You went back to what you knew so far removed From all that we went through And I tread a troubled track, my odds are stacked I’ll go back to black

Amy Jade Winehouse, from

Back to Black

Pino Blasone

On the Traces of Alcestis,between Eros and Thanatos

1 – Admetus and Alcestis listen to the Oracle, fresco detail fromthe Basilica of Herculaneum; National Archaeological Museum, Naples

A Syndrome of Alcestis?

The first reference we meet to the myth of Alcestis is in the

Iliad

, book II, lines 711-715. It occurs in a concise and indirect way, as if this legend was well known and possibly

already old when Homer

’

s poem – or, better, its passage here quoted – was composed:“Those who held Pherae by the Boebean lake, with Boebe, Glaphyrae, and the well builtcitadel of Iolcus, in eleven ships were led by Eumelus son of Admetus, whom thegoddesslike Alcestis, fairest of the daughters of Pelias, bore to him”. Supposedly a later addition to the original work, the pertinent part of the

Iliad

is the so called “Catalogue

of Ships”, which lists the vessels employed in the expedition against Troy, together with acomplete report of the Achaean or allied peoples they had conveyed as armed contingents.Albeit somewhat boring to the reader, it is an interesting source of information for a scholar.Almost the full tale had to be narrated in a section of a Hesiodic lost poem, the

Eoeae

.Thanks to far later Greek and Latin mythographers as Palaephatus, Apollodorus, Iginus,Fulgentius, we know that it had some fabulous antecedent facts and a few variants.Asclepius son of the god Apollo had been a physician so clever, as to grow able to revivehumans. Because of this hazard, Zeus struck him dead with his lightnings. As a vengeance,Apollo slew the Cyclopes, forgers of Zeus’ lightnings. The king of gods punished his sonApollo, by banishing and condemning him to serve a mortal master on earth. During this period, Apollo was sheltered as a herdsman by Admetus, prince of Pherae in Thessaly. They became so good friends, that the god was grateful to Admetus. He wished to marry Alcestis,daughter of Pelias. Yet the king of Iolcus had promised to give her to him alone, whosucceeded in joking wild beasts to a chariot. Apollo tamed a lion and a boar, and gaveAdmetus the vehicle to drive. Thus, he could achieve his goal. The wedding was celebrated.Unfortunately, then Admetus forgot to sacrifice to Artemis, drawing upon himself thecurse of the revengeful goddess: he ought to die as soon as possible, when still younganyhow. This should have been a task for the Moires or Fates, deities charged with theordinary rule of human destinies. Again, Apollo took care of his friend. He offered the threeFates wine, something of whose effects they were likely inexperienced. It was easy to obtainfrom the drunk sisters a change in the formulation of the malediction, at least. The new kingof Pherae could avoid to lose his life, if only someone tendered his – or her – own on his behalf. All that was reported to the married couple in the response of an oracle, they rituallyconsulted after their marriage. When the fatal moment will come, no friend or other relativeof Admetus will accept to take his place except Alcestis, albeit young mother of two sons.

2 – Apulian red figure vase, detail with Alcestis andsons: Antikenmuseum, Basel, Switzerland; ca. 340 B.C.Before than with the great Euripides in 438, the folk tale – or, rather, its latest andmain development – began to be performed on Athens’ stage by the tragedian Phrynichus,lived between the 6

and the 5

century B.C. The little known of his

Alcestis

suggests, ithad to be a model for Euripides himself. The there adopted variant of the story included adeterminant intervention of Heracles, he also an old Admetus’ friend, since together theyhad participated in the expedition of the Argonauts. The famed strong hero succeeds in theimpossible deed of struggling against the daemon of death and rescuing the queen from his power, in order to restore her to life and to her husband. Actually, such is the conclusion of Euripides’

Alcestis

. Not only its happy end but not few other details make it a tragicomedy,or a “satiric play” according to an ancient definition, even better than a tragedy. Yet sadder,a bit more realistic or pessimistic, narrative traditions survived until the late Latin literature.In the dialogue

Symposium

written by the Greek Plato in 360 B.C., an exaltation of love coincides with the praise of Alcestis: “Love will make men dare to die for their