Hades and the streams of Cocytus with the oar that sweeps yon nether flood! For thou, and thou alone, most dear of woman, 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 and thy children’s too. His mother had no heart to plunge into the darkness of the tomb for her son, no! nor aged sire. Their own child they had not the courage to rescue, 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 helpmeet all my life and never cause one tear.
[Enter HERACLES.]
HERACLES. Mine hosts, dwellers on this Pheraean soil! say, shall I find Admetus in the house?
CHORUS. The son of Pheres is within, Heracles. Tell me what need is bringing thee to the Thessalian land, to visit this city of the Pheraeans?
HERACLES. I am performing a labour for Tirynthian Eurystheus.
CHORUS. And whither art thou journeying? on what wandering art thou forced to go?
HERACLES. To fetch the chariot-steeds of Thracian Diomedes.
CHORUS. How canst thou? art a stranger to the ways of thy host?
HERACLES. I am; for never yet have I gone to the land of the Bistones.
CHORUS. Thou canst not master his horses without fighting.
HERACLES. Still I cannot refuse these labours.
CHORUS. Then shalt thou slay them and return, or thyself be slain and stay there.
HERACLES. It will not be the first hard course that I have run.
CHORUS. And what will be thy gain, suppose thou master their lord?
HERACLES. The steeds will I drive away to the Tirynthian king.
CHORUS. No easy task to bit their jaws.
HERACLES. Easy enough, unless their nostrils vomit fire.
CHORUS. With ravening jaws they rend the limbs of men.
HERACLES. Thou speakest of the food of mountain beasts, not of horses.
CHORUS. Their mangers blood-bedabbled thou shalt see.
HERACLES. Whose son doth he who feeds them boast to be?
CHORUS. Ares’ son, king of the golden targe of Thrace.
HERACLES. This toil again is but a piece of my ill-luck; 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. Yet shall no man ever see Alcmena’s son trembling at his foemen’s prowess.
CHORUS. See where Admetus, lord of this land, comes in person from the palace forth.
[Enter ADMETUS.]
ADMETUS. Hail! son of Zeus, from Perseus sprung.
HERACLES. Joy to thee also, Admetus, king of Thessaly.
ADMETUS. Would there were! yet thy kindly heart I know full well.
HERACLES. Why dost thou appear with head shorn thus in mourning?
ADMETUS. To-day I am to bury one who is dead.
HERACLES. Heaven avert calamity from thy children!
ADMETUS. The children I have begotten are alive within my house.
HERACLES. Thy father maybe is gone; well, he was ripe to go.
ADMETUS. No, Heracles, he lives; my mother too.
HERACLES. It cannot be thy wife is dead, thy Alcestis?
ADMETUS. I can a twofold tale tell about her.
HERACLES. Dost mean that she is dead, or living still?
ADMETUS. She lives, yet lives no more; that is my grief.
HERACLES. I am no wiser yet; thy words are riddles to me.
ADMETUS. Knowest thou not the doom she must undergo?
HERACLES. I know she did submit to die in thy stead.
ADMETUS. How then is she still alive, if so she promised?
HERACLES. Ah! weep not thy wife before the day, put that off till then.
ADMETUS. The doomed is dead; the dead no more exists.
HERACLES. Men count to be and not to be something apart.
ADMETUS. Thy verdict this, O Heracles, mine another.
HERACLES. Why weepest then? which of thy dear ones is the dead?
ADMETUS. ’Tis a woman; I spoke of a woman just now.
HERACLES. A stranger, or one of thine own kin?
ADMETUS. A stranger, yet in another sense related to my house.
HERACLES. How then came she by her death in house of thine?
ADMETUS. Her father dead, she lived here as an orphan.
HERACLES. Ah! would I had found thee free from grief, Admetus!
ADMETUS. With what intent dost thou devise this speech?
HERACLES. I will seek some other friendly hearth.
ADMETUS. Never, O prince! Heaven forefend such dire disgrace!
HERACLES. A guest is a burden to sorrowing friends, if come he should.
ADMETUS. The dead are dead. Come in.
HERACLES. To feast in a friend’s house of sorrow is shameful.
ADMETUS. The guest chambers lie apart, whereto we will conduct thee.
HERACLES. Let me go; ten thousand-fold shall be my thanks to thee.
ADMETUS. 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 should hear the voice of weeping or be made sad.
[Exit HERACLES.]
CHORUS. What doest thou? With such calamity before thee, hast thou the heart, Admetus, to welcome visitors? What means this folly?
ADMETUS. 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? No indeed!
