Cross-Gender Performativity in Sophocles' the Women of Trachis

Introduction

Women of Trachis are an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles. The Trachiniae (Women of Trachis) has not as a rule discovered much favor with the critics. It has been censured as weak and deficient in passion; and Schlegel has even gone so far as to express a wish that, for the sake of Sophocles, it might be verified to be spurious. But to the commonplace book book book reader, if not the most impressive, it is perhaps the most charming, of all the plays of Sophocles, on account of its tenderness and mild pathos. Its bad status appears to have been largely due to a wrong evaluation with Euripides. The detractors emerge to have supposed that the aim of Sophocles was to emulate the Hippolytus and the Medea, and to display, in Deianeira, a image of a woman maddened by love and jealousy. Such is the Deianeira of Ovid and Seneca. She thirsts for the blood of her competitor Iole, raves against her husband, and is distracted by the confrontation of her passions. But to compare the heroine of Sophocles with a woman of this kind is to misinterpret his intention. His desire was to portray, in Deianeira's feature, the gentleness and patient devotion of womanhood; and though her submissiveness may possibly appear in some situations to have been conveyed to excess, no one can refute the charm and truthfulness of the representation.

Discussion

The Women of Trachis opens with a lament by Daianeira, wife of the utmost of Greek mythic heroes, Herakles. She is lamenting her woman's helplessness throughout his year's absence in pursuit of heroic labors or exploits; she is a adoring and trusted wife who misses her husband and is in some disquiet about his safety—indeed, his destiny, which she understands affects her own. No sooner has she sent off her and Herakles' grown son Hyllus on a search than a local messenger arrives with a report that Lykhas, Herakles' herald, has landed in Trachis with news that Herakles has won a military victory over King Eurytus on the nearby island of Euboea, and, after celebrating rites thanking the gods for his triumph, he will shortly return home. With Lykhas have arrived captive women from Eurytus' kingdom, among whom is a particularly lovely and forlorn young girl named Iole, who remains silent in her slave's sorrow and immediately wins the genuinely pitying regard of Daianeira, who knows too what it is to be forlorn and can remember her own helpless girlish youth, when Herakles won her by overcoming the monstrous river spirit Akheloos.

Immediately, however, there appear two complications. First, Herakles has sent an ambiguous and puzzling prophecy saying that when he returns it will be to a condition without further heroic trials (one wonders if this is a life of well-earned rest, or death). Second, the local messenger has challenged Lykhas' account of Herakles' return: Lykhas told a different story in the public marketplace of Trachis before appearing at Queen Daianeira's ...