O woman, I am lost if you leave me!
ALCESTIS
You may say of me that I am nothing.
ADMETUS
Lift up your head! Do not abandon your children!
ALCESTIS
Ah! Indeed it is unwillingly-but, farewell, my children!
ADMETUS
Look at them, look....
ALCESTIS
I am nothing.
ADMETUS
What are you doing? Are you leaving me?
ALCESTIS (falling back dead)
Farewell.
ADMETUS (staring at the body)
Wretch that I am, I am lost!
LEADER
She is gone! The wife of Admetus is no more.
EUMELUS (chanting)
Ah! Misery!
Mother has gone, Gone to the Underworld!
She lives no more, O my Father, In the sunlight.
O sad one, You have left us To live motherless!
See, Oh, see her eyelids And her drooping hands!
Mother, Mother, Hearken to me, listen, I beseech you!
I-I-Mother!-
I am calling to you, Your little bird fallen upon your face!
ADMETUS
She hears not, she sees not. You and I are smitten by a dread calamity.
EUMELUS (chanting)
Father, I am a child, And I am left Like a lonely ship By the mother I loved.
Oh! The cruel things I suffer!
And you, little sister, Suffer with me.
O my Father, Vain, vain was your wedding, You did not walk with her To the end of old age.
She died first;
And your death, O Mother, Destroys our house.
LEADER
Admetus, you must endure this calamity. You are not the first and will not be the last to lose a noble wife. We all are doomed to die.
ADMETUS
I know it.
Not unawares did this woe swoop down on me; for long it has gnawed at me.
But, since I shall ordain the funeral rites for this dead body, you must be there, and meanwhile let a threnody re-echo to the implacable God of the Underworld. And all you men of Thessaly whom Irule-I order you to share the mourning for this woman with severed hair and black-robed garb. You who yoke the four-horsed chariot and the swift single horses, cut the mane from their necks with your steel.
Let there be no noise of flutes or lyre within the city until twelve moons are fulfilled. Never shall I bury another body so dear to me, never one that has loved me better. From me she deserves all honour, since she alone would die for me!
(The body of ALCESTIS is carried solemnly into the Palace, followed by ADMETUS, With bowed head, holding one of his children by each hand. When all have entered, the great doors are quietly shut.)CHORUS (singing)
strophe 1
O Daughter of Pelias, Hail to you in the house of Hades, In the sunless home where you shall dwell!
Let Hades, the dark-haired God, Let the old man, Leader of the Dead, Who sits at the oar and helm, Know you:
Far, far off is the best of women Borne beyond the flood of Acheron In the two-oared boat!
antistrophe 1
Often shall the Muses' servants Sing of you to the seven-toned Lyre-shell of the mountain-tortoise, And praise you with mourning songs at Sparta When the circling season Brings back the month Carneius Under the nightlong upraised moon, And in bright glad Athens.
Such a theme do you leave by your death For the music of singers!
strophe 2
Ah! That I had the power To bring you back to the light From the dark halls of Hades, And from the waves of Cocytus With the oar of the river of hell Oh, you only, O dearest of women, You only dared give your life For the life of your lord in Hades!
Light rest the earth above you, O woman.
If your lord choose another bridal-bed He shall be hateful to me As to your own children.
antistrophe 2
When his mother And the old father that begot him Would not give their bodies to the earth For their son's sake, They dared not deliver him-O cruel!
Though their heads were grey.
But you, In your lively youth, Died for him, and are gone from the light!
Ah! might I be joined With a wife so dear!
But in life such fortune is rare.
How happy were my days with her!
(From the left HERACLES enters. He is black-bearded and of great physical strength; he wears a lion-skin over his shoulders and carries a large club.)HERACLES (with a gesture of salutation)
Friends, dwellers in the lands of Pherae, do I find Admetus in his home?
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
The son of Pheres is in his home, O Heracles. But, tell us, what brings you to the land of Thessaly and to the city of Pherae?
HERACLES
I have a task I must achieve for Eurystheus of Tiryns.
LEADER
Where do you go? To what quest are you yoked?
HERACLES
The quest of the four-horsed chariot of Diomedes, the Thracian.
LEADER
But how will you achieve it? Do you know this stranger?
HERACLES
No, I have never been to the land of the Bistones.
LEADER
You cannot obtain the horses without a struggle.
HERACLES
I cannot renounce my labours.
LEADER
You must kill to return, or you will remain there dead.
HERACLES
It will not be the first contest I have risked.
LEADER
And if you conquer the King will you gain anything?
HERACLES
I shall bring back his foals to the lord of Tiryns.
LEADER
It is not easy to thrust the bit into their jaws.
HERACLES
Only if they breathe fire from their nostrils!
LEADER
But they tear men with their swift jaws.
HERACLES
You speak of the food of wild mountain beasts, not of horses.
LEADER
You may see their mangers foul with blood.
HERACLES
Of what father does the breeder boast himself the son?
LEADER
Of Ares, the lord of the gold-rich shield of Thrace!
HERACLES
In this task once more you remind me of my fate, which is ever upon harsh steep ways, since I must join battle with the sons of Ares-first with Lycaon, then with Cycnus, and now in this third contest I am come to match myself with these steeds and their master!
LEADER
But see, the lord of this land, Admetus himself, comes from the house!
(The central doors of the Palace have opened, and ADMETUS comes slowly on the Stage, preceded and followed by guards and attendants.
The King has put off all symbols of royalty, and is dressed in black. His tong hair is clipped close to his head. ADMETUSdissembles his grief throughout this scene, in obedience to the laws of hospitality, which were particularly reverenced in Thessaly.)ADMETUS
Hail Son of Zeus and of the blood of Perseus!
HERACLES
And hail to you, Admetus, lord of the Thessalians ADMETUSMay it be so! I know your friendship well.
HERACLES
What means this shorn hair, this mourning robe?