Alcestis
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Admetus
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Lift thyself, unhappy wife, forsake me not; entreat the mighty gods to pity us.
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Alcestis
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Hands off! hands off at once! Lay me down, I cannot stand. Hades standeth near; and with its gloom steals night upon my eyes.
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O my children, my children, ye have no mother now. Fare ye well, my babes, live on beneath the light!
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Admetus
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Woe is me! this is a message of sorrow to me, worse than aught that death can do.
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Steel not thy heart to leave me, I implore, by heaven, by thy babes whom thou wilt make orphans; nay, raise thyself, have courage. For if thou die I can no longer live; my life, my death are in thy hands; thy love is what I worship.
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Alcestis
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Admetus, lo! thou seest how it is with me; to thee I fain would tell my wishes ere I die. Thee I set before myself, and instead of living have ensured thy life, and so I die, though I need not have died for thee,
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but might have taken for my husband whom I would of the Thessalians, and have had a home blest with royal power; reft of thee, with my children orphans, I cared not to live, nor, though crowned with youth’s fair gifts, wherein I used to joy, did I grudge them.
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Yet the father that begat thee, the mother that bare thee, gave thee up, though they had reached a time of life when to die were well, so saving thee their child, and winning noble death. For thou wert their only son, nor had they any hope, when thou wert dead, of other offspring.
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And I should have lived and thou the remnant of our days, nor wouldst thou have wept thy wife’s loss, nor have had an orphan family. But some god hath caused these things to be even as they are. Enough! Remember thou the gratitude due to me for this;
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yea, for I shall never ask thee for an adequate return, for naught is prized more highly than our life; but just is my request, as thou thyself must say, since thou no less than I dost love these children, if so be thou think’st aright. Be content to let them rule my house,
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and do not marry a new wife to be a stepmother to these children, for she from jealousy, if so she be a woman worse than me, will stretch out her hand against the children of our union. Then do not this, I do beseech thee.Nauck suspects this line, and Hirzel thinks the two next are spurious. For the stepmother that succeeds, hateth children
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of a former match, cruel as the viper’s are her tender mercies. A son, ’tis true, hath in his sire a tower of strength, to whom he speaks and has his answer back;Paley encloses this line in brackets as suspicious. Nauck omits it in his text. but thou, my daughter, how shall thy maidenhood be passed in honour? What shall thy experience be of thy father’s wife?
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She may fasten on thee some foul report in thy youthful bloom, and frustrate thy marriage. Never shall thy mother lead thee to the bridal bed, nor by her presence in thy travail hearten thee, my child, when a mother’s kindness triumphs over all.
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No, for I must die; and lo! this evil cometh to me not to-morrow nor yet on the third day of the month, but in a moment shall I be counted among the souls that are no more. Fare ye well, be happy; and thou, husband, canst boast thou hadst a peerless wife,
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and you, children, that you had such an one for mother.
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Chorus
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Take heart; I do not hesitate to answer for him; he will perform all this, unless his mind should go astray.
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Admetus
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It shall be so, fear not, it shall; alive thou wert the only wife I had, and dead shalt thou,
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none else, be called mine; no Thessalian maid shall ever take thy place and call me lord; not though she spring from lineage high nor though besides she be the fairest of her sex. Of children I have enough; god grant I may in them
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be blessed! for in thee has it been otherwise. No year-long mourning will I keep for thee, but all my life through, lady: loathing the mother that bare me, and hating my father, for they were friends in word but not in deed.
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But thou didst give thy dearest for my life and save it. May I not then mourn to lose a wife like thee? And I will put an end to revelry, to social gatherings o’er the wine, forego the festal crown and music which once reigned in my halls.
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For nevermore will I touch the lyre nor lift my soul in song to the Libyan flute, for thou hast taken with thee all my joy in life. But in my bed thy figure shall be laid full length, by cunning artists fashioned;
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thereon will I throw myself and, folding my arms about thee, call upon thy name, and think I hold my dear wife in my embrace, although I do not; chill comfort this, no doubt, but still I shall relieve my soul of its sad weight; and thou wilt come
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to me in dreams and gladden me. For sweet it is to see our friends, come they when they will, e’en by night. Had I the tongue, the tuneful voice of Orpheus to charm Demeter’s daughter or her husband by my lay and bring thee back from Hades,
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I had gone down, nor Pluto’s hound, nor Charon, ferryman of souls, whose hand is on the oar, had held me back, till to the light I had restored thee alive. At least do thou await me there, against the hour I die, prepare a home for me to be my true wife still.
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For in this same cedar coffin I will bid these children lay me with thee and stretch my limbs by thine; for never even in death may I be severed from thee, alone found faithful of them all.
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Chorus
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Lo! I too will share with thee thy mourning for her, friend with friend;
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for this is but her due.
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Alcestis
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My children, ye with your own ears have heard your father’s promise, that he will never wed another wife to set her over you, nor e’er dishonour me.
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Admetus
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Yea, so I promise now, and accomplish it I will.
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Alcestis
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On these conditions receive the children from my hand.
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Admetus
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I receive them, dear pledges by a dear hapd given.
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Alcestis
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Take thou my place and be a mother to these babes.
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Admetus
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Sore will be their need when they are reft of thee.
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Alcestis
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O my children, I am passing to that world below, when my life was needed most.
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Admetus
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Ah me, what can I do bereft of thee?
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Alcestis
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Thy sorrow Time will soothe; ’tis the dead who are as naught.
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Admetus
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Take me, O take me, I beseech, with thee ’neath the earth.
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Alcestis
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Enough that I in thy stead am dying.
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Admetus
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O Destiny! of what a wife art thou despoiling me!
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Alcestis
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Lo! the darkness deepens on my drooping eyes.
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Admetus
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Lost indeed am I, if thou, dear wife, wilt really leave me.
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Alcestis
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Thou mayst speak of me as naught, as one whose life is o’er.
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Admetus
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Lift up thy face, leave not thy children.
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Alcestis
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’Tis not my own free will; O my babes, farewell!
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Admetus
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Look, look on them but once.
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Admetus
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What mean’st thou? art leaving us?
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Chorus
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She is gone, the wife of Admetus is no more.
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Eumelus
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O my hard fate! My mother has passed to the realms below; she lives no more,
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dear father, ’neath the sun. Alas for her! she leaves us ere her time and to me bequeaths an orphan’s life. Behold that staring eye, those nerveless hands!
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Hear me, mother, hear me, I implore! ’tis I who call thee now, I thy tender chick, printing my kisses on thy lips.
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Admetus
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She cannot hear, she cannot see;
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a heavy blow hath fortune dealt us, you children and me.
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Eumelus
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O father, I am but a child to have my loving mother leave me here alone; O cruel my fate, alas!
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and thine, my sister, sharer in my cup of woe. Woe to thee, father! in vain, in vain didst thou take a wife and hast not reached the goal of eld with her; for she is gone before, and now that thou art dead,
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my mother, our house is all undone.
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Chorus
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Admetus, these misfortunes thou must bear. Thou art by no means the first nor yet shalt be the last of men to lose a wife of worth; know this, we all of us are debtors unto death.
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Admetus
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I understand; this is no sudden flight of ill hither; I was ware of it and long have pined. But since I am to. carry the dead forth to her burial, stay here with me and to that inexorable god in Hades raise your antiphone. While raise your antiphone.
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While to all Thessalians in my realm I do proclaim a general mourning for this lady, with hair shorn off and robes of sable hue; all ye who harness steeds for cars, or single horses ride, cut off their manes with the sharp steel.
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Hush’d be every pipe, silent every lyre throughout the city till twelve full moons are past; for never again shall I bury one whom I love more, no! nor one more loyal to me; honour from me is her due, for she for me hath died, she and she alone. [Exeunt ADMETUS and EUMELUS, with the other children.
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Chorus
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Daughter of Pelias, be thine a happy life in that sunless home in Hades’ halls! Let Hades know, that swarthy god,
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and that old man who sits to row and steer alike at his death-ferry, that he hath carried o’er the lake of Acheron in his two-oared skiff a woman peerless amidst her sex.
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Chorus
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Oft of thee the Muses’ votaries shall sing on the seven-stringed mountain shell and in hymns that need no harp,i.e. Epic poetry. glorifying thee, oft as the season in his cycle cometh round at Sparta in that CarneanA reference to the Carnean festival, held in honour of Apollo, by the Dorians of Peloponnesus, especially by the Spartans, for nine successive days in the month Metageitnion, i.e. April, hence called the Carnean month. month
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when all night long the moon sails high o’erhead, yea, and in splendid Athens, happy town. So glorious a theme has thy death bequeathed to tuneful bards.
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Heracles
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Mine hosts, dwellers on this Phersean soil! say, shall I find Admetus in the house?
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Chorus
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The son of Pheres is within, Heracles. Tell me what need is bringing thee to the Thessalian land,
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to visit this city of the Pheraeans?
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Heracles
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I am performing a labour for Tirynthian Eurystheus.
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Chorus
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And whither art thou journeying? on what wandering art thou forced to go?
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Heracles
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To fetch the chariot-steeds of Thracian Diomedes.
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Chorus
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How canst thou? art a stranger to the ways of thy host?
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Heracles
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I am; for never yet have I gone to the land of the Bistones.
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Chorus
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Thou canst not master his horses without fighting.
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Heracles
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Still I cannot refuse these labours.
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Chorus
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Then shalt thou slay them and return, or thyself be slain and stay there.
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Heracles
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It will not be the first hard course that I have run.
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Chorus
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And what will be thy gain, suppose thou master their lord?
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Heracles
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The steeds will I drive away to the Tirynthian king.
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Chorus
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No easy task to bit their jaws.
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Heracles
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Easy enough, unless their nostrils vomit fire.
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Chorus
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With ravening jaws they rend the limbs of men.
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Heracles
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Thou speakest of the food of mountain beasts, not of horses.
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Chorus
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Their mangers blood-bedabbled thou shalt see.
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Heracles
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Whose son doth he who feeds them boast to be?
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Chorus
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Ares’ son, king of the golden targe of Thrace.
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Heracles
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This toil again is but a piece of my ill-luck;
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hard it ever is and still is growing steeper, if I with Ares’ own-begotten sons must fight, first with Lycaon, next with Cycnus, while now I am bound on this third contest to engage the horses and their master.
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Yet shall no man ever see Alcmena’s son trembling at his foemen’s prowess.
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Chorus
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See where Admetus, lord of this land, comes in person from the palace forth.
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Admetus
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Hail! son of Zeus, from Perseus sprung.
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Heracles
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Joy to thee also, Admetus, king of Thessaly.
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Admetus
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Would there were! yet thy kindly heart I know full well.
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Heracles
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Why dost thou appear with head shorn thus in mourning?
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Admetus
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To-day I am to bury one who is dead.
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Heracles
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Heaven avert calamity from thy children!
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Admetus
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The children I have begotten are alive within my house.
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Heracles
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Thy father maybe is gone; well, he was ripe to go.
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Admetus
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No, Heracles, he lives; my mother too.
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Heracles
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It cannot be thy wife is dead, thy Alcestis?
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Admetus
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I can a twofold tale tell about her.
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Heracles
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Dost mean that she is dead, or living still?