Loyalty Theme Analysis

On the brink of Alcestis’s death, the chorus leader describes her as the paragon of loyalty: “In dying and living both: / incomparably a queen. For courage and love / Alcestis has no rival among all women / on this earth.” Although Alcestis disappears from the play fairly quickly, her “incomparable” character haunts the play as others deal with the repercussions of her willing self-sacrifice. In particular, her above-and-beyond act of loyalty in dying for Admetos contrasts with Admetos’s rejection of even basic loyalty to his father. Euripides uses this stark contrast between Admetos and Alcestis to argue that selfishness, and even the mutual obligations of conventional society, are always overshadowed by self-sacrificing loyalty that can’t be repaid.

Alcestis is portrayed as the epitome of love and loyalty. Anticipating Alcestis’s death, the maid tells the chorus leader, “What would the woman be who could rival / or surpass Alcestis? What woman ever loved a man so much? / Loved him more than herself? So much more / she gave her life to let him live? In love / she has no equal, sir: the whole world knows it.” But there is more to this description than simple idealization of Alcestis. Her love and readiness to die for Admetos set up a contrast between her own active loyalty and her husband’s passive acceptance of it. And Alcestis is not a silent sufferer, but a woman who takes initiative and willingly puts others’ happiness before her own.

Not only do others recognize Alcestis’s consummate loyalty, but, strikingly, Alcestis knows it, too. In her dying speech, Alcestis names her own strength: “I am dying for you, Admetos, / but I did not have to die. / I could have chosen otherwise. As your widow / I might have married any man in Thessaly / and lived with him here and ruled this royal house. / But without you, with these children fatherless, I could not live.” Alcestis knows the power of her own choice, and that, had Admetos died as he had been fated to do, she would still have had a chance for a respectable life. For love’s sake, though, she willingly surrenders that chance. Alcestis acknowledges that it would have been more “[natural] and right,” even glorious, for Admetos’s elderly parents to die for him, but they have refused. She doesn’t dwell on this, however, accepting that “Some god has brought these things to pass.” Alcestis doesn’t die timidly or in a self-effacing manner. She recognizes that, by her own free will, she’s choosing to do something that’s not rightly demanded of her. She even recognizes that she’s in a position to make demands on her bereaved husband. She makes him promise that he won’t take a second wife, who will surely not love her children as they deserve.

Alcestis’s superlative loyalty contrasts with Admetos’s, and even his irascible father’s, deficient loyalty. Pheres, whatever his failings, actually shows proper reverence to his late daughter-in-law. As he presents funeral gifts, he says, “We must honor her in death as she deserves; she gave her life to let you keep the light. No, she would not let this poor old man drag out his dying years deprived of all he had—his one, his only, son.” He gives her a fitting tribute: “this wife of yours was pure gold, and no mistake / And gold is what I give her now.” In saying these things, Pheres honors Alcestis’s surpassing loyalty to her father-in-law—she didn’t allow him to suffer grief, even though it wasn’t her job to prevent that. It also shows that Pheres is not devoid of the virtue himself. But Admetos, enraged, throws his father’s gestures of loyalty back in his face. After refusing to die for him, he tells Pheres, “now you have the gall to come here with your mock / sorrow and your hypocrisy of love! / You never gave a damn for me! / Where was your love when I needed you?” He angrily disowns his parents for selfishly clinging to their last years of life when they, unlike Alcestis, had nothing to lose.

While Admetos could be correct in his evaluation of his parents, his accusations also reveal his own weak loyalties as a son. He even completely severs the sacred tie of father and son: “Gods, is there any coward in this world like you? / There you were, a withered bag of bones, tottering / into eternity. But still you wouldn’t die! […] Well, now your time is running out, old man. / So hurry. Use what little time you’ve got to breed / another son to care for you in your old age and stuff you in the ground.” This tirade further illustrates how much Alcestis surpasses him in loyalty. While Admetos, at minimum, owes his father a respectful burial and rejects this basic filial duty, Alcestis went so far as to give up what was only hers—her life—when no one could lawfully demand it from her. This suggests that Admetos’s highest loyalty is really to himself.

The true test of loyalty comes for Admetos when Herakles brings Alcestis, rescued from the underworld, to reunite with her husband. When he hears his friend’s insistent vow to never remarry, he says, “I admire you, Admetos. / You are loyal in love.” Admetos refuses to admit the veiled woman into his house and only joins hands with Alcestis when forced by Herakles, who then lifts Alcestis’s veil. Having passed this test of loyalty and now given a second chance, Admetos is finally free to “remake [his life]…better than [it was] before”—presumably undoing his rash vows and renewing his family relationships on less selfish grounds, as well.