προσθοῦ, associate with thyself: cp. O. C.404 n. δάμαρτα. This passage concerning Iolè and Hyllus (1216—1251) was rendered indispensable by the plot, if the poet was to avoid a contradiction which must otherwise have perplexed the spectators. Iolè figured in legend as the wife of Hyllus. Their son, “Κλεοδαῖος” (called “Κλεοδάτης” by Theopompus, fr. 30), was mentioned by Hesiod (schol. Ap. Rh. 1. 824), and was recorded in the pedigree of the Spartan kings, being the grandfather of Aristodemus ( Her.6. 52Her., 8. 131). Hyllus and Iolè had also a daughter, “Εὐαίχμη”, known in Messenian story ( Paus.4. 2. 1). But, in this play, Iolè is the paramour of Heracles, and indirectly the cause of his death. How, then, could Hyllus wed her? His own words (1233—1237) express what a Greek would feel. It was necessary, then, that the marriage should be imposed upon him by his dying father's inexorable command. Cp. Apollodorus 2. 7. 7 § 13 “ἐντειλάμενος Ὕλλῳ...τὴν Ἰόλην ἀνδρωθέντα γῆμαι”: as if Hyllus were younger than Sophocles here imagines him. Ovid, Met.9. 278, of Iolè: “Herculis illam | Imperiis thalamoque animoque receperat Hyllus.” Acc. to Pherecydes, it was for Hyllus, not for himself, that Heracles had first asked the hand of Iolè (schol. on v. 354).
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part V: The Trachiniae. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1902.
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