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Alcestis
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Alcestis
Alcestis is a myth that is "the most touching of all the Greek dramas to a modern audience" (Lind 213). It is a tragicomedy by the playwright Euripides and it centers on the king and queen of Thessalia. Admetus, the king, has been fated to die yet, due to his alliance with Apollo, is given the chance to find a replacement. His wife, Alcestis, volunteers for the position claiming that she cannot imagine life without her husband. After Alcestis submits her life, Admetus discovers the pain of loss and even determines that Alcestis is the lucky one in dying. In a surprising turn of events, a friend of Admetus, Heracles, goes down into the underworld, wrestles Death, and wins Admetus back his bride. 1 This tale, as mentioned above, tugs at a reader’s heartstrings. We, as an audience, want to believe that Alcestis is brought to life at the termination of this drama, yet there are those interpreters who believe otherwise. A specific example of this type of person is D.L. Drew, who proposes that the woman given to Admetus is the corpse of his wife rather than the resurrected Alcestis. Drew goes further to comment that this is Heracles’s revenge against Admetus for tricking him into believing that she who died is a stranger and not Alcestis.1 This is a terrible proposition that tends to disturb a reader and, through the examination of the text, seems to be rather incorrect. The concept that Alcestis has been resurrected can be supported, in fact, by several elements. Throug...
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