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Harder, Ruth E.
1993.
Die Frauenrollen bei Euripides.
p.
418.
Article contents
Admetus, Verrall, and Professor Myres
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
Many people have failed to understand the Alcestis, and for the reasons Goethe suggests. Romanticists are grieved because Admetus, Pheres, and Heracles are human beings. As M. Masqueray observes, ‘Notre hypocrisie s'accommode mal d'une telle franchise.’ Verrall is delighted that the characters should be human beings, but refuses to permit them to ‘talk Greek.’ His ‘rational’ theory that the object of Euripides was to ‘expose’ the miraculous legend, by suggesting that Alcestis never died at all, rests on an assumption that, to an Athenian, the resurrection of the heroine, ‘as a piece of history, asserted or denied,’ was a matter of religious moment. But, for a Greek, the truth of the alleged resurrection involved no vital issues. The first lesson of religion was not ‘Believe that Apollo, through Heracles, could raise Alcestis from the dead, and, believing, have faith and hope,’ but something very different: ‘Know that thou art mortal, and, being mortal, practise moderation.’ It was the unorthodox, the ‘progressive,’ who, in ancient Athens, ventured to believe that mortal men should ‘practise immortality.’ Euripides contributed to new ideas by criticising the old. But his task was as far removed from that of Verrall's ‘Professor T. H …’ as was the mind of Nikias from that of Mr. Gladstone. For an ordinary Athenian the point was not that Alcestis rose from the dead, but that she died to save her husband's life. To argue the possibility or impossibility of her resurrection would, I submit, have appeared to the Athenian as trivial as it is depressing. If we want to understand Greek plays, we must remember that they were written by Athenians for an audience which was pagan, not Christian, Greek, not English. The characters talk Greek. It is our business, before we begin to criticise, to ascertain exactly what they say.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1919
References
1 Aesch. Eum. 538, 548, 269; Sup. 709; Eur. Heracl. Fr. (N. 853). The equation αἰδεῖσθαι σοφία Eur. I.A. 563, has dramatic importance for that play. For the the dramatic importance of ςοφία see Alc. 303, 327, 552, 565, 728, 779, 1093.
2 Od. vi. 161–168; Eur. Phoen. 1042, Rhes. 242; Plato, Symp. 179B.
3 See Myres, in J.H.S. 1917, pp. 196 ff.Google Scholar Though I agree with much that Myres says, I do not think the motive of Alcestis is to avoid remarriage. Alcestis dies in order that Admetus may live; and that makes all the difference, when she asks him not to marry again. The request is abnormal, but Myres does not explain Hip. 858–862, where Theseus expects just the same request from his dead wife. Perhaps he would say that Theseus was old and Admetus young. But the real test of his argument is in lines 179–181, where Myres paraphrases, but does not quote. For the sake of greater accuracy I have obtained a copy of Euripides. Alcestis says: Ω λέκτρον . . . χαῖρ οὐ γὰρ ἐχθαίρω σ᾿ . ἀπώλεσας δ᾿ ἐμὲ μόνην προδοῖναι γάρ σ᾿ ὀκνοῦσα καὶ πόσιν θνῄσκω σὲ δ᾿ ἄλλη τις γυνὴ κακτήσεται Myres paraphrases: ‘For her married life she has no hard thought. Tragic as it has been for her, it has at least brought disaster to no one but herself; and it has only brought it to her because, for her, remarriage would have been intolerable betrayal of her troth to Admetus.’ But why not paraphrase thus: ‘…it has only brought it to her, because, for her, a refusal to die for her husband, when one or the other had to die, would have been intolerable betrayal of her troth’? λέκτρον προδοῦναι suggests adultery; but that does not imply what Myres wants. She dies (to put the phrase at its highest) because she refuses to do something which for her would amount to as great a betrayal as adultery. What? An Athenian audience would naturally suppose she meant ‘refusing to die for him,’ not ‘marrying again.’ Myres treats 157 as an indication that Alcestis must have expressed ‘a point of view … new, surprising, quite incomprehensible to the Maid.’ Is he not treating θαυμἀσει as Verrall treated ἆγαμαι? And does ἔδρασε suggest ‘the expression of a point of view, etc’ ? I submit that line 157 refers to the whole of Alcestis’ behaviour, as narrated. It seems to me sufficiently sublime. Finally, in his anxiety to make Alcestis' request as abnormal as possible, Myres paraphrases lines 300–302, αιτήσομαι γὰρ σ᾿ ἀξίαν μέν οὔποτε ψυχῆς γὰρ οὺδέν ἐστι τιμιώτερον into ‘It is a very big thing that I am about to ask of you, Admetus: almost as big as what I am about to do for you.’ Would he paraphrase Il. ix. 401, οὐ γἀρ ἐμοὶ ψυχῆς into ‘The wealth of Ilion is almost, though not quite, as much to me as my life’ ? In 327 he waters down ἤνπερ μή φρενῶν ἀμαρτάνη (which he prefers, for some reason, to εἴπερ . . . ἁμαρτάνει) into ‘accidents (of course) apart.’ But it means ‘if he continues to be in his right mind’ εὖ φρονεῖν) Later, it is true, when the first emotion is over, the natural man, Heracles, will regard fidelity as μωρία (1093).
4 Though the scene has folklore elements (Lawson, , Modern Greek Folklore, p. 115)Google Scholar, it is serious. There are many reminiscences of Eum. 931 ff.
5 See 1085–6: ΗΡ. χρόνος μαλάξει . . . ΑΔ. . . . εἰ χρόνος τὸ κατθανεῖν
6 The normal Greek view is expressed in the drinking song which, Eustathius tells us (Il. ii. 711), used to be sung at Athens: ῾᾿Αδ μήτου λόγον ὦ ῾ ταῖρε μαθών, τούς ἀγαθοὺς φίλει τῶν δειλῶν δ᾿ ἀπέχου, γνοὐς ὄτι δειλῶν ὀλίγα χάρις .᾿ Plato, Symposium (179B): Alcestis consented to die for her husband, ὔντων αὐτψ῀ πατρός τε καὶ μητρός, οὑς ἐκείνη τοσοῦτον ὐπερεβάλετο τῇ φιλίᾳ . . . ὤστε ἀποδεϊξαι αὐτοὺς ἀλλοτρίους ὔντας τψ῀ υἰεῖ καὶ ὀνὀματι μὁνον προσήκοντας
7 The Homeric hero fought and died for fame. Admetus' great anxiety for reputation is not contemptible. Good fame is more to a Greek, and ill fame more nearly approaches guilt, than we moderns generally admit—though here again, perhaps, ‘notre hypocrisie s'accommode mal d'une telle franchise.’ If you care to realise what good fame means in Greek, read Walter Headlam's essay (C.R. xix. 1905, p. 149) on Pindar, , Nem. viii. 32 ff.Google Scholar Greece, as he shows, inspired Milton when he sang: ‘Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil … But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes | And perfect witness of all-judging Jove.’ And tnen consider Plato, Symp. 208 C–D: Οἴει σύ, ἔφη, ᾿´Αλκηστιν ὑπέρ ᾿Αδμήτου ἀποθανεῖν ἄν, ἤ ᾿Αχιλλία Πατρ´κλψ ἐπαποθανεῖν . . . μἠ οἰομένους ἀθάνατον μνἡμην ἀρετῆς περί ἑαυτῶν ἐσέσθαι . . . . . . ἑπέρ ἀρετῆς ἀθανάτου καὶ τοιαὑτης δόξης εὐκλεοῦς πάντες πάντα ποιοῦσιν, ὄσῳ ἄν ἀμείνους ὦσι, τοσούτψ μᾶλλον τοῦ γὰρ ἀθανάτου ἐρῶσιν
8 The stages are marked by the words ἀρτὶ μανθάνω (940) and ἀρτὶ . . . γεύομαι (1070). In 1067 ff. the symptoms of his emotion are traditional symptoms of lyrical passion, immortalised by Sappho.
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