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If my lord teacheth thee to lie, thy lesson is no good one; if thou art schooling thyself to falsehood in a desire to be kind to me, thou shalt prove unkind. Speak all the truth; it is an ignoble lot for a man of honour to be called false." Completely won by this appeal, Lichas confesses the truth. During the singing of a choral ode Deianeira has had time to reflect.
"Yea, by Zeus!" said he, "if so be that I know it." "Tell me, then, who is this woman whom thou hast brought?" "A woman of Euboea; but of what lineage I know not." "Look thou here. Knowest thou who it is to whom thou speakest?" "Yea, I know it; to Queen Deïaneira, daughter of Oeneus and wife to Hercules, and my mistress." "Thou sayest that I am thy mistress.
Deianeira had been won and wed by Heracles; after a brief spell of happiness she found herself left more and more alone as her husband's labours called him away from her. For fifteen months she had heard no news of him. Her nurse suggests that she should send her eldest son to Euboea to seek him out, a rumour being abroad that he has reached that island.
The old nurse quickly rushes in from the palace to tell how Deianeira had killed herself while Hyllus was kissing her dead mother's lips in vain self-reproach, bereft of both his parents. Heracles himself is borne in on a litter, tormented with the slow consuming poison.
And this he had heard as an oracle from the doves that dwell in the oaks of Dodona. And when this time was well-nigh come to an end, Deïaneira, being in great fear, told the matter to Hyllus, her son. And even as she had ended, there came a messenger, saying, "Hail, lady! Put thy trouble from thee. The son of Alcmena lives and is well.
The necessary and remorseless sequence of events which is looked for in dramatic writing is absent. This tendency to disrupt a whole into parts brilliant but unrelated is a feature of Euripides' work; it may perhaps find a readier pardon exactly because Sophocles himself is not able to avoid it always. But the greatest triumph is the character of Deianeira.
And as they journeyed they came to the river Evenus. Now on the banks of this river there dwelt one Nessus, a centaur. And when he saw Deïaneira that she was very fair, he would have taken her from her husband; but Hercules drew his bow and smote him with an arrow.
At that moment Hyllus bursts in to describe the horrible tortures which seized Heracles when he put on the poisoned mantle; the hero commanded his son to ferry him across from Euboea to witness the curse which his mother's evil deed would bring with it. Hearing these tidings Deianeira leaves the scene without uttering a word.
Lichas on coming out was confronted by the messenger, and attempted to dissemble, but Deianeira appealed to him thus: "Nay, deceive me not. Thou shalt not speak to a woman of evil heart, who knoweth not the ways of men, how that they by a law of their own being delight not always in the same thing.
The love of Deianeira is the ardent longing of a highly emotional young woman and mother, but its very intensity brings disaster on both herself and her husband. Broadly speaking, love is a legitimate motive for the dramatist when it is used, not as a purpose in itself, but as a setting for something else.
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