: Enter Lichas with group of captives, including Iole. The news as transferred by Lichas; the concealment of truth: Heracles was offended by Eurytus, he murdered Iphitus by deception, he was sold and enslaved to the Lydian queen Omphale as punishment from Zeus for one year; as revenge against Eurytus, he sacked Oechalia (Eurytus city) and took women (including Iole) as captives. After the sacrifices to Zeus, he will come back to Trachis (pp ): Deianeira and the captive women. D. spots Iole and asks about her. Lichas is agitated and does not answer. Iole is similarly silent. Lichas, Iole and captives enter the house.

9 : The revelation of the truth (pp ): In the presence of the chorus, the Messenger reveals the real reason why Heracles sacked Oechalia: his passion for Iole. It was on account of this girl that Heracles brought down Eurytus and the high towers of Oechalia, and that it was Eros alone among the gods that bewitched him into this deed of arms, not the doings among the Lydians or his servitude under Omphale or Iphitus, hurled to his death (vv , p. 165) Heracles, according to the Messenger, is inflamed with desire for Iole. Deianeira is devastated. The women of Trachis advise D. to question Lichas again. Enter Lichas

10 (pp ): Lichas is questioned by the Messenger and Deianeira (pp ): Deianeira seeks the truth from Lichas: Deianeira shows some understanding, since she shares the passion of eros. Besides, it is not the first time she hears about Heracles infidelities (pp ): Lichas admits the truth. Deianeira s intention is not to go against the force of Eros and the gods. She will be kind to Iole. She goes to fetch presents in exchange for the captive girls. Deianeira and Lichas exit into the house

11 (pp ): First stasimon : Strophe. Myths of the past where Aphrodite (better: elemental erotic passion!) wins. Topic of song: the struggle between Heracles and Achelous : Antistrophe. Achelous and Heracles as enormous beastly forces. Aphrodite is overseeing the struggle : ΕΠΩΔΟΣ. In a rabid struggle, human and animal become one. Deianeira is the prize. The girlish innocence.

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14 : Second episode (pp ): Deianeira s monologue Enter Deianeira, intending to speak to chorus in private. The mood has changed: Iole is a threat, because she is young and beautiful; her own beauty has withered away : The story of Nessus. The chance meeting with the other monster of the play, Centaur Nessus. His murder by Heracles. Nessus asked Deianeira to take some of the blood with Hydra s poison. D. has concealed it in the dark recesses of the house all this time.

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17 (pp ): Deianeira s thoughts and plan: I remembered this, my dears, for when he was dead I had carefully locked it up at home, and dyed this tunic, adding all the things he while he still lived had told me; and this has been accomplished. Of rash crimes may I never know or learn anything, and I detest women who perform them. But in the hope that I may somehow overcome this girl with spells and charms working on Heracles, the deed has been contrived... unless you think that what I am doing is foolish! If so, I shall abandon it. The chorus remains neutral Only do you cover my tracks loyally, for in darkness, even if what you do is shameful, you will never be put to shame.

18 (pp ): Deianeira hands the robe to Lichas: The robe is not to be worn by anyone before it is given to Heracles. It should not be seen by the light. Heracles should wear it just before he performs the sacrifice to Zeus. He should also hear about Deianeira s acceptance of Iole. Lichas agrees, and both exit.

19 (pp ): Second stasimon Strophe and antistrophe: Triumph about Heracles return to his house Second strophe and antistrophe: Heracles absence and his return to his house full of passion for Deianeira, thanks to the monster s beguilement of persuasion

20 (pp ): Third episode : Deianeira s realisation. Deianeira s horror at the sight of the wool foaming and crumbing away as it came in contact with the natural light. I was to keep in a secret place the unguent, far from the fire and never warmed by the sun s ray, until I should apply it, newly rubbed, on something; and that is what I did. Now, when it was time to act, I rubbed it in secret, in a room inside the house, with a fleece of wool, a tuft pulled from a sheep belonging to our flock, folded it, and placed the gift, which the sun had never touched, in a container, as you saw. And when I was going out I saw a thing too strange for words, beyond human understanding. I happened to have thrown the piece of sheep s wool into the sun s ray; and when it grew warm, it melted away into nothing and crumbled on the ground, looking most like the sawdust you see when somebody cuts wood. So there it lay, where it had fallen; and from the ground where it was lying clotted foam boiled up, as when the rich liquid from the blue-green fruit is poured upon the ground from the vine of Bacchus. (v ; p. 195)

21 (p. 197): Deianeira s realisation. For why, in return for what, could the monster have done a kindness to me, the cause of his death? It cannot be; but he cajoled me, wishing to destroy the man who had shot him; this I learn too late, when the knowledge cannot serve me. For if I am not to prove mistaken in my judgment, I alone, miserable one, shall be his ruin; I know that the arrow that struck him tormented even Chiron, who was immortal, and it destroys all the beasts whom it touches. How shall the black poison of the blood, coming from the fatal wound, not destroy my husband also? That is my belief. If Heracles suffers anything bad, she will kill herself.

22 Transition with a dialogue between D. and the chorus about not fearing before the worst has happened ( ): Enter Hyllus; The news about Heracles. The horrific effect of the robe on Heracles body. The state of the Hero and Hyllus curse to his mother.

23 But when the bloodshot flame from the sacred offerings and from the resinous pine blazed up, the sweat came up upon his body and the thing clung closely to his sides, as a carpenter s tunic might, at every joint; and a biting pain came, tearing at his bones; then a bloody poison like that of a hateful serpent fed upon him.. For the pain dragged him downwards and upwards, shouting and screaming; and the rocks around resounded, the mountain promontories of Locri and the Euboean peaks. But when he gave over, hurling himself often to the ground and uttering many loud cries (vv , pp ) Deianeira departs silently into the house (v. 813, p. 205). She is not to be seen again.

24 (pp ): Third stasimon : Strophe. The chorus realises the meaning of the old oracle : Antistrophe. Image evoking the ordeal of Heracles: Nessus and Hydra kill Heracles in a deadly embrace : Second strophe. Reflection on the irrational reaction of Deianeira and the role of Fate : Second antistrophe. The disease of Heracles. The plague streams over him, alas! so piteous an affliction have his enemies never brought upon his glorious form. Alas for the black point of the defending spear, which then brought the swiftly running bride from lofty Oechalia by its might! And the Cyprian (Aphrodite), silent in attendance, is revealed as the doer of these things.

25 (pp ): Fourth episode : The news about the death of Deianeira The cries from inside the palace. Enter Nurse. The news about Deianeira s suicide : The narration of the events inside Deianeira s farewell to the house. Her suicide in the bedroom. Hyllus devastation and guilt : Fourth stasimon : First strophe and antistrophe.the chorus mourns over the death of Deianeira and Heracles : Second strophe και antistrophe: The chorus wishes to depart before they have sight of D. and H. dead. The stretcher with Heracles, sleeping, enters accompanied.

26 (pp ): (219-end): Exodos Silence broken by the cries of pain, as Heracles wakes up. The hero s wrath for his fate and his pleas to have his life ended (in lyric metre, i.e. singing). The affliction is imagined like a wild animal and a disease. HERACLES: Many and savage, evil even to relate, have been the labours of my arms and my back! And never yet has the wife of Zeus or hateful Eurystheus set such a thing upon me as the woven covering of the Erinyes which the daughter of Oeneus with beguiling face has put upon my shoulders, by which I am perishing! It has clung to my sides and eaten away my inmost flesh, and lives with me to devour the channels of my lungs. Already it has drunk my fresh blood, and my whole body is ruined, now that I am mastered by this unspeakable bondage. The spearmen of the plain never did such a thing, nor the earth-born army of the Giants, nor the violence of the monsters, nor Greece, nor the barbarian lands, nor every country that I came to in my purifying work. But a woman, a female and unmanly in her nature, alone has brought me down, without a sword. ( , pp )

27 (pp ): His worst labour (athlos) was caused by a woman. Pleas to Hyllus to bring Deianeira to him to kill her with his own hands. Embarrassment for his feminine reaction. The decaying body of the previously powerful hero. Come, my son, bring yourself to do it! Pity me, pitiable in many ways, I who am crying out, weeping like a girl, and no one can say he saw this man do such a thing before, but though racked with torments I never would lament! But now such a thing has shown me as a womanish creature

28 : Hyllus speaks in defense of his mother. Heracles realises the truth about Centaur Nessus. The other ancient oracle becomes a fact. Release from labours means death First request from Hyllus: to be taken to the summit of mount Oeta to be burnt alive. Second request from Hyllus: to marry Iole. Hyllus gives into the pressure : The procession accompanying Heracles starts climbing the 3000 metres of mount Oete. Hyllus protests at the gods cruel apathy. Final comment about the role of Zeus in human affairs.

29 Reactions to the following paintings?

30 Guido Reni, Deianira Abducted by the Centaur Nessus ( )

31 GASPARE DIZIANI, El rapto de Deianira ( )

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34 Plan of two lectures 1. Myth, the irrational element and the Women of Trachis 2. The perception of Sophocles II; and Sophoclean endings 3. Eros and violent passions; the scholarship of C. Segal

35 Plan of lectures 4. The oikos and the axes of the play 5. Knowledge changeability of human affairs the motif of time 6. Masculinities and femininities in the Women of Trachis

36 1. Myth, the irrational element and the Women of Trachis How can we interpret the strange mix of the magical, the irrational, the raw, the bestial, the horrific with the rational, the normal, that which resembles our own experience (vv. 6-17, p. 133)

37 Myth, the irrational element and the Women of Trachis Consider also: Centaur Nessus, himself a hybrid of human and animal, is struck by passion for the young girl, is killed by Heracles in the river, amidst a wild landscape, in a struggle that strongly evokes the struggle with Achelous The philtre - Centaur s blood mixed with the poison of the Lernean Hydra The woolen tuft foaming and disintegrating when it comes in contact with the natural light The hurling of two male bodies from the rocks The poisoned robe that is heated up from the fires of the sacrifice and the hero s sweat, that eats up his flesh in a horrific death, in a scene that echoes with howling, threats and despair The sexual passion, that pervades all this

38 Myth, the irrational element and the Women of Trachis These are essential and central elements exactly because they appear in key points in the play: the opening, the ending and the construction of essential elements of the play: the philtre and the robe, the past, the dramatic spaces. If we do not pay the attention they deserve, we turn the play into a domestic affair

39 Myth, the irrational element and the Women of Trachis

40 2. The playwright s perception in early scholarship and the nature of the Sophoclean poetry See previous lecture; the apologetic tone about the women of Trachis in early scholarship Despite the playwright s association with the sweetness that comes from the honeybees, his poetry is often difficult, risky, unsettling, and far from harmonically homogeneous (as perhaps his ancient perception would make us expect) Sophoclean irony, self-contradictions, destabilisations of meanings Obscurities provoke ambivalence and mixed reactions, since they are open to multiple interpretations Openness of Sophoclean endings

41 The Sophoclean ambivalence and the plays open endings Set design for Oedipus king By J. Svoboda

42 Is Heracles deified or not? What made Deianeira act the way she did? Why did Lichas lie to Deianeira? Why does Heracles ask Hyllus to marry Iole?

43 3. The world of the Women of Trachis The house of Deianeira => the civilised plane of the play Heracles does not naturally fit in the world of the oikos, He is constantly away from the house Heracles nature lies in the margins of what is civilised

44 The world of the Women of Trachis Most of the key dramatic spaces of the play are wild spaces, away from any polis We hear about Trachis, but it never Materialises as a polis. The only other polis of the play, Oechalia, is sacked, ravaged and destroyed. Powerful rivers and rocky mountainsides echo roars, shrieks, screams and the thuds of blows The play ends with a procession from Mt Caeneum to the isolated summit of Mt Oeta

45 The world of the Women of Trachis A fundamental idea of the play: Humans place in a world, the violence of which they try to tame, but are also pervaded by it. No other extant Sophoclean play makes use of such intractable mythical material and opens such a gulf between the characters as human beings and the characters as symbolic figures. Sophocles draws Deianeira's domestic tragedy with the fullness and naturalism appropriate to the developed sensibilities of the civilized realm in which she belongs, whereas Heracles never emerges entirely from the remote mythical past and from the ancient powers of nature that he vanquishes. Of necessity he receives a more schematic, less realistic representation. Yet this very difference reflects the fact that the play places us at the intersection of opposed worlds, at the frontier between man and beast, between civilization and primitive animal drives. Segal

46 Heracles as a symbol in the world of myth Heracles is the par excellence symbol of humanity s passage from barbarity to civilisation

47 Civilisation and barbarity in the Women of Trachis The symbolism of characters on a first level: Deianeira as a symbol of the civilised sphere she embodies and represents the values of the oikos Heracles is a more complex entity: he is a civiliser, but inextricably tied to the beasts and to violence Something that fascinates Sophocles is however much we try to resist our barbaric, uncivilised aspects, these are an essential part of humanity

48 Heracles struggles with the beastly elements of untamed nature come back to life and torment him again either metaphorically, or literally. For example The repeated reference to the struggle with Achelous, which is evoked several times in the play

49 - Essentially, Centaur Nessus has never died. - His blood, mixed with the blood of Hydra, remains secretly hidden in the recesses of the house - And it will destroy Heracles through the actions of the woman, whose only intention is to protect and preserve the oikos One of the bigger questions that are explored by the play through these motifs and contrasts is where do humans lie between savagery and civilisation?. What does it mean to be human? How does it relate to the nature of beasts / the nature of gods?

50 The world of savagery and Eros All central characters seem to be under the effect of that invincible power: Heracles, Achelous, Centaur Nessus, Deianeira Sexual passion in Greek myth and tragedy. P. 175

51 Eros and Deianeira Genuine love for the hero; Sympathy for Iole but also an instinct for self-preservation and preservation of the oikos The play shows that Deianeira s feelings for Heracles are also manifested in a more sinister form, which materialises in what she goes on to do later on. The mysterious forces that operate in the human mind and cannot be contained in any construct of civilisation / society Symbolism of the philtre that remains well hidden in the recesses of the house

52 Eros and Deianeira - Eros/passion and Heracles She understands the nature of eros as a passion and admits the effect it has on her, as on all others Eros is acknowledged as a disease and enters the sphere of the irrational and the destructive. As the play unfolds, a close association forms between erotic passion, the philtre, the poisoned blood, the violence of wild beasts and finally the disease / affliction of Heracles

53 Readings: Any of the chapters on the Women of Trachis by Charles Segal: Segal, C.P. (1998), Myth, Poetry and Heroic Values in the Trachinian Women and Time, Oracles and marriage in the Trachinian Women in Sophocles Tragic World, Cambridge Mass., Segal, C.P. (1981), Trachiniae in Tragedy and Civilization: an Interpretation of Sophocles, Cambridge MA,