all the dramatis personae in Euripides, of Heracles, Admetus, and the Chorus alike; only (as in the theatre of Dionysus one cannot exactly say so) instead of the natural and proper conclusion, the conclusion which might be expected from the course of the story, we have the miraculous explanation appended in a form transparently unreal. From the moment when it is understood that Alcestis has certainly come back, from the moment of the question 'How was the thing accomplished?', the actors cease to act in character; they cease to be conceivable as persons in the situation supposed, and show neither opinion nor emotion, except a general agreement to wind up the business as quickly as possible, joined in the case of Heracles with a strong disposition to sneer. 'The gods' as the author says with typical irony 'have found the way to an ending unexpected, instead of that for which we looked[1].' Such is the resurrection as related by Euripides, and such is the aspect in which alone the scheme, tone, and cast of the play are intelligible as a whole. But to make the matter fully comprehensible, I must ask the reader's patience for a larger historical survey.
The Alcestis in its general character, and in the relation between outward pretence and inward suggestion, is by no means exceptional among the works of the poet. Most of them show something of the same character, and one example at least, the Ion, corresponds to the type almost as perfectly as the Alcestis. It could not now possibly exist, at least in Western Europe, for many reasons and some highly satisfactory, nor perhaps could ever have been fully developed in any society except just at Athens in the fifth century before Christ. But there and then the conditions were such as to produce this type inevitably, a type of dramatic work, whose meaning lies entirely in innuendo. The purpose of the Alcestis as a whole, and that which alone connects into a whole its otherwise inharmonious and repugnant elements, is neither to solemnize the legend, as
- ↑ I was mistaken when (in my first edition of the Medea, 1881) I said that this famous conclusion was 'quite inappropriate' to that play. It is quite appropriate; it calls attention to the contrast between the realism of the drama as a whole and the purely conventional 'supernaturalism' of the dénouement. The 'dragon-chariot' of Medea is entirely out of keeping with the tone and spirit of the work, a mere theatrical concession, and the 'tag' signifies this. The other examples are all interesting and similar, but cannot be discussed here.
