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Amazon.co.uk Review
Now this new poem/play shows that Hughes's previous success was far from a one-off. Euripides's story is simply summarised: a rich and esteemed Greek king, Admetos, has been asked for his life by the Gods. In place of Admetos, the king's beautiful wife Alcestis, mother of their two beloved children, offers to sacrifice herself. Meanwhile Admetos's beer-buddy, the hero Heracles (i.e. Hercules), has shown up at the palace, ready to do some carousing. On this clash of personalities and circumstances the play tilts, and turns--until the world is eventually put to rights.
The joy of this work is in the language. Hughes/Euripides is by turns vernacular: "I need to get my double nelson on an immortal neck", lyrical: "I have nailed her to the sun with a laser", and pungent: "What loathsome sacks of refuse old men are!". Other times the writing is almost casual in its modernity, which makes what could otherwise be a dense and disappointing text fresh and accessible.
Ted Hughes died, of course, in 1998: a short while after completing work on this version. His death seems all the more poignant in that, taking into account the other late, great works--Birthday Letters, and Tales From Ovid--alongside this noble and moving translation, he appeared to be approaching the height of his powers in his final months. But at least we have the books. --Sean Thomas --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Alcestis is the story of a king, Admetus, who is able to escape death because his wife, Alcestis, has volunteered to die in his place. Ted Hughes's version goes beyond translation to an inspired rethinking of the story in terms of his own vision of human suffering.
Although he started working on this piece in 1993, he did not finish until a few months before his death in 1998. It is the culmination of an extraordinarily productive period of work, which saw the publication of Tales from Ovid (1997), Birthday Letters (1998) and The Oresteia (1999).
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In Greek mythology Alcestis was the daughter of Pelias and wife of Admetus, an Argonaut and the king of Pherae. In Western literature Alcestis is the model wife, for when her husband is to die she alone agrees to die in his place. However, the key in this drama is how Admetus finds this sacrifice totally acceptable. Admetus is represented as a good and honorable man, but then his ethos is established in this play by the god Apollo in the opening scene, and even though it was written later it is hard not to remember the expose Euripides did on the god of truth in "Ion." Euripides adds a key twist in that Alcestis agrees to the sacrifice before she fully understands that her husband will suffer without her. She is brought back from the underworld by Heracles and restored to her relieved husband, but the play clearly characterizes Admetus as a selfish man and it is this view that other writers have imitated every since.
The story of Alcestis has been addressed by more modern writers from Chaucer and Milton to Browning and Eliot. The sacrifice of Alcestis has also been the subject of several operas. "Alcestis" is not a first rate play by Euripides, but it does represent both his cynicism and his attempt to make the audience confront the problematic elements of its belief system. So while I would not teach "Alcestis" by itself, in conjunction with other play by Euripides, specifically "Ion," it can definitely have value in class.
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