ALCESTIS
love that conquers death
According to Homer, Alcestis was the most beautiful of the daughters of
Pelias, king of Iolcus. The Archaic tradition knows her as a beautiful
bride: in order to win her, Admetos, the king of Pherae, had to perform
a difficult feat.
Through her self-sacrifice, which formed the subject of Phrynichus'
tragedy Alcestis, and also Euripides' work of the same name, Alcestis
became one of the most celebrated heroines in Greek mythology.
Apollo promised his friend Admetos that he would escape death if someone
else agreed to die in his place. When the critical time came, however,
no-one was prepared to do so. Even the king's mother and father, though
both aged, refused to agree to exchange their life for that of their
son. Only his young wife was prepared unhesitatingly to offer her
husband the greatest possible gift, which for her meant the end.
Alcestis is a happy woman, young, beautiful, mother of two young
children, daughter and wife of kings, who possess power and wealth and
would, after the death of Admetos, certainly find the best man available
to marry and continue to live the same tranquil, happy life.
Nevertheless, without the coercion of necessity, or misfortune and pain,
she decides to give her life to save that of her husband. For, as she
herself says at the moment she departs:
'(I) would not live on, torn away trom thee.'
Euripides, Alcestis 287 (Loeb edition)
Serene and dignified, as befits heroes, Alcestis is ready to set out on
a journey with no return. The only moment she gives way and allows her
pain and tears to show is when she bids farewell to the bed of love:
'O couch, whereon I loosed the maiden zone
For this man, for whose sake I die today,
Farewell: I hate thee not. Me hast thou slain,
me only: loth to fail thee and my lord
I die.'
Euripides, Alcestis 177-181 (Loeb edition)
Through her self-sacrifice, Alcestis becomes living proof of the power
of love.
'So high did her love exalt her (over the parents ot Admetos) that they
were proved alien to their son and but nominal relations; and when she
achieved this deed, it was judged so noble by gods as well as men, that
they sent up her soul again from Hades'
Plato, Symposium 179c (Loeb edition)
Death is compelled to retreat by the woman whose love is stronger than
the laws of nature and the laws of mortals. The finest of all women,
Alcestis becomes an eternal symbol of uncalculating love, of love that
knows no bounds.
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