Dono, reciprocità, philia: Alcesti e la ‘lezione’ di Euripide per una nuova società (post-pandemica)

Abstract

The gift creates, feeds and recreates the social and emotional link (philia)
between people; however, it generates a need for reciprocation, which is paradoxically
considered an act of freedom. In fact it containes a moral obligation, without fixed
ways and times to fulfill it, nor penalty. In Alcestis (438 BC) Euripides effectively represents
the dynamics of the gift, which binds in a relationship of reciprocity and philia
the protagonists of the story. The gift of life (Alcestis gives her own life for that of her
husband Admetus) as a supreme manifestation of philia (cf. Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1170b 6-7
ἕτερος γὰρ αὐτὸς ὁ φίλος ἐστίν) appears the only solution to the inevitability of death.
Euripides thus imagines a model of society based on a net created by the gifts in a
relationship of philia. Only these gifts can overcome even the limit of death (cf. Alc. 965
κρεῖσσον οὐδὲν Ἀνάγχας), when you save another’s life recognizing him as another
self. This ‘lesson’ of Euripides gives us useful tools for the analysis of the contemporary
times. The pandemic has revived the ancient reflection between individual ethics
and social responsibility, remarking the bonds of solidarity between people.