Iole

For the genus of birds, see Iole (genus).

In Greek mythology, Iole (Ancient Greek: Ἰόλη) was the daughter of Eurytus, king of Oechalia. Iole's mother was Antiope and her siblings were Iphitus, Clytius, Toxeus, Deioneus, Molion, and Didaeon.

According to the classical tale, Eurytus had a beautiful young daughter named Iole who was eligible for marriage. The general tale is that Iole was claimed by Heracles for a bride but the monarch refused her hand in marriage. Iole was indirectly the cause of Heracles's death because of his wife's jealousy of her.

There are different versions of the mythology of Iole from many ancient sources. Apollodorus seems to give us the most complete story followed by slight variations of his from Seneca and Ovid. Other ancient sources (i.e. Diodorus Siculus, Gaius Julius Hyginus, and Pseudo-Plutarch) have similar information on Iole with additional variations.

Heracles' love for Iole leads to his death

Deianira, wife of Heracles.

One day, Eurytus promised Iole to whoever could beat him and his sons in an archery contest. Eurytus was an expert archer and taught his sons his knowledge of the bow and arrow. The sons of the king shot their arrows and hit their targets. In fact, they shot so well that they beat all the others from the kingdom. Heracles heard of the prize and eagerly entered the contest for he very much wanted Iole. Heracles shot and hit the bullseye and even beat Eurytus's scores. The irony is Eurytus years earlier had taught Heracles to become an archer.

When the king realized that Heracles was winning, he stopped the contest and would not allow him to participate. Eurytus was aware that Heracles had killed his previous wife and children. He was afraid that Heracles would very likely kill Iole and any grandsons she may have whenever Heracles would get into a mad rage. Although Heracles had won the contest fair and square, he was not entitled to the prize because of his reputation. Eurytus broke his promise to give the royal daughter to the winner of the archery contest.

Iphitos urged his father to reconsider, but Eurytus did not alter his decision. Heracles had not left the city yet when Eurytus's mares were run off, presumably by Autolycus, a notorious thief. Iphitos asked Heracles to help find them, which he agreed to do. Heracles, in one of his fits, got frustrated with the complete mess and hurled Iphitos over the city walls, murdering him. Diodorus Siculus gives additional at this point that it was Heracles himself that drove off the mares of Eurytus in revenge. Heracles had failed in his courtship to win Iole.

After the archery contest, Heracles went to Calydon where on the steps of the temple Heracles saw Deianira, Prince Meleager's sister. Heracles forgot about Iole, at least for the time being, as Deianira was a prospect for his new children that he very much wanted. He wooed her, eventually won her over, and ultimately married her. Heracles acquired a kingdom at this time. He was still angry at Eurytus for not giving up Iole, the promised prize. Heracles was now in control of an army and went about to kill Eurytus in revenge. Hyginus adds to the story at this point that Heracles not only eventually murdered Iole's father Eurytus, but he murdered Iole's brothers and other relatives as well.

Deianira and the dying centaur Nessus telling her of the "love charm" /
"love potion" (his own poisonous blood).

Heracles ransacked Oechalia and overthrew its walls. Iole threw herself down from the high city wall to escape. It turned out that the garment she was wearing opened up and acted like a parachute which softened her landing. She was not hurt from the descent. Heracles captured and took Iole unwillingly captive as his concubine. While his wife Deianira did not like that Iole had become Heracles's concubine, she forebore to object and tolerated it temporarily.

Deianira feared she would lose Heracles to the younger and more beautiful Iole. Years ago, the centaur Nessus ferried her across the river Evenus and attempted to rape her when on the other side. Heracles saved her from Nessus by shooting him with poisoned arrows. She had kept some of Nessus' blood, because he had told her with his dying breath that if she were to give Heracles a cloak (chiton) soaked in his blood that it would be a love charm. Deianira, being insecure, believed Nessus’ lie that Heracles would no longer desire any other woman after he was under the spell of the love philter. This seemed like the perfect solution to her problem to win him back from Iole, the foreign concubine. The cloak was delivered to Heracles and when he put it on the poison went into his body. Deianira had unwittingly poisoned her husband with this purported love potion because of her jealousy of Iole. Upon realizing the mistake she had made, she ultimately killed herself. Because of his love for Iole, Heracles asked that his eldest son, Hyllus, marry her so that she would be well taken care of. Iole and Hyllus had a son called Cleodaeus, being the grandson of Heracles.

See also: Shirt of Nessus

Other versions

Ovid's version of this story (Heroides 9) has Heracles under the erotic control of Iole. She specifically has Heracles wear women's clothing and perform women's work. Heracles at this time all the while is bragging about his heroic deeds. However, Deianira reminds him how he is dressed in feminine attire and Iole is wearing his clothing while carrying his club. Deianira ultimately urges silence from him. The same version shows the disgrace and shame of Heracles, who was once a strong warrior fighter, outwitted by Iole in being made to do effeminate acts. In this skillful crafty manner, she had avenged her father's death.

Heracles wearing women clothing.
Iole has his clothes, carries his club.Ovid Heroides ix.101-134

Haec tu Sidonic potes insignitus amictu dicere? non cultu lingua retenta silet?

These deeds can you recount, gaily arrayed in a Sidonian gown?
Does not your dress rob from your tongue all utterance?

As it was greater to conquer you than to vanquish those you conquered.
The full measure of your deeds goes over to her-- Give up your goods;
your lover is heir to your praises. O shame! Taken from the sides of a shaggy lion,
That lion's skin that you usually wore now covers her soft side. You are deceived,
and you do not know it. This is not plunder from the lion,
But from you; you are the conqueror of the wild beast, and she of you.

She holds her head high to the crowd, as though she had conquered Hercules;
You would think that Oechalia still stood, with her father still alive. Perhaps also,
with Aetolian Deianira driven out, Putting aside the name of concubine, she will be wife.
Iole, daughter of Eurytus, and Hercules of Boeotia.

Will be joined with disgraceful bonds by an infamous Hymen.

The Trachiniae

Included here are parts that pertain to Iole that is in the play by Sophocles.

LEADER OF WHOLE CHORUS: See, dear lady, see! Behold, these tidings are taking shape before thy gaze.

DEIANEIRA: I see it, dear maidens; my watching eyes had not failed to note yon company.

Enter LICHAS, followed by Captive Maidens. Conspicuous among them is IOLE. All hail to the herald, whose coming hath been so long delayed!- if indeed thou bringest aught that can give joy.

Further into the play:
DEIANEIRA: Yea, have I not the fullest reason to rejoice at these tidings of my lord's happy fortune? To such fortune, such joy must needs respond. And yet a prudent mind can see room for misgiving lest he who prospers should one day suffer reverse. A strange pity hath come over me, friends, at the sight of these ill-fated exiles, homeless and fatherless in a foreign land; once the daughters, perchance, of free-born sires, but now doomed to the life of slaves. O Zeus, who turnest the tide of battle, never may I see child of mine thus visited by thy hand; nay, if such visitation is to be, may it not fall while Deianeira lives! Such dread do I feel, beholding these.

To IOLE: Ah, hapless girl, say, who art thou? A maiden, or a mother? To judge by thine aspect, an innocent maiden, and of a noble race. Lichas, whose daughter is this stranger? Who is her mother, who her sire? Speak, I pity her more than all the rest, when I behold her; as she alone shows due feeling for her plight.

LICHAS:

How should I know? Why should'st thou ask me? Perchance the off, spring of not the meanest in yonder land.

DEIANEIRA: Can she be of royal race? Had Eurytus a daughter?

LICHAS: I know not; indeed, I asked not many questions.

DEIANEIRA: And thou hast not heard her name from any of her companions?

LICHAS: No, indeed, I went through my task in silence.

DEIANEIRA: Unhappy girl, let me, at least, hear it from thine own mouth. It is indeed distressing not to know thy name. (IOLE maintains her silence.)

Further into the play:
MESSENGER: Nay, illustrious by name as by birth; she is the daughter of Eurytus, and was once called Iole.

Further into the play:
MESSENGER: Well, saidst thou not that thy prisoner- she, on whom thy gaze now turns so vacantly- was Iole, daughter of Eurytus?

Further into the play:
HERACLES: Knowest thou, then, the girl whose sire was Eurytus?

HYLLUS: It is of Iole that thou speakest, if I mistake not.

HERACLES: Even so. This, in brief, is the charge that I give thee, my son. When am dead, if thou wouldest show a pious remembrance of thine oath unto thy father, disobey me not, but take this woman to be thy wife. Let no other espouse her who hath lain at my side, but do thou, O my son, make that marriage-bond thine own. Consent: after loyalty in great matters, to rebel in less is to cancel the grace that bad been won.

See also

• The Trachiniae

References

Primary sources

• Ovid, Metamorphoses 9.
• Ovid, Heroides ix.73-134
• Apollodorus, Bibliotheke - Iole
• Apollodorus' Library at Perseus Tuft's: 2.6.1, 2.7.7
• Plutarch. Moralia Vol. IV. Translated by Babbitt, Frank C. Loeb Classical Library Volume 305. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1936.
• Seneca. Tragedies. Translated by Miller, Frank Justus. Loeb Classical Library Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1917.
• The Myths of Hyginus, translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies, no. 34. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960.
• Apollodorus. The Library. Translated by Sir James George Frazer. Loeb Classical Library Volumes 121 & 122. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.
• Diodorus Siculus. Library of History (Books III - VIII). Translated by Oldfather, C. H. Loeb Classical Library Volumes 303 and 340. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935.
• Euripides. Translated by Kovacs, David. Loeb Classical Library Volumes 9, 10, 11, 12, 484 & 495. Cambridge, MA. Harvard Universrity Press. 1912. Hippolytus mytheme: Iole, daughter of the king of Oechalia, was beloved by Heracles, sacked her city, killed her family, and took her away by force as his concubine.

Secondary sources

• Campbell, Lewis, Sophocles, Appleton (1879), Original from Harvard University.
• Harvey, Elizabeth D., Ventriloquized Voices, Routledge (1992). ISBN 0-4150673-2-4
• Laurin, Joseph R., Women of Ancient Athens, Trafford Publishing (2006). ISBN 1-4122340-5-0
• Grant, Michael et al, Who's Who in Classical Mythology, Routledge (2001). ISBN 0-4152604-1-8
• Lefkowitz, Mary R., Greek Gods, Human Lives, Yale University Press (2003). ISBN 0-3001076-9-2
• Gregory, Justina, A Companion to Greek Tragedy, Blackwell Publishing (2005). ISBN 1-4051077-0-7
• Winterson, Jeanette, Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles, Canongate U.S. (2005). ISBN 1-8419571-8-6
• Baldwin, James, Pyle et al, A Story of the Golden Age, Scribner (1888), Original from the University of California.
• Fowler, Harold North, A History of Ancient Greek Literature, D. Appleton (1902), Original at University of Michigan.
• Colum, Padraic et al, The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles, The Macmillan Company (1921).
• March, Jenny, Cassell's Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Sterling Publishing Company (2001). ISBN 0-3043578-8-X