Heroides 9 takes the form of a letter sent by Deianira to Hercules as a reinforcement to the tunic smeared with Nessus' blood which she has already dispatched in the mistaken belief that it will revive the hero's love for her. In this epistle she tries to persuade her husband to give up his latest girlfriend (Iole) by showing him that she loves him, by arousing pity for herself, and by making him feel ashamed of his philandering and see that he thereby disgraces himself. Obviously there is pathos here, particularly as the deaths of Hercules and Deianira loom in the background, but there is also wit, irony, and (especially dark) humour, creating a piquant tonal mixture which has been almost entirely neglected by critics. They have seen the sadness, and some of the irony (which is taken to be purely tragicFootnote ¹), but they have not grasped the facetious aspects,Footnote ² whereby our irreverent poetFootnote ³ ensures that the piece does not lapse into mawkishness and engages the head as well as the heart.

Although Deianira is making a serious point about Hercules disgracing himself, she does so with an amusing tartness and mockery that seem intended to really get to her errant husband. She ridicules him at length with her description of his grotesque cross-dressing (55–72) and farcical spinning (73–80) at the court of Omphale,Footnote ⁴ and she works in especially entertaining taunts at 65–6, 71–2 (detrahat Antaeus duro redimicula collo, / ne pigeat molli succubuisse viro), 74, and 79–80 (a, quotiens digitis dum torques stamina duris, / praevalidae fusos comminuere manus!).Footnote ⁵ There are also digs at Hercules' degeneration from his status as super-hero,Footnote ⁶ and in particular there is much bitter joking about the humiliation of the great victor being vanquished himself and being subjugated by a woman and love,Footnote ⁷ with stylish wit in 2 (in connection with Iole, victorem victae succubuisse queror), 25–6 (quem non mille ferae, quem non Stheneleius hostis, / non potuit Iuno vincere, vincit amor), 107–8, and 113–14. Deianira includes a few ironical touches too, in 27, where she notes wryly that people say she has married well because she is the wife of Hercules, and at 101–2, where she depicts him as being insignitus (adorned with marks of honour) by the purple dress that Omphale made him wear.Footnote ⁸

All of the above is deliberate; but there is a lot of unconscious humour and irony in what Deianira writes as well. At 9–10 she ineptly cites the arch-adulterer Jupiter to a product of his adultery (Hercules) as one who would disapprove of his passion for Iole. In haec mihi ferre parum? (47) there is laughable blindness when she complains of having to endure his adultery on top of being left isolated by him, not realizing that she will soon have more and much worse things to endure. There is drollery at 102 in her claim that the purple dress that he donned when with Omphale should have made him hold his tongue, as she has sent him a tunic that must be causing him to make vigorous use of his tongue, yelling in agony.Footnote ⁹ At 141–2 she talks glibly of the death of Nessus and his blood dyeing the river Evenus, when the blood is at present doing a lot more than dyeing, as we are immediately reminded when, with a grimly comic coincidence, news of its deadly effect on her husband is received at 143–8 (and there is verbal play, since the word for ‘dye’ that is employed there [inficio] can also mean ‘poison’Footnote ¹⁰).

There are even diverting elements at 145–64, where Deianira reacts with grief and guilt to the report about the tunic. In connection with the refrain (inpia quid dubitas Deianira mori?) at 146, 152, 158, and 164, after going on and on about what a bad spouse Hercules is, she now feels constrained (without good reason) to go on and on about what a bad spouse she is; and by repeatedly asking herself why she is hesitating to die (and running on about her family history at 151–8) she is in fact delaying her death. In addition, if one bears in mind the bigger picture, the end of the hero's mortal existence led to his deification and the termination of Juno's persecution, which was a definite improvement in circumstances for him, so Deianira's misery and suicide are ultimately inapt.

All that frivolity encourages us to see a comic aspect to the extensive irony, and this is not hard to perceive for someone alert and in a receptive frame of mind. There is a ghastly inappropriateness in her attack on and ridicule of her husband, given that she is in the process of murdering him in a particularly painful way. A major topic pursued by her is the great warrior brought low by a female and love, when she is herself a female bringing him low because of her love for him. She also dwells on him as a conqueror and killer, unaware that she is herself conquering and killing him (and the man who was proof against all the formidable opponents mentioned by her is not proof against a woman). This kind of thing operates in connection with individual lines too. In 11 she writes of Venus having harmed him, as she is herself doing him even greater harm (because of her love for him). In 17 she speaks of him reaching the heavens, when she has given him the tunic that gets him there, sooner than she expects. At 23–4 we read coepisti melius quam desinis; ultima primis / cedunt and reflect that he is ending badly now and that these actually are his last acts. In 33 she complains with exaggeration that he is always away, while ensuring that he really will be absent permanently. In 36 she is afraid that he may be slain by an enemy, but in reality he is being slain by her. At 57–66 she dilates on the feminine attire that demeaned him, having dispatched to him masculine attire that is destroying him. At 74 he is said to have been terrified of his mistress' threats, but he should rather have been afraid of his wife's gift (the tunic). At 99–100 she talks of centaurs being worsted by him, even as he is being worsted by the blood of one of them. In 113 she addresses to him the words falleris et nescis, when she is the one mistaken without realizing it. And in 115, with femina tela tulit Lernaeis atra venenis (of Omphale), she writes unsuspectingly of poison wielded by a woman in a Herculean context.

The perception of wit, humour, and ironyFootnote ¹¹ tends to be a subjective business, and it is possible that some readers will not be convinced by every single instance that I see in Heroides 9. However, I trust that I have shown that there are enough definite and probable examples to establish that these are significant components of the poem, and that it should be viewed as a tragicomedy rather than as a piece that is purely and simply serious and sad.