Alcestis

The first part of the play’s fourth episode features the agon, a common type of scene in Attic tragedies that involves a debate between two characters. The agon was a special favorite of Euripides, who often used this device to reflect on contemporary intellectual questions and trends. Here, Admetus and his father Pheres both accuse the other of cowardice and of inappropriately clinging to life (while the Chorus, as often in such scenes, tries unsuccessfully to mediate). Pheres’s attack on his son puts Admetus’s virtue under fire, asking the audience to question whether Admetus was right to allow Alcestis to die for him. Though not necessarily a sympathetic character, Pheres raises points that are difficult to dismiss, and represents an eloquent illustration of the human desire for life: Though Pheres is already an old man, it is not any easier for him to part with his life, for, as he puts it to Admetus, “It is a sweet thing, this god’s sunshine, sweet to see” (723). Though Admetus finally disowns his father, the two are ultimately not particularly different: In the end, both of them want to live as long as possible, whatever the cost.

The second part of the episode marks a turning point in the play, in which Heracles learns of Alcestis’s death and resolves to rescue her. This turning point is highlighted dramaturgically in a few ways. First, the Chorus exits with Admetus, leaving the stage completely empty—a rarity in Attic tragedy, in which the Chorus typically remained on stage for the entirety play after first making their entry. Second, a servant enters to deliver the play’s second messenger speech (the first was delivered by the Maid in the first episode), in which he bemoans Heracles’s inappropriate behavior. The servant’s lengthy and detailed complaint calls attention not only to Heracles’s larger-than-life personality, but it also exposes the extent to which Admetus has broken the promises he made his dying wife, to whom he swore that he would “make an end / of revelry and entertainment in my house” (342-43). Heracles, as the servant emphasizes, is making ample “revelry and entertainment” in Admetus’s home. When Heracles discovers Admetus’s deceit, he reacts with horror, prompting the question of whether Admetus was wrong to entertain Heracles while in mourning or, if his eagerness to take in a friend even in his grief highlights the magnitude of his virtue. Heracles decides that Admetus’s hospitality must be rewarded and resolves to restore Alcestis to him, even if it means he must fight Death himself.

Admetus, meanwhile, finishes burying his wife and at last comes to grasp the paradox of his situation. He is now alive because his wife has died for him, but in losing such a wife, he no longer wishes to live:

Friends, I believe my wife is happier than I

Although I know she does not seem to be. For her,

There will be no more pain to touch her ever again.

She has her glory and is free from much distress.

But I, who should not be alive, who have passed by

My moment, shall lead a sorry life. I see it now (930-40).

This moment of insight comes too late: Admetus has no choice but to live without his wife, as the Chorus tells him. Admetus has learned that, as a mortal, he is subject to the will of divine Compulsion, which dictates what human beings must suffer. The Chorus punctuates this lesson with further references to mythical mortals who have tried and failed to beat death, mentioning Asclepius again but also Orpheus, who tried unsuccessfully to restore his wife, Eurydice, after she had died on their wedding day. The Chorus thus underscores the inevitability and finality of death—a message that will be subverted in the following scene.