Almost done with Alcestis

I get most of my reading done not at home (when it's cloudy and rainy as it has been, I shut myself up in my room and busy myself in updating my computer, archiving MP3s etc., which is partly inane as Comcast is down), but on the bus to and waiting for my shift to start at Briarwood. I'm waiting for the sun as an excuse to read out on the porch while tanning, but it's being a coy mistress at the moment.

Alcestis is progressing along satisfactorily, however: having almost finished the play, I've realized that I'm going to need to read all of Euripides's "complete" works (texts like Bacchae included) before I even turn a sharp focus on the fragments. After Medea and the Bacchae, and now almost through Alcestis, I'm starting to see the themes crop up: the Chorus's non-chalant misogamy, the inner struggle of the mind, the debates of propriety and themis (a theme in all Greek drama), etc. I'm really impressed by Alcestis, but am currently wondering why it's Alcestis and not Admetus, her brother and the central figure of the play. Perhaps name recognition: Alcestis willful suicide for the sake of her husband is one for the record books (it would fit in well among the catalogue of virtuous woman in Chaucer's Merchant's Tale). Perhaps this overshadows Admetus--his guilt (which he tries to displace on his father) of being less manly than his wife and more afraid of death is entirely the result of Alcestis's unbelievable decision.

I was also impressed by the structure of Alcestis, which seemed to be winding itself up strangely, from the opening speech of Apollo, to a personified Death (I wonder what the Greek conception of Death was--and if it was at all similar to the Grim Reaper [I'm sure it was black]). To Admetus and Alcestis and her death, to Herakles, to Pheres, Admetus's Father, then back to Herakles, who then will take on death in order to win back Alcestis for his giving xenos.

I'm excited to see how it all turns out: Lattimore's translation is excellent.