Pity me, pitiable in many ways, I who am crying out, weeping like a girl, and no one can say he saw this man do such a thing before, but though racked with torments I never would lament! But now such a thing has shown me as a womanish creature (thêlus) … Again a spasm of torture has burned me, it has darted through my sides, and the ruthless devouring malady seems never to leave me without torment.

Sophocles, Women of Trachis, 1070-1075. Trans. Lloyd-Jones

As this quotation captures so well, the suffering which Heracles endures in Sophocles’ Trachiniae shows the hero in a different light from what we are accustomed to. The play opens with a quest for Heracles: his wife Deianira is searching for him, and asks the messenger about the whereabouts of her husband. We soon learn about the favorable outcome of Heracles’ last military deeds, yet the tone of the play quickly darkens. The hero’s passion for young Iole has taken control of his mind and led him to destroy the city of Oechalia, postponing his return home. Determined to get her husband back, Deianira resorts to extreme measures. She follows the advice given to her by Nessus before his death, and sends her garment – soaked in the blood of the Centaur – as a gift to her husband. Although Deainira’s hope is to revive Heracles’ longing for her, the outcome could not be further from her wish. Nessus has deceived her, and his blood proves to be poisonous and lethal. As a consequence, Heracles is plagued by a series of atrocious torments, culminating in his feminization and, eventually, his death.

Whereas Heracles’ siege of the city of Oechalia is described as properly heroic, his pain is entirely human, as he suffers just like any man. Or, more precisely, just like any woman. Indeed, the essence of his feminization resides in experiencing his magic-induced nosos with extreme intensity: the mighty hero is seized by spasms, disquieted breathing and suffocation; he cannot even walk and needs to be carried. In a nutshell, Heracles experiences the typical symptoms of uterine pathologies as described in Hippocratic gynecological treatises, yet in a male body. Staging Heracles’ severe suffering and vulnerability must have had a twofold effect:  shocking the audience on the one hand, but making the hero more relatable than his traditional representations on the other.

This paper takes its cue from the symptoms experienced by Heracles, and which Sophocles generically describes as nosos, and investigates the ways in which they relate to his emotional state. I argue that the magic/erotic philter smeared by his wife on the garment subjugates the hero and subsequently triggers a series of female reactions in him, by setting off a spasmodic itch that pervades his body, culminating in his feminization: Heracles experiences erotic need in a passive manner, as a victim of the philter, no longer actively pursuing the objects of his erôs, as he was used to doing. No-one is able to put an end to his atrocious torments, nor does any desperate attempt to soothe his pain seem to succeed. His solitary agony results in the most suitable punishment for the womanizer par excellence: Heracles is not in control of his own body, and even a simple touch can trigger his excruciating torment. He desperately cries for help, yet the presence of others only makes his symptoms worse. This is precisely what makes this play so remarkably modern and universally relatable: the tragic loneliness that the hero experiences in dealing with his pain.

Read Dr Chiara Blanco’s Academia bio.

Recently published on behalf of the Classical Association in The Classical Quarterly, read the full article HERACLES’ ITCH: AN ANALYSIS OF THE FIRST CASE OF MALE UTERINE DISPLACEMENT IN GREEK LITERATURE free of charge.