by Euripides
ADM. Ah me! I hear this sad word, and more than any death to me. Do not by the Gods have the heart to leave me: do not by those children, whom thou wilt make orphans: but rise, be of good courage: for, thee dead, I should no longer be: for on thee we depend both to live, and not to live: for thy love we adore.
ALC. Admetus, thou seest both thy affairs and mine, in what state they are, I wish to tell thee, ere I die, what I would have done. I, honoring thee, and causing thee at the price of my life to view this light, die, it being in my power not to die, for thee: but though I might have married a husband from among the Thessalians whom I would, and have lived in a palace blessed with regal sway, was not willing to live, bereft of thee, with my children orphans; nor did I spare myself, though possessing the gifts of bloomy youth, wherein I delighted. And yet thy father and thy mother forsook thee, though they had well arrived at a point of life, in which they might have died, and nobly delivered their son, and died with glory: for thou wert their only one, and there was no hope, when thou wert dead, that they could have other children. And I should have lived, and thou, the rest of our time. And thou wouldst not be groaning deprived of thy wife, and wouldst not have to bring up thy children orphans. But these things indeed, some one of the Gods hath brought to pass, that they should be thus. Be it so — but do thou remember to give me a return for this; for never shall I ask thee for an equal one, (for nothing is more precious than life,) but just, as thou wilt say: for thou lovest not these children less than I do, if thou art right-minded; them bring up lords over my house, and bring not in second marriage a step-mother over these children, who, being a worse woman than me, through envy will stretch out her hand against thine and my children. Do not this then, I beseech thee; for a step-mother that is in second marriage is enemy to the children of the former marriage, no milder than a viper. And my boy indeed has his father, a great tower of defense; but thou, O my child, how wilt thou be, brought up during thy virgin years? Having what consort of thy father’s? I fear, lest casting some evil obloquy on thee, she destroys thy marriage in the bloom of youth. For neither will thy mother ever preside over thy nuptials, nor strengthen thee being present, my daughter, at thy travails, where nothing is more kind than a mother. For I needs must die, and this evil comes upon me not to-morrow, nor on the third day of the month, but immediately shall I be numbered among those that are no more. Farewell, and may you be happy; and thou indeed, my husband, mayst boast, that thou hadst a most excellent wife, and you, my children, that you were born of a most excellent mother.
CHOR. Be of good cheer; for I fear not to answer for him: he will do this, if he be not bereft of his senses.
ADM. These things shall be so, they shall be, fear not: since I, when alive also, possessed thee alone, and when thou art dead, thou shalt be my only wife, and no Thessalian bride shall address me in the place of thee: there is not woman who shall, either of so noble a sire, nor otherwise most exquisite in beauty. But my children are enough; of these I pray the Gods that I may have the enjoyment; for thee we do not enjoy. But I shall not have this grief for thee for a year, but as long as my life endures, O lady, abhorring her indeed that brought me forth, and hating my father; for they were in word, not in deed, my friends. But thou, giving what was dearest to thee for my life, hast rescued me. Have I not then reason to groan deprived of such a wife? But I will put an end to the feasts, and the meetings of those that drink together, and garland and song, which wont to dwell in my house. For neither can I any more touch the lyre, nor lift up my heart to sing to the Libyan flute; for thou hast taken away my joy of life. But by the cunning hand of artists imaged thy figure shall be lain on my bridal bed, on which I will fall, and clasping my hands around, calling on thy name, shall fancy that I hold my dear wife in mine arms, though holding her not: a cold delight, I ween; but still I may draw off the weight that sits upon my soul: and in my dreams visiting me, thou mayst delight me, for a friend is sweet even to behold at night, for whatever time he may come. But if the tongue of Orpheus and his strain were mine, so that invoking with hymns the daughter of Ceres or her husband, I could receive thee from the shades below, I would descend, and neither the dog of Pluto, nor Charon at his oar, the ferryman of departed spirits, should stay me before I brought thy life to the light. But there expect me when I die and prepare a mansion for me, as about to dwell with me. For I will enjoin these to place me in the same cedar with thee, and to lay my side near thy side: for not even when dead may I be separated from thee, the only faithful one to me!
CHOR. And I indeed with thee, as a friend with a friend, will bear this painful grief for her, for she is worthy.
ALC. My children, ye indeed hear your father saying that he will never marry another wife to be over you, nor dishonor me.
ADM. And now too, I say this, and will perform it
ALC. For this receive these children from my hand.
ADM. Yes, I receive a dear gift from a dear hand.
ALC. Be thou then a mother to these children in my stead.
ADM. There is much need that I should, when they are deprived of thee.
ALC. O my children, at a time when I ought to live I depart beneath.
ADM. Ah me; what shall I do of thee bereaved!
ALC. Time will soften thy grief: he that is dead is nothing.
ADM. Take me with thee, by the Gods take me beneath.
ALC. Enough are we to go, who die for thee.
ADM. O fate, of what a wife thou deprivest me!
ALC. And lo! my darkening eye is weighed down.
ADM. I am undone then, if thou wilt leave me, my wife.
ALC. As being no more, you may speak of me as nothing.
ADM. Lift up thy face; do not leave thy children.
ALC. Not willingly in sooth, but — farewell, my children.
ADM. Look on them, O! look.
ALC. I am no more.
ADM. What dost thou? dost thou leave us?
ALC. Farewell!
ADM. I am an undone wretch!
CHOR. She is gone, Admetus’ wife is no more.
EUM. Alas me, for my state! my mother is gone indeed below; she is no longer, my father, under the sun; but unhappy leaving me has made my life an orphan’s. For look, look at her eyelid, and her nerveless arms. Hear, hear, O mother. I beseech thee; I, I now call thee, mother, thy young one falling on thy mouth —
ADM. Who hears not, neither sees: so that I and you are struck with a heavy calamity.
EUM. Young and deserted, my father, am I left by my dear mother: O! I that have suffered indeed dreadful deeds! — and thou hast suffered with me, my sister. O father, in vain, in vain didst thou marry, nor with her didst thou arrive at the end of old age, for she perished before, but thou being gone, mother, the house is undone.
CHOR. Admetus, you must bear this calamity; for in no wise the first, nor the last of mortals hast thou lost thy dear wife: but learn, that to die is a debt we must all of us discharge.
ADM. I know it, and this evil hath not come suddenly on me; but knowing it long ago I was afflicted. But be present, for I will have the corse borne forth, and while ye stay, chant a hymn to the God below that accepteth not libations. And all the Thessalians, over whom I reign, I enjoin to share in the grief for this lady, by shearing their locks with steel, and by arraying themselves in sable garb. And harness your teams of horses to your chariots, and cut from your single steeds the manes that fall upon their necks. And let there be no noise of pipes, nor of the lyre throughout the city for twelve completed moons. For none other corse more dear shall I inter, nor one more kind toward me. But she deserves to receive honor from me, seeing that she alone hath died for me.
CHORUS.
O daughter of Pelias, farewell where thou dwellest in sunless dwelling within the mansions of Pluto. And let Pluto know, the God with ebon locks, and the old man, the ferryman of the dead, who sits intent upon his oar and his rudder, that he is conducting by far the most excellent of women in his two-oared boat over the lake of Achero
n. Oft shall the servants of the Muses sing of thee, celebrating thee both on the seven-stringed lute on the mountains, and in hymns unaccompanied by the lyre: in Sparta, when returns the annual circle in the season of the Carnean month, when the moon is up the whole night long; and in splendid and happy Athens. Such a song hast thou left by thy death to the minstrels of melodies. Would that it rested with me, and that I could waft thee to the light from the mansions of Pluto, and from Cocytus’ streams, by the oar of that infernal river. For thou, O unexampled, O dear among women, thou didst dare to receive thy husband from the realms below in exchange for thine own life. Light may the earth from above fall upon thee, lady! and if thy husband chooses any other alliance, surely he will be much detested by me and by thy children. When his mother was not willing for him to hide her body in the ground, nor his aged father, but these two wretches, having hoary locks, dared not to rescue him they brought forth, yet thou in the vigor of youth didst depart, having died for thy husband. May it be mine to meet with another such a dear wife; for rare in life is such a portion, for surely she would live with me forever without once causing pain.
HERCULES, CHORUS.
HER. Strangers, inhabitants of the land of Pheres, can I find Admetus within the palace?
CHOR. The son of Pheres is within the palace, O Hercules. But tell me, what purpose sends thee to the land of the Thessalians, so that thou comest to this city of Pheres?
HER. I am performing a certain labor for the Tirynthian Eurystheus.
CHOR. And whither goest thou? on what wandering expedition art bound?
HER. After the four chariot-steeds of Diomed the Thracian.
CHOR. How wilt thou be able? Art thou ignorant of this host?
HER. I am ignorant; I have not yet been to the land of the Bistonians.
CHOR. Thou canst not be lord of these steeds without battle.
HER. But neither is it possible for me to renounce the labors set me.
CHOR. Thou wilt come then having slain, or being slain wilt remain there.
HER. Not the first contest this that I shall run.
CHOR. But what advance will you have made, when you have overcome their master?
HER. I will drive away the horses to king Eurystheus.
CHOR. ’Tis no easy matter to put the bit in their jaws.
HER. ’Tis, except they breathe fire from their nostrils.
CHOR. But they tear men piecemeal with their devouring jaws.
HER. The provender of mountain beasts, not horses, you are speaking of.
CHOR. Their stalls thou mayst behold with blood bestained.
HER. Son of what sire does their owner boast to be?
CHOR. Of Mars, prince of the Thracian target, rich with gold.
HER. And this labor, thou talkest of, is one my fate compels me to (for it is ever hard and tends to steeps); if I must join in battle with the children whom Mars begat, first indeed with Lycaon, and again with Cycnus, and I come to this third combat, about to engage with the horses and their master. But none there is, who shall ever see the son of Alcmena fearing the hand of his enemies.
CHOR. And lo! hither comes the very man Admetus, lord of this land, from out of the palace.
ADMETUS, HERCULES, CHORUS.
ADM. Hail! O son of Jove, and of the blood of Perseus.
HER. Admetus, hail thou too, king of the Thessalians!
ADM. I would I could receive this salutation; but I know that thou art well disposed toward me.
HER. Wherefore art thou conspicuous with thy locks shorn for grief?
ADM. I am about to bury a certain corse this day.
HER. May the God avert calamity from thy children!
ADM. My children whom I begat, live in the house.
HER. Thy father however is of full age, if he is gone.
ADM. Both he lives, and she who bore me, Hercules.
HER. Surely your wife Alcestis is not dead?
ADM. There are two accounts which I may tell of her.
HER. Speakest thou of her as dead or as alive?
ADM. She both is, and is no more, and she grieves me.
HER. I know nothing more; for thou speakest things obscure.
ADM. Knowest thou not the fate which it was doomed for her to meet with?
HER. I know that she took upon herself to die for thee.
ADM. How then is she any more, if that she promised this?
HER. Ah! do not weep for thy wife before the time; wait till this happens.
ADM. He that is about to die is dead, and he that is dead is no more.
HER. The being and the not being is considered a different thing.
ADM. You judge in this way, Hercules, but I in that.
HER. Why then dost weep? Who is he of thy friends that is dead?
ADM. A woman, a woman we were lately mentioning.
HER. A stranger by blood, or any by birth allied to thee?
ADM. A stranger; but on other account dear to this house.
HER. How then died she in thine house?
ADM. Her father dead, she lived an orphan here.
HER. Alas! Would that I had found thee, Admetus, not mourning!
ADM. As about to do what then, dost thou make use of these words?
HER. I will go to some other hearth of those who will receive a guest.
ADM. It must not be, O king: let not so great an evil happen!
HER. Troublesome is a guest if he come to mourners.
ADM. The dead are dead — but go into the house.
HER. ’Tis base however to feast with weeping friends.
ADM. The guest-chamber, whither we will lead thee, is apart.
HER. Let me go, and I will owe you ten thousand thanks.
ADM. It must not be that thou go to the hearth of another man. Lead on thou, having thrown open the guest-chamber that is separate from the house: and tell them that have the management, that there be plenty of meats; and shut the gates in the middle of the hall: it is not meet that feasting guests should hear groans, nor should they be made sad.
CHOR. What are you doing? when so great a calamity is before you, Admetus, hast thou the heart to receive guests? wherefore art thou foolish?
ADM. But if I had driven him who came my guest from my house, and from the city, would you have praised me rather? No in sooth, since my calamity had been no whit the less, but I the more inhospitable: and in addition to my evils, there had been this other evil, that mine should be called the stranger-hating house. But I myself find this man a most excellent host, whenever I go to the thirsty land of Argos.
CHOR. How then didst thou hide thy present fate, when a friend, as thou thyself sayest, came?
ADM. He never would have been willing to enter the house if he had known aught of my sufferings. And to him indeed, I ween, acting thus, I appear not to be wise, nor will he praise me; but my house knows not to drive away, nor to dishonor guests.
CHORUS.
O greatly hospitable and ever liberal house of this man, thee even the Pythian Apollo, master of the lyre, deigned to inhabit, and endured to become a shepherd in thine abodes, through the sloping hills piping to thy flocks his pastoral nuptial hymns. And there were wont to feed with them, through delight of his lays, both the spotted lynxes, and the bloody troop of lions came having left the forest of Othrys; disported too around thy cithern, Phœbus, the dappled fawn, advancing with light pastern beyond the lofty-feathered pines, joying in the gladdening strain. Wherefore he dwelleth in a home most rich in flocks by the fair-flowing lake of Bœbe; and to the tillage of his fields, and the extent of his plains, toward that dusky part of the heavens, where the sun stays his horses, makes the clime of the Molossians the limit, and holds dominion as far as the portless shore of the Ægean Sea at Pelion. And now having thrown open his house he hath received his guest with moistened eyelid, weeping over the corse of his dear wife, who but now died in the palace: for a noble disposition is prone to reverence [of the guest]. But in the good there is all manner of wisdom. And confidence
is seated on my soul that the man who reveres the Gods will fare prosperously.
ADMETUS, CHORUS.
ADM. Ye men of Pheræ that are kindly present, my servants indeed bear aloft the corse, having every thing fit for the tomb, and for the pyre. But do you, as is the custom, salute the dead going forth on her last journey.
CHOR. And lo! I see thy father advancing with his aged foot, and attendants bearing in their hands adornment for thy wife, due honors of those beneath.
PHERES, ADMETUS, CHORUS.
PHE. I am at present sympathizing in thy misfortunes, my son: for thou hast lost (no one will deny) a good and a chaste wife; but these things indeed thou must bear, though hard to be borne. But receive this adornment, and let it go with her beneath the earth: Her body ’tis right to honor, who in sooth died to save thy life, my son, and made me to be not childless, nor suffered me to waste away deprived of thee in an old age of misery. But she has made most illustrious the life of all women, having dared this noble action. O thou that hast preserved my son here, and hast raised us up who were falling, farewell, and may it be well with thee even in the mansions of Pluto! I affirm that such marriages are profitable to men, or that it is not meet to marry.
ADM. Neither hast thou come bidden of me to this funeral, nor do I count thy presence among things acceptable. But she here never shall put on thy decorations; for in no wise shall she be buried indebted to what thou hast. Then oughtest thou to have grieved with me, when I was in danger of perishing. But dost thou, who stoodest aloof, and permittedst another, a young person, thyself being old, to die, weep over this dead body? Thou wert not then really the father of me, nor did she, who says she bore me, and is called my mother, bear me; but born of slavish blood I was secretly put under the breast of thy wife. Thou showedst when thou camest to the test, who thou art; and I deem that I am not thy son. Or else surely thou exceedest all in nothingness of soul, who being of the age thou art, and having come to the goal of life, neither hadst the will nor the courage to die for thy son; but sufferedst this stranger lady, whom alone I might justly have considered both mother and father. And yet thou mightst have run this race for glory, hadst thou died for thy son. But at any rate the remainder of the time thou hadst to live was short: and I should have lived and she the rest of our days, and I should not, bereft of her, be groaning at my miseries. And in sooth thou didst receive as many things as a happy man should receive; thou passedst the vigor of thine age indeed in sovereign sway, but I was thy son to succeed thee in this palace, so that thou wert not about to die childless and leave a desolate house for others to plunder. Thou canst not however say of me, that I gave thee up to die, dishonoring thine old age, whereas I was particularly respectful toward thee; and for this behavior both thou, and she that bare me, have made me such return. Wherefore you have no more time to lose in getting children, who will succor thee in thine old age, and deck thee when dead, and lay out thy corse; for I will not bury thee with this mine hand; for I in sooth died, as far as in thee lay; but if, having met with, another deliverer, I view the light, I say that I am both his child, and the friendly comforter of his old age. In vain then do old men pray to be dead, complaining of age, and the long time of life: but if death come near, not one is willing to die, and old age is no longer burdensome to them.
