THE ALCESTIS OF EURIPIDES[1]
MEMORANDUM
Of the Story as it would be traditionally familiar to the Audience before-hand.—Admetus was the splendid King of Pherae, so famous for the sacred rites of Hospitality that he had Sons of the Gods for Guests, and the God of Brightness, Apollo, himself while he sojourned on earth chose Admetus's household to dwell in. In the full tide of his greatness the time came for him to die: Apollo interposed for his chief votary, and won from the Fates that he might die by substitute. But none was found willing to be the victim, not even his aged parents: at last Alcestis his wife, young and bright as himself, gave herself for her husband and died. Then another Guest-Friend of Admetus came to the rescue, Jupiter's own son Hercules, and by main force wrested Alcestis from the grasp of Death, and restored her to her husband.
PROLOGUE
Scene: Pherae in Thessaly. The early morning sunshine blazes full on the Royal Palace of the Glorious Admetus, and on the statues, conspicuous in front of it, of Jupiter Lord of Host and Guest, and Apollo: nevertheless the Courtyard is silent and deserted.—At last Apollo himself is seen, not aloft in the air as Gods were wont to appear, but on the threshold of the Central Gate.
APOLLO meditates on his happy associations with the house he is quitting. How when there was trouble in heaven, and he himself, for resisting Jove's vengeance on the Healer Aesculapius, was doomed to a year's slavery amongst mortal men, he had bound himself as herdsman to Admetus, and Admetus exercised his lordship with all reverence:
A holy master o'er his holy slave. {13}
How again when trouble came to Admetus he had saved him from the day of death, on condition that another would die in his stead.
His friends, his father, e'en the aged dame {19}
That gave him birth were asked in vain: not one
Was found, his wife except.
The dreadful day has come, and Alcestis is at this moment breathing her last in the arms of her husband: and he himself must leave his loved friend, for Deity may not abide in the neighborhood of death's pollution. {27}