Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/183

(ENEUS.- DEIANEIRA. 151 accustomed to carry over passengers for hire. Nessus carried over Deianeira, but when he had arrived on the other side, began to treat her with rudeness, upon which Herakles slew him with an arrow tinged by the poison of the Lernoean hydra. The dying Centaur advised Deianeira to preserve the poisoned blood which flowed from his wound, telling her that it would operate as a philtre to regain for her the affections of Herakles, in case she should ever be threatened by a rival. Some time afterwards the hero saw and loved the beautiful lole, daughter of Eurytos, king of CEchalia : he stormed the town, killed Eurytos, and made lole his captive. The misguided Deianeira now had recourse to her supposed philtre : she sent as a present to Herakles a splendid tunic, imbued secretly with the poisoned blood of the Centaur. Herakles adorned himself with the tunic on the occasion of offer- ing a solemn sacrifice to Zeus on the promontory of Kenaeon in Euboea : but the fatal garment, when once put on, clung to him indissolubly, burnt his skin and flesh, and occasioned an agony of pain from which he was only relieved by death. Deianeira slew herself in despair at this disastrous catastrophe. 1 1 The beautiful drama of the Trachiniae has rendered this story familiar : compare Apollod. ii. 7, 7. Hygin. f. 36. Diodor. iv. 36-37. The capture of CEchalia (Ofta^ta? a/lwaif) was celebrated in a very an cient epic poem by Kreophylos, of the Homeric and not of the Hesiodic character : it passed with many as the -work of Homer himself. ( See Diint- zer, Fragm. Epic. Graecor. p. 8. Welcker, Dcr Epische Cyclus, p. 229). The same subject was also treated in the Hesiodic Catalogue, or in the Eoiai (see Hesiod, Fragm. 129, ed. Marktsch.) : the number of the children ol Eurytos was there enumerated. This exploit seems constantly mentioned as the last performed by H6ra- kles, and as immediately preceding his death or apotheosis on Mount (Eta: but whether the legend of Deianeira and the poisoned tunic be very old, we cannot tell. The tale of the death of Iphitos, son of Eurytos, by Herakle's, is as ancient as the Odyssey (xxi. 19-40) : but it is there stated, that Eurytos dying kft his memorable bow to his son Iphitos (the bow is given afterwards by Iphi- tos to Odysseus, and is the weapon so fatal to the suitors), a statement not very consistent with the story that GEchalia was taken and Eurytos slain by Herakles. It is plain that these were distinct and contradictory legends. Compare Soph. Trachin. 260-285 (where Iphitos dies before Eurytos), not only with the passage just cited from the Odyssey, but also with Pherekyde's, Fragm. 34, Didot. Hyginus (f. 33) differs altogether in the parentage of Deianeira: he calif