Greek myths and yardbirds

 I’m at the point in the Greek myths where Deianeira makes her entrance. She’s best remembered as the woman who was the end of Heracles.

She loved him. He had rescued her when her father was planning to marry her off to the river God Achelous, he of the (literally) flowing beard. Deianeira imagined the wedding night as something akin to waterboarding and was praying for death when Heracles, in need of a wife, knocked on the door.

Achelous was a shapeshifter, but he only had three shapes: bull, speckled serpent and bull-headed man. Heracles didn’t have much trouble with any of those forms.

Achelous slunk off minus a horn, and the happy couple went off on their honeymoon. The newlyweds were stopped by the River Evenus, which was flooded.

The lusty Centaur Nessus was there, claiming to be the gods’ ferryman, having been awarded the post for his noble character. He promised to take Deianeira across. Heracles would have to swim.

When Nessus got to the other side and put his hands on Deianeira, she cried out, and Heracles shot Nessus from the other bank. As Nessus was dying, he told Deianeira to collect a vial of his blood as a potion. If Heracles ever had eyes for another woman, Deianeira could put the potion on his shirt and she would never have to complain about his behavior again.

Sophocles did wonders with that story.

That’s the famous story, but I got derailed by an earlier one.

Deianeira was one of the sisters of Meleager, one of the argonauts. When he died, the sisters cried so loudly that Artemis turned them into guineafowl. The goddess later relented and returned Deianeira and Gorge to human form.

My grandfather kept guineafowl, and if you’ve ever been around these birds, the memories are hard to get rid of. I have other things to think about, but my memory has been serving up nothing but guineafowl for days.

• Source and notes: Robert Graves, The Greek Myths: 2; Penguin Books, 1968, pp. 190-5. For an earlier note, see ‘Sophocles: ‘The Women of Trachis,’ April 10, 2024. It’s here:

https://hebertaylor.blogspot.com/2024/04/sophocles-women-of-trachis.html