Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Trachiniae

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The allusions in the Trachiniae to oracles concerning

The oracles.

Heracles have sometimes been censured as obscure. But they are not really so. Only two oracles are mentioned. (1) One was given to Heracles at Dodona, twelve years before the date at which the play begins, and said that, at the end of twelve years, he should have ‘rest.’ The term of twelve years is mentioned in verses 824 f. (where see the note). (2) The other oracle, noticed only in vv. 1159 ff., was given to Heracles by Zeus himself, at some still earlier moment; but when, and where, we are not told. It concerned the manner of his death; saying that he was to be slain by a dead foe. These oracles have sometimes been regarded as if they formed the only bond which holds the plot together; and it has accordingly been objected to the plot that its unity is of a merely mechanical nature¹. The objection is ill-founded. The oracles have, indeed, a dramatic value, but it is of a different and a subordinate kind. At the outset of the play, the oracle concerning the twelve-years' term serves as a motive for anxiety; it announces that some crisis is imminent. Towards the close, the two oracles combined show Heracles that his hour has come.

Dramatic structure.