In the first and larger part of the play, Deianeira is the
The characters.— Deianeira. |
central figure, as Heracles is in the second part. The heroine of the
Trachiniae has been recognised by general consent as one of the most delicately beautiful creations in literature; and many who feel this charm will feel also that it can no more be described than the perfume of a flower. Perhaps in the poetry of the ancient world there is only one other woman who affects a modern mind in the same kind of way,—the maiden Nausicaa. We do not know how Deianeira may have been drawn by Archilochus or Pindar; but at least there are indications that the Deianeira of the old Aetolian legend was a being of a wholly different type from the Sophoclean. After her story had become interwoven with that of Heracles, her name, “
Δηϊάνειρα”, was explained to mean, ‘the destroyer of
a husband.’ But, in the pre-Dorian days when Aetolian legend first knew her, and when she had as yet nothing to do with Heracles, ‘Deianeira’ meant ‘the slayer of
men’; it denoted an Amazonian character,—just as the Amazons themselves are called “
ἀντιάνειραι”. A true bred princess of Aetolia, the land of warriors and hunters, this daughter of Oeneus ‘drove chariots, and gave heed to the things of war
1’; her pursuits were like those which employed ‘the armed and iron maidenhood’ of Atalanta.
How great a contrast to the Deianeira whom Sophocles has made immortal! She, indeed, is a perfect type of gentle womanhood; her whole life has been in her home; a winning influence is felt by all who approach her; even Lichas, whose undivided zeal is for his master, shrinks from giving her pain. But there is no want of spirit or stamina in her nature. Indeed, a high and noble courage is the very spring of her gentleness; her generosity, her tender sympathy with inexperience and misfortune, are closely allied to that proud and delicate reserve which forbids her—after she has learned the truth about Iolè—to send any messages for her husband save those which assure him that her duties have been faithfully fulfilled, and that all is well with his household. From youth upwards she has endured constant anxieties, relieved only by gleams of happiness,—the rare and brief visits of Heracles to his home. She is devoted to him: but this appears less in any direct expression than in the habitual bent of her thoughts, and in a few words, devoid of conscious emphasis, which fall from her as if by accident. Thus the precepts of Nessus had dwelt in her memory, she says, ‘as if graven on bronze.’ And why? Because they concerned a possible safeguard of her chief treasure. Staying at home, amidst her lonely cares, she has heard of many a rival in those distant places to which Heracles has wandered. But she has not allowed such knowledge to become a root of bitterness. She has fixed her thoughts on what is great and noble in her husband; on his loyalty to a hard task, his fortitude under a cruel destiny: of his inconstancies she has striven to think as of ‘distempers,’ which love, and the discipline of sorrow, have taught her to condone.
But at last the trial comes in a sharper form. After protracted suspense, she is enraptured by tidings of her husband's safety; and almost at the same moment she learns that his new mistress is henceforth to share her home. Even then her sweet magnanimity does not fail. Strong in the lessons of the past, she believes that she can apply them even here. She feels no anger against Iolè, no wish to hurt her; nay, Iolè is rather worthy of compassion, since she has been the innocent cause of ruin to her father's house.
In these first moments of discovery, the very acuteness of the pain produces a certain exaltation in Deianeira's mind. But, when she has had more time to think, she feels the difference between this ordeal and everything which she has hitherto suffered. She is as far as ever from feeling anger or rancour. But will it be possible to live under the same roof, while, with the slow months and years, her rival's youth grows to the perfect flower, and her own life passes into autumn? Thinking of all this, she asks—not, ‘Could
I bear it?’—but, ‘What woman could bear it?’
She, whose patient self-control has sustained her so long, has come to a pass where it is a necessity of woman's nature to find some remedy. Neither Iolè nor Heracles shall be harmed; but she must try to reconquer her husband's love. Having decided to use the ‘love-charm,’ she executes the resolve with feverish haste. The philtre is a last hope—nothing more. With visible trepidation, she imparts her plan to the Chorus. The robe has just been sent off, when an accident reveals the nature of the ‘love-charm.’ ‘Might she not have surmised this sooner,’ —it may be asked,—‘seeing from whom the gift came?’ But her simple faith in the Centaur's precepts was thoroughly natural and characteristic. Her thoughts had never dwelt on
him or his motive; they were absorbed in Heracles. Now that her hope has been changed into terror, she tells the maidens, that, if Heracles dies, she will die with him. In the scene which follows, she speaks only once after Hyllus has announced the calamity, and then it is to ask where he had found his father.
Her silence at the end of her son's narrative,—when, with his curse sounding in her ears, she turns away to enter the house,— is remarkable in one particular among the master-strokes of tragic effect. A reader feels it so powerfully that the best acting could scarcely make it more impressive to a spectator. The reason of this is worth noticing, as a point of the dramatist's art. When Hyllus ends his speech, we feel an eager wish that he could at once be made aware of his mother's innocence. The Chorus gives expression to our wish:—‘Why dost thou depart in silence?’ they say to Deianeira: ‘Knowest thou not that thy silence pleads for thine accuser?’ And yet that silence is not broken.
There is one famous passage in Deianeira's part which has provoked some difference of opinion; and as it has a bearing on the interpretation of her character, a few words must be said about it here. It is the passage in which she adjures Lichas to disclose the whole truth regarding Iolè. He need not be afraid, she says, of any vindictiveness on her part, towards Iolè or towards Heracles. She knows the inconstancy of the heart, and the irresistible power of Erôs; has she not borne with much like this before
2? According to some critics, she is here practising dissimulation, in order to draw a confession from Lichas; her real feeling is shown for the first time when, a little later, she tells the Chorus that the prospect before her is intolerable (v. 545). This theory used to derive some apparent support from an error in the ordinary texts. The lines, or some of them, in which the Messenger upbraids Lichas with his deceit, were wrongly given to Deianeira,—as they are in the Aldine edition. Hence La Harpe could describe the whole scene thus:—
‘Deianeira, irritated, reproaches Lichas with his perfidy; she knows all, and will have him confess it; we hear the cry of jealousy;
she becomes enraged; she threatens. Then
she pretends to calm herself by degrees; ‘she had resented only the attempt to deceive her; for, in fact, she is accustomed to pardon her husband's infidelities.’ In the end, she manages so well that Lichas no longer feels bound to conceal a fact which after all,—as he says,—his master himself does not conceal
3.’
It is now generally recognised that Deianeira says nothing between verse 400 and verse 436: the angry altercation is between Lichas and the Messenger. It would still be possible, however, to hold that, in her speech to Lichas, she is artfully disguising her jealousy. But surely there is a deeper truth to nature in those noble lines if we suppose that she means what she says to Lichas just as thoroughly as she means what she afterwards says to the Chorus. Only, when she is speaking to Lichas, she has not yet had time to realise all that the new trial involves; she overrates, in all sincerity, her own power of suffering. If, on the other hand, her appeal to him was a stratagem, then true dramatic art would have given some hint, though ever so slight, of a moral falsetto: whereas, in fact, she says nothing that is not true; for she
does pity Iolè; she
has borne much from Heracles; she does
not mean to harm either of them. This is not the only instance in which Sophocles has shown us a courageous soul, first at high pressure, and then suffering a reaction; it is so with Antigone also, little as she otherwise resembles Deianeira
4.
