No More Learning

There are those who
have taken the play for a criticism of contemporary politics or the
current law of inheritance. Above all there is the late Dr. Verrall's
famous essay in _Euripides the Rationalist_, explaining it as a
psychological criticism of a supposed Delphic miracle, and arguing that
Alcestis in the play does not rise from the dead at all. She had never
really died; she only had a sort of nervous catalepsy induced by all the
"suggestion" of death by which she was surrounded. Now Dr. Verrall's work,
as always, stands apart. Even if wrong, it has its own excellence, its
special insight and its extraordinary awakening power. But in general the
effect of reading many criticisms on the _Alcestis_ is to make a
scholar realize that, for all the seeming simplicity of the play,
competent Grecians have been strangely bewildered by it, and that after
all there is no great reason to suppose that he himself is more sensible
than his neighbours.

This is depressing. None the less I cannot really believe that, if we make
patient use of our available knowledge, the _Alcestis_ presents any
startling enigma. In the first place, it has long been known from the
remnants of the ancient Didascalia, or official notice of production, that
the _Alcestis_ was produced as the fourth play of a series; that is,
it took the place of a Satyr-play. It is what we may call Pro-satyric.
(See the present writer's introduction to the _Rhesus_. ) And we
should note for what it is worth the observation in the ancient Greek
argument: "The play is somewhat satyr-like ([Greek: saturiphkoteron]). It
ends in rejoicing and gladness against the tragic convention.
"

Now we are of late years beginning to understand much better what a
Satyr-play was. Satyrs have, of course, nothing to do with satire, either
etymologically or otherwise. Satyrs are the attendant daemons who form the
Komos, or revel rout, of Dionysus. They are represented in divers
fantastic forms, the human or divine being mixed with that of some animal,
especially the horse or wild goat. Like Dionysus himself, they are
connected in ancient religion with the Renewal of the Earth in spring and
the resurrection of the dead, a point which students of the
_Alcestis_ may well remember. But in general they represent mere
joyous creatures of nature, unthwarted by law and unchecked by
self-control. Two notes are especially struck by them: the passions and
the absurdity of half-drunken revellers, and the joy and mystery of the
wild things in the forest.

The rule was that after three tragedies proper there came a play, still in
tragic diction, with a traditional saga plot and heroic characters, in
which the Chorus was formed by these Satyrs. There was a deliberate clash,
an effect of burlesque; but of course the clash must not be too brutal.
Certain characters of the heroic saga are, so to speak, at home with
Satyrs and others are not. To take our extant specimens of Satyr-plays,
for instance: in the _Cyclops_ we have Odysseus, the heroic
trickster; in the fragmentary _Ichneutae_ of Sophocles we have the
Nymph Cyllene, hiding the baby Hermes from the chorus by the most
barefaced and pleasant lying; later no doubt there was an entrance of the
infant thief himself. Autolycus, Sisyphus, Thersites are all Satyr-play
heroes and congenial to the Satyr atmosphere; but the most congenial of
all, the one hero who existed always in an atmosphere of Satyrs and the
Komos until Euripides made him the central figure of a tragedy, was
Heracles.
[Footnote: The character of Heracles in connexion with the Komos, already
indicated by Wilamowitz and Dieterich (_Herakles_, pp. 98, ff. ;
_Pulcinella_, pp. 63, ff.