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    Alcestis
    Alcestis
    Alcestis
    Ebook124 pages1 hour

    Alcestis

    By Gilbert Murray and Euripides

    4.5/5

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 1915

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    Reviews for Alcestis

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    • 4/5
      I can now understand why they call this a problem play: for most of the play it is a tragedy but suddenly, at the end, everything turns out all right. One commentary I have read on this raises the question of whether it is a masterpiece or a train wreck. What we need to remember though is that this would have been one of the seven plays of Euripides that were selected to be preserved (and I say this because unlike the other two classic playwrights, he have a whole volume of Euripidean plays that came down to us along with the seven masterpieces).However it is the myth sitting behind this play that we need to consider, and it seems that Euripides actually added nothing to the myth, and the resurrection of Alcestis at the conclusion of the play is something that existed in the original myth. The story was that Alcestis was an incredibly beautiful woman (surprise, surprise) and her father held a contest to see who would be the most worthy suitor - Admentus won the contest. With regards to Admentus, he had helped Apollo by taking care of the god after he had been kicked out of Olympus, and Apollo rewarded Admentus by helping him complete the task to win over Alcestis' father.However, after the marriage, Admentus did not make the required sacrifice and was to die, but once again Apollo intervened and saved his life by making the furies drunk. The catch was that somebody had to die in Admentus' place. This is a little different than what I gathered from the play, and that was that for helping Apollo, Admentus was given the gift of a longer life, but there was a sting in the tail, and that was that somebody else had to willing give up their life. Admentus' parents basically told him to bugger off, but Alcestis, his wife, stepped in as the sacrifice, much to Ademntus' horror.The play begins with Alcestis dying, and this happens pretty quickly. However, while Admentus and his household is in mourning, Heracles rocks up on his way to Thrace to complete one of his tasks. Now, hospitality is very, very important to the Greeks, and despite his mourning, Heracles is welcomed into the house and given guest quarters, however he is not told what is happening. Heracles finds out after speaking to a servant, and in appreciation for Admentus opening up his house, he goes and defeats death and brings Alcestis back to life.Now, here is another instance of resurrection in Greek mythology. Here we have Heracles defeating death to bring someone back to life, however this differs from Christian mythology in that a second person steps in to overturn death, even though he is the son of Zeus. This is more like Jesus bringing Lazerus back to life as opposed to Christ returning from the dead. However we do see glimpses here of the concept of the son of God defeating death.Admentus is truly a tragic character, probably one of the most tragic of the Greek heroes that I have read, though I note that it is Euripides that seems to use this the best. However, it does not end badly for Admentus, and his tragic flaw: his desire for a long life; does not truly bite him. In a way it causes division within his family, such as with the death of Alcestis and the fact that he drives away his father. Admentus is a truly selfish individual - what right does he have demanding the life of his father-in-law so that he might live longer. It does not work like that, and it seems that Euripides is in agreement.This play is about death, pure and simple, and how death destroys relationships. We also get a glimpse into the mind of Admentus, as he mourns over the death of his wife. We see that despite his longer life it is no longer a life worth living and in fact he no longer wants to spend any time where he will be reminded of Alcestis' sacrifice. I guess the main reason he mourns so hard is not the futility and meaninglessness of death (as some Christians might suggest) but rather because the death came about through his own selfish desire to live longer.Yet he does not learn from this, and in fact he is rewarded for his selfishness. Okay, it is clear that the reward comes not from his own failings as a human being, but rather because despite his grief and mourning (though I doubt a psychologist would suggest that this is the natural grief process) he still fulfilled his duty towards his guest. Also, despite his lying to Heracles, Heracles still saw fit to reward him for his hospitality. Still, those last five pages where Alcestis returns from the dead, despite her no longer having a voice in the play, just does not seem to sit right.
    • 5/5
      What a delightful play! Murray's notes and introduction are refreshing and enlightening, and the verse form he gives the work is enjoyable and at times inspired. Perceptive fellow, Euripides! Brilliant character study; a very thoughtful work.
    • 4/5
      it's been so long since i've read the lattimore translation that i can't do a good compare/contrast, but i really enjoyed hughes' adaptation. his choice to make modern references throughout the play (nuclear bombs, double nelson, etc.) is jarring at first, but i liked both the playfulness and weight it added.
    • 5/5
      One of my favorite Greek plays, precisely because it is not a tragedy. I do not buy the theory that we are supposed to be skeptical of the rescue of Alcestis.

    Book preview

    Alcestis - Gilbert Murray

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of Alcestis, by Euripides

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

    Title: Alcestis

    Author: Euripides

    Release Date: December 23, 2003 [EBook #10523]

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALCESTIS ***

    Produced by Ted Garvin, Charles M. Bidwell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

    THE ALCESTIS

    OF

    EURIPIDES

    TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE

    WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY

    GILBERT MURRAY, LL D, D LITT, FBA

    REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

    1915

    INTRODUCTION

    The Alcestis would hardly confirm its author's right to be acclaimed the most tragic of the poets. It is doubtful whether one can call it a tragedy at all. Yet it remains one of the most characteristic and delightful of Euripidean dramas, as well as, by modern standards, the most easily actable. And I notice that many judges who display nothing but a fierce satisfaction in sending other plays of that author to the block or the treadmill, show a certain human weakness in sentencing the gentle daughter of Pelias.

    The play has been interpreted in many different ways. There is the old unsophisticated view, well set forth in Paley's preface of 1872. He regards the Alcestis simply as a triumph of pathos, especially of that peculiar sort of pathos which comes most home to us, with our views and partialities for domestic life…. As for the characters, that of Alcestis must be acknowledged to be pre-eminently beautiful. One could almost imagine that Euripides had not yet conceived that bad opinion of the sex which so many of the subsequent dramas exhibit…. But the rest are hardly well-drawn, or, at least, pleasingly portrayed. The poet might perhaps, had he pleased, have exhibited Admetus in a more amiable point of view.

    This criticism is not very trenchant, but its weakness is due, I think, more to timidity of statement than to lack of perception. Paley does see that a character may be well-drawn without necessarily being pleasing; and even that he may be eminently pleasing as a part of the play while very displeasing in himself. He sees that Euripides may have had his own reasons for not making Admetus an ideal husband. It seems odd that such points should need mentioning; but Greek drama has always suffered from a school of critics who approach a play with a greater equipment of aesthetic theory than of dramatic perception. This is the characteristic defect of classicism. One mark of the school is to demand from dramatists heroes and heroines which shall satisfy its own ideals; and, though there was in the New Comedy a mask known to Pollux as The Entirely-good Young Man ([Greek: panchraestos neaniskos]), such a character is fortunately unknown to classical Greek drama.

    The influence of this classicist tradition has led to a timid and unsatisfying treatment of the Alcestis, in which many of the most striking and unconventional features of the whole composition were either ignored or smoothed away. As a natural result, various lively-minded readers proceeded to overemphasize these particular features, and were carried into eccentricity or paradox. Alfred Schöne, for instance, fixing his attention on just those points which the conventional critic passed over, decides simply that the Alcestis is a parody, and finds it very funny. (Die Alkestis von Euripides, Kiel, 1895.)

    I will not dwell on other criticisms of this type. There are those who have taken the play for a criticism of contemporary politics or the current law of inheritance. Above all there is the late Dr. Verrall's famous essay in Euripides the Rationalist, explaining it as a psychological criticism of a supposed Delphic miracle, and arguing that Alcestis in the play does not rise from the dead at all. She had never really died; she only had a sort of nervous catalepsy induced by all the suggestion of death by which she was surrounded. Now Dr. Verrall's work, as always, stands apart. Even if wrong, it has its own excellence, its special insight and its extraordinary awakening power. But in general the effect of reading many criticisms on the Alcestis is to make a scholar realize that, for all the seeming simplicity of the play, competent Grecians have been strangely bewildered by it, and that after all there is no great reason to suppose that he himself is more sensible than his neighbours.

    This is depressing. None the less I cannot really believe that, if we make patient use of our available knowledge, the Alcestis presents any startling enigma. In the first place, it has long been known from the remnants of the ancient Didascalia, or official notice of production, that the Alcestis was produced as the fourth play of a series; that is, it took the place of a Satyr-play. It is what we may call Pro-satyric. (See the present writer's introduction to the Rhesus.) And we should note for what it is worth the observation in the ancient Greek argument: The play is somewhat satyr-like ([Greek: saturiphkoteron]). It ends in rejoicing and gladness against the tragic convention.

    Now we are of late years beginning to understand much better what a Satyr-play was. Satyrs have, of course, nothing to do with satire, either etymologically or otherwise. Satyrs are the attendant daemons who form the Kômos, or revel rout, of Dionysus. They are represented in divers fantastic forms, the human or divine being mixed with that of some animal, especially the horse or wild goat. Like Dionysus himself, they are connected in ancient religion with the Renewal of the Earth in spring and the resurrection of the dead, a point which students of the Alcestis may well remember. But in general they represent mere joyous creatures of nature, unthwarted by law and unchecked by self-control. Two notes are especially struck by them: the passions and the absurdity of half-drunken revellers, and the joy and mystery of the wild things in the forest.

    The rule was that after three tragedies proper there came a play, still in tragic diction, with a traditional saga plot and heroic characters, in which the Chorus was formed by these Satyrs. There was a deliberate clash, an effect of burlesque; but of

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