Alcestis Part 15

P. 53, l. 945 ff., The floor unswept.]--Probably the floor really would be unswept in the house of a primitive Thessalian chieftain whose wife was dead and her place unfilled; but I doubt if the point would have been mentioned so straightforwardly in a real tragedy.

Pp. 54-55, l. 966 ff., That which Needs Must Be.]--Ananke or Necessity.-- Orphic rune.]--The charms inscribed by Orpheus on certain tablets in Thrace. Orphic literature and wors.h.i.+p had a strong magical element in them.

P. 55, l. 995 ff., A grave-mound of the dead.]--Every existing Greek tragedy has somewhere in it a taboo grave--a grave which is either wors.h.i.+pped, or specially avoided or somehow magical. We may conjecture from this pa.s.sage that there was in the time of Euripides a sacred tomb near Pherae, which received wors.h.i.+p and had the story told about it that she who lay there had died for her husband.

Pp. 56-67, ll. 1008-end. This last scene must have been exceedingly difficult to compose, and some critics have thought it ineffective or worse. To me it seems brilliantly conceived and written, though of course it needs to be read with the imagination strongly at work. One must never forget the silent and veiled Woman on whom the whole scene centres. I have tried conjecturally to indicate the main lines of her acting, but, of course, others may read it differently.

To understand Heracles in this scene, one must first remember the traditional connexion of Satyrs (and therefore of satyric heroes) with the re-awakening of the dead Earth in spring and the return of human souls to their tribe. Dionysus was, of all the various Kouroi, the one most widely connected with resurrection ideas, and the Satyrs are his attendant daemons, who dance magic dances at the Return to Life of Semele or Persephone. And Heracles himself, in certain of his ritual aspects, has similar functions. See J.E. Harrison, _Themis_, pp. 422 f. and 365 ff., or my _Four Stages of Greek Religion_, pp. 46 f. This tradition explains, to start with, what Heracles--and this particular sort of revelling Heracles--has to do in a resurrection scene. Heracles bringing back the dead is a datum of the saga. There remain then the more purely dramatic questions about our poet's treatment of the datum.

Why, for instance, does Heracles mystify Admetus with the Veiled Woman? To break the news gently, or to retort his own mystification upon him? I think, the latter. Admetus had said that "a woman" was dead; Heracles says: "All right: here is 'a woman' whom I want you to look after."

Again, what are the feelings of Admetus himself? First, mere indignation and disgust at the utterly tactless proposal: then, I think, in 1061 ff.

("I must walk with care" ... end of speech), a strange discovery about himself which amazes and humiliates him. As he looks at the woman he finds himself feeling how exactly like Alcestis she is, and then yearning towards her, almost falling in love with her. A most beautiful and poignant touch. In modern language one would say that his subconscious nature feels Alcestis there and responds emotionally to her presence; his conscious nature, believing the woman to be a stranger, is horrified at his own apparent baseness and inconstancy.

P. 57, l. 1051, Where in my castle, etc.]--The castle is divided into two main parts: a public _megaron_ or great hall where the men live during; the day and sleep at night, and a private region, ruled by the queen and centring in the _thalamos_ or royal bed-chamber. If the new woman were taken into this "harem," even if Admetus never spoke to her, the world outside would surmise the worst and consider him dishonoured.

P. 66, l. 1148, Be righteous to thy guest, As he would have thee be.]-- Does this mean "Go on being hospitable, as you have been," or "Learn after this not to take liberties with other guests"? It is hard to say.

P. 66, l. 1152, The feasting day shall surely come; now I must needs away.]--A fine last word for Heracles. We have seen him feasting, but that makes a small part in his life. His main life is to perform labour upon labour in service to his king. Euripides occasionally liked this method of ending a play, not with a complete finish (Greek _catastrophe_), but with the opening of a door into some further vista of endurance or adventure. The _Trojan Women_ ends by the women going out to the Greek s.h.i.+ps to begin a life of slavery; the _Rhesus_ with the doomed army of Trojans gathering bravely for an attack which we know will be disastrous. Here we have the story finished for Admetus and Alcestis, but no rest for Heracles. See the note at the end of my _Trojan Women_.

THE END