Greek Drama · Part 12 · Euripides · B1
Euripides: Alcestis and The Cyclops
Part 12 of Greek Drama: Euripides could make audiences laugh as well as weep. In Alcestis, a wife agrees to die in her husband’s place, and is brought back from the grave by a drunken Heracles who wrestles with Death. In The Cyclops, the only complete satyr play that survives, Odysseus and a chorus of drunken satyrs outwit the one-eyed giant from the Odyssey. Comparatives and superlatives (as… as, not as… as, the most, the least), would rather, and the language of hospitality and humour, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
After so many tragedies, tonight we laugh a little. Remember that each poet presented three tragedies and a satyr play. Only one complete satyr play survives, by Euripides: a funny version of the Cyclops story from the Odyssey, with drunken satyrs.
And before it, a play that is half tragedy and half comedy, Marcos, which Euripides put in the place of a satyr play: Alcestis. A wife dies for her husband, a guest gets drunk at the funeral, and Death himself gets beaten up. Tonight we compare things: who loved more, who was braver, who was the worst host.
Alcestis (438 BCE) is Euripides’ earliest surviving play. The god Apollo has arranged that King Admetus of Thessaly may escape his fated death if someone agrees to die in his place. His old father and mother both refuse; his young wife Alcestis agrees. On the day she dies, the hero Heracles arrives as a guest. Admetus, not wanting to fail in hospitality, hides his grief and welcomes him. Heracles gets cheerfully drunk until a servant tells him the truth. Ashamed,…
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