It is a joy to thee {730} To view the light of heaven, and dost thou think Thy father joys not in it? Long I deem Our time in death's dark regions: short the s.p.a.ce Of life, yet sweet! So thought thy coward heart And struggled not to die: and thou dost live, Pa.s.sing the bounds of life a.s.sign'd by fate, By killing _her_! My mean and abject spirit Dost thou rebuke, O timidest of all, Vanquish'd e'en by a woman, her who gave For thee, her young fair husband, her own life! {740} A fine device that thou mightst never die, Couldst thou persuade--who at the time might be Thy wife--to die for thee!

If such a man takes to heaping reproaches on his own kin he shall at least hear the truth told him to his face!

_Cho._ Too much of ill already hath been spoken: {750} Forbear, old man, nor thus revile thy son.

_Admetus_ says if his father does not like to hear the truth he should not have done the wrong.

_Pher._ Had I died for thee, greater were the wrong.

_Adm._ Is death alike then to the young and old?

_Pher._ Man's due is one life, not to borrow more.

_Adm._ Thine drag thou on and out-tire heaven's age!

_Pher._ Darest thou to curse thy parents, nothing wrong'd?

_Adm._ Parents in dotage l.u.s.ting still to live! {760} _Pher._ And thou--what else but life with this corpse buyest?

_Adm._ This corpse--the symbol of thy infamy!

_Pher._ For us she died not; that thou canst not say!

_Adm._ Ah! mayst thou some time come to need my aid!

_Pher._ Wed many wives that more may die for thee!

_Adm._ On thee rests this reproach--thou daredst not die!

_Pher._ Sweet is this light of heav'n! sweet is this light!

_Adm._ Base is thy thought, unworthy of a man!

_Pher._ The triumph is not thine to entomb my age.

_Adm._ Die when thou wilt, inglorious wilt thou die. {770} _Pher._ Thy ill report will not affect me dead.

_Adm._ Alas, that age should outlive sense of shame!

_Pher._ But lack of age's wisdom slew _her_ youth.

_Adm._ Begone, and suffer me to entomb my dead.

_Pher._ I go: no fitter burier than thyself Her murderer! Look for reckoning from her friends: Acastus is no man, if his hand fails Dearly to avenge on thee his sister's blood.

_Adm._ Why, get you gone, thou and thy worthy wife: Grow old in consort--that is now your lot-- The childless parents of a living son: For never more under one common roof Come you and I together: had it needed, By herald I your hearth would have renounced.

_Pheres and his train withdraw along the Stage [to the Right Side-door]. The interrupted Funeral Procession is continued, filing amidst lamentations of the Chorus, down the steps from the Stage into the Orchestra: there the Chorus join it and the whole pa.s.ses out [by the Right Archway] to the royal sepulchre in the neighbourhood._

_Stage and Orchestra both vacant for a while._

STAGE EPISODE[2]

_Enter the Stage [by one of the Inferior Doors of the Palace] the Steward of Admetus_: he has stolen away to get a moment's respite from the hateful hilarity of this strange visitor--some ruffian or robber he supposes--on whom his office has condemned him to wait, and thereby to miss paying the last offices to a mistress who has been more like a mother to him. The guest has been willing to enter, and though he saw the mourning of the household, he did not allow it to make any difference to his mirth:

Grasping in his hands {804} A goblet wreath'd with ivy, fill'd it high With the grape's purple juice, and quaff'd it off Untemper'd, till the glowing wine inflamed him; Then binding round his head a myrtle wreath, Howls dismal discord:--two unpleasing strains We heard, his harsh notes who in nought revered Th' afflictions of Admetus, and the voice Of sorrow through the family that wept Our mistress. Yet our tearful eyes we showed not, Admetus so commanded, to the guest. {814}

He starts as he feels on his shoulder the huge hand of _Hercules_, who has followed him, and _now appears on the Stage goblet in hand, wreathed and attired like a reveller in full revel_. Hercules good-humouredly scolds him for letting a remote family bereavement hinder him from showing a sociable countenance to his lord's guest. He lectures him on the easy ethics of the banquet-hour:

Come hither, that thou mayst be wiser, friend: {832} Knowst thou the nature of all mortal things?

Not thou, I ween: how shouldst thou? hear from me.

By all of human race death is a debt That must be paid; and none of mortal men Knows whether till to-morrow life's short s.p.a.ce Shall be extended: such the dark events Of fortune, never to lie learn'd or traced By any skill. Instructed thus by me {840} Bid pleasure welcome, drink; the life allow'd From day to day esteem thine own; all else Fortune's.

The Steward receives his lecture with a bad grace: he knows all that--but there is a time for all things. His manner raises Hercules'

suspicions that Admetus has been keeping something back:

_Herc._ Is it some sorrow which he told not me? {866} _Stew._ Go thou with joy: ours are our lord's afflictions.

_Herc._ These are not words that speak a foreign loss.

_Stew._ If such, thy revelry had not displeased me.

The secret is not long kept against the questioning of Hercules. When the truth comes out Hercules drops the goblet: he might have known all from so grief-worn a face! All the lightness of the reveller disappears, and the G.o.dlike bearing returns to Hercules' figure as he catches the full dignity of his friend's hospitable feat: he is fired to essay a rival deed of n.o.bility.

Now, my firm heart, and thou, my daring soul, {894} Show what a son the daughter of Electryon, Alcmena of Tirynthia, bore to Jove!

This lady, new in death, behoves me save, And, to Admetus rendering grateful service, Restore his lost Alcestis to his house.

This sable-vested tyrant of the dead Mine eye shall watch, not without hope to find him Drinking th' oblations nigh the tomb. If once Seen from my secret stand I rush upon him, These arms shall grasp him till his panting sides Labour for breath; and who shall force him from me Till he gives back this woman? {906}

If he fails to find Death elsewhere he will descend to the dark world of spirits itself, rather than fail in making a fit return to his friend:

Whose hospitable heart {913} Receiv'd me in his house, nor made excuse Though pierc'd with such a grief; this he conceal'd Through generous thought, and reverence to his friend.

Who in Thessalia bears a warmer love To strangers? Who, through all the realms of Greece?

It never shall be said this n.o.ble man Received in me a base and worthless wretch!

_Exit [through the Stage Right Side-door] in the direction of the tomb._

_Stage and Orchestra vacant for a while._

EPISODE V

_Return of the Funeral Procession, headed by the Chorus who remain in the Orchestra; the rest file up the steps onto the stage, Admetus last.

The Episode is technically a 'Dirge' between Admetus, whose speeches fall into the rhythm of a Funeral March, and the Chorus, who speak in Strophes and Antistrophes of more elaborate lyric rhythm, often interrupted by the wails of Admetus._

_Admetus reaching the top of the Steps from the Orchestra stands face to face with the splendid facade of his Palace_. Hateful entrance, hateful aspect of a widowed home! How find rest there, in the heavy woes to which he is now doomed? It is with the dead that rest is found: his heart is in their dark houses, where he has placed a loved hostage torn from him by fate! {931}

_Chorus_ [_in Strophe_]. Nevertheless he must go forward; he must hide him in the deepest recesses of his Palace with his grief, the helpless groans that yet will nothing aid her whom he will never see more! {938}

_Admetus_ cries that that is the deepest wound of all! Would he had never wedded! To mourn single is pain endurable; to see children wasting with disease, to see death invading the nuptial bed--that is the pang unbearable! {950}

_Chorus_ [_in Antistrophe_]. Fate is resistless: shall sorrow then have no bounds? Other men have known what it is to lose a wife: and in one or other of innumerable forms misery has found out every son of mortality. {956}

_Admetus_ begins to speak of the life-long mourning for the lost--but the thought is too much for him; why did they hold him back when he would have cast himself into the gaping tomb, and gone the last journey with his love? {963}

_The Chorus_ [_in Strophe_] think of one they knew who lost a son in the flower of his age, an only son and well worthy of tears: yet he bore his lonely burden like a man, and--courage! his hair is white and he is nearing the end. {969}

_Admetus moves a few steps forward and the Procession, advances towards the portal_: but the contrast catches his thought between this and another procession towards the same threshold, when, amidst blazing torches of Pelian pine and bridal dances, he led his new wife by the hand, and shouts wished their union happy. Now wails for shouts, black for glistening raiment, and before him the solitary chamber! {983}

_Chorus_ [_in Antistrophe_]. Trouble has come upon their master all at once, in the midst of prosperity, and on one unschooled in misfortune.

But if the wife is gone the love is left. Many have had Admetus's loss: but his gain let him remember: a rescued life. {988}

As if this jarred upon his mind, _Admetus_ turns round and addresses the Chorus, his whole tone changed [_the dirge measures giving place to blank verse_].

_Adm._ My friends, I deem the fortune of my wife Happier than mine, though otherwise it seems. {990} For nevermore shall sorrow touch her breast, And she with glory rests from various ills.

But I, who ought not live, my destined hour O'erpa.s.sing, shall drag on a mournful life, Late taught what sorrow is. How shall I bear To enter here? To whom shall I address My speech? Whose greeting renders my return Delightful? Which way shall I turn? Within In lonely sorrow shall I waste away, As, widowed of my wife, I see my couch, {1000} The seats deserted where she sat, the rooms Wanting her elegance. Around my knees My children hang, and weep their mother lost: The household servants for their mistress sigh.

This is the scene of misery in my home: Abroad the nuptials of Thessalia's youth And the bright circles of a.s.sembled dames Will but augment my grief: how shall I bear To see the lov'd companions of my wife!

And if one hates me, he will say: Behold {1010} The man who basely lives, who dared not die, But giving, through the meanness of his soul, His wife, avoided death--yet would be deem'd A man: he hates his parents, yet himself Had not the spirit to die. These ill reports Cleave to me: why then wish for longer life, On evil tongues thus fallen, and evil days!

_Admetus sinks down on the threshold and buries his face in his robe.

The Chorus gather up the feeling of the situation in a full Choral Ode, celebrating the natural topics of consolation; the stern laws of Necessity, the fair memory of the dead._