Alcestis
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Admetus
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There is no woman living that shall share my couch.
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Heracles
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Dost think that this will help the dead at all?
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Admetus
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My reverence she deserves, where’er she is.
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Heracles
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I praise thee, yes; but still thou bringest on thyself the charge of folly.
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Admetus
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So that thou never call’st me bridegroom, praise me if thou wilt.
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Heracles
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I praise thee for thy loyalty to thy wife.
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Admetus
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Come death! if ever I betray her, dead though she be.
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Heracles
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Well, take this maiden to the shelter of thy noble house.
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Admetus
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Spare me, I entreat thee by Zeus, thy sire.
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Heracles
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Be sure, if thou refuse, ’twill be a sad mistake.
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Admetus
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If I comply, remorse will gnaw my heart.
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Heracles
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Yield; for in god’s good time maybe thou wilt give me thanks.
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Admetus
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Ah! would thou hadst never won her in the games!
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Heracles
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Yet thou too sharest in my victory.
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Admetus
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True; still let this maiden go away.
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Heracles
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Go she shall, if go she must; but first see if this is needful.
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Admetus
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I needs must, else wilt thou be wroth with me.
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Heracles
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I have a reason good to press the matter thus.
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Admetus
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Have thy way then. Yet know well thy deed I disapprove.
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Heracles
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A day will come that thou wilt praise me; only yield.
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Admetus
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(to his servants). Take her in, if I needs must give her welcome in my house.
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Heracles
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To thy servants will I not hand her over.
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Admetus
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Conduct her then thyself within, if so thou thinkest good.
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Heracles
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Nay, but into thy hands shall mine consign her.
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Admetus
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I will not touch her, though she is free to go within my halls.
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Heracles
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To thy hand, and thine alone I her entrust.
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Admetus
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Prince, against my will thou dost constrain me to this deed.
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Heracles
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Boldly stretch out thy hand and touch the stranger maid.
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Admetus
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There, then, I stretch it out as toward the Gorgon’s severed head.Lobeck, whom Nauck follows, to avoid the elision of the final ι of the dative singular, conjectured Γοργόν’ ὡς καρατομῶν as if beheading a Gorgon, i.e. with averted gaze, thus gaining very considerable point. Paley notices the clever suggestion, without however adopting it.
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Heracles
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Hast hold of her?
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in days to come thou wilt confess the son of Zeus proved himself a noble guest. Look well at her, if haply to thy gaze she have a semblance of thy wife; and now that thou art blest, cease from sorrowing.
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Admetus
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Great gods, what shall I say? a marvel past all hope is here! My wife, my own true wife I see,
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or is some mocking rapture sent by heaven to drive me mad?
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Heracles
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No, no; ’tis thy own wife thou seest here.
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Admetus
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Beware it be not a phantom from that nether world.
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Heracles
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No necromancer was this guest whom thou didst welcome.
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Admetus
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Do I behold my wife, her whom I buried?
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Heracles
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Be well assured thereof; still I marvel not thou dost distrust thy luck.
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Admetus
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May I touch her, may I speak to her as my living wife?
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Heracles
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Speak to her. For thou hast all thy heart’s desire.
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Admetus
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O form and features of my well-loved wife! past all hope I hold thee, never expecting to see thee again.
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Heracles
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So thou dost; may no jealous god rise against thee!
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Admetus
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O noble son of almighty Zeus, good luck to thee! may the father that begat thee hold thee in his keeping; for thou and none else hast raised my fallen fortunes. How didst thou bring her from the world below to this light of day?
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Heracles
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By encountering the godReading δαιμόνων τῷ κυρίῳ. Nauck has κοιράνῳ—apparently regarding the Death-god as supreme over all deities, but surely this is incorrect. Jacobs, seeing the difficulty, conjectured νερτέρων. But the translation in the text seems a possible one, and makes the emendation unnecessary. who had her in his power.
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Admetus
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Where didst thou engage with Death? tell me this.
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Heracles
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Just by the tomb I from my ambush sprang and caught him in my grip.
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Admetus
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But why thus speechless stands my wife?
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Heracles
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’Tis not lawful yet for thee to hear her speak,
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ere she be purified from the gods below and the third day be come. So lead her in; and hereafter, e’en as now, be just and kind to guests, Admetus. Now farewell! for I must go to perform my appointed task
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for the lordly son of Sthenelus.
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Admetus
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Abide with us and be our welcome guest.
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Heracles
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Another time; now must I use all haste.
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Admetus
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Good luck to thee! and mayst thou come again! To the citizens and ail my realm
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I make this proclamation, that they institute dances in honour of the glad event, and make the altars steam with sacrifice, and offer prayers; for now have I moored my bark of life in a happier haven than before, and so will own myself a happy man.
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Chorus
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Many are the shapes that fortune takes,
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and oft the gods bring things to pass beyond our expectation. That which we deemed so sure is not fulfilled, while for that we never thought would be, God finds out a way. And such hath been the issue in the present case.
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Chorus
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’Tis done; no single spot in all the world remains whither one might steer a course, either to LyciaTo a shrine of Apollo.
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or to the parched abodesThe temple of Zeus Ammon in the deserts of Libya. of Ammon to release the hapless lady’s soul; on comes death with step abrupt,
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nor know I to whom I should go of all who at the gods’ altars offer sacrifice.
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Chorus
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Only the son of Phoebus,Asclepius, who had been slain by Zeus, for raising the dead to life. if he yet saw this light of day—
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Ah! then then might she have left the dark abode and gates of Hades and have come again, for he would raise the dead to life, till that the thunderbolt’s forked flame, hurled by Zeus, smote him.
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But now what further hope of life can I welcome to me?
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Alcestis
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I see the two-oared skiff, I see it; and Charon, death’s ferryman, his hand upon the boatman’s pole,
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is calling me e’en now, Why lingerest thou? Hasten. Thou art keeping me. Thus in his eager haste he hurries me.
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Admetus
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Ah me! bitter to me is this voyage thou speakest of. Unhappy wife, what woes are ours!
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Alcestis
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One draws me, draws me hence, seest thou not?
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to the courts of death, winged Hades glaring from beneath his dark brows. What wilt thou with me? Unhand me. On what a journey am I setting out, most wretched woman I!
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Admetus
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Bitter journey to thy friends, yet most of all to me
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and to thy babes, the partners in this sorrow.
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Chorus
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Would it were in my power and range to bring thee to the light from the chambers of Hades and the streams of Cocytus with the oar that sweeps yon nether flood!
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For thou, and thou alone, most dear of women, hadst the courage to redeem thy husband from Hades in exchange for thy own life. Light lie the earth above thee, lady! And if ever thy lord take to him a new wife, I vow he will earn my hatred
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and thy children’s too.
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Chorus
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His mother had no heart to plunge into the darkness of the tomb for her son, no! nor his aged sire.A line is here wanting in the MSS., but its absence does not destroy the sense. Their own child they had not the courage to rescue,
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the wretches! albeit they were grey-headed. But thou in thy youth and beauty hast died for thy lord and gone thy way. O be it mine to have for partner such a loving wife! for this lot is rare in life. Surely she should be my help-meet all my life
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and never cause one tear.
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Chorus
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And so it is thy lord inhabits a home rich in countless flocks
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by Boebe’s lovely mere, bounding his tilled corn-land and his level pastures with the clime of the Molossi near the sun’s dark stable,
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and holding sway as far as the harbourless strand of the Aegean ’neath Pelion’s shadow.
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Chorus
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Now too hath he opened wide his house and welcomed a guest although his eye is wet with tears in mourning for his wife so dear
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but lately dead within his halls; yea, for noble birth to noble feeling is inclined.In Nauck’s text the word ἄγαμαι is here inserted, but it is omitted by Paley. And in the good completest wisdom dwells; and at my heart sits the bold belief
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that heaven’s servant will be blesedblessed.
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Chorus
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I had a kinsman once, within whose home died
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his only son, worthy of a father’s tears; yet in spite of that he bore his grief resignedly, childless though he was, his hair already turning grey, himself far on in years, upon
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life’s downward track.
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Chorus
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Hard upon prosperous fortune came this sorrow to thee, a stranger to adversity; yet hast thou saved thy soul alive.
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Thy wife is dead and gone; her love she leaves with thee. What new thing is here? Death ere now from many a man hath torn a wife.
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Admetus
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My friends, I count my dead wife’s lot more blest than mine, for all it seems not so; for nevermore can sorrow touch her for ever; all her toil is over, and glorious is her fame. While I, who had no right to live, have passed the bounds of fate
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only to live a life of misery; I know it now. For how shall I endure to enter this my house? Whom shall I address, by whom be answered back, to findNauck brackets this line as spurious. aught joyful in my entering in? Whither shall I turn? Within, the desolation will drive me forth,
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whensoe’er I see my widowed couch, the seat whereon she sat, the floor ail dusty in the house, and my babes falling at my knees with piteous tears for their mother, while my servants mourn the good mistress their house hath lost.
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These are the sorrows in my home, while abroad the marriages among Thessalians and the thronging crowds of women will drive me mad,Or, drive me away. for I can never bear to gaze upon the compeers of my wife. And whoso is my foe will taunt me thus,
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Behold him living in his shame, a wretch who quailed at death himself, but of his coward heart gave up his wedded wife instead, and escaped from Hades; doth he deem himself a man after that? And he loathes his parents, though himself refused to die. Such ill report shall I to my evils add.
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What profit, then, my friends, for me to live, in fame and fortune ruined.
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Chorus
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This is the goddess that hath gripped thee too in chains thou canst not ’scape;
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yet steel thy heart, for all thy weeping ne’er will bring to light again the dead from the realms below. Even sons of gods perish in darknessσκότιοι or the sons of gods by mortal women.
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in the hour of death. We loved her while she was with us, we love her still though dead; noblest of her sex was she, the wife thou tookest to thy bed.
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Chorus
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Her tomb let none regard as the graves of those who die and are no more, but let her have honours equal with the gods, revered by every traveller;
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and many a one will cross the road and read this verse aloud, This is she that died in days gone by to save her lord; now is she a spirit blest. Hail, lady revered; be kind to us!
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Such glad greeting shall she have.
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Alcestis
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My end is come.
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Alcestis
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Farewell!