DOCSLIB.ORG

The Alcestis of Euripides

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Alcestis of Euripides I L L I N O S UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Brittle Books Project, 2012. COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION In Public Domain. Published prior to 1923. This digital copy was made from the printed version held by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was made in, compliance with copyright law. Prepared for the Brittle Books Project, Main Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2012 881 E8a. b 1900 ~~~t1;4 I i : i. i'"P * ~-~317..i?;~s:i: . !-: ' .,5 c~-- ~ir i0~ d' ~'z d r --* ,CO ~al~%pfwaaiaZjaRlmwma~ns~ THE ALCESTIS OF EURIPIDES 0 10 J16-_4 emett# xg l e zc EYPIHIAOY AAKHITIM THE ALCESTIS OF EURIPIDES With Introduction, Notes, Appendices, and Vocabulary BY M. A. BAYFIELD, M.A. HEADMASTER OF EASTBOURNE COLLEGE gonbon MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1900 All rights reserved First Edition 1890. Reprinted 1894, 1897, 1900. GLASGOW: PRINTED AT. THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. PREFACE THE text of the present edition of the Alcestis is based upon a careful examination of the apparatus criticus given in Prinz's edition, Leipsic, 1879. Though I have sometimes been compelled to dissent from the conclusions of that eminent scholar, the text 6 will not be found to exhibit any important deviations either from his or those ordinarily in use. In the lyric portions of the play, the arrangement of the lines is generally that shown by Schmidt in his Monodien u. Wechselgesinge, but the numbering of Dindorfs Poetae Scenici has been preserved. A few notes (on 11. 118, 546, 817, 983), added since the first edition was printed, will be found at p. 88. M. A. B. EASTBOURNE COLLEGE, August, 1897. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION-- PAGE 1. The Story and the Play, - - - - - ix 2. Structure of the Play, - - - - xi TEXT, - -- - 1 NOTES, - - - - 48 ADDITIONAL NOTES, - - - - - - 88 APPENDIX- A. On some particles, etc., - - - - - 89 B. Scheme of the Conditional Sentence, 91 VOCABULARY, - - - - - 92 INTRODUCTION. 1. The Story and the Play. THE legend of Alkestis and Admetos may be briefly told as follows: -Admetos was king of Phdrai in Thessaly, and the hour came near when he should die. But he was very loth to depart from life, and besought the gods to spare him a little longer. And Apollo, who loved him, spake and persuaded the Fates, in whose hands are the lives of all men, and they promised to spare Adinetos yet a little, if he should find some other who would die in his place at that time. Then Admetos asked many to do this thing, but none was found that loved him well enough, save only his wife Alkestis; and she indeed died. Now, on the day of her death Herakles came ' to the king's house and found him sorrowing; and ix EYPI 11IOY AAKHETI. Admetos told him not truly the cause thereof, but set meat and drink before him, and went away to bury his dead. Howbeit, while Admetos tarried at the grave, Herakles learned the truth, and for his friend's sake he went and fought with Death; and each strove hard for the mastery, but Herakles pre- vailed, and took Alkestis out of Death's hands and brought her alive to Admetos. So the king's sorrow- ing was turned into joy. We are indebted for this affecting story, as for that of the Ion, to Euripides alone. The present play formed the last of a tetralogy (consisting of the Kressai, Alkmaion on the Psophis, Telephos, Alkestis), with which the poet won the second prize in the year B.C. 439; the first prize being won by Sophocles. It is accordingly (with the possible exception of the Rhesos, the authorship of which is doubtful), the earliest of Euripides' extant works. The Alkestis cannot properly be called a tragedy, since the conclusion is happy, but rather a tragi- comedy or comedy (in the modern sense of that word). On the other hand, it must not be confounded with the Satyric dramas which usually held the last place in a tetralogy, and of which we have a specimen in INTRODUCTION. xlxi the Cyclops. It holds this half-way position between true tragedy and comedy in common with several other of the author's plays, as for instance the Orestes, the Iphigenia in Tauris, and the Ion. 2. Structure of the Play. 1. 7rpoXoyos, vv. 1-76. 2. rdpo8os, vv. 77-135. 3. First irE-lo'8sov, vv. 136-212. 4. First orTrd'crTov, vv. 213-243. 5. Second IrIto-6 8cov, vv. 244-434. 6. Second ourdo-JLov, vy. 435-475. 7. Third i~nEL-68ov, vv. 476-567. 8. Third ordrJo-q ov, vv. 568-605. 9. Fourth dEWreTO-ov, vv. 606-961 (with KO /LodS, vv. 861-934). 10. Fourth o-rdoU-ov, 962-1005. 11. Egoos, vv. 1006-1163. xii EYPIII IAOY AAKHITII. These parts of a tragedy are defined by Aristotle as follows (Poet. § 12) :- wpdXoyos: all that precedes the entrance of the Chorus. wcrpoSos: the first utterance of the whole Chorus (their ' entrance-song '). arMLWSSLov:all that stands between whole choric songs. aTdceLaov: a song of the Chorus employing neither anapaestic nor trochaic measures. (The name is in contrast to 7rpo8o, the o-rao-cqov being sung by the Chorus when at their station in the pX/o'-rpa.) Ko~pds: a dirge in which the Chorus in the orchestra and an actor on the stage both bear parts (contri- buting alternate portions). gSos: all that follows the last song of the Chorus. AAKHXTII. TA TOY APAMATOI HPOM QHA. AHOAM2N. OANATOI. XOPO 2. OEPAHAINA. AAKHETIE. AzAMHTOY2. E'YMHAOI. HPAKAH2;. 4EPHI. OEPAIIi2N. EYPIlIzSOY AAKHE2TKX [Scene.: before the palace of Admetos. -Time:; morning. Enter APOLLO from the spectators'right (the traditional entrance for arrivalsfrom the immediate neighbourhood).] AI1OAAQ2N. 'D8(4iar' 'A171'Ta', EV ots &TA'v Equ O-glou av Tp~Ea cUVEOCLLOEO3 WrEp (OV. ZEDS yap KaTaKTa3 WcLL~a TOY E/JGOVaGTtoS 3 'AO-KX-i~rwwV, OTTpVOt(nV 4E a/Afl'V cya' ol8)7 XOX&)OE't TEKTOvas A iov wrvp0' 5 KTEMV) K KXkwWaS' Kat /LE O))TEV)ELV wra-'?N 8 9Vpw wrap' civpI - wov' arotyv 7)vayKa-Ev. EXOe'oV 8 yataV TnjV8' E/oqx/ov P 8 Kat TOy E0GJ~ov otKOY Es TO' 7jJpos. oatv a 0(sO 'J VET)'yXcavOi 10 8 4 wrat o5 Dp-7TOs, OV OaYEiV EppVc'0afL'qV, 8 8 Motpas o~ojo-av flVEOTLV EfL~ot OEat "A8,uyrov P8)7V 1Tv 7apctK' EKcIvyEGv, 8 &X~ov taX~a VTa 'Togs KaTO) VEKpOV. 7rav~as 8' EXEy aS Ka' LE EX6Ov ck(Xovs, 15 4 [wrpa -yEpatav 6 ' 704 ETCKT~Ej 1 T~y pa,] EYPIIIAOY' OaVEL V 7rpo KEGVOV -4q ET ELO"op(LI (bceos, 7,vvv KICCL OKOV1s EV' XEPOCVfla(TaCETat (fV~oppayol(TU Tr7(SE yap o4 Ev 7 7icpa 20 OaVEtV WrE~pWTat Kat /LETa(TTlgvac tO) E7() 8E, ,I:;)t ao t~a /j, EV &4ko~ GsK X, 8 XEt7r(O LE~aOPOV T(OV E ( GkOTr7 rTo-yqgv. q 8& 8 TOV&E avarOV EnT'Op) 7rEAaS~, 6Epl) OLvovTCOv, Os VLV ELs "Acv &4eovs 25 ,UEXXAE(KaTa EGV" cT11feeErpos 8' a 6KETO, (fpoVp(^V To&'8 zyiap (u OaVECv ai T'V XPEw. [E'nter fromn the spectators' left (as arriving from, a distance) DEATH, a shadowy fl~ur inl (lark drapery. ] OANATOu. ~A" & T-i T~v rpOs fLE~a~poLs; Ti" O I') TflI8E 7roAEts, 5 4DOG/3' c' KELs aX/ Trl. s Evipm(V 30 cL~lopL Op1EVos KOaL KSTa~ravGY._ OVK 7PKEOrE 0- )uo'pov 'A8i-rTOV &caKW~lvaL.GMotpas 8oAtp fnj 'Aai'rt TEXVU ; vv 8' E7rt T78ai 6 X~pa To'l7pr/ /povpELs wX~cwas, 35 'k7TO&8 VWEOIT-q WrOOT(V EKXkca,7o-y' avr) WrpoOaVELV HEX[OV wraG1. All Oapo-EV 881KS)V TOGKat XOyovs K(407'1 E'~oA O3A. TG k87Ta. TO$(OV Ep7OV, El 86K7qV EXEL~; AA K HETIh AHl. (T1'vilOEs (LE6 T(LHT( ,(L(aUTa(LV E'p n. 40 3 GA. KCa6 TOUT( E y' OLKOLSEK(SLK(O) WrpO(Tw(4EXELV. All. (/( Xov yap av8pos (rv 4opaisRap vTo/LL. 8 OA. Ka6L vo(T(LELS flE TOV(SE EVTEpOV VEKpOV ; All.,) Xovb EKEIJ'OV wrpoS fLtv a- I) Et Xo/L v. GA. 7rwS ovv V7rEp yes E(TTL KOV KCLTO)xOVO; 45 All (SCJL(pT' cqL~fU '?)V (TV VVV -7KEIS Ea GA. KaLWa$o/L(L yE vEpTEpLV vW) xoova. All Xa f v L8O' v 74p OM~ (LV EL WrEL(TU.LfL a-E. 0 GA. KTEGVELV y' OV CLVXPUl TOvTO yap TETay /E (L. All. O'UK, JXX&ka iTOL uEUovo- O6ava'ov 4/3CLXEW. 50 GA. E'ywo X'yov 87' Ka6L wpoOvtav o(Ev. All. ECTT' 0OZV7w(O "A XK-OTC Es yrgpas LoXOL ; 8 GA. OVK EO(TLT6 L/L 'KcLE TEp7rOaL OKEL. All. OVTOL 7rXkEOV y' aV -j av ,vy'v Xa/3ocs. GA. v~wv 4Ovovmv LEt~ov &pvvpxu W~pas. 55 All. KUS ypavS oX'1pTaL, 7rXovatL&) T((/fl7ETL. 4 3 GA. 7rp0" T(rOV ExOVT'rV, )Oi] E, TrOV V(1A)V L7. GA. wVOLvT a ivS ir WpEO'nT 7]pa(LOV3 OCLVELV. All. OvKOVV 8OKEG (TOL T))V(SE /L dOVV(LL XapL1 60 GA. Oiv 8qr' Two-aoc 8E Toi's E o~' Trp ov3. All. EXOpovS YE 6VyrTOL Ka6L OEO(s (TTl)7OVLEVOV3. 3 GA. OvK (LV vvaLLo 7rLVT) EXELI/ aL 1 (E WEI.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Conflict of Obligations in Euripides' Alcestis
    GOLDFARB, BARRY E., The Conflict of Obligations in Euripides' "Alcestis" , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 33:2 (1992:Summer) p.109 The Conflict of Obligations in Euripides' Alcestis Barry E. Goldfarb 0UT ALCESTIS A. M. Dale has remarked that "Perhaps no f{other play of Euripides except the Bacchae has provoked so much controversy among scholars in search of its 'real meaning'."l I hope to contribute to this controversy by an examination of the philosophical issues underlying the drama. A radical tension between the values of philia and xenia con­ stitutes, as we shall see, a major issue within the play, with ramifications beyond the Alcestis and, in fact, beyond Greek tragedy in general: for this conflict between two seemingly autonomous value-systems conveys a stronger sense of life's limitations than its possibilities. I The scene that provides perhaps the most critical test for an analysis of Alcestis is the concluding one, the 'happy ending'. One way of reading the play sees this resolution as ironic. According to Wesley Smith, for example, "The spectators at first are led to expect that the restoration of Alcestis is to depend on a show of virtue by Admetus. And by a fine stroke Euripides arranges that the restoration itself is the test. At the crucial moment Admetus fails the test.'2 On this interpretation 1 Euripides, Alcestis (Oxford 1954: hereafter 'Dale') xviii. All citations are from this editon. 2 W. D. Smith, "The Ironic Structure in Alcestis," Phoenix 14 (1960) 127-45 (=]. R. Wisdom, ed., Twentieth Century Interpretations of Euripides' Alcestis: A Collection of Critical Essays [Englewood Cliffs 1968]) 37-56 at 56.
    [Show full text]
  • A. W. Schlegel and the Nineteenth-Century Damnatio of Euripides Ernst Behler
    BEHLER, ERNST, A. W. Schlegel and the Nineteenth-Century "Damnatio" of Euripides , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 27:4 (1986:Winter) p.335 A. W. Schlegel and the Nineteenth-Century Damnatio of Euripides Ernst Behler N HIS 1802-04 Berlin lectures on aesthetics, August Wilhelm Schle­ I gel claimed that his younger brother Friedrich (in his essay On the Study of Greek Poetry U795]), had been the first in the modern age to discern the "immeasurable gulf" separating Euripides from Aeschylus and Sophocles, thereby reviving an attitude the Greeks themselves had assumed towards the poet. The elder Schlegel noted that certain contemporaries of Euripides felt the "deep decline" both in his tragic art and in the music of the time: Aristophanes, with his unrelenting satire, had been assigned by God as Euripides' "eternal scourge"; 1 Plato, in reproaching the poets for fostering the passionate state of mind through excessive emotionalism, actually pointed to Euripides (SK I 40). Schlegel believed that his younger brother's observation of the profound difference between Euripides and the two other Greek tragedians was an important intuition that required detailed critical and comparative analysis for sufficient development (SK II 359). By appropriating this task as his own, August Wilhelm Schlegel inaugurated a phenomenon that we may describe as the nineteenth-century damnatio of Euripides. The condemnation of Euripides by these early German romantics was no extravagant and isolated moment in their critical activity: it constituted a central event in the progressive formation of a new literary theory. Their pronouncements must be seen in the context of a larger movement, towards the end of the eighteenth century, that transformed the critical scene in Europe: the fall of the classicist doctrine and the rise of the new literary theory of romanticism.
    [Show full text]
  • Alcmaeon in Psophis
    Alcmaeon in Psophis Psophis was said to have been originally called Erymanthus, and its territory to have been ravaged by the Erymanthian Boar.Pausanias, "Description of Greece" viii. 24. § 2-10] [Hecat. "on Stephanus of Byzantium s.v." polytonic|Ψωφίς] [Apollodorus, ii. Alcmaeon (mythology) â” In Greek mythology, Alcmaeon, or Alkmáon, was the son of Amphiaraus and Eriphyle. As one of the Epigoni, he was a leader of the Argives who attacked Thebes, taking the city in retaliation for the deaths of their fathers, the Seven Against Thebes ⦠Alcmaeon in Psophis. Year: between 180 and 200 AD. Scripts: Alcmaeon in Psophis by Euripides. Genres: Tragedy. Psophis. How to cite this ancient performance. Alcmaeon in Psophis, accessed at http://www.apgrd.ox.ac.uk/ancient- performance/performance/98 <16 September 2018>. Alcmaeon in Psophis (Ancient Greek: Ἀλκμαίων ὠδιὰ Ψωφῖδος, AlkmaiÅn ho dia Psophidos) is a play by Athenian playwright Euripides. The play has been lost except for a few surviving fragments. It was first produced in 438 BCE in a tetralogy that also included the extant Alcestis and the lost Cretan Women and Telephus. The story is believed to have incorporated the death of Argive hero Alcmaeon.[1]. Alcmaeon in Psophis. Alcmaeon (mythology)'s wiki: In Greek mythology, Alcmaeon (Greek: Ἀλκμαίων), was the son of Amphiaraus and Eriphyle. As one of the Epigoni, he was a leader of the Argives who attacked Thebes, taking the city in retaliation for the deaths of their fathers, the Seven Against Thebes, wh.
    [Show full text]
  • Cocktail Party
    UNIVERSITY OF JYVÄSKYLÄ “AND THEN THEY FOUND HER BODY” T. S. Eliot’s corporeal Cocktail Party A Pro Gradu Thesis by Maili Öst Department of English 2003 JYVÄSKYLÄN YLIOPISTO Tiedekunta Laitos HUMANISTINEN Kielten laitos Tekijä Maili Öst Työn nimi ”And then they found her body”: T. S. Eliot’s corporeal Cocktail Party Oppiaine Työn laji Englannin kieli Pro gradu –työ Aika Sivumäärä elokuu 2003 215 sivua TIIVISTELMÄ – ABSTRACT Tutkin työssäni ruumiillisuuden representaatioita ja rakentumista T. S. Eliotin näytelmässä Cocktailkutsut (The Cocktail Party, 1949). Tahdon selvittää voiko ruumiin paikallistaa näytelmän keskeiseksi kipupisteeksi ja millaisia heijastumia tämä saa tekstin eri tasoilla. Samalla hahmotan ruumiista analyyttista työkalua, jolla raottaa näytelmän rakenteellisia rinnakkaisuuksia ja selittää sen ratkaisemattomia jännitteitä. Ruumis on näin ollen sekä työni matkamittari että sen tuntematon määränpää. Työni pyrkii olemaan löyhästi fenomenologinen löytöretki ruumiiseen ja ruumiillisuuteen. Väi- tän Maurice Merleau-Pontyn ruumiinfenomenologiaa myötäillen, että Cocktailkutsujen ruumis poh- jimmiltaan määrittyy eräänlaisena välitilana. Keskiöön nousevat tällöin ruumiin rajat ja rajanylityk- set. Rajoja rikkova ruumiillisuus sukupuolittuu näytelmän puitteissa pitkälti naiseksi. Työni poltto- pisteeseen nousee näin Eliotin kokonaistuotannossa harvinainen naismarttyyri, Celia. Näytelmät ovat Eliot-tutkimuksen runsaaseen kenttään suhteutettaessa pitkälti yhä aliedustettu alue ja lähestymistavat luutuneita. Toisaalta myös ruumiillisuuden
    [Show full text]
  • Heracles, Action, and Fifth-Century Thought in Euripides, Alcestis
    “Existence and Non-Existence are Considered Distinct”: Heracles, Action, and Fifth-Century Thought in Euripides, Alcestis The character of Heracles in Euripides’s Alcestis is rooted in the traditions of the satyr play, known to us from Aeschylus’s Kerykes, Sophocles’s Heracles at Taenarus, and Euripides’s Syleus, and early Greek epic and epinician poetry. In Alcestis itself Heracles is often understood as the embodiment of the ἀγών (Garner, 67-71, inter alios), the victor whose adversary is death itself (Bradley, 121), and one who responds to the χάρις of Admetus with a greater χάρις (Conacher, 44-7; Padilla, 195-6). Food and drink provide the sustenance behind his exhortation to become wiser (779 σοφώτερος). With such tokens of admission Heracles enters Euripides’s earliest extant foray into the great literary and philosophical issues of fifth century Athens. Admittedly, the tradition, personality, and the alcoholic consumption of the hero make it initially difficult to take his points seriously as an intellectual argument. Heracles’s first foray into fifth century philosophical argumentation, χωρὶς τό τ’ εἶναι καὶ τὸ μὴ νομίζεται (528), while technically correct, cannot withstand the rhetorical assault of Admetus, who truly makes the weaker argument the stronger in steering him away from the conclusion that it is Admetus's wife who has died. However, inebriated as Heracles may be, his rebuttals of Admetus and the butler go beyond the wisdom of the pub. Heracles’s insistence on the necessity (840 δεῖ) to reestablish Admetus's home (841 τόνδ’ αὖθις ἱδρῦσαι δόμον) by saving Alcestis is a direct response to the arguments of Admetus, Pheres, and the chorus over the nature of necessity, particularly the necessity of death (cf.
    [Show full text]
  • Alcmaeon in Psophis
    Alcmaeon in Psophis Alcmaeon had considerable impact on his successors in the Greek philosophical tradition. Aristotle wrote a treatise responding to him, Plato may have been influenced by his argument for the immortality of the soul, and both Plato and Philolaus accepted his view that the brain is the seat of intelligence. 1.1 Medical Writer or Philosopher? Alcmaeon, son of Peirithous (otherwise unknown), lived in the Greek city of Croton on the instep of the boot of Italy. Diogenes Laertius, in his brief life of Alcmaeon (VIII. Alcmaeon in Psophis (Greek Ἀλκμαίων στην Ψωφίδα ) is a preserved only in fragments tragedy of the Greek playwright Euripides, which was 438 BC premiered as the second part of a tetralogy at the Dionysia. The first part of the tetralogy was the piece Cretans inside, of Alcmaeon in Psophis followed Telephus and then instead of a satyr play the play Alcestis. Euripides followed in his early works the formula to follow up on the Dionysia a play about an evil woman a piece about a woman in need. Alcmaeon distinguished himself greatly in it, and slew Laodamas, the son of Eteocles.4. He first came to Oicles in Arcadia, and thence went to Phegeus in Psophis, and being purified by the latter, he married his daughter Arsinoe or Alphesiboea,5 to whom he gave the necklace and peplos of Harmonia. But the country in which he now resided was visited by scarcity, in consequence of his being the murderer of his mother, and the oracle advised him to go to Achelous.
    [Show full text]
  • Alcestis and Her Critics Beye, Charles Rowan Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Apr 1, 1959; 2, 2; Proquest Pg
    Alcestis and Her Critics Beye, Charles Rowan Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Apr 1, 1959; 2, 2; ProQuest pg. 109 ALCESTIS AND HER CRITICS CHARLES ROWAN BEYE N THE PAST CENTURY incredibly contradictory interpreta­ I tions of Euripides' drama, Alcestis, have come into being. Alcestis, herself, is either saintl or psychopath2 ; Admetus, a self­ ish coward3 or altruistic grand gentleman.4 The play is, on the one hand, a pastiche of rhetorical pieces,5 on the other, a com­ plex of subtle and dark levels of meaning.6 At any rate critical comment has generally maintained that the significance of the play and so also its dramatic destination are to be found in the scene (861-961) where Admetus returns from his wife's grave to lament his error in asking Alcestis to die for him. Thus it is the king's recognition of this mistake that provides the basis for the dramatic action. This view proceeds from the scholarly tendency to attach undue importance to an obvious anagnorisis and to tie up the play's loose ends at that point; and secondly, from the mis­ taken notion that the dramatic action visibly grows out of Admetus' original request to Alcestis; and finally, from the generally strong sympathy for Alcestis or at least her predica­ ment and the consequent dislike of or tactful indifference to Admetus. Hence an insistence that he get his emotional deserts. Such a view, however, produces the inevitable conclusion that the play is poorly constructed since the scenes involving Heracles do not in any way advance the plot or Admetus to a recognition of his folly.
    [Show full text]
  • The Survivors' Song: the Drama of Mourning in Euripides' "Alcestis"
    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Departmental Papers (Classical Studies) Classical Studies at Penn 1999 The urS vivors' Song: The Drama of Mourning in Euripides' "Alcestis" Sheila Murnaghan University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.upenn.edu/classics_papers Part of the Classics Commons Recommended Citation Murnaghan, S. (1999). The urS vivors' Song: The Drama of Mourning in Euripides' "Alcestis". Illinois Classical Studies, 24/25 107-116. Retrieved from http://repository.upenn.edu/classics_papers/57 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/classics_papers/57 For more information, please contact [email protected]. The urS vivors' Song: The Drama of Mourning in Euripides' "Alcestis" Abstract Classical Athenian tragedy is often thought of as a genre of poetry about death. Its plots center on the deaths—violent, untimely, self-inflicted, or brought about by unwitting philoi—of certain individuals who dominate the plays in which they appear: Agamemnon, Ajax, Oedipus, Antigone, Pentheus, Hippolytus, Heracles. Drawing its audience into the experience of those characters, tragedy forces that audience to look death in the face, to learn what it might be like to see death coming or to be overtaken by it suddenly, to choose and welcome death or to fight it unsuccessfully. But no more than any other genre can tragedy actually represent the experience of death. However skillfully the poet may build a link of identification between spectator and character, that link is severed with the character's life and the spectator is given a vicarious experience: the opportunity to make sense of someone else's death.
    [Show full text]
  • SUN MYTHS and RESURRECTION MYTHS. THERE Is a Type Of
    SUN MYTHS AND RESURRECTION MYTHS. THERE is a type of resurrection myth, originating in Thrace and in North Greece, the connexion of which with the sun and moon worship is at present unduly set aside in favour of the Demeter-Persephone derivation. This type is seen in the stories, so popular in the art and drama of fifth century Athens, of the wife or husband who prevails against death, for a time at least, by recovering the beloved one. The most famous examples form a triad which is frequently mentioned, the tales of Laodamia, Alcestis, and Orpheus. The beautiful slab representing Orpheus and Eurydice at the fatal moment when restitit, Eurydicenque stiam iam luce sub ipsa immemor heu victusque animi respexit was made no doubt under the influence of the great Parthenon sculpture and very possibly about the time of the production of the Alcestis of Euripides in 438.1 Indeed in the Alcestis (348 ff.) there is one passage in which the three myths are linked. There is a reference to the plot of the Protesilaos of Euripides in the use of the image-motive, immediately followed by a reference to the journey of Orpheus. I quote the translation by Gilbert Murray:— ' O, I shall find some artist wondrous wise Shall mould for me thy shape, thine hair, thine eyes, And lay it in thy bed; and I will lie Close, and reach out mine arms td thee and cry Thy name into the night and wait and hear My own heart breathe; " Thy love, thy love is near." A cold delight; yet it might ease the sum Of sorrow .
    [Show full text]
  • Euripides' Alcestis
    Curriculum Units by Fellows of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute 1984 Volume II: Greek Civilization Euripides’ Alcestis Curriculum Unit 84.02.06 by Kathleen O’Neil Overview Our view of Greek literature is rather like a view of a great mountain range in which few peaks stand out in perfect clarity against a blue sky while the rest of the range is patchily, tantalizingly hidden by banks and drifts of clouds. 1 It is with deepest gratitude and respect that I mention those men and women who have spent their lives in pursuit of discovering and preserving the treasures of Ancient Greece. It has to have been an act of love and dedication seldom thought about by many and thankfully able to be carried on by those who have taken up the quest of continuing discovery and study. Indeed, the treasures of Ancient Greece, plead to each generation of scholar, to be sought after, saved and relished. Classicists, for hundreds of years, wrestled the jewels of Ancient Greece’s artists, writers, poets, philosophers and thinkers from the dry sifting sands of Egypt. It is because of these scholars that this unit can be presented to a classroom of students in Connecticut in the year 1984 A.D. It is also because of this that much of the information about this ancient time is filled with conjecture and legend. However, we have a few peaks that stand out clearly, mainly, because others before us have climbed through the mist and cloud to beckon us to stand with them upon the mountain peak and feel the promise of knowledge, inhale the air of challenge and realize the mystery that is Ancient Greece.
    [Show full text]
  • Gods and Greeks in the Winter's Tale
    LOOK DOWN AND SEE WHAT DEATH IS DOING Gods and Greeks in The Winter’s Tale Earl Showerman k Leontes: If this be magic, let it be an art lawful as eating. Winter’s Tale Act V Scene 3 RITICS have long regarded The Winter’s Tale as derived from Robert Greene’s 1588 romance, Pandosto, The Triumph of Time. As the intro- duction in The Arden Shakespeare states: “there are more verbal echoes from Pandosto than any other novel used by Shakespeare as a source.” Yet the differences between the earlier prose novella and the play are as strik- ing as are the manifold similarities, for Shakespeare not only upgraded the style of Greene’s moral tale, he transformed it into a Renaissance version of a classic Greek tril- ogy, enriched with references to a library of ancient sources. More than simply portray in the florid manner of Greek romance the cruel death of Greene’s virtuous Queen and the self-destruc- tion of a jealous and sexually-obsessed monarch, Shakespeare’s version of the story ends with what the great Shakespeare critic G. Wilson Knight has called “the most strikingly conceived and profoundly penetrating moment in English literature,” the resurrection scene in the final act when the statue of Hermione comes to life. The classical names of the characters, the preeminence of Apollo, the themes of vengeful jealousy with attempted regicide and infanticide, and the mysterious resurrection of Queen Hermione all point to sources from the earlier classical period. Thus, to the near certainty that Hamlet was developed in large part out of the only extant trilogy of the golden age of Greek tragedy, The Oresteia of Aeschylus,1 I believe we can now credibly add Euripides’s tragicomedy Alcestis (438 BCE) to Shakespeare’s portfolio of classical Greek sources.
    [Show full text]
  • Alcestis, Hercules, and Love's Labour's Wonne Earl Showerman
    Brief Chronicles Vol. I (2009) 109 Shakespeare’s Many Much Ado’s: Alcestis, Hercules, and Love’s Labour’s Wonne Earl Showerman wentieth century scholarship has largely disputed the possibility that Shakespeare employed Greek dramatic sources in writing his plays. !e Tconsensus has been that most of the Greek canon, including the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, had not been translated or printed in England by Shakespeare’s time, and as Greek poetry was not included in the curriculum of English grammar schools, the author could not have been directly in"uenced by the Attic tragedians. In his 1903 Classical Mythology in Shakespeare, Yale University Professor Robert Kilburn Root voiced the opinion on Shakespeare’s ‘lesse Greek’ that presaged a century of scholarly neglect: “It is at any rate certain that he nowhere alludes to any characters or episodes of Greek drama, that they extended no in"uence whatsoever on his conception of mythology.”1 One hundred years later A. D. Nuttall, in “Action at a distance: Shakespeare and the Greeks,” published in Martindale and Taylor’s Shakespeare and the Classics (2004), succinctly summarized the continued prevailing opinion on the author’s use of Greek sources: !at Shakespeare was cut o# from Greek poetry and drama is probably a bleak truth that we should accept. A case can be made – and has been made – for Shakespeare’s having some knowledge of certain Greek plays, such as Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Euripides’ Orestes, Alcestis, and Hecuba, by way of available Latin versions, but this, surely, is an area in which the faint occasional echoes mean less than the circumambient silence.
    [Show full text]