Euripides’ Alkestis: a reading

Abstract

The play points up the existence of personal relations within the bounds set by τύκη and ἀνάγκη. Admetos’ attempt to evade the rule of τύκη for himself prompts scrutiny of the ways in which man’s lot is limited also by social relationships, inside and outside the family. Alkestis, as redeemer, holds out to Admetos an impossible χάρις: her χάρις is annulled, paradoxically, by the βια (inspired by friendship) of Herakles, another redeemer, who restores the natural and moral law that each man must die his own death. The evaluations of life put forward by Pheres, by the chorus (which insists, not with perfect aptness, on the saving power of τλημοσύνη), and by Admetos (initially) are inadequate. But Alkestis’ death and Herakles’ rescue of her reveal the terms on which life is to be lived and what ἀνάγκη entails.