User:Ejohnson0118/Women of Trachis

The story begins with Deianeira, the wife of Heracles, relating the story of her early life and her plight adjusting to married life. '''She discusses how Heracles was not her first suitor, and her first suitor was the river Aheloos. Deianeira tells how with Zeus' intervention, Heracles defeated the river Aheloos and takes her as a wife.''' She is now distraught over her husband's neglect of her family. Often involved in some adventure, he rarely visits them. It has been fifteen months since she has last heard from Heracles, and she Deianeira does not know where he is. She sends their son Hyllus to find him, as she is concerned over prophecies about Heracles and the land he is currently in claiming that it could result in the death of Heracles. After Hyllus sets off, a messenger arrives with word that Heracles, victorious in his recent battle, is making offerings on Cape Cenaeum and coming home soon to Trachis. The messenger also states that his delay home was due to everyone wanting to hear of his victories.

Lichas, a herald of Heracles, brings in a procession of captives. He tells Deianeira a false story of why Heracles had laid siege to the city of Oechalia (in Euboea). He claimed Eurytus, the city's king, was responsible for Heracles being enslaved, and therefore Heracles vowed revenge against him and his people. As a response to the capture, Heracles enslaved the women of Eurytus. Among the captured girls is Iole, daughter of Eurytus. Deianeira soon learns that, from a messenger, the truth is Heracles laid siege to the city just to obtain Iole '''after the king denied allowing Heracles to take her as a secret lover. He then attacked the city so that he could have Iole anyways. Deianeira is distraught and questions Lichas, who soon tells the truth to her.'''

Unable to cope with the thought of her husband falling for this younger woman, she decides to use a love charm on him, a magic potion that will win him back. When she was younger, she had been carried across the River Evenus by the centaur, Nessus. Halfway through he tried to assault her, but Heracles heard her cries and came to her rescue, quickly shooting him with an arrow. As he died, he told her his blood, now mixed with the poison of the Lernaean Hydra in which Heracles' arrow had been dipped, would keep Heracles from loving any other woman more than her, if she follows his instructions. Deianeira dyes a robe with the blood and has Lichas carry it to Heracles with strict instructions that no one else is to wear it, and that it is to be kept in the dark until he puts it on.

After the gift is sent, she begins to have a bad feeling about it. She throws some of the left-over material into sunlight and it reacts like boiling acid. Nessus had lied about the love charm, it was actually a poison. Hyllus soon arrives to inform her that Heracles lies dying due to her gift. He was in such pain and fury that he killed Lichas, the deliverer of the gift: "he made the white brain to ooze from the hair, as the skull was dashed to splinters, and blood scattered therewith" (as translated by Sir Richard C. Jebb).

Deianeira feels enormous shame for what she has done, amplified by her son's harsh words, and kills herself. Hyllus discovers soon after that it wasn't actually her intention to kill her husband. The dying Heracles is carried to his home in horrible pain and furious over what he believes was a murder attempt by his wife. Hyllus explains the truth, and Heracles realizes that the prophecies about his death have come to pass: He was to be killed by someone who was already dead, and it turned out to be Nessus.

In the end, he is in so much pain that he is begging for someone to finish him off. In this weakened state, he says he is like a woman. He makes Hyllus promise him two things, which Hyllus promises to obey (under protest), that Hyllus is to marry Iole '''and the Hyllus is to take Heracles to highest peak of Oetis, Zeus’ peak, and to burn him alive on a pillar. He also makes Hyllus promise that he will not cry while this takes place.'''. The play concludes with Heracles being carried off to where he will be killed as an act of mercy to end his suffering

Changes made in bold.