Heracles

Heracles (also known as The Madness of Heracles) is the second of two surviving tragedies by Euripides in which the family of Heracles are suppliants, the first being Children of Heracles. The play begins while Heracles is away on the last of his labors, the fetching of Cerberus from the underworld. The tyrant Lycus, a foreigner from Euboea, has killed Megara’s father Creon and seized Thebes, and now means to kill Heracles’ wife, his three sons and his father Amphitryon, who sit as suppliants at the altar of Zeus the Savior before the house (lines 1–59). Amphitryon and Megara cling to hope that Heracles will return (lines 88–106), but Lycus orders the altar surrounded with wood and the suppliants burned (lines 238–246). He allows them to go inside and dress in the robes of the dead (lines 327–335). Just as Megara and the children come out ready to die, Heracles appears (lines 514–522). He hears what has happened and goes inside to kill Lycus (lines 562–581, 606–636), which is done offstage (lines 750–760). But then Iris, the messenger of the gods, and Madness (Lyssa) appear above the house, sent by Hera to drive Heracles to kill his own children (lines 822–873). A messenger tells how, as Heracles was about to purify the house with fire, he went mad, killed his three sons and Megara, and was stopped from killing Amphitryon only when a phantom of Athena struck him with a rock and put him to sleep (lines 909–1015). Heracles wakes bound to a shattered column, learns what he has done, and wants to die (lines 1088–1152). His friend Theseus arrives from Athens and persuades him to live and to come with him to Athens (lines 1163–1427).

Date and Historical Background

No ancient source gives the year in which Heracles was produced, or the plays that were produced with it; no ancient record of its production survives. Modern dates (around 416 BC) rest only on the style of the verse, so the date is uncertain. The play itself is set while Heracles is away in the underworld, with his family left without help from friends (lines 55–59, 558–561).

Characters and Setting

Characters

• Amphitryon, Heracles’ mortal father, husband of his mother Alcmena
• Megara, Heracles’ wife, daughter of Creon
• Heracles, son of Zeus and Alcmena
• Lycus, usurper of the throne of Thebes, a stranger from Euboea (lines 31–34)
• Iris, messenger of the gods
• Lyssa, Madness personified
• Messenger
• Theseus, king of Athens
• Chorus of Theban elders

Setting

The play is set at the entrance of Heracles’ house in Thebes, before the altar of Zeus the Savior, which Heracles himself set up after his victory over the Minyae (lines 48–50). Amphitryon, Megara and Heracles’ three sons sit there as suppliants.

Summary of Heracles

Prologue

(Lines 1–106.) Amphitryon begins with a monologue about himself and his family. He is the man who shared a wife, Alcmena, with Zeus, and the father of Heracles (lines 1–3). The Thebans sprang from the sown dragon’s teeth, and from them came Creon, father of Megara, whom Heracles married (lines 4–12). Heracles left Thebes for Argos, from which Amphitryon was exiled for killing Electryon, and offered Eurystheus a price to recall him by freeing the world from savage monsters (lines 13–21). Of the labors, the last was to go down through Taenarus to Hades and bring up the three-bodied hound, and he has not returned (lines 22–25). Meanwhile the usurper Lycus, a stranger from Euboea and son of an earlier Lycus, has killed Creon and taken the government of a city divided by faction (lines 26–34). He is “bent on extirpating the children of Heracles,” and also Megara and Amphitryon, so that the boys may never grow up to take vengeance (lines 35–43). Amphitryon has taken his place with Megara and the children at the altar of Zeus the Savior, shut out of the house and in need of food, drink and clothes (lines 44–54). Of his friends some are unreliable and the staunch ones have no power to help (lines 55–59).

Megara adds how uncertain the dealings of the gods are: her father was once wealthy and a king, and he gave her in marriage to Heracles, and now all of that is gone (lines 60–69). She keeps the children under her wing like a bird; they ask where their father has gone, and she gives them excuses (lines 70–79). She asks Amphitryon for some plan, since they cannot slip out of the land unseen (lines 80–86). Amphitryon replies that it is not easy to advise on such things, but they should prolong the time, since they are powerless to escape (line 88). He loves this life and clings to hope; Heracles may yet arrive; Megara should wipe the children’s tears and tell them a tale to soothe them (lines 91–101). “The bravest man is he who relies ever on his hopes,” he concludes, “but despair is the mark of a coward” (lines 105–106).

Parodos (Entrance Song)

(Lines 107–137.) The Chorus of Theban old men comes slowly, leaning on their staffs, and greets the orphaned children, Amphitryon, and the mother who weeps for her husband in the halls of Hades (lines 107–118). They encourage each other like colts straining up a hill (lines 119–129), and observe that the children’s eyes flash like their father’s (lines 130–136). The Chorus sees Lycus approaching the house (line 138).

First Episode

(Lines 138–347.) Lycus asks Amphitryon and Megara how long they mean to prolong their lives and what hope they have: “Do you trust that these children’s father, who lies dead in the halls of Hades, will return?” (lines 140–146). He mocks Amphitryon’s boast that Zeus shared his marriage-bed, and Megara’s of being the wife of so peerless a man (lines 147–150). Heracles’ fame, he says, rests on killing a water-snake and a lion in a snare, and on a bow, “that coward’s weapon”; “Archery is no test of manly bravery,” he concludes, and a man who keeps his post in the ranks is the brave one (lines 151–164). He says he is cautious, not cruel: he has killed Creon and does not wish the children to grow up and take vengeance (lines 165–169).

Amphitryon answers him (lines 170–235). He appeals to the thunder of Zeus and the Giants (lines 177–180), asks the Centaurs of Pholoe who is the bravest of men (lines 181–184), and tells Lycus that Euboean Dirphys, where he is from, has no deed of his to praise (lines 185–188). On the bow, he says, a man who fights in line is “a slave to his weapons” and dies if his comrades are cowards or his spear breaks, while the archer still has other arrows and stands at a distance: “this is by far the wisest course in battle, to harm the enemy and keep safe oneself, independent of chance” (lines 189–204). He then reproaches Hellas and Thebes for not defending Heracles, who faced all the Minyans alone and let Thebes see the light (lines 217–228), and says that if he were young he would have fought Lycus himself (lines 229–235).

“Say what you will of me in your exalted phrase, but I by deeds will make you rue those words,” replies Lycus (line 238). He sends servants to fetch oak logs from Helicon and Parnassus and pile them around the altar to burn the suppliants alive (lines 240–246). He threatens the old men, who can only wish for the strength of their youth to drive him out (lines 247–274). Megara thanks them but asks Amphitryon not to resist necessity; she says she prefers not to be burned alive, a mockery to their enemies, and that the man who struggles against fate “shows zeal no doubt, but it is zeal with a taint of folly; for what must be, no one will ever avail to alter” (lines 275–311). She also doubts that Heracles will come back from the dead (lines 295–298), and says exile for the children would be misery (lines 302–306). Amphitryon offers his neck to the sword, asking only that he and Megara be killed first so that they do not see the children die (lines 316–326). Megara asks to dress her children in the robes of death, and Lycus agrees and has the gates opened (lines 327–335).

Alone, Amphitryon tells Zeus that it was in vain that he shared his bride with him, that he is less a friend than he claimed, and that “great god as you are, I, a mortal, surpass you in true worth. For I did not betray the children of Heracles” (lines 339–347).

In the first stasimon, the old men sing of the labors of Heracles, from the Nemean lion and the Centaurs to the hind, the horses of Diomedes, Cycnus, the apples of the Hesperides, the Amazon’s girdle, the Hydra and Geryon, and say that he has now gone to Hades’ house of tears, from which he does not return (lines 348–435). They wish they were young enough to fight for the children (lines 436–441).

Second Episode

(Lines 442–636.) Megara, Amphitryon and the three boys come out in the clothes of the dead (lines 442–450). Megara laments, and addresses each of her sons: one was to have Argos, one Thebes, and one Oechalia, and she was choosing brides for them, but now Hades will be the father of their brides (lines 451–485). “O my dearest Heracles, to you I call, if perhaps mortal voice can make itself heard in Hades’ halls; your father and children are dying, and I am doomed… Come to our rescue; appear, I pray, if only as a phantom, since your arrival, even as a dream, would be enough, for they are cowards who are slaying your children” (lines 490–495). Amphitryon calls on Zeus once more, doubting that it will help, and says goodbye to the old men (lines 497–513).

Then Megara sees Heracles: “Is this he who they told us was beneath the earth?” (lines 514–521). Heracles hails his house, sees his children in robes of death and his father weeping, and asks what has happened (lines 523–537). Megara tells him that her father and brothers are dead, killed by Lycus, who now means to kill her, Amphitryon and the children (lines 538–556), and that they had been told that Heracles was dead (lines 551–553). He is hurt at the lack of friends (lines 558–561), tells them to cast off the chaplets of death, and says he will raze the tyrant’s house, behead him and throw him to dogs, and destroy every Theban who betrayed him (lines 562–582). Amphitryon asks him to curb his haste, since Lycus has a host of allies, needy villains, and Heracles was seen entering the city (lines 585–605). Heracles replies that he came in by stealth, because a bird in an unlucky position told him that something was wrong at home (lines 595–598). He agrees to go inside and wait for Lycus (lines 606–609).

Amphitryon asks about the underworld (lines 610–621). Heracles says that he fought and brought up the three-headed hound, having been lucky enough to see the rites of the initiated; that it is now in the grove of Demeter at Hermione; that Eurystheus does not know he has returned; and that he stayed so long under the earth because he was trying to bring Theseus back, and Theseus has gone to Athens. Then he leads the children inside, as a ship tows small boats, saying that all men love their children, whether noble or humble (lines 622–636).

In the second stasimon, the old men sing that youth is dear and old age a burden heavier than Aetna (lines 637–654), that the gods should have given the good a second youth so that men could tell the good from the bad (lines 655–672), that they will not stop joining the Graces and the Muses (lines 673–686), and that they will sing of Heracles, the son of Zeus, who by his labors secured a life of calm for men (lines 687–700).

Third Episode

(Lines 701–734.) Lycus comes out and asks Amphitryon why he is taking so long to dress the family in the robes of the dead (lines 701–706). Amphitryon agrees to do as he wishes (lines 707–711). Lycus asks where Megara and the children are, and Amphitryon says that Megara sits as a suppliant at the altar and calls to her dead husband in vain, and adds that Heracles will not come “unless perhaps a god should raise him from the dead” (lines 712–719). When Lycus orders him to bring them out, Amphitryon refuses: “By doing so I should become an accomplice in her murder” (lines 720–721). Lycus goes in himself with his servants (lines 722–725). Amphitryon predicts that he will be caught in the snare of the sword, and follows to watch him die (lines 726–733).

In the third stasimon, the Chorus says that the king is going to Hades (lines 735–746), and hears Lycus cry out from within: “O kingdom of Cadmus, I am perishing by treachery!” (lines 750–754). They call his death the penalty of his own deeds and his blasphemy against the gods (lines 755–762). They then sing of dances and banquets in Thebes, and say that the gods take care to heed right and wrong (lines 763–780), and call on the rivers and fountains of Thebes to celebrate the victory of Heracles, the son of Zeus and a mortal (lines 781–814).

Fourth Episode

(Lines 815–1015.) The old men see a phantom hovering over the house and are afraid (lines 815–821). It is Madness, daughter of Night, with Iris, the handmaid of the gods (lines 822–823). “We have not come to do your city any hurt, but our warfare is against the house of one man only, against him whom they call the son of Zeus and Alcmena,” says Iris (lines 823–826). Until he had finished his labors, Destiny preserved him; now Hera wishes to brand him with the guilt of shedding kindred blood by slaying his own children, and Iris wishes it also (lines 827–832). She orders Madness: “send forth frenzy upon this man, confound his mind even to the slaying of his children… that when he has conveyed over Acheron’s ferry that fair group of children by his own murderous hand, he may learn to know how fiercely against him the wrath of Hera burns and may also experience mine; otherwise, if he should escape punishment, the gods will become as nothing, while man’s power will grow” (lines 833–842).

Madness answers that she was not born to use her powers against friends (lines 843–846), and advises Hera and Iris against it: Heracles has made himself a name in heaven and on earth, and restored the honors of the gods (lines 847–853). Iris tells her not to give advice about Hera’s schemes (line 855), and Madness calls the sun god to witness that she is acting against her will, and rushes into the house, which she describes: she will burst through his roof after first slaying his children, and he will not know it until her madness leaves him (lines 858–873). Iris leaves for Olympus.

The Chorus laments, and cries out as the dance of madness begins without cymbals (lines 874–905). Amphitryon cries out from within (lines 887–900), and Heracles is heard crying to Pallas and her treatment of the house, as she once treated Enceladus (lines 906–908).

A Messenger comes out: “The children are dead” (lines 909–916). He tells what happened (lines 922–1015). Victims to purify the house stood before the altar of Zeus, because Heracles had killed the king, and his sons, father and Megara stood there (lines 922–926). As Heracles was bringing the torch to the holy water, he stopped, his eyes rolling and foam on his beard (lines 927–934). He said with a madman’s laugh that he would first kill Eurystheus and purify his hands for all the dead together, and asked for his bow and club to go to Mycenae with crowbars and picks (lines 935–946). He set out in an imaginary chariot (lines 947–949), rushed through the house as if in the city of Nisus, lay down as if to feast and then as if competing at the Isthmus (lines 951–961). When his father caught his arm, he thought it was Eurystheus’ father, pushed him away, and aimed his bow at his own children, thinking them Eurystheus’ sons (lines 962–971). The children ran, one to his mother’s skirts, one behind a pillar, one to the altar (lines 972–974). Heracles hunted one round the pillar and shot him through the heart (lines 977–981). A second threw himself at his father’s knees and begged: “it is no son of Eurystheus you will slay,” but Heracles brought down his club on his head and crushed the bones (lines 984–994). The mother carried the third child into the house and shut the doors, but Heracles broke them down with levers and killed wife and child with one arrow (lines 995–1000). As he rushed to kill his father, a phantom of Pallas with a plumed helm and a spear hurled a rock at his chest, and he fell asleep against a shattered column (lines 1001–1008). The servants and Amphitryon bound him to the column with cords, so that he would do no more harm when he woke (lines 1009–1012). The Messenger says he knows no mortal more miserable (lines 1013–1015).

In the fourth stasimon, the Chorus says that the murder by the daughters of Danaus was once the most notorious in Hellas, and that this surpasses it, as does the murder by Procne of her one child, since Heracles has killed three children (lines 1016–1024), and asks what dirge it should sing (lines 1025–1027).

Exodos (Exit Song)

(Lines 1028–1428.) The doors of the palace open to show the bodies of the children beside their sleeping father, bound to the shattered column with many knots (lines 1028–1038). Amphitryon comes out, begs the elders to be quiet and not to wake Heracles, who might break his bonds and destroy the city, his father and his house (lines 1039–1070). He listens for his breathing and fears that his son will kill him when he wakes (lines 1057–1077). The Chorus Leader asks: “O Zeus, why have you shown such savage hate against your own son and plunged him in this sea of troubles?” (lines 1086–1087).

Heracles wakes, wondering whether he has come back to Hades a second time, but sees no Sisyphus or Pluto (lines 1088–1107). Amphitryon hesitates and then approaches (lines 1109–1113). Heracles asks why he weeps, and the old man tells him step by step that he killed his children and his wife (lines 1108–1145). He answers that he remembers nothing of the madness and asks to be loosed (lines 1122–1124). Amphitryon says it happened when he was purifying himself at the altar (line 1145). “Ah me! why do I spare my own life when I have become the murderer of my dear children? Shall I not hasten to leap from some sheer rock, or aim the sword against my heart and avenge my children’s blood, or burn my body, which she drove mad, in the fire and so avert from my life the infamy which now awaits me?” (lines 1146–1152). He sees Theseus coming, and veils his head in shame (lines 1153–1160).

Theseus has come with Athenian soldiers, camped by the Asopus, in return for Heracles’ having saved him from the underworld, because a rumor reached Athens that Lycus had taken the throne (lines 1163–1171). He sees the dead and learns from Amphitryon that Heracles killed them in a fit of madness (lines 1172–1190), and says “This is Hera’s work” (line 1191). He asks why Heracles veils himself, and Amphitryon says he is ashamed (lines 1198–1201). Theseus insists on uncovering him: “I hate a friend whose gratitude grows old; one who is ready to enjoy his friends’ prosperity but unwilling to sail in the same ship with them when they are unfortunate” (lines 1214–1228). Heracles warns Theseus away from his pollution, and Theseus answers that the avenging fiend does not go forth from friend to friend (lines 1229–1236).

Heracles repeats that he is resolved on death (lines 1241–1247). He tells Theseus why life has been unbearable: he is the son of a man who killed his wife’s father before he married Alcmena; Zeus begot him as an enemy to Hera, who sent snakes to his cradle; and after all his labors he has crowned them with the murder of his children (lines 1255–1282). “Zeus, whoever this Zeus may be, begot me as an enemy to Hera; yet do not be vexed, old man; for you rather than Zeus I regard as my father” (lines 1263–1265). He cannot stay in Thebes or go to Argos, and the earth will cry out against him (lines 1281–1300). He curses Hera, saying she has destroyed the benefactors of Hellas (lines 1301–1310), and the Chorus Leader agrees that this is Hera’s work (lines 1311–1312).

Theseus answers that no mortal has escaped misfortune, and the gods have also committed unions forbidden by law and thrown their fathers into chains, and yet they live on Olympus (lines 1313–1319). He offers to purify Heracles in Athens and give him lands, gifts and honors after death (lines 1320–1339). “For my part, I do not believe that the gods indulge in unholy unions; and as for putting bonds on hands, I have never thought that worthy of credit nor will I now be so persuaded, nor again that one god is naturally lord and master of another. For the deity, if he be really such, has no wants; these are miserable tales of the poets,” Heracles replies (lines 1340–1346). But he decides to go on living, because to give up his life would be to be branded a coward (lines 1347–1352).

He asks Amphitryon to bury the children, since the law forbids him to do so, and to rest their heads on their mother’s breast (lines 1357–1366). He weeps over his weapons and decides not to put them away (lines 1375–1385). He asks Theseus to help him bring Cerberus to Argos (lines 1386–1388), and calls on Thebes to cut its hair and mourn with him (lines 1389–1393). Theseus helps him up (lines 1394–1402): “Bereft of my own sons, I find you as a son to me,” says Heracles (line 1401). He says farewell to Amphitryon and promises to fetch him from Thebes to Athens after the burial (lines 1418–1421), and follows Theseus “as a little boat in the wake” of a ship (lines 1422–1424). “Whoever prefers wealth or might to the possession of good friends, thinks wrongly,” he says (lines 1425–1426). The Chorus ends: “With grief and many a bitter tear we go our way, robbed of all we prized most dearly” (lines 1427–1428).

A Brief Analysis

The action of Heracles falls into two parts. In the first, the suppliant family is rescued: Amphitryon and Megara cling to hope (lines 88–106), Heracles returns just in time (lines 514–522), and Lycus is killed (lines 750–754). The chorus then sings that the gods take care to heed right and wrong (lines 772–775). In the second, the same Heracles is driven mad by Hera through Iris and Madness (lines 822–873) and kills his family (lines 922–1015). The abrupt turn is signalled by the song of the Chorus, which says “the gods take care” just before Iris and Madness appear (lines 772–775, 815–823).

The text puts the blame on Hera. Amphitryon blames her (line 1127), Theseus says “This is Hera’s work” (line 1191), Heracles curses her (lines 1303–1310), and the Chorus Leader agrees (lines 1311–1312). Iris says that Hera wishes to brand him with the guilt of shedding kindred blood (lines 830–832), and Madness herself protests, saying that she acts against her will (lines 858–859). Zeus is addressed three times as a god who has failed his son: by Amphitryon (lines 339–347, 1127), by the Chorus Leader (lines 1086–1087), and by Heracles, who says “Zeus, whoever this Zeus may be” (line 1263).

What remains standing after the gods have been put in question is friendship. Amphitryon says that friends are tested by misfortune (lines 55–59); Heracles regrets that he found his friends so few when in need (lines 558–561); Theseus insists on facing him in spite of the pollution, and says that the avenging fiend does not go from friend to friend (lines 1214–1236). Heracles agrees to live because Theseus offers him his hand, and says: “Bereft of my own sons, I find you as a son to me” (line 1401). His last words in the play are: “Whoever prefers wealth or might to the possession of good friends, thinks wrongly” (lines 1425–1426).

Heracles also rejects the stories told about the gods: he does not believe that the gods commit unholy unions or put one another in chains, nor that one god is lord of another, “for the deity, if he be really such, has no wants; these are miserable tales of the poets” (lines 1340–1346). This is said in reply to Theseus, who cites those very stories as a reason why a man should not take his fate too hard (lines 1313–1322).

Sources

Euripides, Heracles, lines 1–1428, for all scenes, speakers and quotations in this article. The Greek text can be read here.

See Also: Euripides, Children of Heracles, Heracles, Labours of Heracles