Euripides Alcestis

The Alcestis was the fourth play of the day after a trilogy of tragedies, but it has no chorus of satyrs. We have one full satyr-play, the Cyclops of Euripides, and a fragment of another. That is all we have. Usually, the Alcestis is called a "pro-satyr play." That title means "in place of a satyr play." It was produced in 438BCE.

Arrowsmith's introduction analyses the play in what he calls modal terms. He claims that such analysis is superior to "trivializing" interpretations that impose modern notions on the play. In other words, much of the discussion we have had in this class Arrowsmith would call "trivializing." Personally, I think that is a bunch of hooey: we are entitled to come up with our own readings of the plays, and to call them "trivializing" is insulting and says more about Mr. Arrowsmith than about us.

That said, Arrowsmith's analysis is very good. Just don't let him get away with denigrating other interpretations.

By "modal," Arrowsmith apparently means that Greeks had some different ways of thinking about things and different ways of doing theater from us.

For one, the actors were masked: what does that do to the plays? Makes what they depict universal? Makes them stiff? Makes us constantly aware that this is artificial and an imitation, not real? Rejects realism?

For another, humans are constantly defined in these plays as mortal in contrast to the immortals. Humans are also often defined as aware of their own mortality in contrast to animals, which are not aware of their own mortality. These are three modes of existence.

Death is only one of the necessities which humans are subject to and which gods are (largely) exempt from: oppression, old age, politics, suffering, sexuality, slavery. And yet, most of these others do affect the gods once in a while in some way (aside from old age).

Another "modal" categorization occurs amongst humans themselves in terms of each human's societal role. In our world, there is a deeply engrained normalcy to the idea that all humans are created equal (think of the Americanism "Any child can grow up to be president"). In most societies throughout history, including Greco-Roman antiquity, that was not so. Rather, there was a deep normalcy to the idea that humans are created unequal and what is more, that societal conventions which categorize humans into slaves, serfs, women (as if that were not fully human), merchants/crafters/traders, nobles, etc. are normal and proper. In western history, our notion that all humans are created equal, however, started with the Greeks, in Athens especially. They did not go far along the path towards equality, but they went far enough to create a good deal of tension in the "normalcy" of their categorizations of humans. That tension makes their literature more interesting.

In terms of history, we often hear about "the good old days": many older folks are convinced that they youth of today are different (sometimes they think they are better, sometimes worse than the youth were when they were young). The Greeks had that too, but they also had "heroic times," when "humans" had super-powers of various sorts. Think of Heracles, Theseus, and other "heroes" of Greek mythology.

The phases of life for Greeks are also modally distinct: youth, adult, old man. Maiden, married woman and mother, old woman.
Wealth: rich vs. poor.

These societal and historic "modes" are facets of humanity for Greeks, and the masks show the characters' modality instantly, according to the ancient lexicographer Pollux' list of tragic masks (which may not apply to the 5th century precisely, but indicates that such distinctions were made  in later ancient stage production).

As Arrowsmith puts it:
"The hero is always interesting to the Greek mind because he is a modal frontiersman; he confounds old modalities and redefines the boundaries between man and god....Implicit, often explicit, everywhere in Greek literature is a great hierarchy of being which runs from absolute, intrammeled Olympian possibility at the top, to sheer, wretched subjection to total necessity at the bottom. To this hierarchy the Greeks thought it possible, and natural--indeed, almost second nature-- to assign men and events. No body of thought is so overwhelmingly pervaded by such emphasis upon modal distinctions; no other literature is so concentratede upon the effotr to clarify, realise, and "place" the modes of existence. The spectrum is, of course, usually aristocratic, but the aristocracy involved is basically not that of blood but of achievement and arete." (P. 5 intro.)

The idea seems to be that Greeks were obsessed with a clear coherent picture of the place of every being in a cosmic hierarchy.
Mortals know their place. Gods impose humans' necessities upon humans. Only heroes, fools, and youth resist, and that resistance is hybris, a refusal to know one's place.

Think of the following contrasts between people who "know their place" and those who don't:
Antigone and Ismene
Oedipus and Creon (in Oedipus Rex)
Admetus and Alcestis
Polyneices and Oedipus (in Oedipus at Colonus)?
The second is a foil for the first: it defines by contrast, and the contrast has knowledge of the mode of one's existence at its root.

Those who know their place are said to be sophron, a Greek word which translates as "moderate," "self-controlled."

Arrowsmith points out that the way such modes are defined is by the language of necessity, force, coercion, yoking, etc.

Now to apply some of that to the Alcestis (section III of Arrowsmith's introduction).

"Admetus learns from Alcestis' death that each man must do his own dying, that death is the ultimate and most personal of facts." The play is Admetus' "schooling in mortality."

But humans do frequently die for others, and that is often considered the height of noble action. Society constantly asks some of its members to die for others. The plot of a human who can escape death by finding a surrogate is a concentrated particular example of that broader phenomenon.

"Only in the presence of death does life reveal its value."

"Those who reveal that value (the value of life) best are the heroes--those who, like Alcestis and Heracles, knowingly confront death on behalf of others. The hero, as Nietzsche knew, is the only justification of human life." Please tell me what that means!

The conceit of the play is that necessity is lifted for Admetus, twice: once, when he can find a surrogate to escape death, and again, when his surrogate is brought back from death. But the lifting of necessity itself is a schooling in necessity.

Admetus is a man who has not been subject to necessity:
He is ignorant of his own modality of being: a human, mortal and subject to aging. We see him as egotistical, self-centered, but what we see as "abnormal" in that way was in fact much closer to normal for Greeks.

Alcestis is the wife (damar "tamed, subdued") of Admetus, "the untamed one."
Apollo is subject to the necessity of being a servant and death claims that Apollo can't have his way (even though Apollo does in the end) and save Alcestis.
Heracles is subject to the necessity of his labors and servitude to Eurystheus.

Pheres, Admetus' father, clearly begins the shattering of Admetus' modal ignorance: Admetus thinks that his father should die for him, but his father rejects that notion. He refuses to be subject to Admetus in language that is clearly focused on rejecting the yoke of domination which he sees Admetus as trying to foist on him. Modern interpreters see the scene between father Pheres and son Admetus as a confrontation between two egotists that is almost gratuitous dramatic fireworks. Arrowsmith sees Pheres as outraged common sense talking to a man who has no sense of his place in the world.

Admetus cannot assign the worth which others deserve to them: he asks his father and mother to die for him, he is willing to let Alcestis die for him, he want to provide hospitality in spite of his wife's death, etc.

Arrowsmith perhaps falls into the trap of psychological interpretation which he so deplores: he calls Admetus an innocent spoiled child, basically. What is the really crucial difference between that and modern trivializing interpretations which see Admetus as an unadulterated egotist? Sure, it is couched in terms of "his place in the world" and necessity, etc. , but what is the real difference? I believe that there is a difference, but it is one of form, not necessarily one of ultimate substance. Form is important.

Admetus is torn between the demands of his friend Heracles (that he accept the girl), the demands of his promise to Alcestis (that he won't permit festivities for a year after her death and won't take a new wife), and the demands of honor and necessity. He struggles (and fails?) to negotiate those demands honorably. He knows he will fail in his loyalty to Alcestis, but he tries not to do so.

Heracles' drunken speech rehashes the themes of the play quite well. Life takes on meaning thru the ever present knowledge of death. Life also takes on meaning thru the ever present Aphrodite. Take pleasure when it is there: humans are "miserably mortal."

Alcestis comes to realize that even in escaping death, he is subjected to it, for Alcestis' death hollowed out his life. He needed (necessity) her.

The final giving in to Heracles' request that he take the girl comes after stronger and stronger professions of loyalty to Alcestis: his need is juxtaposed with his human weakness.

Arrowsmith quotes Shakespeare's Marianna in Measure for Measure:
They say, best men are moulded out of faults,
And, for the most part, become much more the better
For being a little bad: so may my husband.
That our faults are opportunities to learn about ourselves and to shape ourselves into better people seems to be the idea. It's not a simple matter of correcting the fault, but rather the fault and its realization teaches us humility.

If Admetus embodies learning thru suffering the yoke of necessity, Alcestis embodies arete, excellence. She is the instrument of Admetus' schooling, and she achieves everlasting renown in myth for her noble action. She embodies human, not male, excellence, as the hero, particularly at the moment of her unveiling, when she says nothing.

Greeks were tremendously impressed with and obviously believed in the reality of heroic achievement: these heroes exist in the present for the Greeks. They are not merely the past that is over and done with. The Greeks worshipped many  heroes via cults. They represent pinnacles of human achievements. Just as a stone building can be a lasting monument, myth sets up lasting monuments that survive thru time. Alcestis' action in myth make her a lasting monument to human excellence.