EURIPIDES

a satyr-play. But attempts to explain Alcestis as a modified
satyr-play are not convincing, and the comic elements are not
highly significant. Heracles may momentarily be a moderately
funny drunk, but that is about all. The squabble between
Admetus and Pheres, in which both really lose, is too humanly
disagreeable to be funny; the squabble between Apollo and
Death is grotesque, but scarcely uproarious. Alcestis is no
satyr-play, but a tragicomedy which in part (loss, escape, re-
union) anticipates the lighter escape-dramas (Iphigeneia in
Tauris, Helen) still to come. But it goes deeper than these do.

Date and Circumstances

Alcestis was presented in 438 B.C. The first three plays in
the set (all lost) were The Women of Crete, Alcmaeon in
Psophis, and Telephus. Thus Alcestis is the earliest extant
work of Euripides, with the possible exception of The Cyclops
and (very doubtful) Rhesus, which are undated. Euripides
won second place, being beaten by Sophocles.

Text

I have followed Murray's Oxford text, and used his line
numbers, which are standard; except that I have adopted
different readings which affect the translation of the following
lines: 50, 124, 223, 943, 1140, 1153.

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