Trachiniae
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng3
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Lichas
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I do not know; I did not in fact make a long investigation.
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Deianeira
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And you do not know her name from one of her fellow captives?
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Lichas
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No, indeed. In silence I completed my task.
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Deianeira
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Unhappy girl, tell it to me, anyway, from your own mouth. It is indeed distressing to me not to know who you are.
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Lichas
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It will not, I assure you, be at all on a par with time past if she moves her lips. She has not said a word, large or small,
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but has been constantly laboring with the heavy pains of her misfortune and weeping, poor girl, since she left her windswept fatherland. Her condition is indeed bad—for her, anyway—but claims our forbearance.
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Deianeira
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Then let her be left in peace, and go beneath our roof
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as it pleases her. Let her not in addition to her existing troubles take fresh grief from me; she has enough already. Now let us all go in, so that you may go speedily on your journey, while I make all things ready in the house. Exit Lichas, followed by the Captives, into the house.
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Messenger
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Do go in, but first remain here a short while, so that you may learn, apart from these others, who they are whom you take into your home, and gain necessary knowledge of the facts which you have not heard. For of these I am in full possession.
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Deianeira
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What do you mean? Why do you stay my departure?
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Messenger
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Stop and listen. My former report was not a waste of your time, and neither, I believe, will this one be.
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Deianeira
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Shall I call those others back again? Or do you wish to speak before me and these women?
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Messenger
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To you and the women I can speak freely. Never mind the others.
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Deianeira
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Well, they are gone. Now let your speech signal your meaning.
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Messenger
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That man Lichas spoke nothing of what he just told you in strict accordance with the truth. He was just now lying, or else he was dishonest in his earlier report.
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Deianeira
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What do you say? Explain to me clearly all that you mean,
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for I cannot understand what you said.
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Messenger
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I heard this man declare, before many witnesses, that it was for the sake of this girl that Heracles overthrew Eurytus and the high towers of Oechalia: Eros,
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alone of the gods, enchanted him into doing those deeds of arms, not the toilsome servitude to Omphale in Lydia, nor the death to which Iphitus was hurled. But now the herald has thrust Eros aside and tells a different tale. Well, when Heracles could not persuade him whose seed produced the child
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to give him the girl for his secret concubine, he devised some petty complaint as a pretext, and made war upon her fatherland, in which, as the herald said, that Eurytus ruled. He killed the king, her father, and
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sacked her city. And now, as you see, he makes his return, sending her to this house not without consideration, lady, and not as if she were to be a slave. No, do not expect that; it is not likely, if his heart has been kindled with desire. On this account, my Queen, I resolved to reveal to you all
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that I had heard from that man. Many others were listening to it, as I was, in the public place where the Trachinians were assembled, so they can convict him. If my words are unwelcome, I am grieved; but nevertheless I have spoken the truth.
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Deianeira
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Ah, misery! What is happening to me? What secret plague have I welcomed beneath my roof? Ah, me! So, she was born without a name, as her escort swore?
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Messenger
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No, illustrious by name, as by birth;
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she is the daughter of Eurytus, and was once called Iole. But he could say nothing of her birth, because, of course, he made no investigation.
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Chorus
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May destruction seize not all wrongdoers—no, only the man who practices stealthy wrongdoing that is shameful to his rank!
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Deianeira
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Ah, friends, what should I do? I am dumbstruck by this latest news!
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Chorus
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Go and question Lichas, since he might tell the truth, if you were willing to compel him by threat of force to answer.
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Deianeira
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I will go. Your advice does not lack good judgment.
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Messenger
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And I, shall I wait here? Or what do you require?
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Deianeira
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Stay here—since he is coming out from the house without my summons, but of his own accord.
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Lichas
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My lady, what message shall I bear to Heracles? Instruct me, for, as you see, I am going.
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Deianeira
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How quickly you rush away, when your arrival had been so tardy—before we have even resumed our talk.
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Lichas
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Well, if there is anything you must ask, I am at your service.
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Deianeira
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Will you indeed give me the honest truth?
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Lichas
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Yes, be great Zeus my witness—in anything that I know.
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Deianeira
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Who is the woman, then, whom you escorted here?
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Lichas
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She is Euboean. But whose offspring, I cannot say.
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Messenger
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You there, look at me. To whom do you think you speak?
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Lichas
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And you, to what end have you asked me such a question?
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Messenger
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Dare to answer my question, if you are sensible.
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Lichas
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I speak to the royal Deianeira, daughter of Oeneus, wife of Heracles and, unless my eyes deceive me, my mistress.
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Messenger
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The very word that I wished to hear from you—you admit that she is your mistress?
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Messenger
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Well, then, what penalty would you think it right to pay, if you should be found to be behaving wrongly towards her?
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Lichas
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Wrongly? What fiction have you created?
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Messenger
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None. Rather it is you, to be sure, who do this.
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Lichas
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I am leaving—I was foolish to listen to you so long.
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Messenger
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No, not until you have answered a small question.
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Lichas
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Speak, if you require something. You are not the silent type.
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Messenger
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That captive, whom you escorted into the house, you know whom I mean?
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Lichas
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Yes. But why do you ask?
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Messenger
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Did you not avow that she, on whom you look as if in ignorance,
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was Iole, the seed of Eurytus, your captive?
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Lichas
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To whom on earth did I say it? Who and where is the man who heard me say it and will be your witness?
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Messenger
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To many of our own citizens you said it. In the public gathering of Trachinians a great crowd heard this much, at least, from you.
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Lichas
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Sure,
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they said they heard. But it does not amount to the same thing to tell one’s fancy and to give an accurate report.
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Messenger
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What do you mean, fancy! Did you not speak on your oath when you said that you were bringing her as a bride for Heracles?
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Lichas
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I? Bringing a bride? In the name of the gods, dear
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mistress, tell me who on earth this stranger is?
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Messenger
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I am a man who heard from your own lips that the conquest of the whole city was due to desire for this girl and that the Lydian woman did not destroy it, but the passion which arose for the girl.
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Lichas
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Lady, send this creature away.
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To babble with the insane is not the mark of a sensible man.
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Deianeira
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No, I implore you by Zeus whose strikes lightning down along the high glens of Oeta, do not rob me of a true report! Your words will not fall on the ears of a cruel woman, nor has she yet to learn the fate of humanity,
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how by our nature we are often inconstant in our pleasures. He does not use good sense, then, who like a boxer opposes the blows of Eros. For Eros rules the gods as he pleases, and he rules me as well—that is certain. Why not another woman, just like me?
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And so I am crazed indeed, if I blame my husband because that disease has seized him or because he was seized by this woman, his partner in a thing which is no shame to them, and no wrong to me. Impossible! If it was from him that you learned
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to lie, it was not a noble lesson. But if you are your own teacher in this, you will be seen as cruel when it is your wish to prove kind. No, tell me the whole truth, since to a free-born man the name of liar attaches like an ugly stain.
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If your hope is to escape detection, that cannot come to pass: many are those whom you told and who will inform me. And if you are afraid, your fear is mistaken, since it is not learning the truth that would pain me. But to know it, what is terrible in that? Has
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Heracles not all by himself already mated with a multitude of other women? And never yet has one of them come away with a harsh word or reproach from me, nor shall this girl, even if she should melt in her passion. Indeed, I felt a profound pity when I saw her because
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her beauty has destroyed her life, and she, unfortunate one, has against her will devastated her fatherland and enslaved it. Well, those things must go with the wind. But as for you, I tell you, be dishonest to others, but always speak the truth to me.
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Chorus
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Obey her good and kind advice, and hereafter you will neither have cause to complain of this lady, nor lack my thanks.
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Lichas
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Indeed, then, dear mistress. Since I see that you think as mortals should think and not without good judgment, I will tell you the whole truth, and not hide it.
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Yes, it is just as this one says. That terrible longing for the girl long ago shot through Heracles, and for her sake the desolate Oechalia, her father’s land, was leveled by his spear. But he—I must say what is in his favor—
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he never ordered me to conceal the fact and never denied it. Instead I, lady, fearing to wound your heart by such news, erred—if you regard this in any way an error. Since, however, you now know the whole story,
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for his sake and for yours equally bear with the woman, and be willing that the gentle words which you spoke about her have been spoken unalterably. For though by the strength of his hands he is victorious in all else, Heracles has been utterly subdued by his passion for this girl.
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Deianeira
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My own thoughts move me to act as you advise. Rest assured that I will not earn another affliction for myself by waging a fruitless fight against the gods. But let us go into the house, so that you may carry him my messages and since gifts should be given in due recompense for gifts received,
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so that you may take these also. It would not be right that you should go back with empty hands, after coming with such a rich cargo. Exit Lichas, the Messenger and Deianeira into the house.
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Chorus
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Great and mighty is the victory which the Cyprian queen always bears away. I bypass the tales of the gods,
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and do not narrate how she beguiled the son of Cronus, and Hades, the lord of darkness, or Poseidon, shaker of the earth. But, when this bride was to be won,
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who were the massive rivals that entered the contest for her nuptials? Who stepped forward to the ordeal of battle full of blows and raising dust?
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Chorus
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One was a mighty river-god, the form of a bull, high-horned and four-legged,
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Achelous, from Oeniadae. The other came from Thebes, home of Bacchus, brandishing his resilient bow, his spears and club; he was the son of Zeus. These two then met in a mass, lusting to win a bride,
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and the Cyprian goddess of nuptial joy was there with them, acting as sole umpire.
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Chorus
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There was clatter of fists and clang of bow and crash of a bull’s horns mixed together;
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then there were close-locked grapplings and deadly blows from foreheads and loud deep cries from both. Meanwhile the delicate beauty sat on the side of a hill that could be seen from afar,
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awaiting the husband that would be hers. So the battle rages, as I narrate. But the face of the bride which is the prize of the strife awaits the end in piteous anguish. And suddenly she has left her mother,
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like an orphaned calf.
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Deianeira
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Dear friends, while our guest is saying his farewell to the captive girls in the house, I have stolen away partly to tell you what these hands have devised,
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and partly to grieve over my sufferings in your company. I have received a maiden—or, I believe, no longer a maiden, but an experienced woman—into my home, just as a mariner takes on cargo, a merchandise to wreck my peace of mind. And now we are two, a pair waiting under
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a single bedspread for one man’s embrace. Such is the reward that Heracles has sent me—he whom I called true and loyal—for guarding his home through all that long time. I do not know how to be angry with him, even though he is infected with this disease.
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But, then again, to live with her, sharing the same marriage—what woman could endure it? For I see that the flower of her youth is blossoming, while mine is fading. The eyes of men love to pluck off the bloom of youth, but they turn their steps from the old.
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On this account I am afraid lest Heracles, in name my husband, should be the younger woman’s man. But, as I said, anger brings shame to a woman of understanding. I will tell you, my friends, the way by which I will have deliverance and relief.
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I had a gift, an old one given to me by a monster of long ago, and kept it hidden in a bronze urn. While yet a girl, I took this gift from the shaggy-chested Nessus—from his lifeblood, as he lay dying. He is the one who used to carry men
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in his arms for hire across the deep current of the Evenus, using no oar for conveyance, nor ship’s sail. He carried me, too, on his shoulders, when at my father’s sending, I first departed with Heracles as his wife. When I was in midstream,
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he touched me with lewd hands. I shrieked, and straightaway the son of Zeus turned round and with his hands shot a feathered arrow that whistled right through his chest to the lungs. As he passed away the monster spoke these few words: “Child of aged Oeneus,
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you will have this benefit from my ferrying, if you obey me, since you were the last whom I carried. If you gather with your hands the blood clotted round my wound, at the place where the Hydra, Lerna’s monstrous growth, imbued the arrow with black gall,
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you will have a charm for the heart of Heracles, so that he will never look upon any woman and love her more than you.” Remembering this charm, my friends—for, after his death, I had kept it carefully locked up in the house—
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I have imbued this robe with it, applying to it all that he instructed while he lived. The work is finished. May deeds of wicked daring always be far from my thoughts and from my knowledge, as I detest the women who attempt them! But if in any way I may prevail against this girl by love-spells
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and the charms used on Heracles, the means to that end have been devised—unless I seem to be acting rashly. If so, I will stop immediately.
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Chorus
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On the contrary. If there is any reason for confidence in these actions, we think that your plan is not wrong.