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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Alcestis, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mortality and Happiness
Obligation, Limitations, and Fate
Hospitality and Friendship
Loyalty
Summary
Analysis
Death, a winged, black-clad figure carrying a sword, is startled to see Apollo. The two face each other in a tense confrontation. Death asks Apollo if he’s once again here “to violate the dues and honors / of the gods below,” observing that, in saving Admetos, he’s already cheated the Fates once. Now, it appears that, “unsatisfied and unappeased,” he intends to save Alcestis, too.
In Greek mythology, death was personified in the ominous figure of Thanatos, who seldom appears in person, but does so here. The traditional story is that Apollo cheated the Fates—three sisters known as the Moirai—by getting them drunk. Death sees Apollo’s action as an affront to the underworld gods, stealing from them what they’re rightfully due.
Themes
Apollo explains that he hangs around Admetos’s house because they are friends: “The troubles of those I love constrain me too.” He begs Death to defer, letting Alcestis grow old—what difference could that make? Death refuses, citing “honor”—the younger his victim, the more humanity will fear and respect him.
Apollo speaks to the idea that love for others brings obligations. The idea that the sacrifice of young lives is more pleasing to the gods, winning them greater honor, is frequent in Euripides and in earlier Greek religion more broadly.
Themes
Apollo argues that if Alcestis dies old, her funeral will be rich. Death retorts that Apollo always sides with the rich, and that “the rich would buy immunity from dying.” Furthermore, even Apollo “must learn a limit. You cannot have your way in everything you want.”
Death’s remark anticipates one that Admetos’s father will make later—that people will, out of hubris, do whatever they can to dodge death. In contrast to this human attitude, even Apollo, a god, recognizes that he must observe limits and can’t get everything he wants.
Themes
Apollo replies that Death’s savagery won’t be enough—a man is coming, “man enough / to break the wild stallions of Diomedes,” who will fight and break Death by brute strength. Death will be forced to honor Apollo’s “appeal against [his] wish.” He reminds Death that “my hatred you shall have” and exits. Death mocks Apollo’s “bluster” and tells the audience that Alcestis must die. He enters Admetos’s palace, the doors closing slowly behind him. There is a long silence.
Apollo predicts the coming of Herakles, who will force Death to submit to his will. In other words, Death, too, will be forced to submit to obligation.
Themes
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