Silence In Iole's Aphrodite

Iole instigates much of the drama: she gives rise to the apology of Lichas, the dark action of Deianeira, the passion of Heracles. As the fulcrum of the play, Iole prefigures the vision of silent Aphrodite as the doer behind the action. Iole is on stage for only part of the first episode (229–334), yet her problematic presence continues to generate the major actions of the drama long after her exit. Iole—magnetic and dreadful— makes visible early on that silent, erotic force that the Chorus only much later can name as Aphrodite.21 Furthermore, Iole’s silence, like Aphrodite’s, makes her hard to know even as she is manifestly visible. So, for example, while Deianeira sees her and pities her (312–13, 463–64), she fails in her effort to know her. Instead, she hears the speeches of the two messengers (335–489) and her own ruminations (536–53). Thus Iole’s silence both generates the overabundant words of others and, at the same time, protects her from them: the more speech, the more one moves away from Iole herself …show more content…
Deianeira’s final silence, as we have seen, aims to hide her from the eyes and judgments of others. Iole’s, on the other hand, allows her to be seen and evaluated by all. Thus while the aim of Deianeira’s silence is to close down speech, Iole’s, as we have seen, generates speech and storytelling. As she will not speak for herself, others speak for her to the extent that her silence becomes the indeterminate source of the play’s words and deeds. Iole’s silence thus works against that of Deianeira, who from the outset sees her life story as moving through uniform gloom to a predictably bad end (1–5). Iole’s silence offers a different relation to time and change. The openness of her silence, the sense that her story