The influence of this “classicist” tradition has led to a timid and unsatisfying treatment of the Alcestis, in which many of the most striking and unconventional features of the whole composition were either ignored or smoothed away.  As a natural result, various lively-minded readers proceeded to overemphasize these particular features, and were carried into eccentricity or paradox.  Alfred Schoene, for instance, fixing his attention on just those points which the conventional critic passed over, decides simply that the Alcestis is a parody, and finds it very funny. (Die Alkestis von Euripides, Kiel, 1895.)

I will not dwell on other criticisms of this type.  There are those who have taken the play for a criticism of contemporary politics or the current law of inheritance.  Above all there is the late Dr. Verrall’s famous essay in Euripides the Rationalist, explaining it as a psychological criticism of a supposed Delphic miracle, and arguing that Alcestis in the play does not rise from the dead at all.  She had never really died; she only had a sort of nervous catalepsy induced by all the “suggestion” of death by which she was surrounded.  Now Dr. Verrall’s work, as always, stands apart.  Even if wrong, it has its own excellence, its special insight and its extraordinary awakening power.  But in general the effect of reading many criticisms on the Alcestis is to make a scholar realize that, for all the seeming simplicity of the play, competent Grecians have been strangely bewildered by it, and that after all there is no great reason to suppose that he himself is more sensible than his neighbours.

This is depressing.  None the less I cannot really believe that, if we make patient use of our available knowledge, the Alcestis presents any startling enigma.  In the first place, it has long been known from the remnants of the ancient Didascalia, or official notice of production, that the Alcestis was produced as the fourth play of a series; that is, it took the place of a Satyr-play.  It is what we may call Pro-satyric.  (See the present writer’s introduction to the Rhesus.) And we should note for what it is worth the observation in the ancient Greek argument:  “The play is somewhat satyr-like ([Greek:  saturiphkoteron]).  It ends in rejoicing and gladness against the tragic convention.”

Now we are of late years beginning to understand much better what a Satyr-play was.  Satyrs have, of course, nothing to do with satire, either etymologically or otherwise.  Satyrs are the attendant daemons who form the Komos, or revel rout, of Dionysus.  They are represented in divers fantastic forms, the human or divine being mixed with that of some animal, especially the horse or wild goat.  Like Dionysus himself, they are connected in ancient religion with the Renewal of the Earth in spring and the resurrection of the dead, a point which students of the Alcestis may well remember.  But in general they represent mere joyous creatures of nature, unthwarted by law and unchecked by self-control.  Two notes are especially struck by them:  the passions and the absurdity of half-drunken revellers, and the joy and mystery of the wild things in the forest.