get up, be strong!
If you die, I couldn’t go on.
It’s in your power whether we live or not.
We revere your love.
280
ALCESTIS: Admetus, you see the state I’m in.
Before I die, I want to tell you my wishes.
I placed you above all; I arranged for you
to live your life in exchange for mine.
I’m dying for you, although I had the option
not to die, to marry any man I wanted
in Thessaly and live richly in a king’s house.
I wasn’t willing to live without you by my side,
with orphaned children. I did not spare
my youth, although I felt joy in it.
290
Your father, though, and your mother failed you.
The chance was there for them to die well,
nobly to save their child and win fame
in death. You’re their only child; they had
no hope, with you dead, of having another.
And you and I would’ve lived out our lives,
and you would not be grieving now, without a wife,
raising orphaned children. But this is what
a god has brought about, that it be like this.
So be it, but remember what you owe me.
300
I won’t ask you for a favor equal to mine—
there’s nothing as valuable as a life—
but you’ll agree it’s fair. When you think straight,
you love these children no less than I.
Have the strength to raise them as masters of the house.
Don’t marry again and give them a stepmother.
She’ll be a worse woman than I, and out of envy
she’ll do violence to your children and mine.
Do not do this, I beg of you.
A stepmother comes as an enemy to the children
310
of a previous wife; she’s no kinder than a snake.
A male child has his father to protect him.*28
(addressing her daughter) But how will you, child, safely reach the age
of marriage, when some other woman’s your father’s wife?
I fear, just as you’re ready to marry, she’d start
a shameful rumor about you and ruin your chances.
Your mother won’t be there when you marry,
won’t give you courage when you’re giving birth,
when a mother’s kindness surpasses all, my child.
I have to die; I won’t die tomorrow
320
or the next day but now, this moment,
they’ll say that I am among the dead.
Goodbye! Be happy! And you, husband,
can boast you had the best of wives, and you,
my children, say you had the best of mothers.
CHORUS: Be certain he’ll do this, if he has any sense.
I don’t hesitate to speak on his behalf.
ADMETUS: It will be as you ask. It will. Don’t worry.
You were my wife while you lived, and you alone
330
will have that name even when you’re dead.
No bride in Thessaly will take your place,
or call me husband: no woman is so well-born,
her beauty so extraordinary as that.
I have enough children. I pray to the gods
that they provide for me as you will not.
My grief for you will endure not just a year
but for as long, dear wife, as I have life.
And for so long I’ll hate the woman who bore me
and loathe my father, my kin in word but not
340
in deed. You gave up all that’s dearest to save
my life; so it’s up to me now, isn’t it,
to grieve the loss of my wife, a wife like you?
I’ll hold no parties, invite no dinner guests;
there’ll be no flowers or music, which used to fill
my house. I’ll never pluck the lyre’s strings,
nor raise my spirits by singing to the Libyan pipe.*29
For you have taken from me all joy in life.
A sculptor’s skillful hand will make your likeness,
a statue that will stretch out on my bed.
350
I’ll fall beside it and take it in my arms.
I’ll call it by your name and think I hold
my wife in my embrace, although I don’t:
a cold comfort, I know, but nonetheless
it will lighten the weight that will be my life.
Maybe you’ll visit me in a dream, to delight me.
It’s sweet to see a dear one even in sleep,
even for a moment. If I’d the voice and songs
of Orpheus, to entrance Persephone or her husband*30
and win you back, I’d have gone to Hades.
360
Neither Pluto’s hound*31 nor ferryman Charon
would’ve stopped me before I’d brought you
back into the light. But no. So wait for me;
I’ll come when I’m dead. Prepare a house
to share with me. I’ll order these children
to lay me out in the same cedar coffin,
with my side touching yours. I wish even
in death not to be apart from you,
for you alone have proved faithful to me.
CHORUS: I’ll help you bear the grief and pain for her,
370
as a friend does for a friend. She’s earned that right.
ALCESTIS: Oh, children, you have heard it yourselves:
your father’s said he’ll never take another
wife, to dishonor me and rule over you.
ADMETUS: This I say now and this I’ll do.
ALCESTIS: With that promise, take from my hand the children.
ADMETUS: I take them, a dear gift from a hand as dear.
ALCESTIS: Now you are mother to these children in my place.
ADMETUS: Yes, I must be, since they’ve lost you.
ALCESTIS: Oh, children, I should live, but now I go below.
380
ADMETUS: oimoi, what will I do without you?
ALCESTIS: Time will ease your pain; the dead are nothing.
ADMETUS: Take me with you, take me below, I pray.
ALCESTIS: My death in place of yours is death enough.
ADMETUS: Oh, destiny, what a wife you take from me!
ALCESTIS: Yes, darkness fills my eyes now.
ADMETUS: I’m ruined if you’ll really leave me.
ALCESTIS: You could say of me now I exist no more.
ADMETUS: Lift up your face: don’t leave your children!
ALCESTIS: I don’t do so willingly. Farewell, children.
ADM.: Look at them, look!
390
ALC.: I am no more.
ADM.: What are you doing? Leaving?
ALC.: Farewell.
ADM.: I’m ruined.
CHORUS: She’s gone. The wife of Admetus is no more.
(Alcestis’ son falls on his knees at his mother’s side and sings.)
CHILD: iō, what’s happened to me? My mamma
has gone below. She’s here no more
in the sunlight, Father;
her leaving has orphaned me.
Look, look at her eyes, her arms lifeless by her side.
Listen, listen, Mother!
400
I beg you.
It’s me, Mother; I’m calling you.
It’s me, your little one,
who falls on you with kisses.
ADMETUS: She neither sees nor hears. And so we’re struck,
you two and I, by heavy misfortune.
CHILD: I’m young, Father, to be without
my mother, alone on life’s journey.
What horrible things I’ve suffered,
410
and you also, my sist
er.
Oh, Father, Father,*32
your marriage brought you nothing,
nothing—not even a companion
in old age. She died before you.
With you gone, Mother,
the house lies in ruins.
CHORUS: Admetus, you must endure your misfortune.
You’re not the first, and won’t be the last,
to lose a wife. You must learn this lesson:
all of us owe the debt of our death.
420
ADMETUS: I know that, and I’ve long known of this disaster
and felt distress. It hasn’t come at me suddenly.
I’ll prepare the body now for burial.
(to Chorus) You, stay here,
and while you wait, answer the god below
by singing a paean. Make no libation.*33
To all Thessalians over whom I rule
I say: Share my grief for this woman.
Cut your hair and wear black robes.
You who drive yoked teams of horses or bridle
a single mount, cut short the hair of their manes.
430
Let no pipe*34 sound in the city, let no one
pluck a lyre for a full twelve months.
I’ll never bury a dearer corpse than this one,
never a woman who’s treated me better. She deserves
my reverence: she alone gave her life for mine.
(Admetus and the children go into the house.)
strophe
CHORUS: Oh, daughter of Pelias,
may you find a happy home
in the sunless house of Hades!
Let Hades, the dark-haired god, know
and let the old man know—
440
the one who sits at the tiller
and ferries the dead:*35
this is the best woman, the very best,
he’s carried across Acheron
in his two-oared pinewood boat.
antistrophe
The servants of the Muses will sing
your glory again and again
to the music of the seven-stringed lyre
and in songs no lyre joins in.
They’ll sing in Sparta when the seasons circle
to the month of Carnea*36
450
and the moon hangs high all night;
they’ll sing in brilliant, blooming Athens.
Such is the story your death has left
for the singers of songs.
strophe
Would it were in my power
to send you into the light
from the house of Hades,
away from the streams of Cocytus,*37
by plying an oar in the world below.
460
You alone—you, dear woman—
had the heart to free your husband
from Hades with your own life.
May the earth fall lightly
upon you, lady.
And if your husband should take another wife,
he’d earn your children’s hatred and mine.
antistrophe
His mother and his aging father
would not give their bodies
to the earth instead of their child;
[…]*38
didn’t have the heart to save the life they gave.
470
Such white-haired fools!
But you in the bloom of your youth
die in a young man’s place and are gone.
Would I, too, could find
the company of such a loving wife!
But in life that’s rare.
In our time together she’d give me no pain.
(Heracles enters from the right, the direction of the town. He wears a cloak made of a lion’s skin and carries a club.)
HERACLES: Friends, natives of this land of Pheres,
will I find Admetus in his house?
CHORUS: The son of Pheres is at home, Heracles,
but tell us what brings you to Thessaly?
480
What do you need in the city of Pheres?
HERACLES: I’m performing a task for Eurystheus of Tiryns.*39
CHORUS: Where are you headed? How far must you go?
HERACLES: To Thrace, to get Diomedes’ chariot and horses.*40
CHORUS: How can you? Don’t you know the kind of host he is?
HERACLES: No, I’ve never been there, to Bistonia.*41
CHORUS: You can’t master his horses without a fight.
HERACLES: But I can’t say “no” to these labors, either.
CHORUS: You’ll come back a killer or stay there a corpse.
HERACLES: This wouldn’t be the first contest I’ve entered!
490
CHORUS: If you beat Diomedes, what else must you do?
HERACLES: I’ll bring the horses to the king of Tiryns.
CHORUS: It won’t be easy to get a bit in those jaws!
HERACLES: I’ll do it, unless their muzzles breathe fire.
CHORUS: No, their agile jaws tear men to bits.
HERACLES: That’s food for wild beasts, not horses!
CHORUS: You’ll see: their mangers stream with blood.
HERACLES: The man who raised them—who’s his father?
CHORUS: Ares. He himself is lord of the golden shield.*42
HERACLES: Ah, that’s my destiny, the task you speak of:
500
it’s an endless, rough and uphill journey,
if I must come to blows with every
son of the god Ares. First it was Lycaon,*43
then it was Cycnus, and now there’s a third:
I’m going to fight Diomedes and his horses.
But no one will ever see Alcmene’s son
tremble in fear at the hand of an enemy.
(Admetus enters from the house with an attendant slave.)
CHORUS: But look, I see the lord of this land;
Admetus himself is coming from his house.
ADMETUS: Joy to you, Zeus’ son, descendent of Perseus.*44
510
HERACLES: And joy to you, Admetus, lord of Thessaly.
ADMETUS: I wish—but I know you mean well.
HERACLES: What’s this? Why is your hair cut in mourning?
ADMETUS: I’m about to bury someone who died today.
HERACLES: God keep your children free from harm!
ADMETUS: My children are alive, here in the house.
HERACLES: Well, your father was a good age, if he’s gone.
ADMETUS: Both he and my mother are still here, Heracles.
HERACLES: But surely your wife, Alcestis, isn’t dead?
ADMETUS: There are two stories for me to tell of her.
520
HERACLES: Are you saying she’s alive or she’s dead?
ADMETUS: She is and she isn’t; she causes me sorrow.
HERACLES: I’m none the wiser. You speak in riddles.
ADMETUS: Don’t you know the fate that awaits her?
HERACLES: Yes, that she consented to die for you.
ADMETUS: If she’s agreed to that, how alive is she?
HERACLES: Ah, don’t weep for her now! Wait until then.
ADMETUS: The one about to die is dead and gone—without dying.
HERACLES: Being and not being are thought to be different things.
ADMETUS: You judge it one way, I another, Heracles.
530
HERACLES: So why do you weep? Who in your house is dead?
ADMETUS: A woman. We were just speaking of a woman.
HERACLES: Someone born of your blood or not?*45
ADMETUS: Not. Yet someone with close ties to the house.
HERACLES: Why was she in your house when she died?
ADMETUS: When her father died, she came here as an orphan.
HERACLES: pheu! I wish I hadn’t found you in mourning, Admetus.
ADMETUS: Now you’ve said this, what do you mean to do?
HERACL
ES: I’ll move on to another host’s hearth.
ADMETUS: No, my lord! Save us from such disaster!
540
HERACLES: A stranger in the house disturbs the grieving.
ADMETUS: The dead are dead. Please come inside.
HERACLES: A guest feels shame to feast when others weep.
ADMETUS: The guest rooms where you’ll be are far away.
HERACLES: I’d be most grateful if you’d let me leave.
ADMETUS: You must not go to another man’s hearth.
(to attendant) Lead the way to guest rooms far from the house.
Open them up and tell those in charge
to prepare a meal. Then make sure the doors
to the courtyard are shut. Guests must not
550
hear groaning or be upset as they feast.
(Attendant goes into the house with Heracles.)
CHORUS: What are you doing? Burdened by such misfortune
you can bear to play the host? Are you a fool?
ADMETUS: If I had driven from my house and city
a man who’s a friend and guest, would you approve?
Surely not: my suffering would be no less
but I would be more inhospitable.
On top of the troubles I have, there’d be another:
my house would gain a reputation for hating guests.
He receives me with the finest hospitality
560
when I’m at his house, in dusty Argos.
CHORUS: But why did you conceal your situation
if, as you say, the man has come as a friend?
ADMETUS: He wouldn’t have wanted to enter the house
if he had any knowledge of my distress.
To some, I know, my actions will seem unwise.
They will not approve. But the doors of my house
don’t know how to be rude and shut out guests.
(Admetus goes into the house.)
strophe
CHORUS: House and master, friendly and generous to all,
570
even Pythian Apollo, with his tuneful lyre,
consented to make his home here,
allowed himself to be a shepherd
in these pastures.
On the sloping hills
he played his pipe for your flocks,
played them marriage songs shepherds sing.
antistrophe
Spotted lynxes joined the flocks, charmed
580
by the shepherd’s song. And a troop of tawny lions
came from the valleys of Orthys.*46
And the spotted fawn pranced
to the sound of your lyre, Phoebus.
She came out from the tall fir trees
with a light step,
delighted by your sweet song.
The Greek Plays Page 55
