No More Learning

There was first the
danger of their being left fatherless, a dire calamity in the heroic age.
She could meet that danger by dying herself. Then followed the danger of a
stepmother. She meets that by making Admetus swear never to marry. In the
long run, I fancy, the effect of gracious loveliness which Alcestis
certainly makes is not so much due to any words of her own as to what the
Handmaid and the Serving Man say about her. In the final scene she is
silent; necessarily and rightly silent, for all tradition knows that those
new-risen from the dead must not speak. It will need a long _rite de
passage_ before she can freely commune with this world again. It is a
strange and daring scene between the three of them; the humbled and
broken-hearted husband; the triumphant Heracles, kindly and wise, yet
still touched by the mocking and blustrous atmosphere from which he
sprang; and the silent woman who has seen the other side of the grave.
It was always her way to know things but not to speak of them.

The other characters fall easily into their niches. We have only to
remember the old Satyric tradition and to look at them in the light of
their historical development. Heracles indeed, half-way on his road from
the roaring reveller of the Satyr-play to the suffering and erring
deliverer of tragedy, is a little foreign to our notions, but quite
intelligible and strangely attractive. The same historical method seems to
me to solve most of the difficulties which have been felt about Admetus's
hospitality. Heracles arrives at the castle just at the moment when
Alcestis is lying dead in her room; Admetus conceals the death from him
and insists on his coming in and enjoying himself. What are we to think of
this behaviour?
Is it magnificent hospitality, or is it gross want of
tact? The answer, I think, is indicated above.

In the uncritical and boisterous atmosphere of the Satyr-play it was
natural hospitality, not especially laudable or surprising. From the
analogy of similar stories I suspect that Admetus originally did not know
his guest, and received not so much the reward of exceptional virtue as
the blessing naturally due to those who entertain angels unawares. If we
insist on asking whether Euripides himself, in real life or in a play of
his own free invention, would have considered Admetus's conduct to
Heracles entirely praiseworthy, the answer will certainly be No, but it
will have little bearing on the play. In the _Alcestis_, as it stands, the
famous act of hospitality is a datum of the story. Its claims are admitted
on the strength of the tradition. It was the act for which Admetus was
specially and marvellously rewarded; therefore, obviously, it was an act
of exceptional merit and piety. Yet the admission is made with a smile,
and more than one suggestion is allowed to float across the scene that in
real life such conduct would be hardly wise.

Heracles, who rose to tragic rank from a very homely cycle of myth, was
apt to bring other homely characters with him. He was a great killer not
only of malefactors but of "keres" or bogeys, such as "Old Age" and "Ague"
and the sort of "Death" that we find in this play. Thanatos is not a god,
not at all a King of Terrors. One may compare him with the dancing
skeleton who is called Death in mediaeval writings. When such a figure
appears on the tragic stage one asks at once what relation he bears to
Hades, the great Olympian king of the unseen. The answer is obvious.
Thanatos is the servant of Hades, a "priest" or sacrificer, who is sent to
fetch the appointed victims.