Text Access
Euripides. Alcestis. Trans. Paul Roche. 10 Plays. New York: Signet Classic, 1998. 1-43. (Available via bookstore.)
Journal Prompt
Spoiler alert: Having got her husband, Admetus, to agree never to marry again, Alcestis will die in his place, and so she does, only for the hero Heracles to bring her back from the dead. To get Admetus to welcome back the revived Alcestis, Heracles persuades him she's a woman he won in a contest, but Admetus can have her. Only later does Admetus learn the true identity of the veiled woman.
Questions: Why does Admetus break his promise? (He doesn't know who the veiled woman is at first.) Does friendship with Heracles trump promises made to spouses? And when Alcestis does get her voice back, how will she feel? What's she going to say to her husband?
Euripides
- Born ca. 485 BCE (Athens)
- Died ca. 406 (Macedonia)
- Perhaps as many as 88 plays
- Five victories
- Comic reputation for misogyny ("hatred of women") — Do you agree?
- Intellectualist, sophistic interests
- Dramatic experimenter (e.g., prosatyric Alcestis - see below)
Play Facts
Produced in 438 BCE, the Alcestis is our first preserved play by Euripides. It, or rather, the tetralogy to which it belonged (Cretan Women, Alcmaeon in Psophis, Telephus, Alcestis), came in 2nd. Sophocles scored first at that particular competition.
As for this particular play, we note that it was fourth on the bill, and thus took the place of the usual satyr drama, a "funny" tragedy to provide an entertaining finale to the tragic tetralogy. Hence the Alcestis is sometimes referred to as prosatyric ("play replacing the satyr drama").
Situation
You'll remember that in Aeschylus' Eumenides, the Furies recall how Apollo, god of prophecy etc., had previously interfered with fate. Apollo, so goes the story, had had a son Asclepius by the nymph Coronis. This son grew up to be a medical wonder-worker, but for raising the dead, Zeus struck him down with a thunderbolt. In anger, Apollo killed the Cyclopes, the smiths whose job it was to forge thunderbolts for Zeus. To punish that, Zeus condemned Apollo to serve as slave to a mortal for one year. That mortal, it turns out, was Admetus, a king in Thessaly, whose kindness to the god earned an ambiguous reward. Thus Admetus, when faced with mortal illness, would be able to choose someone to die in his place — according to the Furies in Eumenides, Apollo actually got the Fates (the Moirai) drunk on wine in order to persuade them to allow this to happen. Euripides makes no mention of getting the Fates drunk, but the rest describes the play's back story more or less accurately.
Getting back to our story, Admetus has found himself facing death, so he must ask someone to die in his stead, but whom?
As it turns out, no one (not father, mother, etc.) will consent to "take the fall" for Admetus — no one, that is, but his wife, Alcestis.
The play opens with a kind of prologue agon (stichomythia and all!) between Apollo and Death — at issue, whether Alcestis, fated to die on that day, will actually suffer that fate. . . .
Further Things to Think About
Themes
In some ways, this is a play about relationships. Relationships between . . .
- philoi (family/friends); xenoi (strangers, guests/hosts)
- Gods & gods, gods & humans, humans & humans
- Peers and peers, superiors and inferiors
Are these healthy, positive relationships? Disfunctional in any way? What do you think of Admetus' enthusiasm to entertain?
 The Stepford Wives at the Internet Movie Database |
Moral dimension. . .
- What do you think of the main characters — esp. Admetus? Do
you respond sympathetically / with antipathy to his situation and
conduct? How well does he keep promises?
- Ditto for the other main characters — Apollo, Alcestis, Heracles, Pheres
- Do you, for instance, admire the sacrifice made by Alcestis? Is she by the end of the play a "for-real" character? Is she, as described in the play, "best of women"? What is meant there by "best of women"? What do you make of the bedroom statue Admetus promises keep in his bed to remember her by? What of the mysterous figure Heracles will eventually bring in to comfort the grieving Admetus . . .
- The translator's preface (this is the Signet Classics edition) says that for the play's original audience, "the behavior of Admetus would have met with a certain sympathy. Euripides, however, has layered the action with so much pathos and irony that even they, surely, would have come away with questions." What do you think they would have thought? What do you think?