Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Alcestis, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mortality and Happiness
Obligation, Limitations, and Fate
Hospitality and Friendship
Loyalty
Summary
Analysis
The chorus and Admetos re-enter. Admetos is in deep grief. He says that his home is no longer among the living; he wishes he were among the dead. He envies those who have never married, who live only for themselves and never know “how much [they] had to lose.” The chorus replies that Admetos cannot fight with death; he must accept his loss, realizing that “some soon, some late, every man is curbed / by suffering or fate.”
Admetos is coming to terms with the profundity of his loss. It turns out that the life for which he bargained so dearly is hardly worth living without Alcestis. He wishes he wasn’t subject to the bonds of human relationship and the pain these bring. The chorus admonishes him, however, arguing that such bonds are part of life and cannot be enjoyed without simultaneously accepting loss and pain.
Themes
The chorus further points out that Admetos has always had good luck. He’s never known suffering, so sorrow “found [him] unprepared.” Admetos continues to despair; he has learned too late that his life isn’t worth living. He has also lost his honor, as society will mock him as a coward for letting Alcestis die in his place.
The chorus drives the point home—Admetos has spent his life avoiding the human obligation to suffer. Bereavement, an ordinary human event, has disoriented him, robbing him of his sense of self and his place in society.
Themes
The chorus sings, “Necessity is stone / […] against her hard, relentless coming on, / all your craft and intellect are weak / […] Suffer and submit.” Then the chorus addresses Admetos directly, exhorting him to bear his loss bravely, “for she was / brave. […] / Then will you be less brave?”
The chorus sings an instructive song about “Necessity”—in Greek, ananke—which is a more impersonal force (hence “stone”) than personified Fate. Necessity cannot be outmaneuvered; it demands submission. Alcestis understood this and acted accordingly. The chorus summons Admetos to a comparable bravery by coming to terms with death.
Themes
