Certain peculiarities of detail in the plot strongly support the view that Deianira is the subject of the whole drama. First is the conduct of Lichas. This part is carefully constructed so as to lead up to the great appeal in which the heroine describes the might of Love. If Lichas had really kept his secret instead of tattling to the townsfolk, Deianira would not have known it and so appealed to Lichas. If, on the other hand, Lichas had not tried to deceive his mistress, she would not have needed to offer any appeal. His conduct has been devised solely to portray her character by means of this marvellous speech. A second point is the way in which Hyllus learns his mother’s innocence. After his speech of denunciation she goes without a word into the house. The Trachinian maidens know the truth and have heard from Deianira[339] herself that she will not survive her husband, but they say nothing to Hyllus. Yet the playwright who is here so strangely reticent allows the prince to learn the facts in a few minutes “from the people in the house” as he casually phrases it. The reason is that if Hyllus were informed at once he would prevent his mother’s suicide. This would have destroyed the dramatic treatment without altering events. For Deianira is not concerned in being proved innocent; she wishes to die now that Heracles is destroyed. Hyllus’ intervention would only mean procrastination of death.[340] In the interests of drama, it must happen now. Further he must learn the truth as soon as she is dead, for some one must confront Heracles with a defence of the dead woman, if her fate and her love are, as we said, dominant throughout the play. Here, too, there is a resemblance between the _Trachiniæ_ and the _Ajax_; Hyllus, in this last scene, resembles Teucer championing the fame of Ajax. The character-drawing is here as admirable as elsewhere. Lichas, well-meaning but foolish and shifty, is contrasted with the messenger who is perfectly honest though spiteful. Hyllus is a character of a type which we have often discussed already—he has no personality, and we are interested in him not because of what he is but because of what happens to him. The women of the chorus are simply a band of sympathetic friends. Heracles, on the customary reading of the tragedy, is the most callously brutal figure in literature. One need not labour the proof; his treatment of Deianira, of Iole, of Hyllus, of Lichas, of every one whom he meets,[341] is enough. The poet has taken the only possible course to make us witness the hero’s pangs at the close with a certain satisfaction. But the other possible theory does away with this sham “tragedy”. Heracles as a coarse stupid “man of action” who is yet capable of reflection and a touch of “the melting mood” shown by his giving Iole to Hyllus when the secret of his wife’s heart is at last irresistibly pressed upon him, is dramatic indeed.