BMCR 2009.05.28: Slater on Seeck, Euripides. Alkestis. Griechische Dramen

Gustav Adolf Seeck (ed.), Euripides. Alkestis. Griechische Dramen.
Berlin/New York:  Walter de Gruyter, 2008.  Pp. x, 231.  ISBN
9783110188769.  $71.00.

Reviewed by Niall W. Slater, Emory University ([email protected])
Word count:  1830 words
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G. A. Seeck's edition of the Alcestis with accompanying German
translation and commentary is part of a new series from de Gruyter
intended to offer detailed access to the text not only to philologists
but to literary and theatre scholars more widely.  The format is
designed for accessibility.  Following an extensive introduction, the
German translation and Greek text are printed one above the other on
the left hand page with commentary on the facing right hand page.  The
lemmata are generally keyed to the German translation, which aims to
follow the Greek line for line.  The format often leaves white space,
but the result is highly user-friendly and should serve all its
audiences well.

Seeck has been engaged with this play for almost forty years (his 1969
Habilitation was published as Unaristotelische Untersuchungen zu
Euripides: ein motivanalytischer Kommentar zur "Alkestis" [Heidelberg
1985]), along with numerous other publications on tragedy.  He has thus
distilled a great deal into the extensive introduction to this volume.
One of the great virtues of this work is its understanding of the play
for and in performance and of Euripides as a theatre professional
working within the civic structures of Athens.  In his biographical
sketch of the tragedian, Seeck is quite willing to speculate about what
"must" have been true for a recognized major poet living in the
Athenian democracy:  e.g., that Euripides would have been a leader in
assembly discussions about using Delian League funds for theatre
reconstruction or that his departure from Athens in 405 might have been
a "flight" from the recalled Alcibiades, whom Euripides had opposed
politically.  These suggestions may strike some as in advance of the
evidence, but they offer a refreshing contrast to the withdrawn figure
in the ancient Life of the poet. Seeck also imagines that the archon's
offer to the poet of a slot at the festival was based on a complete
written copy of the play and seems to believe the state archive of
plays went back as far as Euripides' lifetime (21).  His clear
discussion of the later textual transmission of the plays will serve
both his philological and broader literary audiences.  It is salutary
to be reminded that, given the life expectancy of papyrus, Euripides
would have had to copy out his own Peliadai  at least once to have it
still available at the end of his life.  Though the bibliography is
generally quite up to date, he has missed Marshall's treatment of the
important evidence for a performance of the play in later antiquity
("Alcestis and the Ancient Rehearsal Process (P. Oxy. 4546)," Arion 11:
27-45), though he cites the papyrus itself.  In his invaluable
discussion of the play's later literary reception (25-29) we learn,
among many other tidbits, that the 12-year-old Montaigne played one of
the play's principal roles in a performance of a Latin translation.  He
traces the story of translation, adaptation, and production as far as
Petras's 2004 Alkestis, mon amour.  The Anglophone tradition is well
served, although one misses any mention of Ted Hughes' version.

Seeck's treatment of the evidence for the Alcestis myth before
Euripides as well as the poet's careful and limited deployment of
references within the play to previous action is far more precise than
that of many critics working on the play.  He argues for a separation
between the mythic world of the prologue and a demythologized world in
which the action then plays out. Seeck's introduction singles out four
larger themes of literary interpretation for discussion (the issues of
contradictions and gaps, irony, psychology, and the notion of
"tragicomedy").  Euripides omits Admetus's voyage on the Argo and
participation in the Caledonian boar hunt in the process of making him
"ein Koenig ohne Ambitionen auf heroischen Ruhm und genaugenommen nur
ein buergerlicher Familienvater" (32).  Indeed, the poet's treatment of
the house of Admetus portrays it much more as an ordinary Athenian
dwelling than as a palace out of the mythic past, and thus the scene of
a "burgerliches Drama" (41ff.).  Euripides says nothing about the time
between Alcestis's promise and the day of her death---but nothing
invites the audience in the theatre to focus on that during the course
of the performance.  Three paragraphs on irony will not satisfy all,
but Seeck lays out the case that irony resides more often in the play's
reception than in explicit textual signals.

A section on several more structurally oriented "special questions"
follows:  the prologue, xenia, the scene with Pheres, the nature of
Admetus's learning or "recognition," whether his reception of the
veiled woman is a betrayal of his marriage, and finally the question of
Alcestis's silence. Seeck suggests the prologue's account of previous
events is not abbreviated because Euripides has no time to tell us
more:  the text is carefully formulated so that we do not know whether
Admetus asked Alcestis for her sacrifice (though he explicitly did ask
his parents), nor do we learn when Alcestis made her decision. The life
exchange theme is therefore background, while the focus is on
Alcestis's sacrificial death.  The scene with Pheres has been an
increasing problem for later reception, but Seeck argues that the
father's claim not to care what anyone thinks of him would strike
Athenian audience members as not just unheroic but "eine ganz
unerhoerte Schamlosigkeit" (38).  He treats the much-discussed silence
of Alcestis as one of the play's blanks or gaps which critics have
rushed to fill but argues it is of a piece with the distancing of
Heracles' actual victory over death from the on-stage action. The
three-day purification must be a Euripidean invention---but Seeck does
note that it is then curious that Admetus may touch her hand without
requiring cleansing, even though hearing her voice would somehow
violate ritual purity. So precise about details generally, Seeck
perhaps misses one here, as he seems to accept the widely shared view
that Alcestis is here incapable of speech.  As many translators in
English do, his translation of line 1144, "Mir dir zu reden ist ihr
nicht erlaubt," turns the focus to her speech (or silence), where
Heracles' Greek more precisely refers to Admetus's hearing:  "It is not
yet right for you to hear the speeches/words of this woman."  A final
section of the introduction discusses the play's form and relation to
lament.

Seeck's text offers a number of differences from other recent editors,
often defending the manuscript readings.  A few examples will give a
sense of his approach.  Where Diggle's OCT and Kovacs' Loeb follow
Dindorf in deleting line 16 as an interpolation, Seeck defends it
dramaturgically:  otherwise, we would not know until 290 that Admetus
even had parents to whom to appeal.  Alone among recent editors, he
keeps the reading endikos at 41 in some mss., arguing that a copyist
was more likely to attempt to eliminate irony rather than import it.
On the other hand, he follows Wilamowitz at 144 in correcting the
chorus's usage of the second person harmartaneis, which should address
the offstage Admetus rather than the maidservant who is present before
them, to third person.  It might be worth noting here that while Kovacs
retains the second person, his translation neatly circumvents it:
"Unhappy man, being so good a husband to lose so good a wife!"  Like
Kovacs and Parker, Seeck deletes 208 but not 207.

Seeck certainly is not hostile to the possibility of interpolation,
histrionic or otherwise.  His deletion of 285-286 as interpolation is
novel; Seeck finds them inconsistent with the next two lines.  Logical
nicety, however, may not be requisite in a dying speech, and Alcestis
might still regard her children as orphans even in a second marriage.
He does concede that the virtually verbatim quotation of Alcestis'
earlier words at 651-652 raises suspicions of interpolation, but noting
their emotional effectiveness, he chooses not to bracket them.  On the
other hand, he thinks 790-791 interpolated, since Aphrodite figures
nowhere else in Heracles' speech and, while he might want the servant
to join him in drinking, a reference to the joys of Aphrodite would not
be appropriate.  At 811 he prints thuraios, although he finds Dale's
suggestion of othneios very appealing.  Where most solve the problem at
818-820 indicated by the scholiast's note by deleting the first two
lines, Seeck opts to delete only 820---producing in my view a much more
effective shock of recognition.  At 829 he prints tuchas rather than
the "trivialisierende Leseart" pulas (cf. his apt note on tuche at
889).  Most editors delete a pair of lines out of 1093-1095 to avoid
the repetition of a form of aino, though Seeck argues for repetition
with a meaningful difference.  Like Kovacs, at 1097 he keeps the mss.'
gennaion, where Lenting proposed the adverbial form.  Debate over the
subtle difference in meaning does not get us far, but Parker is surely
right to point out how rare such an adjectival use would be in
Euripides.

It is for a native speaker to judge the German translation, but it
seems to succeed quite well in conveying the meaning of the Greek while
adhering closely to a line for line structure.  Where a literal
translation of a word or phrase might be awkward, Seeck regularly notes
the literal structure in the facing commentary.

With its multiple audiences in mind, the commentary tends to feature
points of larger interpretive significance (and sometimes surprising
modern relevance, as when ad 15-18 Seeck compares the search for a
substitute to contemporary organ donation).  For wealth of parallels
and linguistic detail, the Anglophone philologist will need Parker and
Dale still at hand, but Seeck has a keen eye and ear here too.  One or
two examples must suffice.  At 202 where the servant reports Admetus's
begging speech to Alcestis, most commentators and translators assume
Admetus as an object of the infinitive prodounai---producing the
bathetic meaning that he begs her not to "betray" him. Seeck's
parallels instead support his argument that without an express object
here it means rather he begs her not to lose heart or "give up."  At
1042 he gives a good account of using the title anax.

The commentary will be particularly useful for meaning in performance.
Seeck's suggestion that the chorus may arrive singly from both parodoi,
for example, before grouping together in the orchestra is very
appealing.  His discussion in favor of Dale's proposal at 393ff. that
the actor of Alcestis sings the child's lament is thorough and
persuasive.  A particularly intriguing suggestion is that the drunken
Heracles' arrival at 773 to change the course of the action might be
one model for Alcibiades' arrival in Plato's Symposium.  His discussion
of 903ff. nicely highlights how unusual this chorus is in citing their
own personal experience, perhaps part of the "demythologizing" trend he
sees in this play (where Parker is oddly exercised over biographical
nicety, i.e., whether the chorus could actually share one common
relative).

The volume is thus a welcome addition to the growing ranks of
commentaries on this play.  One looks forward to other entries in the
de Gruyter series.