Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1894) v1.djvu/459

Rh His exclamation (l. 726) that he cares not what men may say of him after his death—a sentiment simply atrocious to a Greek —is enough in itself to indicate that he is meant to be in the wrong throughout the altercation, in which he could have been in the right only on the supposition that he had as good a claim to live as his son, which is precisely what to the Greek was inconceivable. Failing the substitute who shirked his duty, Alcestis would be regarded as simply fulfilling hers in yielding her life. For here again, besides the obvious claims of wifely devotion, was the incontestable fact that the less precious life was given for the more precious. It was an axiom with the Greeks, which Euripides has in the Iphigeneia in Aulis (1394) put into words, that "the life of one man was better than that of ten thousand women." That Alcestis did but rise to the height of her duty is in no way inconsistent with the praises lavished upon her. A soldier who throws himself in front of his king to receive in his own body the stroke of an assassin or a foe is indeed extolled, but would he not be counted false to his duty, did he, at the supreme moment, shrink behind his king? The especial pathos of the situation to the audience lay in this, that the sacrifice of a young and happy woman was forced upon her by the cowardly selfishness, not of her husband, but of a miserable old man: that Admetus should not have found a substitute at all would have seemed monstrous.

3. Admetus reaped the just reward of the good man:—All the respectable characters of the play have nothing but sympathy for him. The Chorus—the embodiment of enlightened public opinion—praise him and condemn his parents: they put up prayers on his behalf: they offer for his consolation considerations which presuppose the paramount value of the life so redeemed, and express a nascent hope (ll. 603–5) that there may yet be blessing in store for him. Herakles, the incarnation of manliness and high courage, is full of sympathy and admiration for him, and is kindled to enthusiasm by his unselfish hospitality; and it is of cardinal importance to the right understanding of the situation that the turning-point of the plot is to be found in a crowning instance of Admetus' pre-eminent virtue, which is made the justification for the extreme measure by which the dénouement is effected, as though he alone of men were worthy to have the decrees of fate reversed in his favour. To adapt the words of a modern poet, his actions said, "Write me as one that loves his fellow-men" "and lo,