No More Learning

* * * * *

In the above criticisms I feel that I may have done what critics are so
apt to do. I have dwelt on questions of intellectual interest and perhaps
thereby diverted attention from that quality in the play which is the most
important as well as by far the hardest to convey; I mean the sheer beauty
and delightfulness of the writing. It is the earliest dated play of
Euripides which has come down to us. True, he was over forty when he
produced it, but it is noticeably different from the works of his old age.
The numbers are smoother, the thought less deeply scarred, the language
more charming and less passionate. If it be true that poetry is bred out
of joy and sorrow, one feels as if more enjoyment and less suffering had
gone to the making of the _Alcestis_ than to that of the later plays.




ALCESTIS



CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY


ADMETUS, _King of Pherae in Thessaly_.
ALCESTIS, _daughter of Pelias, his wife_.
PHERES, _his father, formerly King but now in retirement_.
TWO CHILDREN, _his son and daughter_.
A MANSERVANT _in his house_.
A HANDMAID.

The Hero HERACLES.
The God APOLLO.
THANATOS _or_ DEATH.
CHORUS, _consisting of Elders of Pherae_.


"_The play was first performed when Glaukinos was Archon, in the 2nd
year of the 85th Olympiad_ (438 B. C. ). _Sophocles was first,
Euripides second with the Cretan Women, Alcmaeon in Psophis, Telephus and
Alcestis. . . . The play is somewhat Satyric in character. _"



ALCESTIS


_The scene represents the ancient Castle of_ ADMETUS _near Pherae
in Thessaly. It is the dusk before dawn_; APOLLO, _radiant in the
darkness, looks at the Castle. _


APOLLO.
Admetus' House! 'Twas here I bowed my head
Of old, and chafed not at the bondman's bread,
Though born in heaven. Aye, Zeus to death had hurled
My son, Asclepios, Healer of the World,
Piercing with fire his heart; and in mine ire
I slew his Cyclop churls, who forged the fire.
Whereat Zeus cast me forth to bear the yoke
Of service to a mortal.