Summary of “Alkesta”
This is a tragedy with a happy ending. At the dramatic competitions in Athens there was a custom: every poet represented a “trilogy”, three tragedies, sometimes even picking up each other on topics (like Aeschylus), and after them, to discharge a gloomy mood – “satire drama,” where the characters and action were too, from myths, but the choir certainly consisted of cheerful satyrs, goat-legged and tailed companions of the god of wine Dionysus – accordingly, and the plot for her was chosen cheerful and fabulous. But it was not possible to adapt the satire chorus to every myth – and here the poet Euripides tried to make a final drama with a fairytale story, and with a happy ending, but without any satires. This was “Alcestida”.
A fairytale story here is the struggle of Hercules with Death. The Greeks, like all peoples, once thought that Death is a monstrous demon that comes to a dying man, grabs his soul and carries him to the
Here is how it was. God Apollo quarreled with his father, Thunderer Zeus, and was punished by them: Zeus ordered him to serve as a shepherd for a year in a mortal man – the king Admet. Admet was a kind and affectionate host, and Apollo also repaid him good. He gave drunk to the adamant Moir, goddesses of fate, measuring the time of human life, and made for Admeta a miracle: when Admet’s time comes to die, then for him, Admet, someone else may die, and he, Admet, will live his life for this other. The time
This is the beginning of the tragedy of Euripides. On the stage – the god Apollo and the demon of Death. The demon came to the soul of Alcestida – he gloated in a malicious joy: to kidnap a young life more pleasantly than the life of a mature husband. “You’re triumphing early,” Apollo tells him, “Be careful: soon a man will come here who will master you.”
The choir of local residents comes out on stage: they are alarmed, they love both the good king and the young queen, they do not know what kind of gods to pray for the death to pass. The Tsar’s maid tells them: it does not help now, the last hour has come. Alcestida prepared herself for death, washed herself, dressed in a death dress, prayed to the house gods: “Keep my husband and grant my children not a premature death, like me, but due, on the slope of the days!” She said good-bye to her marriage bed: “Oh, if another wife comes here, then she will be no better than me, but only happier!” She said good-bye to her children, her servants and her husband: Poor Admet, he remains alive, but he is tormented with anguish, as if he is dying. Now she will be taken out of the palace, so she said goodbye to the sunlight. “O grief, woe,” the choir sings, “if you can, Apollo, stop!”
From the palace they take out Alcestida, with her Admet, with them a young son and daughter. A general cry begins – Alcestida says goodbye to the earth and the sky, she can already hear the splash of the after-river. She refers to the Ad-Met: “This is my last request: do not take another wife, do not take my stepmother to our children, be the protector of your son, give a worthy husband to your daughter!” “I will not take another wife,” Admet answers, “I’ll be mourning for you till the end of days, there will be no joy in my house, no songs, and you’ll be in my dreams and meet me in hell when I die!” , why am I not Orpheus, who begged his beloved with an underground king for song! ” Alcestida’s speeches are shorter, she is silent, she is dead. The choir sings a dead parting song and promises her eternal glory between the living.
This is where Hercules appears. He goes north, he has another forced feat: to deal with a cruel king who kills visiting guests and feeds them with the meat of his mare-lyudoedits. King Admet is his friend, he wanted to rest and eat in his house – but in the house sadness, sadness, mourning –
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