A Book of Golden Deeds | Page 6

Charlotte Mary Yonge
self.

THE STORIES OF ALCESTIS AND ANTIGONE

It has been said, that even the heathens saw and knew the glory of self-
devotion; and the Greeks had two early instances so very beautiful that,
though they cannot in all particulars be true, they must not be passed
over. There must have been some foundation for them, though we
cannot now disentangle them from the fable that has adhered to them;
and, at any rate, the ancient Greeks believed them, and gathered
strength and nobleness from dwelling on such examples; since, as it has
been truly said, 'Every word, look or thought of sympathy with heroic
action, helps to make heroism'. Both tales were presented before them
in their solemn religious tragedies, and the noble poetry in which they
were recounted by the great Greek dramatists has been preserved to our
time.
Alcestis was the wife of Admetus, King of Pherae, who, according to
the legend, was assured that his life might be prolonged, provided
father, mother, or wife would die in his stead. It was Alcestis alone who
was willing freely to give her life to save that of her husband; and her
devotion is thus exquisitely described in the following translation, by
Professor Anstice, from the choric song in the tragedy by Euripides:
'Be patient, for thy tears are vain They may not wake the dead again:
E'en heroes, of immortal sire And mortal mother born, expire. Oh, she
was dear While she linger'd here; She is dear now she rests below, And
thou mayst boast That the bride thou hast lost Was the noblest earth can
show.
'We will not look on her burial sod As the cell of sepulchral sleep, It
shall be as the shrine of a radiant god, And the pilgrim shall visit that
blest abode To worship, and not to weep; And as he turns his steps
aside, Thus shall he breathe his vow: 'Here sleeps a self-devoted bride,
Of old to save her lord she died. She is a spirit now.
Hail, bright and blest one! grant to me The smiles of glad prosperity.'
Thus shall he own her name divine, Thus bend him at Alcestis' shrine.'
The story, however, bore that Hercules, descending in the course of one

of his labors into the realms of the dead, rescued Alcestis, and brought
her back; and Euripides gives a scene in which the rough, jovial
Hercules insists on the sorrowful Admetus marrying again a lady of his
own choice, and gives the veiled Alcestis back to him as the new bride.
Later Greeks tried to explain the story by saying that Alcestis nursed
her husband through an infectious fever, caught it herself, and had been
supposed to be dead, when a skilful physician restored her; but this is
probably only one of the many reasonable versions they tried to give of
the old tales that were founded on the decay and revival of nature in
winter and spring, and with a presage running through them of sacrifice,
death, and resurrection. Our own poet Chaucer was a great admirer of
Alcestis, and improved upon the legend by turning her into his favorite
flower---
'The daisie or els the eye of the daie, The emprise and the floure of
flouris all'.
Another Greek legend told of the maiden of Thebes, one of the most
self- devoted beings that could be conceived by a fancy untrained in the
knowledge of Divine Perfection. It cannot be known how much of her
story is true, but it was one that went deep into the hearts of Grecian
men and women, and encouraged them in some of their best feelings;
and assuredly the deeds imputed to her were golden.
Antigone was the daughter of the old King Oedipus of Thebes. After a
time heavy troubles, the consequence of the sins of his youth, came
upon him, and he was driven away from his kingdom, and sent to
wander forth a blind old man, scorned and pointed at by all. Then it
was that his faithful daughter showed true affection for him. She might
have remained at Thebes with her brother Eteocles, who had been made
king in her father's room, but she chose instead to wander forth with the
forlorn old man, fallen from his kingly state, and absolutely begging his
bread. The great Athenian poet Sophocles began his tragedy of
'Oedipus Coloneus' with showing the blind old king leaning on
Antigone's arm, and asking--
'Tell me, thou daughter of a blind old man, Antigone, to what land are
we come, Or to what city? Who the inhabitants Who with a slender
pittance will relieve Even for a day the wandering Oedipus?' POTTER.
The place to which they had come was in Attica, hear the city of
Colonus. It
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