Heracles Shaman and Sophocles’ Trachinie
di Robert Wallace
Testo rielaborato da una conferenza pubblica tenuta dal Prof. Robert Wallace il 23 novembre 2006, presso la sede dell’Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico.
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| La sala “Amorelli” dell’Istituto durante la conferenza del professor Wallace |
Good evening! It is a pleasure and an honor to be here with you in Syracuse, the city of Epicharmus, world center for Greek theater both now and in antiquity. In recent days I and a group of very excellent students have been investigating various topics in the anthropology and mythology of Greek tragedy, and how Sophokles used these ancient stories for his own purposes. In the Trachiniae Heracles is the most important mythological figure, although only one of three important dramatic figures. He came to Pleuron in Aetolia, in central Greece, to defeat the river Achelous—the chorus describes their struggle (503-530)—and win the hand of the beautiful Deianira. They had children including Hyllus, the third main character of Trachiniae, but Heracles left home often, “to serve some man or other” (35) on his famous labors. The action of the play follows the completion of these labors, and the subsequent, treacherous murder of Iphitus (270-279) because of which Heracles and Deianira are now living in exile, in Trachis in central Greece. Our drama also follows Heracles’ sack of the town of Oichalia (236-269, 351-364), one of the so-called parerga, which include Heracles’ battles against a series of monsters and malefactors, including Achelous, Antaeus and Alcioneus.
So — freely permitting those readers who want only to read about Trachiniae to skip down to my discussion of that play — I begin this evening with the figure of Heracles, a complex figure in interesting ways: the greatest of heroes, but unlike other heroes he had no grave where people could worship, as he was taken to Heaven following the last scene of Trachiniae, and he was often considered a god. In Classical times, he had a shrine near the harbor in Syracuse, and promised the Syracusans victory over the Athenian invaders in 413 (Plut. Vita di Nicia 24.6-25.1). He kept that promise.
The life of Heracles reflects the standard biography of the Indo-European folk hero: semi-divine birth, prodigious childhood, initiatory adventures leading to marriage, heroic deeds.
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