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, 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. For the stepmother that succeeds, hateth children 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; but thou, my daughter, how shall thy maidenhood be passed in honour? What shall thy experience be of thy father’s wife? 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. 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, and you, children, that you had such an one for mother.
CHORUS. Take heart; I do not hesitate to answer for him; he will perform all this, unless his mind should go astray.
ADMETUS. It shall be so, fear not, it shall; alive thou wert the only wife I had, and dead shalt thou, 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 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. 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. 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; 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 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, I had gone down, nor Pluto’s hound, nor Charon, ferryman of souls, whose hand is oh 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. 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.
CHORUS. Lo! I too will share with thee thy mourning for her, friend with friend; for this is but her due.
ALCESTIS. 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.
ADMETUS. Yea, so I promise now, and accomplish it I will.
ALCESTIS. On these conditions receive the children from my hand.
ADMETUS. I receive them, dear pledges by a dear hand given.
ALCESTIS. Take thou my place and be a mother to these babes.
ADMETUS. Sore will be their need when they are reft of thee.
ALCESTIS. O my children, I am passing to that world below, when my life was needed most.
ADMETUS. Ah me, what can I do bereft of thee?
ALCESTIS. Thy sorrow Time will soothe; ’tis the dead who are as naught.
ADMETUS. Take me, O take me, I beseech, with thee ’neath the earth.
ALCESTIS. Enough that I in thy stead am dying.
ADMETUS. O Destiny! of what a wife art thou despoiling me!
ALCESTIS. Lo! the darkness deepens on my drooping eyes.
ADMETUS. Lost indeed am I, if thou, dear wife, wilt really leave me.
ALCESTIS. Thou mayst speak of me as naught, as one whose life is o’er.
ADMETUS. Lift up thy face, leave not thy children.
ALCESTIS. ’Tis not my own free will; O my babes, farewell!
ADMETUS. Look, look on them but once.
ALCESTIS. My end is come.
ADMETUS. What mean’st thou? art leaving us?
ALCESTIS. Farewell! [Dies.]
ADMETUS. Lost! lost! woe is me!
CHORUS. She is gone, the wife of Admetus is no more.
EUMELUS. O my hard fate! My mother has passed to the realms below; she lives no more, 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! Hear me, mother, hear me, I implore! ’tis I who call thee now. I thy tender chick, printing my kisses on thy lips.
ADMETUS. She cannot hear, she cannot see; a heavy blow hath fortune dealt us, you children and me.
EUMELUS. O father, I am but a child to have my loving mother leave me here alone; O cruel my fate, alas! 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, my mother, our house is all undone.
CHORUS. 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.
ADMETUS. 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 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. 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.]
CHORUS. Daughter of Pelias, be thine a happy life in that sunless home in Hades’ halls! Let Hades know, that swarthy god, 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. Oft of thee the Muses’ votaries shall sing on the seven-stringed mountain shell and in hymns that need no harp, glorifying thee, oft as the season in his cycle cometh round at Sparta in that Carnean{4} month when all night long the moon sails high o’erhead, yea, and in splendid Athens, happy town. So glorious a theme us thy death bequeathed to tuneful bards. Would it were in my power and range to bring thee to the light from
