Nor
was his latest and "violent love" for Iole more than a passing
appetite quickly appeased; for at the end he asks his son to marry
her!
This drama admirably illustrates the selfish view of the marital
relation entertained by Greek men. Its moral may be summed up in this
advice to a wife:
"If your husband falls in love with a younger woman and
brings her home, let him, for he is a victim of Cupid
and cannot help it. Display no jealousy, and do not
even try to win back his love, for that might annoy him
or cause mischief."
In other words, _The Trachiniae_ is an object-lesson to Greek wives,
telling us what the men thought they ought to be. Probably some of the
wives tried to live up to that ideal; but that could hardly be
accepted as genuine, spontaneous devotion deserving the name of
affection. Most famous among all the tragedies of the Greeks, and
deservedly so, is the _Antigone_. Its plot can be told in such a way
as to make it seem a romantic love-story, if not a story of romantic
love. Creon, King of Thebes, has ordered, under penalty of death, that
no one shall bestow the rites of burial on Prince Polynices, who has
fallen after bearing arms against his own country. Antigone, sister of
Polynices, resolves to disobey this cruel order, and having failed to
persuade her sister, Ismene, to aid her, carries out her plan alone.
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