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'Quite unexpected! And is that all?, must have been the comment of those in the Athenian audience (and there were probably not a few) who had followed the play so far with the desire to see in it a bona fide version of the sacred legend. 'If it is unexpected, why then it is all!' might have been the reply of those (and even as early as the date of the Alcestis they must have been a large majority) who understood the attitude of Euripides, and sympathized with him sufficiently to desire that he should be allowed, so far as might be, the means of public expression. The conclusion of the piece, from the moment when Heracles is asked for a narrative of his enterprise, is on the face of it a mere ironical mystification, representing no conceivable reality, felt to be incredible even by readers who have not been