Alcestis - The Hospitable Fool
Thoughts On: Alcestis (Ἄλκηστις, 438 BC)
A virtuous king laments at the bedside of his wife, who has chosen to take his place in death.
Alcestis is another play by Euripides; we recently looked at Hippolytus. It is a deeply fascinating play for its simultaneous simplicity and complexity. In sum, this is a basic melodrama about sacrifice. However, to read through this play is to be torn between perspectives of morality, and to lose sight of what seems to be so simple and true from a position more afar. Let us then open with two descriptions of the narrative, one very basic, and the other more complex.
Put most simply, Alcestis is a play about a king, Admetus, who wins the favour of Apollo by virtue of his hospitality. One day Admetus is on the brink of death, poisoned by a snake, and so Apollo decides to trick the Fates and deceive Thanatos (Death) to save him. However, in being saved Admetus must have someone volunteer their own life in exchange of his. His wife volunteers and dies for him. On the day of her death, as Admetus is beyond consolation, Heracles comes to the door and is welcomed. To thank Admetus for his hospitality, Heracles wrestles Death and brings Alcestis back to Admetus.
This simplified version of the play subtracts all of Euripides' scepticism and questioning of honour and virtue in purity. As we saw in Hippolytus, Euripides sees little virtue in someone remaining pure in regards to one basic axiom; an axiom that reveals itself to be hubristic and arrogant. It was Hippolytus and his father, Theseus, that displayed arrogance before Aphrodite by refusing to be compassionate so that they alone could appear pure and good. Following this, when one engages the intricacies and debate that the narrative of Alcestis provides, one must consider all to be in search of arrogance and Euripides to be looking for hubris to punish. Let us then take a more comprehensive look at the narrative:
King Admetus is known for his hospitality, even by the gods, which is why Apollo, when banished from Olympus for a year to Shepard on earth, chooses to stay at his home. Welcomed and treated well by the king, Apollo grows to favour him and even helps him win a competition (slaughter a lion) as to win the hand of the fair princess Alcestis. Alas, as the two married, Admetus did not sacrifice to Artemis, Apollo's sister, and so she filled his bed with snakes who poisoned him. To save Admetus, Apollo gets the Fates drunk and convinces them to spare him. They agree, but on the condition that someone choose to replace him. Admetus turns to his parents, but, even though they are old, they reject to save him. Alcestis then chooses to sacrifice herself for her husband. Grief-stricken when this day comes, Admetus prays for her not to die, wishes to be dead himself, and, before his children, promises to never marry again at the request of his wife. After much lamentation, Alcestis dies. Heracles, on a mission, passes by. Admetus welcomes him into his home, but Heracles tries to refuse for he sees that the house in mourning. Admetus lies to Heracles, saying that a stranger has died, not his wife, as to get Heracles to stay - and so he does, and the servants, unwillingly, serve him in a distant part of the house. Soon after, Admetus' parents arrive with gifts for the funeral. Admetus turns them away, blaming them for Alcestis death. After a vicious exchange, Admetus' father calling his son the true murderer, they leave. Meanwhile, Heracles, in conversation with a servant, is told of Alcestis lie, and so he leaves in pursuit of Death and Alcestis. Meanwhile, Admetus crumbles under the memory of his father's words, fearing that he has made a grave mistake, that he has only been a coward, and that he has no honour and no reason to have lived. Alas, Heracles makes a return. He has with him a woman whom he claims he won in a competition, and that he wants Admetus to welcome under his roof - to one day, possibly, marry. Admetus refuses over and over until he has to give in. With his back turned, he allows Heracles to put the woman's hand in his so he can take her into his home. She is then unveiled, revealed to be Alcestis.
The questions that plague the long sequences of lamentation in this play concern who is to be blamed for Alcestis death. Should Admetus have consented her sacrifice? (In truth, whether he did or did not consent is not clear). Should he have asked anyone to die for him? Are his parents right in suggesting that he is a murderer, that he should not have dared to ask them, anyone even, to die in his place?
If one centralises these questions in their analysis, I believe that they have misread this play. These questions fuel the drama between characters, but they do not encapsulate theme in such a simple way; which is to say, one cannot look to these questions alone to understand what it is that Euripides is investigating with his narrative. Euripides' narratives seem, in fact, very deceptive, for he is very open to providing you his position and the meaning of his narratives with an opening statement. This is true in Hippolytus with Aphrodite's opening remarks, it is also true in Iphigenia at Tauris with Iphigenia's opening monologue, and it is true, too, in Alcestis. It is Apollo that opens this play, asserting the good of Admetus and warning Death that he is wrong in trying to take a life, prophesying Death's failure by the hands of someone on a mission (that which Heracles is on). Euripides does this to establish truth that he will complicate, but will remain true nonetheless. In many senses, the difficulty and deception of Euripides' narratives, in particular, Hippolytus and Alcestis, is then only reconciling the opening with the ending.
If we make this our task, to reconcile end and beginning, Euripides narratives unfold and speak volumes of truth. So, let us look for the truth that Apollo speaks of, under the assumption that, though the gods may be capricious, their wisdom - as given to us by a specific narrative - is greater than ours.
Apollo comes to Admetus because he is hospitable - which was considered one of the highest virtues in Greek society. For being so virtuous, he is then awarded the opportunity to board and tend to, to be tended by in return, a god of music and prophecy. For this narrative, for the fact that Apollo presents his foresight upon its inception, I believe it is best to focus on Apollo's gift of prophecy above his many other attributes. To then see prophecy as a reward for hospitality provides a profound statement.
Hospitality is the encapsulation and crux of social exchange, and so it is one of humanity's greatest tools. Hospitality is one person providing for another whilst he can; he opens up his doors and makes the stranger a friend. In doing so, a person gains favour, which is to say that, they gain a home they too may be housed in when chance comes. In other words, in treating someone well in the present, you extend yourself favour and good fortune into the future. How different is this securing of good fortune in the future from gaining the favour of a prophet? The central axiom of Euripides' play is here; to sacrifice and to showcase compassion in the present is to earn a return in the future, is to prophesise your own rescue and fortune. And this, in itself, is a reflection of the Mathew Principal which asserts:
We see this idea play out in the life of Admetus: he starts out a good character, and it is because he is good that he is rewarded with the company of Apollo, and Apollo secures him the hand of Alcestis. In this, Admetus, who has, is only given more - and only because of the fact that he has. And what Admetus has is compassion and honour in hospitality. When he then makes a mistake, when he does not sacrifice to Artemis - who, in juxtaposition to her brother Apollo, is very much so concerned with virtue in the present and the past, not the future - he gives away some of what he has, some of his virtue. But, because Admetus has secured abundance, an abundance of virtue and good fortune, something that Artemis will not recognise, but that her brother can, he is given a chance. What occurs here is that the goddess of the hunt, of child birth and virginity (again, elements attributable to being present in nature, in the past and early stages of human life) does not see what Admetus has secured in his future, for she is blind to all, but what he has presently done wrong. Because Apollo sees into the future, he sees that Admetus has secured deliverance. And he has done so in marrying Alcestis.
Alcestis is the archetype of the good wife. Whilst this archetype sometimes indicates the downfall of a man if he is arrogant, Admetus never shows himself hubristic as a husband. It is only in being highly virtuous, in earning the favour of Apollo, that Admetus earns the right to marry Alcestis. And so she is an embodiment of his sacrifice and trial - which is how one can conceptualise of a symbolic wife; she is a reflection of you, her highest virtue reflective of your highest virtue, be good to her, be good to win her heart, and she will be good to you. Quite literally, Admetus is a good man as to win Alcestis. And so it is in turn that she sacrifices herself for him when his parents will not save him. But, what is most important is that Admetus never takes this for granted; he vows to forever sacrifice to her sacrifice, to be a good man before his children. And so, in earning a rescue, Admetus also earns great responsibility; to he who has, more will be given.
The most powerful, though also the most deceptive element of this play, concerns Admetus' parents. Admetus is never shown to have sacrificed for them. They choose not to sacrifice to him, and with reasoning that is understandable; they have no debt to him - as his father asserts. Like Hippolytus, the parents refuse to engage a cycle of compassion, and so I do not believe that Euripides presents them as rather virtuous. However, they escape punishment, and so does Admetus despite damning them, because they seem to cancel out all debts to each another. This is not what Alcestis does, however, which is why she propagates a cycle of compassion beyond her death. In response to Admetus' virtue, she sacrifices to him more than he probably deserves. But, in doing so, gains future fortune. And because Apollo ordained and catalysed this feedback loop, it seems that this is all part of his prophecy - that she is to sacrifice to him, only to come back to life if he can accept her compassion as he should, if he can prove himself worthy of such a blessing. And so this is why the parents are so central to this narrative. Though they end up having cancelled their debts to one another, having cancelled out their relationship to their son, Admetus sacrifices his ego to his father in accepting that he is right and that he is a coward after his father leaves.
It seems to be this that is the linchpin in the equation that is this narrative; without this change in perspective, I do not feel that Admetus earns the right for Heracles to show up at his door. Yet, still, there is more for him to sacrifice. He has to pledge to Heracles after he has already saved Alcestis to have his vow to his wife tested, to sacrifice his mourning and sanity for the sake of the hospitality he is known for by welcoming a woman he does not want to know into his home. It is because Admetus is willing to make this sacrifice, to suffer more than he probably should and still honour his wife and retain virtue, that Heracles gives his wife back to him, that he proves himself worthy and his wife sane for choosing to sacrifice to him.
This is then a tale of virtuous fools who have faith in one another. The most virtuous of these fools are willing to not just put their lives in another person's hands, but are willing to trust that the other is willing to return more to them than they have received as to continue the cycle of hospitality and virtue; to uphold the Mathew Principal.
The profound wisdom that Apollo and Euripides then allow us to perceive is one of patience, faith and sacrifice. They show us that it is not a god that ensures that those who have will have more. A god writes this rule, but it is a human that sees the rule acted out, that earns trusting that they will earn more, that does not lose for fear of never gaining again. Alcestis is a play that takes this philosophy to its absolute extreme, and, notably, Hippolytus is a play that shows a failure to engage this philosophy.
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End Of The Week Shorts #64
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This Is England - To Call Truth, To Follow Truth
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
A virtuous king laments at the bedside of his wife, who has chosen to take his place in death.
Alcestis is another play by Euripides; we recently looked at Hippolytus. It is a deeply fascinating play for its simultaneous simplicity and complexity. In sum, this is a basic melodrama about sacrifice. However, to read through this play is to be torn between perspectives of morality, and to lose sight of what seems to be so simple and true from a position more afar. Let us then open with two descriptions of the narrative, one very basic, and the other more complex.
Put most simply, Alcestis is a play about a king, Admetus, who wins the favour of Apollo by virtue of his hospitality. One day Admetus is on the brink of death, poisoned by a snake, and so Apollo decides to trick the Fates and deceive Thanatos (Death) to save him. However, in being saved Admetus must have someone volunteer their own life in exchange of his. His wife volunteers and dies for him. On the day of her death, as Admetus is beyond consolation, Heracles comes to the door and is welcomed. To thank Admetus for his hospitality, Heracles wrestles Death and brings Alcestis back to Admetus.
This simplified version of the play subtracts all of Euripides' scepticism and questioning of honour and virtue in purity. As we saw in Hippolytus, Euripides sees little virtue in someone remaining pure in regards to one basic axiom; an axiom that reveals itself to be hubristic and arrogant. It was Hippolytus and his father, Theseus, that displayed arrogance before Aphrodite by refusing to be compassionate so that they alone could appear pure and good. Following this, when one engages the intricacies and debate that the narrative of Alcestis provides, one must consider all to be in search of arrogance and Euripides to be looking for hubris to punish. Let us then take a more comprehensive look at the narrative:
King Admetus is known for his hospitality, even by the gods, which is why Apollo, when banished from Olympus for a year to Shepard on earth, chooses to stay at his home. Welcomed and treated well by the king, Apollo grows to favour him and even helps him win a competition (slaughter a lion) as to win the hand of the fair princess Alcestis. Alas, as the two married, Admetus did not sacrifice to Artemis, Apollo's sister, and so she filled his bed with snakes who poisoned him. To save Admetus, Apollo gets the Fates drunk and convinces them to spare him. They agree, but on the condition that someone choose to replace him. Admetus turns to his parents, but, even though they are old, they reject to save him. Alcestis then chooses to sacrifice herself for her husband. Grief-stricken when this day comes, Admetus prays for her not to die, wishes to be dead himself, and, before his children, promises to never marry again at the request of his wife. After much lamentation, Alcestis dies. Heracles, on a mission, passes by. Admetus welcomes him into his home, but Heracles tries to refuse for he sees that the house in mourning. Admetus lies to Heracles, saying that a stranger has died, not his wife, as to get Heracles to stay - and so he does, and the servants, unwillingly, serve him in a distant part of the house. Soon after, Admetus' parents arrive with gifts for the funeral. Admetus turns them away, blaming them for Alcestis death. After a vicious exchange, Admetus' father calling his son the true murderer, they leave. Meanwhile, Heracles, in conversation with a servant, is told of Alcestis lie, and so he leaves in pursuit of Death and Alcestis. Meanwhile, Admetus crumbles under the memory of his father's words, fearing that he has made a grave mistake, that he has only been a coward, and that he has no honour and no reason to have lived. Alas, Heracles makes a return. He has with him a woman whom he claims he won in a competition, and that he wants Admetus to welcome under his roof - to one day, possibly, marry. Admetus refuses over and over until he has to give in. With his back turned, he allows Heracles to put the woman's hand in his so he can take her into his home. She is then unveiled, revealed to be Alcestis.
The questions that plague the long sequences of lamentation in this play concern who is to be blamed for Alcestis death. Should Admetus have consented her sacrifice? (In truth, whether he did or did not consent is not clear). Should he have asked anyone to die for him? Are his parents right in suggesting that he is a murderer, that he should not have dared to ask them, anyone even, to die in his place?
If one centralises these questions in their analysis, I believe that they have misread this play. These questions fuel the drama between characters, but they do not encapsulate theme in such a simple way; which is to say, one cannot look to these questions alone to understand what it is that Euripides is investigating with his narrative. Euripides' narratives seem, in fact, very deceptive, for he is very open to providing you his position and the meaning of his narratives with an opening statement. This is true in Hippolytus with Aphrodite's opening remarks, it is also true in Iphigenia at Tauris with Iphigenia's opening monologue, and it is true, too, in Alcestis. It is Apollo that opens this play, asserting the good of Admetus and warning Death that he is wrong in trying to take a life, prophesying Death's failure by the hands of someone on a mission (that which Heracles is on). Euripides does this to establish truth that he will complicate, but will remain true nonetheless. In many senses, the difficulty and deception of Euripides' narratives, in particular, Hippolytus and Alcestis, is then only reconciling the opening with the ending.
If we make this our task, to reconcile end and beginning, Euripides narratives unfold and speak volumes of truth. So, let us look for the truth that Apollo speaks of, under the assumption that, though the gods may be capricious, their wisdom - as given to us by a specific narrative - is greater than ours.
Apollo comes to Admetus because he is hospitable - which was considered one of the highest virtues in Greek society. For being so virtuous, he is then awarded the opportunity to board and tend to, to be tended by in return, a god of music and prophecy. For this narrative, for the fact that Apollo presents his foresight upon its inception, I believe it is best to focus on Apollo's gift of prophecy above his many other attributes. To then see prophecy as a reward for hospitality provides a profound statement.
Hospitality is the encapsulation and crux of social exchange, and so it is one of humanity's greatest tools. Hospitality is one person providing for another whilst he can; he opens up his doors and makes the stranger a friend. In doing so, a person gains favour, which is to say that, they gain a home they too may be housed in when chance comes. In other words, in treating someone well in the present, you extend yourself favour and good fortune into the future. How different is this securing of good fortune in the future from gaining the favour of a prophet? The central axiom of Euripides' play is here; to sacrifice and to showcase compassion in the present is to earn a return in the future, is to prophesise your own rescue and fortune. And this, in itself, is a reflection of the Mathew Principal which asserts:
For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
We see this idea play out in the life of Admetus: he starts out a good character, and it is because he is good that he is rewarded with the company of Apollo, and Apollo secures him the hand of Alcestis. In this, Admetus, who has, is only given more - and only because of the fact that he has. And what Admetus has is compassion and honour in hospitality. When he then makes a mistake, when he does not sacrifice to Artemis - who, in juxtaposition to her brother Apollo, is very much so concerned with virtue in the present and the past, not the future - he gives away some of what he has, some of his virtue. But, because Admetus has secured abundance, an abundance of virtue and good fortune, something that Artemis will not recognise, but that her brother can, he is given a chance. What occurs here is that the goddess of the hunt, of child birth and virginity (again, elements attributable to being present in nature, in the past and early stages of human life) does not see what Admetus has secured in his future, for she is blind to all, but what he has presently done wrong. Because Apollo sees into the future, he sees that Admetus has secured deliverance. And he has done so in marrying Alcestis.
Alcestis is the archetype of the good wife. Whilst this archetype sometimes indicates the downfall of a man if he is arrogant, Admetus never shows himself hubristic as a husband. It is only in being highly virtuous, in earning the favour of Apollo, that Admetus earns the right to marry Alcestis. And so she is an embodiment of his sacrifice and trial - which is how one can conceptualise of a symbolic wife; she is a reflection of you, her highest virtue reflective of your highest virtue, be good to her, be good to win her heart, and she will be good to you. Quite literally, Admetus is a good man as to win Alcestis. And so it is in turn that she sacrifices herself for him when his parents will not save him. But, what is most important is that Admetus never takes this for granted; he vows to forever sacrifice to her sacrifice, to be a good man before his children. And so, in earning a rescue, Admetus also earns great responsibility; to he who has, more will be given.
The most powerful, though also the most deceptive element of this play, concerns Admetus' parents. Admetus is never shown to have sacrificed for them. They choose not to sacrifice to him, and with reasoning that is understandable; they have no debt to him - as his father asserts. Like Hippolytus, the parents refuse to engage a cycle of compassion, and so I do not believe that Euripides presents them as rather virtuous. However, they escape punishment, and so does Admetus despite damning them, because they seem to cancel out all debts to each another. This is not what Alcestis does, however, which is why she propagates a cycle of compassion beyond her death. In response to Admetus' virtue, she sacrifices to him more than he probably deserves. But, in doing so, gains future fortune. And because Apollo ordained and catalysed this feedback loop, it seems that this is all part of his prophecy - that she is to sacrifice to him, only to come back to life if he can accept her compassion as he should, if he can prove himself worthy of such a blessing. And so this is why the parents are so central to this narrative. Though they end up having cancelled their debts to one another, having cancelled out their relationship to their son, Admetus sacrifices his ego to his father in accepting that he is right and that he is a coward after his father leaves.
It seems to be this that is the linchpin in the equation that is this narrative; without this change in perspective, I do not feel that Admetus earns the right for Heracles to show up at his door. Yet, still, there is more for him to sacrifice. He has to pledge to Heracles after he has already saved Alcestis to have his vow to his wife tested, to sacrifice his mourning and sanity for the sake of the hospitality he is known for by welcoming a woman he does not want to know into his home. It is because Admetus is willing to make this sacrifice, to suffer more than he probably should and still honour his wife and retain virtue, that Heracles gives his wife back to him, that he proves himself worthy and his wife sane for choosing to sacrifice to him.
This is then a tale of virtuous fools who have faith in one another. The most virtuous of these fools are willing to not just put their lives in another person's hands, but are willing to trust that the other is willing to return more to them than they have received as to continue the cycle of hospitality and virtue; to uphold the Mathew Principal.
The profound wisdom that Apollo and Euripides then allow us to perceive is one of patience, faith and sacrifice. They show us that it is not a god that ensures that those who have will have more. A god writes this rule, but it is a human that sees the rule acted out, that earns trusting that they will earn more, that does not lose for fear of never gaining again. Alcestis is a play that takes this philosophy to its absolute extreme, and, notably, Hippolytus is a play that shows a failure to engage this philosophy.
Previous post:
End Of The Week Shorts #64
Next post:
This Is England - To Call Truth, To Follow Truth
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
