How Women of Trachis drew on The Odyssey
A documented line of influence: Sophocles demonstrably engaged Homer’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Odyssey
Homer · c. 725 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
Women of Trachis
Sophocles · c. 450 BCE
Ancient GreeceRelevance
6/10
On Women of Trachis’s page
- Sophocles built this tragedy on a shameful episode the Odyssey records — Heracles killing Iphitus, the guest he should have protected
- That epic crime becomes the play's quiet engine; the Women of Trachis leans on Homer's account to set its irony cutting
- Read the Odyssean passage first and you feel the trap Sophocles is springing
On The Odyssey’s page
- A dark corner of the Odyssey becomes the engine of a tragedy: the lines (21.22–30) where Heracles murders his own guest Iphitus
- Sophocles takes that epic crime as the buried fault line beneath the Women of Trachis
- He counts on you knowing the Homeric version — the irony of the play sharpens against the poem standing behind it