Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1894) v1.djvu/460

424 Admetus' name led all the rest." We might go so far as to say that for the Greek audience the real theme of the play was not so much "The devotion of Alcestis," as "The reward of virtue," just as for a Hebrew the subject of the crowning episode of his first father's history was not "The self-devotion of Isaac," but "The faith and obedience of Abraham."

The foregoing remarks are, of course, not designed to change the modern reader's estimate of Admetus' action, but to show that he was not intended to be lowered in the eyes of the audience, and that whatever censure we pronounce must include also a condemnation of some fundamental principles of Greek ethics.

 

The following plan will make the disposition of the troops clear:—

