Has not Hercules done this sort of thing many times before?  Have I ever been angry with him for so often succumbing to this malady?  His concubines, too, have never received an unkind word from me, nor shall Iole; for I freely confess, resentment does not become a woman.  Yet I am distressed, for I am old and Iole is young, and she will hereafter be his actual wife in place of me.”  At this thought jealousy sharpens her wit and she remembers that the dying centaur had advised her to save some of his blood and, if ever occasion should come for her to wish to bring back her husband’s love, to anoint his garment with it.  She does so, and sends it to him, without knowing that its effect will be to slowly burn the flesh off his body.  Hearing of the deadly effect of her gift, she commits suicide, while Hercules spends the few remaining hours of his life cursing her who murdered him, “the best of all men,” and wishing she were suffering in his place or that he might mutilate her body.  Nor was his latest and “violent love” for Iole more than a passing appetite quickly appeased; for at the end he asks his son to marry her!

This drama admirably illustrates the selfish view of the marital relation entertained by Greek men.  Its moral may be summed up in this advice to a wife: 

“If your husband falls in love with a younger woman and brings her home, let him, for he is a victim of Cupid and cannot help it.  Display no jealousy, and do not even try to win back his love, for that might annoy him or cause mischief.”

In other words, The Trachiniae is an object-lesson to Greek wives, telling us what the men thought they ought to be.  Probably some of the wives tried to live up to that ideal; but that could hardly be accepted as genuine, spontaneous devotion deserving the name of affection.  Most famous among all the tragedies of the Greeks, and deservedly so, is the Antigone.  Its plot can be told in such a way as to make it seem a romantic love-story, if not a story of romantic love.  Creon, King of Thebes, has ordered, under penalty of death, that no one shall bestow the rites of burial on Prince Polynices, who has fallen after bearing arms against his own country.  Antigone, sister of Polynices, resolves to disobey this cruel order, and having failed to persuade her sister, Ismene, to aid her, carries out her plan alone.  Boldly visiting the place where the body is exposed to the dogs and vultures, she sprinkles dust on it and pours out libations, repeating the process the next day on finding that the guards had meanwhile undone her work.  This time she is apprehended in the act and brought before the king, who condemns her to be immured alive in a tomb, though she is betrothed to his son Haemon.  “Would you murder the bride of your own son?” asks Ismene; but the king replies that there are many other women in the world.  Haemon now appears and tries to move his father to mercy, but in vain, though he