Plays 3: Alkestis, Helen, Ion

by Euripides, Kenneth McLeish (Introduction), J. Michael Walton (Introduction)

The three plays in this volume straddle the borders between comedy and tragedy. Alkestis is a moving "romance" with death; it has parallels to Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. Helen, an alternative version of the tragic portrayal of the Trojan War, shows Helen "relocated in a delightful comedy" (Observer) - as an innocent victim of her own beauty, hidden in Egypt by the gods while her image has been abducted by Paris. In Ion, a father who thought he was childless discovers his son, and a son who thought he was motherless finds his mother.

Genres: Plays, Classics

175 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 23, 1997

About the author

Euripides (Greek: Ευριπίδης) (ca. 480 BC–406 BC) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete (Rhesus is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined—he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.
Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. He also became "the most tragic of poets", focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was "the creator of ... that cage which is the theatre of William Shakespeare's Othello, Jean Racine's Phèdre, of Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg," in which "imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw.
His contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism. Both were frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as a corrupting influence. Ancient biographies hold that Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age, dying in Macedonia, but recent scholarship casts doubt on these sources.

Reviews

[Maggie]

The three plays in this collection differ from other Greek tragedies in that they are not tragedies at all. In name, they were presented as tragedies at the Grand Dionysus festival in Athens where each playwright staged a group of three tragedies followed by one satyr. And they do have serious themes. However, they all have happy endings, and in all of them, in particular Alkestis and Ion, though the characters are suffering, we know through the prologues given by Apollo and Hermes respectively that the endings will be happy ones, thus lightening the mood.

A common theme in all three plays is that mortals are at the mercy of the gods’ plans. In Alkestis, Apollo determines that Alkestis will die for Admetus but Herakles will rescue her. In Helen, Aphrodite gives Helen to Paris and Hera frustrates these plans but replacing Helen with a cloud that resembles Helen. In Ion, Apollo rapes Kreousa, then plans an elaborate plot where his child is raised in his temple then eventually given to Kreousa and her husband Xouthos. The endings of all three plays acknowledge this. As the ending of Helen goes:

What mortals dream, the gods frustrate;
That’s what happened here, today.

Alkestis
Apollo, who has taken refuge in Admetus’ house for a year, allows him to find a substitute to die on his behalf. Admetus’ parents decline, but his wife, Alkestis, accepts. Alkestis is an honourable wife, and on her deathbed, her husband, children and the chorus mourn. Shortly after her death, Herakles arrives seeking shelter. Admetus hides his grief from him in a show of hospitality. At Alkestis’ funeral, Admetus’ father Pheres turns up. Admetus and Pheres quarrel, Admetus accusing his father of being too cowardly to die for him, and Pheres branding Admetus the killer of his wife. Shortly after Pheres leaves, Herakles, who has been drunk and singing, finds out about Alkestis’ death. He goes to the underworld, wins a fight, and returns with her veiled. Against Admetus’ insistence that he will never take another woman into his house, Herakles persuades Admetus to shelter the veiled woman. Admetus realises the woman is Alkestis and the play ends on a triumphant note.

I found the portrayal of Admetus interesting. On one hand, he sincerely grieves for his wife and invites sympathy. On the other hand, he brought on his wife’s death by asking her to die for him. As his father brutally says, he killed her. And as mentioned in the introduction, Admetus’ actions could be justified by the fact that he needs to stay alive to rule Pherai, yet this justification is not made. The chorus reflects the complexity. While it magnifies Alkestis’ nobility and laments her death, its attitude towards Admetus is mix of subdued sympathy and doubt about his claim to grief.

Helen
In other plays of Euripides, Helen is a vain, self-serving woman. Here, however, she is a victim. To punish Paris, Hera transformed a cloud into the image of Helen, and it is this image for which the Greeks fought the Trojans for ten years. The real Helen was brought by Hermes to Egypt where the Old Man of the Sea, also known as Pharaoh, protected her. It is now seven years after the Trojan War, Pharaoh is dead, and his son Theoklymenos wants to marry Helen. A Greek, Teukros, lands and informs Helen that her mother has killed herself, her brothers Castor and Polydeukes have either died or been transformed into stars, and her husband Menelaos is missing and thought dead. However Menelaos, who is shipwrecked, washes up in Egypt and he and Helen reunite. But how do they escape from Theoklymenos, who wants to marry Helen and treats Greeks as enemies? Seeking the help of Theonoe, Theoklymenos’ sister and a prophetess, Helen pretends that Menelaos is a messenger who has brought her news of her husband’s death, and that she needs a ship to perform his funeral at sea. The pair thereby escape on the ship.

Unlike many of Euripides’ tragedies, this is an entertaining plot with many coincidences that result in a happy ending. True romantic love is celebrated, and the chorus interacts with Helen to perform songs and dance that serve only the purpose of being entertaining musical interludes. The lightheartedness is enhanced by the comedy created by the concept of an image (i.e. the cloud that looks like Helen), with plenty of dramatic irony in Helen and Menelaos’ dialogue with Theoklymenos, who doesn’t realise that the stranger is Menelaos.

Ion
Apollo raped Kreousa, princess of Athens. Kreousa hid the baby in a cave and Hermes, following Apollo’s instructions, brought him to Apollo’s temple where the child was brought up as Apollo’s caretaker. Years later, Kreousa has married Xouthos, an outsider who fought for Athens, but the couple are childless. They go to Apollo’s temple to seek his help. Apollo, through his oracle, gives the child to Xouthos as his heir, and Xouthos names him Ion. Kreousa has been bitter about the rape. When she discovers that Xouthos intends to take Ion as his son, she assumes that Ion is Xouthos’ illegitimate child from a past affair, and supported by the chorus, instructs her servant to poison Ion. But Ion is saved by an omen, and chases Kreousa to kill her. Kreousa seeks sanctuary at Apollo’s altar. In the midst of the conflict, the oracle appears and gives Ion his cradle. Kreousa recognises the cradle. They play ends with Athena confirming that the they are indeed mother and son, and that Apollo has given his son Ion to Xouthos as the heir to Athens.

An entertaining play with a feel-good ending, this play is full of misunderstandings that could very well lead to tragedy and death, if not for as many coincidences that divert the course of events. The highlight of the play is its musicality, with Kreousa and the chorus coming together in long, lyrical, beautiful songs.