Heracles

The Chorus stops abruptly, detecting a frightful presence. Iris, the messenger of the gods, enters with Madness (“Lyssa” in Greek) by stage machine, above the palace. Iris reveals that now that Heracles’s labors have been completed, Hera, the queen of the gods and Heracles’s greatest enemy, wants to destroy him by driving him mad and causing him to murder his family. Madness is reluctant to go through with this plan, reminding Iris of the many ways Heracles has benefited both human beings and the gods. Nevertheless, Madness is forced to carry out her orders.

As Iris and Madness exit, the Chorus mourns Heracles’s fate. From off stage, inside the palace, Amphitryon’s cries of horror can be heard. A Messenger arrives and explains in detail what happened: After Heracles killed Lycus, he was preparing to make offerings to Zeus and purify the house when “suddenly he changed” (Line 931), assuming a frenzied look and apparently hallucinating his enemy Eurystheus. As his servants and family looked on, the Messenger explains, Heracles killed his three sons and Megara, and would have killed

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