Yet Admetus is constantly assuring everyone of his undying attachment to his wife. He holds her in his arms, imploring her not to leave him. "If thou die," he exclaims,
"I can no longer live; my life, my death, are in thy hands; thy love is what I worship…. Not a year only, but all my life will I mourn for thee…. In my bed thy figure shall be laid full length, by cunning artists fashioned; thereon will I throw myself and, folding my arms about thee, call upon thy name, and think I hold my dear wife in my embrace…. Take me, O take me, I beseech, with thee 'neath the earth;"
and so on, ad nauseam—a sickening display of sentimentality, i.e., fond words belied by cowardly, selfish actions.
The father-in-law of Alcestis, in his indignation at his son's impertinence and lack of filial pity, exclaims that what made Alcestis sacrifice herself was "want of sense;" which is quite true. But in painting such a character, Euripides's chief motive appears to have been to please his audience by enforcing a maxim which the Greeks shared with the Hindoos and barbarians that "a woman, though bestowed upon a worthless husband, must be content with him." These words are actually put by him into the mouth of Andromache in the play of that name. Andromache, once the wife of the Trojan Hector, now the concubine of Achilles's son, is made to declare to the Chorus that "it is not beauty but virtuous acts that win a husband's heart;" whereupon she proceeds to spoil this fine maxim by explaining what the Greeks understood by "virtuous acts" in a wife—namely, subordinating herself even to a "worthless husband." "Suppose," she continues, "thou hadst wedded a prince of Thrace… where one lord shares his affections with a host of wives, would'st thou have slain them? If so, thou would'st have set a stigma of insatiate lust on all our sex." And she proceeds to relate how she herself paid no heed in Troy to Hector's amours with other women: "Oft in days gone by I held thy bastard babes to my own breast, to spare thee any cause for grief. By this course I bound my husband to me by virtue's chains." To spare him annoyance, no matter how much his conduct might grieve her—that was the Greek idea of conjugal devotion—all on one side. And how like the Hindoos, and Orientals, and barbarians in general, is the Greek seen to be in the remarks made by Hermione, the legitimate wife, to Andromache, the concubine—accusing the latter of having by means of witchcraft made her barren and thus caused her husband to hate her.
With the subtle ingenuity of masculine selfishness the Greek dramatist doubles the force of all his fine talk about the "virtuous acts" of wives by representing the women themselves as uttering these maxims and admitting that their function is self-denial—that woman is altogether an inferior and contemptible being. "How strange it is," exclaims Andromache,
"that, though some god has devised cures for mortals against the venom of reptiles, no man ever yet hath discovered aught to cure a woman's venom, which is far worse than viper's sting or scorching flame; so terrible a curse are we to mankind."
Hermione declares:
"Oh! never, never—this truth will I repeat—should men of sense, who have wives, allow women-folks to visit them in their homes, for they teach them mischief; one, to gain some private end, helps to corrupt their honor; another having made a slip herself, wants a companion in misfortune, while many are wantons; and hence it is men's houses are tainted. Wherefore keep strict guard upon the portals of your houses with bolts and bars."
Bolts and bars were what the gallant Greek men kept their wives under, hence this custom too is here slyly justified out of a woman's mouth. And thus it goes on throughout the pages of Euripides. Iphigenia, in one of the two plays devoted to her, declares: "Not that I shrink from death, if die I must,—when I have saved thee; no, indeed! for a man's loss from his family is felt, while a woman's is of little moment." In the other she declares that one man is worth a myriad of Women—[Greek: heis g' anaer kreisson gunaikon murion]—wherefore, as soon as she realizes the situation at Aulis, she expresses her willingness to be immolated on the altar in order that the war against Troy may no longer be delayed by adverse minds. She had, however, come for a very different purpose, having been, with her queen mother, inveigled from home under the pretext that Achilles was to make her his wife. Achilles, however, knew as little of the plot as she did, and he is much surprised when the queen refers to his impending marriage. A modern poet would have seen here a splendid, seemingly inevitable, opportunity for a story of romantic love. He would have made Achilles fall in love at sight of Iphigenia and resolve to save her life, if need be at the cost of his own. What use does Euripides make of this opportunity? In his play Achilles does not see the girl till toward the close of the tragedy. He promises her unhappy mother that "never shall thy daughter, after being once called my bride, die by her father's hand;" But his reason for this is not love for a girl or a chivalrous attitude toward women in distress, but offended vanity. "It is not to secure a bride that I have spoken thus," he exclaims; "there be maids unnumbered, eager to have my love—no! but King Agamemnon has put an insult on me; he should have asked my leave to use my name as a means to catch the child." In that case he "would never have refused" to further his fellow-soldiers' common interest by allowing the maiden to be sacrificed.
It is true that after Iphigenia has made her brave speech declaring that a woman's life was of no account anyway, and that she had resolved to die voluntarily for the army's sake, Achilles assumes a different attitude, declaring,