Deianira

Deianira (Greek Deianeira, “the destroyer of her husband”) was the daughter of Oeneus, king of Calydon, and the second wife of Heracles. Her story is told in Sophocles’ tragedy Trachiniae and in Apollodorus: Heracles won her from the river god Achelous, and she later caused his death when she sent him a robe soaked in the blood of the centaur Nessus.

She was the daughter of Oeneus and Althaea and the sister of Meleager (Apollodorus, Library 1.8.1–2). In another version (Apollodorus 1.8.1), she was begotten by Dionysus. The same passage says that she drove a chariot and practised the art of war. Her other brothers and sister were Toxeus, Thyreus, Clymenus, and Gorge, and the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women names “wise Deianeira” among the children of Oeneus. In Bacchylides, Heracles meets the shade of Meleager when he goes down to Hades and asks whether he has a sister like him; Meleager names Deianira, still unmarried at home (Bacchylides, Ode 5.165–175). Apollodorus says simply that Heracles came to Calydon and wooed her (Library 2.7.5).

Her beauty brought her two suitors, Heracles and the river god Achelous. In Sophocles she describes the river as a suitor who came to her father in three shapes, a bull, a coiling serpent, and a man with a bull’s face and a streaming beard, and says that she prayed to die rather than share his bed. Then Heracles, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, came and fought Achelous for her (Sophocles, Trachiniae 9–21). Apollodorus says that Achelous took the form of a bull and Heracles broke off one of his horns; the river recovered it by giving Heracles the horn of Amalthea instead (Apollodorus, Library 2.7.5).

After a killing for which Heracles chose to go into exile, he took Deianira with him toward Trachis. At the river Evenus the centaur Nessus carried travellers across for a fee. Nessus took Deianira on his shoulders and tried to assault her in midstream; she cried out and Heracles shot him with an arrow dipped in the poison of the Lernaean Hydra (Sophocles, Trachiniae 555–568; Apollodorus, Library 2.7.6). As he lay dying, Nessus told her to gather the blood from his wound. In Sophocles he says that it would be a charm over Heracles’ heart, so that he would love no other woman more than her (Trachiniae 569–577). In Apollodorus he tells her to mix it with the seed that he had spilled on the ground, and she keeps the mixture as a love charm (Library 2.7.6). Nessus’ advice was a trick: the blood was poisoned by the Hydra’s venom on the arrow.

Deianira bore Heracles four children: Hyllus, Ctesippus, Glenus, and Onites (Apollodorus, Library 2.7.8). Years later, when Heracles had sacked Oechalia, the city of Eurytus, and sent home captive women, she learned that one of them, Iole, was the girl he loved (Sophocles, Trachiniae 354–381; Apollodorus 2.7.7). Afraid of losing him, she rubbed the charm into a tunic and sent it by the herald Lichas. Heracles put it on while preparing a sacrifice; it clung to his skin and tore away the flesh. In his agony he seized Lichas by the foot and hurled him onto a rock in the sea, and he was carried home to Trachis (Sophocles, Trachiniae 756–782; Apollodorus, Library 2.7.7).

When Deianira understood what she had done, she killed herself. In Sophocles she stabs herself with a sword in the marriage chamber (Trachiniae 900–931); in Apollodorus she hangs herself (Library 2.7.7). Heracles had himself carried to Mount Oeta and laid on a pyre. According to Apollodorus, Philoctetes lit it, and Heracles was taken up to heaven (Library 2.7.7). In Sophocles he tells Hyllus to marry Iole (Trachiniae 1216–1251).

A second, lesser known Deianira was an Amazon. Diodorus names her among the Amazons whom Heracles killed in battle when he went to fetch the girdle of Hippolyta for his ninth labour (Diodorus 4.16.3).

Deianira Sources

Sophocles, Trachiniae 9–21, 354–381, 555–577, 756–782, 900–931, 1216–1251; Apollodorus, Library 1.8.1, 2.7.5–8; Bacchylides, Ode 5.165–175; Diodorus Siculus 4.16.3; Hesiod, Catalogue of Women (fragment on the children of Oeneus).

See Also: Heracles, Twelve Labours of Heracles, Hippolyta, Oeneus, Althaea, Meleager, Achelous, Shirt of Nessus, Nessus, Iole, Hyllus