Aeschylus, then, has little enough to say about women; but in Sophocles there is fortunately somewhat more to be found; indeed, it is probably the female characters of Sophocles that are most generally appreciated by modern readers. And yet, for all the great part played by women in the Sophoclean drama, the part played by women’s love is wonderfully small.
Take a woman like Deianira; the man who can listen to her without feeling a positive shock must be more in sympathy with Athens than I ever wish to be.
She guesses the truth from Lichas about Heracles and Iole (Trach. 436), and begs him to tell her all, for she is no coward, nor yet is she the sort of woman who would refuse to admit a husband’s right to an occasional infidelity.
οὐ γὰρ γυναικὶ τοὺς λόγους ἐρεῖς κακῇ,
οὐδ’ ἥτις οὐ κάτοιδε τἀνθρώπων, ὅτι
χαίρειν πέφυκεν οὐχὶ τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἀεί.
“Love is irresistible,” she says; “if I were to blame my husband or this woman for falling victims to it, I should be a fool. Do not be afraid to tell me all. Has not Heracles often done this sort of thing before without making me jealous? Why should he make me jealous now? And as for the woman, why, I can only pity her, when I see how her beauty has made her lose her home and her home comforts, for which, expertae crede, the love of Heracles is hardly a sufficient compensation.”
ᾤκτειρα δὴ μάλιστα προσβλέψασ’ ὅτι
τὸ κάλλος αὐτῆς τὸν βίον διώλεσεν.[77]
When this is Sophocles’ ideal wife, one can hardly wonder that Haemon owes the only word of sympathy he gets from his Antigone to the editors.[78]