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
A chorus, a group of elderly citizens of Pherai, gather at the palace entrance. The chorus leader, noting the house’s silence, wonders if Alcestis still lives. “If bravery and love deserve the light,” he says, “no woman on this earth / […] ever less deserved to die!”
In ancient Greek tragedies, a chorus consisted of 12 to 15 singers, usually elderly men. The chorus served as a kind of mediator between audience and actors, represented traditional social mores, and/or exhorted the protagonist—a function that will appear later. Here, the chorus leader praises Alcestis, introducing the symbol of light for human life that serves as a contrast to Alcestis’s inevitable fate of death.
Themes
The chorus searches in vain for the customary signs of death, knowing that Alcestis’s death has been decreed. The leader observes that “When the good are hurt, those who love them suffer too. / We love, and love hurts.” The chorus remarks that, had Asklepios, “Apollo’s healing son,” survived, he might have intervened: “he medicine to life and saved / death-tamed and -broken men.” But Zeus killed Asklepios for this presumption, and now there is no hope.
Besides the conspicuous silence, the chorus is puzzled by the absence of traditional markers of a household death, like “the cleansing water / custom prescribes” at the door, or locks of hair hanging in the courtyard to honor the dead. The chorus leader observes that love necessarily brings suffering with it and that, with Asklepios dead, there is no obvious way to overcome death; there is a fixed chasm between the gods and human mortality.
Themes
The chorus leader sees that Alcestis’s maid is coming out of the palace; she is weeping. He asks if Alcestis still lives. The maid replies that the queen is dying, and that Admetos “does not know the meaning of his loss. / He will not know, until it is too late.” Furthermore, nothing can be done to save Alcestis because “Her destiny is too strong, / a force she cannot fight.”
The chorus leader praises Alcestis as “incomparably a queen” with no earthly rival. The maid agrees, saying that Alcestis not only surpasses all women in the magnitude of her love, but also in “bravery and beauty in the face of death.”
Alcestis is presented, through the eyes of her loyal servants and subjects, as the epitome of loyalty, love, and courage before death. They compare her to other women, but she seems to surpass Admetos in these ways as well.
Themes
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The maid gives an account of Alcestis’s preparations for death. That morning, Alcestis bathed in the river and dressed herself in her loveliest clothes. Then, she knelt before the hearth and prayed that the goddess would protect her children, giving her son a loving wife and her daughter a kind husband, and allowing both to live long lives. She then quietly prayed at each of the home altars. But in her room, she wept over her bed, remembering that here she “offered my maiden body and my love / to Admetos. Now I offer him my life.” Then, her children and servants gathered around her as Alcestis bid each of them a fond and gracious goodbye.
Euripides presents Alcestis’s character initially through others’ eyes, building anticipation of her as a consummate queen and heroine. Alcestis’s actions, such as her devotion to Hestia, the domestic goddess of the hearth, display her piety, and her tearful farewells make her loyalty in self-sacrifice even more affecting. She is, in short, an ideal wife, fulfilling her obligations at home and in the world.
Themes
The maid concludes, “What has [Admetos] gained but life? / If he had died, he would have lost Alcestis. / Now, as matters stand, he has lost her anyway.” As a result, Admetos’s life will taste of “bitterness that lasts.”
The humble maid has a more realistic insight into Admetos’s situation than he does, highlighting the king’s hubris. She perceives that Admetos’s life, preserved at such high cost, won’t seem worth it to him before long.
Themes
The maid further reports that Admetos is weeping and imploring Alcestis not to leave him. Alcestis, rapidly fading, calls for a last view of the light. The maid excuses herself to announce the chorus leader’s arrival, adding, “It isn’t everyone who cares about this house / or is ready to share our sorrows with us. / But you have always been a good and loyal friend, / and, sir, you’re welcome here.” The maid exits.
The drama of Alcestis’s death builds up before she even appears onstage. She longs to see the light of the sun for as long as possible before departing to the dark underworld. The chorus leader is characterized as a “good and loyal friend” because of his willingness to shoulder his friends’ sorrows. This anticipates the arrival of Herakles later in the play, and the more ambiguous welcome he will receive from Admetos.
Themes
