No More Learning

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. ), has been illuminatingly developed in an
unpublished monograph by Mr. J. A. K. Thomson, of Aberdeen.
]

The complete Satyr-play had a hero of this type and a Chorus of Satyrs.
But the complete type was refined away during the fifth century; and one
stage in the process produced a play with a normal chorus but with one
figure of the Satyric or "revelling" type. One might almost say the
"comic" type if, for the moment, we may remember that that word is
directly derived from 'Komos. '

The _Alcestis_ is a very clear instance of this Pro-satyric class of
play. It has the regular tragic diction, marked here and there (393,
756, 780, etc. ) by slight extravagances and forms of words which are
sometimes epic and sometimes over-colloquial; it has a regular saga plot,
which had already been treated by the old poet Phrynichus in his
_Alcestis_, a play which is now lost but seems to have been Satyric;
and it has one character straight from the Satyr world, the heroic
reveller, Heracles. It is all in keeping that he should arrive tired,
should feast and drink and sing; should be suddenly sobered and should go
forth to battle with Death. It is also in keeping that the contest should
have a half-grotesque and half-ghastly touch, the grapple amid the graves
and the cracking ribs.

* * * * *

So much for the traditional form. As for the subject, Euripides received
it from Phrynichus, and doubtless from other sources. We cannot be sure of
the exact form of the story in Phrynichus. But apparently it told how
Admetus, King of Pherae in Thessaly, received from Apollo a special
privilege which the God had obtained, in true Satyric style, by making the
Three Fates drunk and cajoling them. This was that, when his appointed
time for death came, he might escape if he could find some volunteer to
die for him. His father and mother, from whom the service might have been
expected, refused to perform it. His wife, Alcestis, though no blood
relation, handsomely undertook it and died. But it so happened that
Admetus had entertained in his house the demi-god, Heracles; and when
Heracles heard what had happened, he went out and wrestled with Death,
conquered him, and brought Alcestis home.