Jason Furman's Reviews > Women of Trachis

I am in the completist phase of reading Greek Tragedies--having read most of them over the last several years and getting to the final few. Many of these final ones have been disappointing, like Aeschylus: The Suppliants. So I was excited (wrong word?) to finally get back to a good old fashioned Greek tragedy. Deianeira is waiting for the return of her husband Heracles who has been doing some tasks and fighting a war. A false messenger comes and tricks her about what he has been up to with one of his women captives and in order to win back his heart she soaks a robe in a magic potion and send to him. But it turns out he wasn't actually unfaithful and the love potion is really a death potion. She learns this and kills herself and Heracles forgives her as he dies. All, well, tragic. Nothing close to The Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus but very good nonetheless.

I should confess, however, that I do have some imaginative trouble with Heracles in Greek tragedies because my images of him are so dominated by the hero in children's books and the Disney cartoon that I can't quite picture the raw, brutal, tender and even humorous character that he is depicted to be here (he has also shown up in other tragedies I've read including Alcestis and Prometheus Bound, all at the end). I have a much easier time picturing Achilles, Odysseus, Antigone, etc. But that is not really Sophocles' fault.

Note: I read the Michael Jameson translation in the The Complete Greek Tragedies.