A letter, that shares her feelings, sent to Alcides

by your wife, if Deianira is your wife.

I give thanks that Oechalia^[1] is added to our titles,

I lament that the victor succumbs to his victory.

A sudden rumour spreads through the Pelasgian cities

tarnishing, and denying, your deeds:

you, whom neither [Hera] nor her succession of mighty labours

could crush: Iole has placed the yoke on you.

King Eurystheus would enjoy this, the Thunderer’s sister too,

that stepmother delighting in the blemish to your career.

But [Zeus] would not, for whom (if it’s to be believed)

one night was not sufficient to father so great a child.

[Aphrodite^[2]] has harmed you more than [Hera]: the latter, burdened you,

and raised you up, the former holds your neck beneath her foot.

Behold, a world pacified by your protective strength,

where sea-green Nereus^[3] circles the wide earth.

The lands owe their peace to you, the oceans their safety:

your merits fill the sun’s two horizons.

The sky where you will live, you once bore:

Hercules, replacing Atlas, held up the stars.

What will you have gained except notoriety for your sad disgrace

if you add a known unchastity to your former deeds?

Do you insist on what is said, that, in your tender cradle,

you squeezed two snakes tightly, and were once worthy of [Zeus]?

You started better than you finish: the end’s inferior

to the beginning: this man differs from that child.

What a thousand wild beasts, Sthenelus your enemy^[4],

and [Hera], could not conquer, Love has conquered.

But they say I married well, since I’m called Hercules’s wife,

and my father-in-law is he who thunders through the heights.

The ox that comes to the plough unequally yoked

is weighed down like the lesser wife of a greater husband.^[5]

It’s a burden not an honour to endure a flawed splendour,

if you wish to be well married, marry an equal.

My husband’s always away, more like a guest than a husband,

and he chases after vile monsters and wild beasts.

I, occupied with my chaste prayers in this empty house,

torment myself that he’s downed by some aggressive enemy:

I’m troubled by serpents, wild boars, hungry lions,

and hounds that cling to him with their triple jaws.

I’m worried by sacrificial entrails,^[6] vain dream phantoms,

and secret omens searched for in the night.

Unhappy, I try to catch the murmurings of uncertain rumour:

I’m made fearful by wavering hope, and hope is killed by fear.

Your mother Alcmena is absent, and grieves that she pleased the god,

neither your father Amphitryon nor your son Hyllus are here.

I suffer Eurystheus, your judge through the cunning of unjust [Hera],

and I suffer the endless anger of the goddess.

That is enough to bear: but you add foreign lovers,

and whichever girl wishes to can become a mother by you.

I won’t mention Auge, violated in the valleys of Parthenius,

or your child Tlepolemus by the nymph Astydameia:

it wasn’t your fault, that crowd of Thespius’s daughters,^[7]

of whose company not one was left alone by you.

There’s one recent sin, reported to me, Omphale, the adulteress,^[8]

by whom I’m made a stepmother to your Lydian Lamus.

Maeander^[9], which wanders about so greatly through that same land,

often returning his weary waters back on themselves,

saw a necklace hanging from Hercules’s neck,

that neck to which the heavens were a small burden.

Weren’t you ashamed, your strong arms circled with gold,

and jewels placed on your bulging muscles?

Surely the breath of the Nemean lion was expelled by those arms,

that pestilential beast whose skin you wear on your left shoulder.

You dare to crown your long hair with a turban!^[10]

White poplar leaves are more fitting for Hercules.

Aren’t you ashamed at having been reduced to circling your waist

with a Maeonian belt like an impudent girl?

Don’t you recall the memory of cruel [Diomedes],

that savage who fed his horses on human flesh?

If Busiris had seen you dressed like this, surely he’d have been ashamed

to be have been conquered by such a conqueror!

Antaeus would tear the bands from your strong neck,

lest he regret surrendering to such a weakling!

They say you held a basket among the Ionian girls

and were frightened by your mistress’s threats.

Did your hand not draw back, assigned its smooth basket,

[Hercules], conqueror of a thousand labours,

and did you draw out the thread with your strong thumb,^[11]

and was an equally handsome weight of wool returned?

Ah! How often, while your rough fingers twisted the thread,

your over-heavy hand broke the spindle!

Of course you’ll have told of deeds, hiding that they were yours:

squeezing savage snakes by their throats,

entangling your infant hands in their coils:

how the Tegaean boar would lie in Erymanthian cypress woods

and damage the earth with his great weight:

you wouldn’t be silent about those heads hung on Thracian houses,

nor Diomede’s mares fattened on human bodies,

nor the triple monster, rich in Spanish cattle,

Geryon, who was three monsters in one:

and Cerberus the hound with as many bodies split from one,

his hair entangled by a threatening snake:

the fertile serpent born again from her fecund wound,^[12]

and she herself enriched by her losses.

and he who hung between your left arm and left side,^[13]

a weary weight as you crushed his throat,

and the Centaurs’ battered troop on the heights of Thessaly,

trusting wrongly in their speed and dual form.

Can you speak of that, marked out by Sidonian dress?

Shouldn’t your tongue fall silent curbed by your clothing?

Iole, the nymph, daughter of Iardanus, also wears your arms

and bears a familiar trophy from her captive hero.

Go on then, excite your courage and review your great deeds:

swear by that she’s the hero you should be.

By as much as you are the less, greatest of men, so much the greater

her victory over you, than yours over those you conquered.

The measure of your goods goes to her, give up your wealth:

your mistress is the inheritor of your worth.

O shame! The rough pelt stripped from the ribs

of a bristling lion covers her tender flank!

You are wrong and don’t realise: her spoils aren’t from a lion,

but from you: you’re the creature’s conqueror, she’s yours.

A woman bears the black shaft with Lernean poison,

one scarcely fitted to carry the heavy distaff of wool,

and lifts in her hand the club that tamed wild beasts,

and gazes at my husband’s arms in her mirror.

Yet I still had only heard this: I could ignore the rumours,

and grief came to the senses gently on the breeze.

Now a foreign rival is brought before my eyes,

and I cannot hide from myself what I suffer!

You won’t let me avoid her: she walks like a captive

through the middle of the city to be seen by unwilling eyes.

But not with unbound hair in the manner of a captive:

she confesses her good fortune by her seemly looks,

walking, visible far and wide, covered with gold,

just as you yourself were dressed in Phrygia:

showing her proud face to the crowd like Hercules’s conqueror:

you’d think Oechalia still stood, with her father living:

and perhaps Aetolian Deianira will be beaten off,

and Iole will be your wife, dropping the label of mistress,

and wicked Hymen will join the shameful bodies

of Iole, Eurytus’s daughter and Aonian Hercules.

My mind shuns the idea, and a chill runs through my body,

and my listless hand lies here in my lap.

You have loved me too among others, but without sin:

don’t regret I was twice a reason for you to fight.

Achelous, weeping, lifted his broken horn from the wet bank,

and immersed his maimed head in the muddy waters:

Nessus the Centaur sank into the fatal Evenus,

and discoloured its waves with his equine blood.

But why do I recall this? Written news comes,

rumour that my husband’s dying from the poison in his tunic.

Ah me! What have I done? What madness has my love caused?

Impious Deianira, why do you hesitate to die?

Or shall your husband tear himself apart on Mount Oeta,

and you, the cause of so much wickedness, survive?

If I have had reasons till now why I should be thought

Hercules’s wife, let my death be a pledge of our union.

You will recognise a sister of yours in me too, Meleager!

Impious Deianira, why do you hesitate to die?

Alas for my accursed house! Agrius sits on Calydon’s high throne:

defenceless old age weighs on forsaken Oeneus:

Tydeus, my brother, is an exile on an unknown shore:

the other, Meleager, was burned by the fatal flame.

Althaea, our mother, pierced her breast with a blade.

Impious Deianira, why do you hesitate to die?

This one thing I plead, by the most sacred law of the marriage-bed,

lest I appear to have plotted for your death:

Nessus, when his covetous breast was struck by the arrow,

whispered: "This blood has power over love."

Oh, I sent you the fabric smeared with Nessus’s poison.

Impious Deianira, why do you hesitate to die?

Now farewell my aged father, and you, my sister Gorge,

and my land, and my brother wrenched from that land,

and you the last day’s light to meet my eyes: and my husband –

but O can he still be - and Hyllus my son, farewell!