As for the characters, that of
Alcestis must be acknowledged to be pre-eminently beautiful.
Alcestis must be acknowledged to be pre-eminently beautiful.
Euripides - Alcestis
p
THE ALCESTIS
OF
EURIPIDES
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE
WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY
GILBERT MURRAY, LL D, D LITT, FBA
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
1915
INTRODUCTION
The _Alcestis_ would hardly confirm its author's right to be
acclaimed "the most tragic of the poets. " It is doubtful whether one can
call it a tragedy at all. Yet it remains one of the most characteristic
and delightful of Euripidean dramas, as well as, by modern standards, the
most easily actable. And I notice that many judges who display nothing but
a fierce satisfaction in sending other plays of that author to the block
or the treadmill, show a certain human weakness in sentencing the gentle
daughter of Pelias.
The play has been interpreted in many different ways. There is the old
unsophisticated view, well set forth in Paley's preface of 1872. He
regards the _Alcestis_ simply as a triumph of pathos, especially of
"that peculiar sort of pathos which comes most home to us, with our views
and partialities for domestic life. . . . As for the characters, that of
Alcestis must be acknowledged to be pre-eminently beautiful. One could
almost imagine that Euripides had not yet conceived that bad opinion of
the sex which so many of the subsequent dramas exhibit. . . .
As for the characters, that of
Alcestis must be acknowledged to be pre-eminently beautiful. One could
almost imagine that Euripides had not yet conceived that bad opinion of
the sex which so many of the subsequent dramas exhibit. . . . But the rest
are hardly well-drawn, or, at least, pleasingly portrayed. " "The poet
might perhaps, had he pleased, have exhibited Admetus in a more amiable
point of view. "
This criticism is not very trenchant, but its weakness is due, I think,
more to timidity of statement than to lack of perception. Paley does see
that a character may be "well-drawn" without necessarily being "pleasing";
and even that he may be eminently pleasing as a part of the play while
very displeasing in himself. He sees that Euripides may have had his own
reasons for not making Admetus an ideal husband. It seems odd that such
points should need mentioning; but Greek drama has always suffered from a
school of critics who approach a play with a greater equipment of
aesthetic theory than of dramatic perception. This is the characteristic
defect of classicism. One mark of the school is to demand from dramatists
heroes and heroines which shall satisfy its own ideals; and, though there
was in the New Comedy a mask known to Pollux as "The Entirely-good Young
Man" ([Greek: panchraestos neaniskos]), such a character is fortunately
unknown to classical Greek drama.
The influence of this "classicist" tradition has led to a timid and
unsatisfying treatment of the _Alcestis_, in which many of the most
striking and unconventional features of the whole composition were either
ignored or smoothed away. As a natural result, various lively-minded
readers proceeded to overemphasize these particular features, and were
carried into eccentricity or paradox. Alfred Schone, for instance, fixing
his attention on just those points which the conventional critic passed
over, decides simply that the _Alcestis_ is a parody, and finds it
very funny.
THE ALCESTIS
OF
EURIPIDES
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE
WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY
GILBERT MURRAY, LL D, D LITT, FBA
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
1915
INTRODUCTION
The _Alcestis_ would hardly confirm its author's right to be
acclaimed "the most tragic of the poets. " It is doubtful whether one can
call it a tragedy at all. Yet it remains one of the most characteristic
and delightful of Euripidean dramas, as well as, by modern standards, the
most easily actable. And I notice that many judges who display nothing but
a fierce satisfaction in sending other plays of that author to the block
or the treadmill, show a certain human weakness in sentencing the gentle
daughter of Pelias.
The play has been interpreted in many different ways. There is the old
unsophisticated view, well set forth in Paley's preface of 1872. He
regards the _Alcestis_ simply as a triumph of pathos, especially of
"that peculiar sort of pathos which comes most home to us, with our views
and partialities for domestic life. . . . As for the characters, that of
Alcestis must be acknowledged to be pre-eminently beautiful. One could
almost imagine that Euripides had not yet conceived that bad opinion of
the sex which so many of the subsequent dramas exhibit. . . .
As for the characters, that of
Alcestis must be acknowledged to be pre-eminently beautiful. One could
almost imagine that Euripides had not yet conceived that bad opinion of
the sex which so many of the subsequent dramas exhibit. . . . But the rest
are hardly well-drawn, or, at least, pleasingly portrayed. " "The poet
might perhaps, had he pleased, have exhibited Admetus in a more amiable
point of view. "
This criticism is not very trenchant, but its weakness is due, I think,
more to timidity of statement than to lack of perception. Paley does see
that a character may be "well-drawn" without necessarily being "pleasing";
and even that he may be eminently pleasing as a part of the play while
very displeasing in himself. He sees that Euripides may have had his own
reasons for not making Admetus an ideal husband. It seems odd that such
points should need mentioning; but Greek drama has always suffered from a
school of critics who approach a play with a greater equipment of
aesthetic theory than of dramatic perception. This is the characteristic
defect of classicism. One mark of the school is to demand from dramatists
heroes and heroines which shall satisfy its own ideals; and, though there
was in the New Comedy a mask known to Pollux as "The Entirely-good Young
Man" ([Greek: panchraestos neaniskos]), such a character is fortunately
unknown to classical Greek drama.
The influence of this "classicist" tradition has led to a timid and
unsatisfying treatment of the _Alcestis_, in which many of the most
striking and unconventional features of the whole composition were either
ignored or smoothed away. As a natural result, various lively-minded
readers proceeded to overemphasize these particular features, and were
carried into eccentricity or paradox. Alfred Schone, for instance, fixing
his attention on just those points which the conventional critic passed
over, decides simply that the _Alcestis_ is a parody, and finds it
very funny.
