Alcestis
Choose a text
id="mobileReaderAuthor" class="mobile-reader-author" href="/authors/euripides" aria-label="More works by Euripides">
—
⋯
Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
220
220
Admetus
220
She lives, yet lives no more; that is my grief.
221
221
Heracles
221
I am no wiser yet; thy words are riddles to me.
222
222
Admetus
222
Knowest thou not the doom she must undergo?
223
223
Heracles
223
I know she did submit to die in thy stead.
224
224
Admetus
224
How then is she still alive, if so she promised?
225
225
Heracles
225
Ah! weep not thy wife before the day, put that off till then.
226
226
Admetus
226
The doomed is dead; the dead no more exists.
227
227
Heracles
227
Men count to be and not to be something apart.
228
228
Admetus
228
Thy verdict this, O Heracles, mine another.
229
229
Heracles
229
Why weepest then? which of thy dear ones is the dead?
230
230
Admetus
230
’Tis a woman; I spoke of a woman just now.
231
231
Heracles
231
A stranger, or one of thine own kin?
232
232
Admetus
232
A stranger, yet in another sense related to my house.
233
233
Heracles
233
How then came she by her death in house of thine?
234
234
Admetus
234
Her father dead, she lived here as an orphan.
235
235
Heracles
235
Ah! would I had found thee free from grief, Admetus!
236
236
Admetus
236
With what intent dost thou devise this speech?
237
237
Heracles
237
I will seek some other friendly hearth.
238
238
Admetus
238
Never, O prince! Heaven forefend such dire disgrace!
239
239
Heracles
239
A guest is a burden to sorrowing friends, if come he should.
240
240
Admetus
240
The dead are dead. Come in.
241
241
Heracles
241
To feast in a friend’s house of sorrow is shameful.
242
242
Admetus
242
The guest chambers lie apart, whereto we will conduct thee.
243
243
Heracles
243
Let me go; ten thousandfold shall be my thanks to thee.
244
244
Admetus
244
Thou must not go to any other hearth. (To a Servant.) Go before, open the guest-rooms that face not these chambers, and bid my stewards see there is plenty of food; then shut the doors that lead into the courtyard; for ’tis not seemly that guests when at their meat
245
should hear the voice of weeping or be made sad. [Exit HERACLES.
246
246
Chorus
246
What doest thou? With such calamity before thee, hast thou the heart, Admetus, to welcome visitors? What means this folly?
247
247
Admetus
247
Well, and if I had driven him from my house and city when he came to be my guest, wouldst thou have praised me more?
248
No indeed! for my calamity would have been no whit less, while I should have been more churlish. And this would have been another woe to add to mine, that my house should be called no friend to guests. Yea, and I find him myself the best of hosts
249
whene’er to Argos’ thirsty land I come.
250
250
Chorus
250
Why then didst thou conceal thy present misfortune, if, as thy own lips declare, it was a friend that came?
251
251
Admetus
251
He would never have entered my house, had he known aught of my distress.
252
Maybe there are who think me but a fool for acting thus, and these will blame me; but my halls have never learnt to drive away or treat with scorn my guests.
253
253
Chorus
253
O home of hospitality, thrown open by thy lord to all now and ever!
254
In thee it was that Pythian Apollo, the sweet harper, deigned to make his home, and in thy halls was content to lead a shepherd’s life,
255
piping o’er the sloping downs shepherd’s madrigals to thy flocks.
256
256
Chorus
256
And spotted lynxes couched amid his sheep in joy to hear his melody,
257
and the lions’ tawny troop left the glen of Othrys and came; came too the dappled fawn on nimble foot from beyond the crested pines and frisked about thy lyre, O Phoebus,
258
for very joy at thy gladsome minstrelsy.
265
265
Admetus
265
Men of Pherae, kindly gathered here, lo! even now my servants are bearing the corpse with all its trappings shoulder-high to the funeral pyre for burial; do ye, as custom bids,
266
salute the dead on her last journey starting.
267
267
Chorus
267
Look! I see thy father advancing with aged step, and servants too bearing in their arms adornment for thy wife, offerings for the dead.
268
268
Pheres
268
My son, I come to share thy sorrow,
269
for thou hast lost a noble, peerless wife; that no man will deny. Yet must thou needs bear this blow, hard though it be. Accept this garniture, and let it go beneath the earth, for rightly is her body honoured,
270
since she died to save thy life, my son, and gave me back my child, suffering me not to lose thee and pine away in an old age of sorrow. Thus by the generous deed she dared, hath she made her life a noble example for all her sex.
271
Farewell to thee, who hast saved this son of mine and raised me up when falling; be thine a happy lot even in Hades’ halls! Such marriages I declare are gain to man, else to wed is not worth while.
272
272
Admetus
272
Thou hast come uncalled by me to this burial,
273
nor do I count thy presence as a friendly act. Never shall she be clad in any garniture of thine, norNauck brackets this line as spurious. in her burial will she need aught of thine. Thou shouldst have shewn thy sympathy at the time my doom was sealed. But thou didst stand aloof and let another die,
274
though thou wert old, the victim young; shalt thou then mourn the dead? Methinks thou wert no real sire of mine nor was she my true mother who calls herself and is called so, butNauck refuses to credit Euripides with lines 638 and 639. I was sprung of slave’s blood and privily substituted at thy wife’s breast.
275
275
Brought to the test thou hast shewn thy nature; I cannot think I am thy child by birth. By heaven, thou art the very pattern of cowards, who at thy age, on the borderland of life, wouldst not, nay! couldst not find the heart to die
276
for thy own son; but ye, my parents, left to this stranger, whom I henceforth shall justly hold e’en as mother and as father too, and none but her. And yet ’twas a noble exploit to achieve, to die to save thy son, and in any case the
277
remnant of thy time to live was but short; andLines 651 and 652 are bracketed by Nauck as spurious. I and she would have lived the days that were to be, nor had I lost my wife and mourned my evil fate. Moreover thou hast had all treatment that a happy man should have; in princely pomp thy youth was spent,
278
thou hadst a son, myself, to be the heir of this thy home, so thou hadst no fear of dying childless and leaving thy house desolate, for strangers to pillage. Nor yet canst thou say I did dishonour thy old age and give thee up to die, seeing I have ever been
279
to thee most dutiful, and for this thou, my sire, and she, my mother, have made me this return. Go then, get other sons to tend thy closing years, prepare thy body for the grave, and lay out thy corpse.
280
For I will never bury thee with hand of mine; for I am dead for all thou didst for me; but if I found a saviour in another and still live, his son I say I am, and his fond nurse in old age will be. ’Tis vain, I see, the old man’s prayer for death,
281
his plaints at age and life’s long weariness. For if death do but draw near, not one doth wish to die; old age no more they count so burdensome.
282
282
Chorus
282
Peace! enough the present sorrow, O my son; goad not thy father’s soul to fury.
283
283
Pheres
283
Child, whom think’st thou art reviling? some Lydian or Phrygian bought with thy money? Art not aware I am a freebom Thessalian, son of a Thessalian sire? Thou art too insolent; yet from hence thou shalt not go as thou earnest,
284
after shooting out thy braggart tongue at me. To rule my house I begat and bred thee up; I own no debt of dying in thy stead; this is not the law that I received from my ancestors that fathers should die for children, nor is it a custom in Hellas.
285
For weal or woe, thy life must be thine own; whate’er was due from me to thee, thou hast. Dominion wide is thine, and acres broad I will leave to thee, for from my father did I inherit them. How, pray, have I wronged thee? of what am I robbing thee?
286
Die not thou for me, nor I for thee. Thy joy is in the light; think’st thou thy sire’s is not? By Heaven! ’tis a weary while, I trow, that time beneath the earth, and life, though short, is sweet. Thou at least didst struggle hard to ’scape thy death,
287
lost to shame, and by her death dost live beyond thy destined term. Dost thou then speak of cowardice in me, thou craven heart! no match for thy wife, who hath died for thee, her fine young lord? A clever scheme hast thou devised to stave off death for ever,
288
if thou canst persuade each new wife to die instead of thee; and dost thou then taunt thy friends, who will not do the like, coward as thou art thyself? Hold thy peace; reflect, if thou dost love thy life so well, this love by all is shared; yet if thou wilt speak ill of me,
289
thyself shalt hear a full and truthful list of thy own crimes.
290
290
Chorus
290
Too long that list both now and heretofore; cease, father, to revile thy son.
291
291
Admetus
291
Say on, for I have said my say; but if it vexes thee to hear the truth, thou shouldst not have sinned against me.
292
292
Pheres
292
My sin had been the deeper, had I died for thee.
293
293
Admetus
293
What! is it all one for young or old to die?
294
294
Pheres
294
To live one life, not twain, is all our due.
295
295
Admetus
295
Outlive then Zeus himself!
296
296
Pheres
296
Dost curse thy parents, though unharmed by them?
297
297
Admetus
297
Yea, for I see thy heart is set on length of days.
298
298
Pheres
298
Is it not to save thyself thou art carrying to the tomb this corpse?
299
299
Admetus
299
A proof of thy cowardice, thou craven heart!
300
300
Pheres
300
At any rate her death was not due to me; this thou canst not say.
301
301
Admetus
301
Ah! mayst thou some day come to need my aid!
302
302
Pheres
302
Woo many wives, that there may be the more to die.
303
303
Admetus
303
That is thy reproach, for thou didst refuse to die.
304
304
Pheres
304
Dear is the light of the sun-god, dear to all.
305
305
Admetus
305
A coward soul is thine, not to be reckoned among men.
306
306
Pheres
306
No laughing now for thee at bearing forth my aged corpse.
307
307
Admetus
307
Thy death will surely be a death of shame, come when it will.
308
308
Pheres
308
Once dead I little reck of foul report.
309
309
Admetus
309
Alas! how void of shame the old can be!
310
310
Pheres
310
Hers was no want of shame; ’twas want of sense in her that thou didst find.
311
311
Admetus
311
Begone! and leave me to bury my dead.
312
312
Pheres
312
I go; bury thy victim, thyself her murderer. Her kinsmen yet will call for an account. Else surely has Acastus ceased to be a man, if he avenge not on thee his sister’s blood.
313
313
Admetus
313
Perdition seize thee and that wife of thine!
314
grow old, as ye deserve, childless, though your son yet lives, for ye shall never enter the same abode with me; nay! were it needful I should disown thy paternal hearth by heralds’ voice, I had disowned it. (Exit PHERES). Now, since we must bear our present woe,
315
let us go and lay the dead upon the pyre. [Exit ADMETUS.
316
316
Chorus
316
Woe, woe for thee! Alas, for thy hardihood! Noble spirit, good beyond compare, farewell! May Hermes in the nether world, and Hades, too, give thee a kindly welcome! and if even in that other life
317
the good are rewarded, mayst thou have thy share therein and take thy seat by Hades’ bride!
318
318
Attendant
318
Many the guests ere now from every comer of the world I have seen come to the halls of Admetus, for whom I have spread the board, but never yet
319
have I welcomed to this hearth a guest so shameless as this; a man who, in the first place, though he saw my master’s grief, yet entered and presumed to pass the gates, then took what cheer we had in no sober spirit, though he knew our sorrow;
320
no! was there aught we failed to bring? he called for it. Next in his hands he took a goblet of ivy-wood and drank the pure juice of the black grape, till the mounting fumes of wine heated him, and he crowned his head with myrtle-sprays,
321
howling discordantly, while two-fold strains were there to hear, for he would sing without a thought for the troubles in Admetus’ halls, while we servants mourned our mistress, though we did not let the stranger see our streaming eyes, for such was the bidding of Admetus.
322
So now here am I entertaining as a guest some miscreant thief maybe, or robber, while she is gone forth from the house, nor did I follow her nor stretch my hand towards her bier, in mourning for my lady, who, to me, and all her servants,
323
was a mother, for she would save us from countless trouble, appeasing her husband’s angry mood. Have I not good cause then to loathe this guest who cometh in our hour of woe?
324
324
Heracles
324
Ho! sirrah, why that solemn, thoughtful look? ’Tis not the way for servants to scowl on guests,
325
but with courteous soul to welcome them. But thou, seeing a friend of thy master arrive, receivest him with sullen, lowering brow, though ’tis but a stranger that is the object of thy mourning. Come hither, that thou too mayst learn more wisdom.