WOMEN OF TRACHIS
A monologue from the
play by Sophocles
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from Dramas. Sophocles. London: J.M. Dent & Sons,
1906. |
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- DEIANIRA: You come, having been told, as I suppose,
- Of my distress; but you are ignorant--
- And may you never by experience learn--
- What canker gnaws my heart. For Girlhood feeds
- In the same place, in pastures such as these,
- Where neither heat of the Sun-god, nor rain,
- Nor any breath of tempest, vexes it;
- But in delights it rears an untasked life,
- Up to the point where we obtain the name
- Of wife instead of maiden, and receive
- Share, in the night-time, of solicitudes,
- Portioned with fears, either for spouse or child.
- Hence might each see, regarding her own case,
- Under what burdens I am labouring.
- Troubles indeed right many do I mourn;
- But one, such as I never felt before,
- I will forthwith disclose. For when our lord
- Heracles sped from home on his last journey,
- He left indoors an ancient tablet, graven
- With characters, which never theretofore
- At any time, starting for fight on fight,
- Would he declare to me; rather he would march
- As to achievement, not as to his death;
- While now, as though his life were done, he told me
- What of his goods I was to take for dower,
- Told me what portion of his heritage
- He would assign for his children, share by share,
- Setting a date beforehand, in such sort
- As, when he had been absent from the land
- Full fifteen months, either at that same hour
- He must needs die, or, overpassing it,
- Live ever afterwards without annoy.
- So, he declared, it was decreed of Heaven
- The toils of Heracles should have their end;
- Even as Dodona's ancient oak, he said,
- By the two Peleads uttered. And of this
- The true fulfilment, as it was to be,
- Points to this present hour. Wherefore, dear friends,
- As I sleep quietly I start up for fear,
- Dreading that I my have to linger on,
- The widow of the foremost man of men.
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MONOLOGUES BY SOPHOCLES |
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