PHER. Nay, by my means she died not! say not so!
ADм. Ah! mayest thou one day come to need my aid.
ADм. Go, wed with many, that more wives may die.
ADм. Thy taunt strikes home! Thyself didst shrink from
PHER. Sweet is the light of Phoebus! Sweet is day! [death.
ADм. Base is thy spirit, and unmanly, sire!
PHER. Thou dost not mock, as carrying aged dead!
ADм. Death will find shame, whene'er he lights on thee!
PHER. When I am dead, no shame will touch me more.
ADM. Alas! alas! how shameless is old age.
PBER. Not shameless was thy wife, but senseless found. 810
ADм. Begone! I fain would bury now my dead.
PHER. I go and thou thy victim wilt inter;
Yet think not kinsman's vengeance sleeps the while.
Be sure Acastus, if he still have life,
Will soon avenge on thee his sister's blood.
ADм. Away both thou, and she thy consort! hence!
Childless, thy son yet living, pass your age,
As ye deserve! No more shall ye abide
'Neath the same roof with me-If needs I must,
By heralds I'll disclaim my father's hearth.
But let us onward. Present woes demand
Endurance-that the pyre may claim its prey.
CHORUS. Alas and alas for thee, noblest of daughters!
Most worthy, though boldness hath caused thee to fall:
Farewell! and may Hermes across the dark waters,
And Hades receive thee with smiles to his hall!
And if that distinction beneath, as is fitting,
Be the meed of devotion and goodness well tried :
Thou hast earned it, sweet shade, and shalt ever be sitting In the first rank and nearest to Hades' fair bride.
SERVANT. Full many a guest ere now from various climes Have I beheld draw near our monarch's hearth:
And spread for them the feast yet never one
Worse than this stranger welcomed to the house.
For first he saw my lord opprest with cares,
Yet came he, nothing loth to pass our gates.
And then, on learning our sad woes, he took
The viands near him in no seemly way:
And, if we brought not all he wished, was wroth,
And urged our speed. Then taking in both hands.
The cup embossed with ivy wreaths, he quaffs
Unmixt, the purple mother's beverage,
Till circling fumes of wine began t' inflame
The God. Then crowned with myrtle branch, he vents
Discordant howls: and two strains might be heard.
For he kept singing, recking nought of woes,
Which grieve our lord: whilst we, as servants true,
Were wailing for our queen, not that we shewed
The guest our tears: this did our king forbid.
So now I entertain the guest within.
Some worthless rogue, or robber vile, I ween.
And she is borne away. I followed not:
Nor wrung my hands in grief for our good queen.
Oh! she was more than mother to us all;
For she did save her servants countless ills
By soothing her lord's wrath. Do I not then
With justice hate intruders on our grief?
HERC. Ho there! why lookest thou thus reserved and sad?, Sad visage is not meet from slaves to guests,
For they should greet them with a willing mind.
But thou dost see thy lord's companion come,
Yet hailest him with dark and clouded brow,
Fixing thy thoughts on ills thou dost not share.
Come hither! I will teach thee wiser views:
Dost thou not know the bent of mortal things?
I trow thou dost not? whence wast thou to learn?
Hear then! all living pay the debt of death.
Nor knows there one of all the mortal race
If he shall live to see the morrow's sun;
For fortune's course is hidden, where 'twill end,
Learnt by no teaching, by no art revealed.
This having heard then, and received from me,
Enjoy thyself, man! drink, and deem to-day
Thy share of life-give all the rest to fate:
And honour her, who most doth mortals charm,
The goddess Venus! she is always kind.
Let other things pass by-do thou but yield
To mine advice, if it seem good to thee.
I deem it good. Put off excessive grief!
Come, drink with me. O'erpass the gates, and crown
Thy brow with garlands. Well I know the juice,
Fast falling from the goblet down thy throat,
Will stir thee from thy fixt o'erclouded mood.
Tush! Mortal man should e'en as mortal think :
For to the grave and rueful-visaged, life,
If I may judge, is only grief, not life.
SERV. Thou sayest well: but oh! our present case
Is all unsuited to a reveller's mirth.
HERC. A stranger lady's death! nay, grieve not thus
Too much! whilst safe at home thy masters live.
SERV. What! Live? thou dost not know the woes within? 890
HERC. Yes, or 'tis falsehood which thy lord hath said.
SERV. Alas! too courteous is my lord to guests.
HERC. Is it unmeet I should be entertained,
Because a stranger lady dies within ?
SERV. Nay, but indeed she was both near and dear.
HERC. Was there some woe he feared to tell me, then?
SERV. Go, and farewell! I mourn my master's loss.
HERC. These words are preface to no foreign woes.
SERV. No! for thy revels then had grieved me not.
HERC. How! hath mine host then wronged my feelings thus?
SERV. Thou camest at no time to welcome guests
Unto our house. Our grief and shaven locks
And sable garb thou seest.
HERC. Who is dead?
One of his children? or his aged sire?
SERV. Stranger, the wife of our good lord is dead.
HERC. How? Did ye still receive me for a guest?
SERV. Yes! He was loth to turn thee from his doors.
HERC. Poor wretch! How good a partner hast thou lost!
SERV. We are all lost and not our queen alone.
HERC. Well I perceived it in his weeping eyes,
His hair, his glance. Yet he persuaded me
He led a stranger's funeral to the tomb.
I therefore crossed this threshold 'gainst my will,
And did carouse beneath my kind host's roof,
Whilst thus he suffered-aye, I drank with brows
Entwined with wreaths! 'Twas like thee to be mute,
Slave, when such ills were brooding o'er the house.
Where is she buried? Where shall I go seek?
SERV. By the straight road, which to Larissa leads, Her polished tomb is from the suburb seen.
HERC. Oh daring soul, and venturous heart of mine!
Shew now, how worthy is Alcmena's son,
Whom she, Electryon's daughter, bare to Jove.
For I must save this lady, just now dead,
And place Alcestis in these halls again,
Doing glad service to Admetus thus.
Yes! I will go and watch the king of shades,
Dark vested death: methinks he will be found
Quaffing libations by the new made grave.
Then if from ambush, which I soon shall lay,
I rush and catch him, circled in mine arms,
There lives not one shall rid him from my grasp,
With his sides aching, till he yield her up;
And if I fail to capture him; if death
Come not to taste the clotted cake of gore,
I'll take the downward road, and seek the halls,
The sunless halls of Proserpine and Dis :
There will I make request: I trust to bring
Alcestis upward, to her lord's embrace :
The host who welcomed me, nor closed his doors,
Though stricken with the blow of sore distress:
But bravely hid his grief, respecting me.
Shew me in Thessaly a nobler host:
Nay search all Greece. Therefore he ne'er shall say
That he, being worthy, served a worthless guest.
ADм. Alas! ye mournful paths that lead
To halls bereft and lone:
Sad sight my weeping eyes to feed,
Your lord is all undone !
Where shall I go? where find a rest?
What say ? what words restrain?
Take, kindly fates, this life opprest,
Oh! free me from my pain.
For heavy lot my mother bare
Her son, I envy death.
I long your homes, your lot, to share,
Ye shades, that dwell beneath!
No more the sunbeams glad my sight:
I sadly tread the ground,
Since death bereaved me; Dis his right
In my sweet hostage found.
CHOR. Forward, forward: penetrate
To the mansion's inmost part!
Thou hast suffered anguish great,
Calling groans from out thine heart,
[ADM. woe! woe!]
Thou hast gone through grief, I know.
[ADм. Ah! me.]
Nought thou aidest her below.
[ADM. Woe is me !]
Ne'er to see thy spouse again,
Face to face, is bitter pain!
ADм. My bosom's wound thy words renew :
What deeper, sadder woe,
Than from a wife so leal and true
To part, can mortal know?
I would that I had never won
Her love to dwell with me:
Oh! for a single course to run,
From wife, from children free.
Grief for a single life to bear,
Is sorrow moderate:
But children, whom disease doth wear,
And wives, the sport of fate :
And bridal beds, by death laid waste,
Why should man bear to see?
When he such woes might never taste,
If wifeless, childless he !
CHOR. Untiring foe thy fate is found.
To sorrow dost thou set no bound?
[ADM. Woe's me!]
Hard are thy woes! yet though an host,
[ADM. Woe! woe!]
Endure; not thou alone hast lost
[ADм. Oh! oh!]
A wife! mishap in divers forms
O'ertakes us all with various storms.
ADм. Oh! lasting woe: and grief's sad doom
For friends, whom earth doth hide;
Why let ye me from yonder tomb?
And kept me from her side?
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