『アルケスティス』の構成とヘラクレス
スポンサーリンク
概要
- 論文の詳細を見る
The mixture of the serious elements and the comical ones in Euripides' Alkestis creates the complexities of the play, bringing about the difficulties and diversities of the interpretation Herakles' role and significance should be considered in detail in relation with the structure of the play because he enters much earlier if compared with Theseus in HF or dei ex machina and his actions are concerned with the comical effects. The structure consists of three pieces of miniature drama, Alkestis' self-sacrifice, Admetos' sufferings after it and Herakles' rescue, all of which are contrived to unite in the Exodos Hence the illustration shown in the figure on p. 35. Prologos B belongs to the 'rescue piece' because Thanatos enters just as an antagonist to Herakles. The main function of the self-sacrifice scene is to praise Alkestis for her devotion and excellence as a wife, mother and mistress so highly that it appears to the eyes of the audience that she deserves recovery from death for her own sake because of her virtuous existence indispensable to the royal house. The repeated references unfavourable to Admetos' parents (especially 290-97, 336-39) prepare the Agon, where Pheres' violent reproaches and threatening with Akastos' revenge give Admetos so great a shock, resulting in his imaginary slander from his enemy (954-60). This motif combines the 4th Epeisodion A with the 4th Epeisodion C. The rescue piece of Harakles is provided with the prediction of his appearance in the Prologos B, his entrance and reception in the 3rd Epeisodion and his realisation of the affairs leading to his resolution with his imaginary rescue scene in the 4th Epeisodion B As for the actions these two pieces are completely severed, having, nothing to do with each other-for example, Herakles is contrived not to participate in the Agon, the most suitable occasion for him to grasp the meaning of the affairs-in order that the Exodos should be performed as an anagnorisis scene However, the close parallel should be noticed between these pieces set in similar circumstance and supplied with the opposite but complementary imagery and contents In this respect the mourning and the funeral rites frequently mentioned from the beginning, which Admetos tries solemnly to conduct, play an important role They are disturbed and delayed by the intrusion of Herakles (the exterior cause) and Pheres (the inner cause), everything finally proving to be nonsense after the appearance of the rescued Alkestis Pheres is expelled from the funeral and the house with hatred, which shows clearly the disruption of the parental relationship Herakles is enclosed into the house as an undesirable person (cf 817), though accepted through Admetos' hospitality obliging him to rescue Alkestis and through his deception contradicting with the due observance of the funeral The comic and satync characteristics of Herakles suggest symbolically overflowing vitality In contrast, Admetos envies the dead, insisting on the reversal of the proper value between life and death after his attempted suicide during the burial, which usually reinforces the distinction between the living and the dead He indicates declining life and the loss of volition to live, having no strength by himself to restore himself as well as the disrupted house Accepting the inevitable, Herakles expresses his affirmative attitude to life through his hedonistic philosophy Having evaded his destiny, Admetos falls into nihilism, though through physical existence of Alkestis he once enjoyed what Herakles embodies on the stage The subtraction of the scene reporting Herakles' victory over Thanatos and the aforementioned independence of those paralleled pieces together with the veiled Alkestis and Herakles' fiction are intended to compose the Exodos as an amusing anagnorisis scene with irony The comic features of Herakles contribute to the burlesque process of the scene, where Admetos is teased in the dilemma between his oath never to marry again and hospitality demanded by Herakles The more stubbornly he resists, the bigger laughter he arouses The atmosphere thus created enfeebles the tragic and ethical colour ensuing from the breach of his oath with his famous hospitality serving as the motive for breaking it, and enables the audience and the silent Alkestis witnessing the test to approve his choice But his bearings will seriously incur the tragic and ethical sense in a real life, if Herakles' words 'χρονοζ μαλαξει' echoing ironically those of Alkestis (381) suggest the similar future situation
- 日本西洋古典学会の論文
- 1987-03-30
著者
関連論文
- A.M. Bowie, "Aristophanes: Myth, Ritual and Comedy"〔和文〕
- Nan Dunbar, Aristophanes Birds., Pp. xvii+782, Oxford U. P., 1995.
- アリストパネスの機知 : 『蛙』1378-1410をめぐってその1)
- ERBSE, H., Studien zum Prolog der euripideischen Tragodie., Pp.xv+307, de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, 1984.
- 『アルケスティス』の構成とヘラクレス
- SEGAL, Charles, Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides' Bacchae., Pp. xiv+364, Princeton Up, 1982.
- ANDERSON, G., Lucian. Theme and Variation in the Second Sophistic., Mnemosyne Supplement 41, Pp. x+211, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1976. / ANDERSON, G., Studies in Luciarn's Comic Fiction., Mnemosyne Supplement 43, Pp. x+138, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1976.
- BERGSON, Leif, Die Relativitat der Werte im Fruhwerk des Euripides., Studia Graeca Stockholmiensia V, Pp. 117, Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm, 1971.
- BURNETT, Anne Pippin, Catastrophe Survived. Euripides' Plays of Mixed Reversal, Oxford Univ. Press, 1971, Pp. viii+234