Third Stasimon of Euripides’ Alcestis

The Third Stasimon of Euripides' Alcestis (569-605) has no lack of admir ers.D.J. Conacher calls it 'the prettiest ode in the play'.1 C.A.E.Luschnig labels it a 'beautiful, healing song'.2Despite the stasimon's beauty, modem scholarship on this ode has remained relatively silent in comparison with the scholarship generated on the rest of the play.3Given the lack of attention paid to these verses, this paper attempts to advance the literary analysis of the ode, and suggests that the Third Stasimon reinforces and calls attention to the play's themes of guest-friendship and substitution, as well as the dis ruption and restoration of harmony in the horizontal ( and ) and vertical ( and ) axes along which the Greek cosmos is ordered and with which the Alcestis as a whole is greatly concerned.4