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The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. by Euripides

E >> Euripides >> The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I.




SEMICH. And yet this is the appointed day,--

SEMICH. What is this thou sayest?

SEMICH. In the which she must go beneath the earth.

SEMICH. Thou hast touched my soul, hast touched my heart.

SEMICH. When the good are afflicted, he must mourn, who from the beginning
has been accounted good.

CHOR. But there is not whither in the earth any one having sent naval
equipment, or to Lycia, or to the thirsty site of Hammon's temple, can
redeem the unhappy woman's life, for abrupt fate approaches, and I know not
to whom of those that sacrifice at the hearths of the Gods I can go. But
only if the son of Phoebus were viewing with his eyes this light, could she
come, having left the darksome habitations and the gates of Pluto: for he
raised up the dead, before that the stroke of the lightning's fire hurled
by Jove destroyed him. But now what hope of life can I any longer
entertain? For all things have already been done by the king, and at the
altars of all the Gods abound the victims dropping with blood, and no cure
is there of these evils.

CHORUS, FEMALE ATTENDANT.

CHOR. But here comes one of the female attendants from the house, in tears;
what shall I hear has happened? To mourn indeed, if any thing happens to
our lords, is pardonable: but whether the lady be still alive, or whether
she be dead, we would wish to know.

ATT. You may call her both alive and dead.

CHOR. And how can the same woman be both alive and dead?

ATT. Already she is on the verge of death,[12] and breathing her life away.

CHOR. Oh wretched man, being what thyself of what a wife art thou bereft!

ATT. My master knows not this yet, until he suffer.

CHOR. Is there no longer hope that she may save her life?

ATT. No, for the destined day makes its attack upon her.

CHOR. Are not then suitable preparations made for these events?

ATT. Yes, the adornments[13] are ready, wherewith her husband will bury
her.

CHOR. Let her know then that she will die glorious, and by far the best of
women under the sun.

ATT. And how not the best? who will contest it? What must the woman be, who
has surpassed her? and how can any give greater proof of esteeming her
husband, than by being willing to die for him? And these things indeed the
whole city knoweth. But what she did in the house you will marvel when you
hear. For, when she perceived that the destined day was come, she washed
her fair skin with water from the river; and having taken from her closets
of cedar vesture and ornaments, she attired herself becomingly; and
standing before the altar she prayed: "O mistress, since I go beneath the
earth, adoring thee for the last time, I will beseech thee to protect my
orphan children, and to the one join a loving wife, and to the other a
noble husband: nor, as their mother perishes, let my children untimely die,
but happy in their paternal country let them complete a joyous life."--But
all the altars, which are in the house of Admetus, she went to, and
crowned, and prayed, tearing the leaves from off the myrtle boughs,
tearless, without a groan, nor did the approaching evil change the natural
beauty of her skin. And then rushing to her chamber, and her bed, there
indeed she wept and spoke thus: "O bridal bed, whereon I loosed my virgin
zone with this man, for whom I die, farewell! for I hate thee not; but me
alone hast thou lost; for dreading to betray thee, and my husband, I die;
but thee some other woman will possess, more chaste there can not, but
perchance more fortunate."[14]--And falling on it she kissed it; but all
the bed was bathed with the flood that issued from her eyes. But when she
had satiety of much weeping, she goes hastily forward,[15] rushing from the
bed. And ofttimes having left her chamber, she oft returned, and threw
herself upon the bed again. And her children, hanging to the garments of
their mother, wept; but she, taking them in her arms, embraced them, first
one and then the other, as about to die. But all the domestics wept
throughout the house, bewailing their mistress, but she stretched out her
right hand to each, and there was none so mean, whom she addressed not, and
was answered in return. Such are the woes in the house of Admetus. And had
he died indeed, he would have perished; but now that he has escaped death,
he has grief to that degree which he will never forget.

CHOR. Surely Admetus groans at these evils, if he must be deprived of so
excellent a wife.

ATT. Yes, he weeps, holding his dear wife in his hands, and prays her not
to leave him, asking impossibilities; for she wastes away, and is consumed
by sickness, but fainting a wretched burden in his arms, yet still though
but feebly breathing, she fain would glance toward the rays of the sun; as
though never again, but now for the last time she is to view the sun's beam
and his orb. But I will go and announce your presence, for it is by no
means all that are well-wishers to their lords, so as to come kindly to
them in their misfortunes; but you of old are friendly to my master.

SEMICH. O Jove, what means of escape can there in any way be, and what
method to rid us of the fortune which attends my master?

SEMICH. Will any appear? or must I cut my locks, and clothe me even now in
black array of garments?

SEMICH. 'Tis plain, my friends, too plain; but still let us pray to the
Gods, for the power of the Gods is mightiest.

SEMICH. O Apollo, king of healing, find out some remedy for the evils of
Admetus, procure it, O! procure it. For before this also thou didst find
_remedy_, and now become our deliverer from death, and stop the murderous
Pluto.

SEMICH. Alas! alas! woe! woe! O son of Pheres, how didst thou fare when
thou wert deprived of thy wife?

SEMICH. Alas! alas! these things would even justify self-slaughter, and
there is more, than whereat one might thrust one's neck in the suspending
noose.[16]

SEMICH. For not a dear, but a most dear wife, wilt thou see dead this day.

SEMICH. Behold, behold; lo! she doth come from the house, and her husband
with her. Cry out, O groan, O land of Pheres, for the most excellent woman,
wasting with sickness, _departing_ beneath the earth to the infernal Pluto.
Never will I aver that marriage brings more joy than grief, forming my
conjectures both from former things, and beholding this fortune of the
king; who, when he has lost this most excellent wife, will thenceforward
pass a life not worthy to be called life.[17]

ALCESTIS, ADMETUS, EUMELUS, CHORUS.

ALC. Thou Sun, and thou light of day, and ye heavenly eddies of the
fleeting clouds--

ADM. He beholds[18] thee and me, two unhappy creatures, having done nothing
to the Gods, for which thou shouldst die.

ALC. O earth, and ye roofs of the palace, and thou bridal bed of my native
Iolcos.

ADM. Lift up thyself, unhappy one, desert me not; but entreat the powerful
Gods to pity.

ALC. I see--I see the two-oared boat--and the ferryman of the dead, holding
his hand on the pole--Charon even now calls me--"Why dost thou delay?
haste, thou stoppest us here"--with such words vehement he hastens me.

ADM. Ah me! a bitter voyage this thou speakest of! Oh! unhappy one, how do
we suffer!

ALC. He pulls me, some one pulls me--do you not see?--to the hall of the
dead, the winged Pluto, staring from beneath his black eyebrows--What wilt
thou do?--let me go--what a journey am I most wretched going!

ADM. Mournful to thy friends, and of these especially to me and to thy
children, who have this grief in common.

ALC. Leave off[19] supporting me, leave off now, lay me down, I have no
strength in my feet. Death is near, and darkling night creeps upon mine
eyes--my children, my children, no more your mother is--no more.--Farewell,
my children, long may you view this light!

ADM. Ah me! I hear this sad word, and more than any death to me. Do not by
the Gods have the heart to leave me: do not by those children, whom thou
wilt make orphans: but rise, be of good courage: for, thee dead, I should
no longer be: for on thee we depend both to live, and not to live: for thy
love we adore.

ALC. Admetus, thou seest both thy affairs and mine, in what state they are,
I wish to tell thee, ere I die, what I would have done. I, honoring thee,
and causing thee at the price of my life to view this light, die, it being
in my power not to die, for thee: but though I might have married a husband
from among the Thessalians whom I would, and have lived in a palace blessed
with regal sway, was not willing to live, bereft of thee, with my children
orphans; nor did I spare myself, though possessing the gifts of bloomy
youth, wherein I delighted. And yet thy father and thy mother forsook thee,
though they had well arrived at a point of life, in which they might have
died, and nobly delivered their son, and died with glory: for thou wert
their only one, and there was no hope, when thou wert dead, that they could
have other children.[20] And I should have lived, and thou, the rest of our
time. And thou wouldst not be groaning deprived of thy wife, and wouldst
not have to bring up thy children orphans. But these things indeed, some
one of the Gods hath brought to pass, that they should be thus. Be it
so--but do thou remember to give me a return for this; for never shall I
ask thee for an equal one, (for nothing is more precious than life,) but
just, as thou wilt say: for thou lovest not these children less than I do,
if thou art right-minded; them bring up lords over my house, and bring not
in second marriage a step-mother over these children, who, being a worse
woman than me, through envy will stretch out her hand against thine and my
children. Do not this then, I beseech thee; for a step-mother that is in
second marriage is enemy to the children of the former marriage, no milder
than a viper. And my boy indeed has his father, a great tower of defense;
but thou, O my child, how wilt thou be, brought up during thy virgin years?
Having what consort of thy father's? _I fear_, lest casting some evil
obloquy on thee, she destroys thy marriage in the bloom of youth.[21] For
neither will thy mother ever preside over thy nuptials, nor strengthen thee
being present, my daughter, at thy travails, where nothing is more kind
than a mother. For I needs must die, and this evil comes upon me not
to-morrow, nor on the third day of the month, but immediately shall I be
numbered among those that are no more. Farewell, and may you be happy; and
thou indeed, my husband, mayst boast, that thou hadst a most excellent
wife, and you, my children, that you were born of a most excellent mother.

CHOR. Be of good cheer; for I fear not to answer for him: he will do this,
if he be not bereft of his senses.

ADM. These things shall be so, they shall be, fear not: since I, when alive
also, possessed thee _alone_, and when thou art dead, thou shalt be my only
wife, and no Thessalian bride shall address me in the place of thee: there
is not woman who shall, either of so noble a sire, nor otherwise most
exquisite in beauty. But my children are enough; of these I pray the Gods
that I may have the enjoyment; for thee we do not enjoy. But I shall not
have this grief for thee for a year, but as long as my life endures, O
lady, abhorring her indeed that brought me forth, and hating my father; for
they were in word, not in deed, my friends. But thou, giving what was
dearest to thee for my life, hast rescued me. Have I not then reason to
groan deprived of such a wife? But I will put an end to the feasts, and the
meetings of those that drink together, and garland and song, which wont to
dwell in my house. For neither can I any more touch the lyre, nor lift up
my heart to sing to the Libyan flute; for thou hast taken away my joy of
life. But by the cunning hand of artists imaged thy figure shall be lain on
my bridal bed, on which I will fall, and clasping my hands around, calling
on thy name, shall fancy that I hold my dear wife in mine arms, though
holding her not:[22] a cold delight, I ween; but still I may draw off the
weight that sits upon my soul: and in my dreams visiting me, thou mayst
delight me, for a friend is sweet even to behold at night, for whatever
time he may come. But if the tongue of Orpheus and his strain were mine, so
that invoking with hymns the daughter of Ceres or her husband, I could
receive thee from the shades below, I would descend, and neither the dog of
Pluto, nor Charon at his oar, the ferryman of departed spirits, should stay
me before I brought thy life to the light. But there expect me when I die
and prepare a mansion for me, as about to dwell with me. For I will enjoin
these[23] to place me in the same cedar with thee, and to lay my side near
thy side: for not even when dead may I be separated from thee, the only
faithful one to me!

CHOR. And I indeed with thee, as a friend with a friend, will bear this
painful grief for her, for she is worthy.

ALC. My children, ye indeed hear your father saying that he will never
marry another wife to be over you, nor dishonor me.

ADM. And now too, I say this, and will perform it

ALC. For this receive these children from my hand.

ADM. Yes, I receive a dear gift from a dear hand.

ALC. Be thou then a mother to these children in my stead.

ADM. There is much need that I should, when they are deprived of thee.

ALC. O my children, at a time when I ought to live I depart beneath.

ADM. Ah me; what shall I do of thee bereaved!

ALC. Time will soften thy grief: he that is dead is nothing.

ADM. Take me with thee, by the Gods take me beneath.

ALC. Enough are we _to go_, who die for thee.

ADM. O fate, of what a wife thou deprivest me!

ALC. And lo! my darkening eye is weighed down.

ADM. I am undone then, if thou wilt leave me, my wife.

ALC. As being no more, you may speak of me as nothing.

ADM. Lift up thy face; do not leave thy children.

ALC. Not willingly in sooth, but--farewell, my children.

ADM. Look on them, O! look.

ALC. I am no more.

ADM. What dost thou? dost thou leave us?

ALC. Farewell!

ADM. I am an undone wretch!

CHOR. She is gone, Admetus' wife is no more.

EUM. Alas me, for my state! my mother is gone indeed below; she is no
longer, my father, under the sun; but unhappy leaving me has made my life
an orphan's. For look, look at her eyelid, and her nerveless arms. Hear,
hear, O mother. I beseech thee; I, I now call thee, mother, thy young one
falling on thy mouth--

ADM. Who hears not, neither sees: so that I and you are struck with a heavy
calamity.

EUM. Young and deserted, my father, am I left by my dear mother: O! I that
have suffered indeed dreadful deeds!--and thou hast suffered with me, my
sister. O father, in vain, in vain didst thou marry, nor with her didst
thou arrive at the end of old age, for she perished before, but thou being
gone, mother, the house is undone.

CHOR. Admetus, you must bear this calamity; for in no wise the first, nor
the last of mortals hast thou lost thy dear wife: but learn, that to die is
a debt we must all of us discharge.

ADM. I know it, and this evil hath not come suddenly on me; but knowing it
long ago I was afflicted. But be present, for I will have the corse borne
forth, and while ye stay, chant a hymn to the God below that accepteth not
libations. And all the Thessalians, over whom I reign, I enjoin to share in
the grief for this lady, by shearing _their locks_ with steel, and by
arraying themselves in sable garb. And harness[24] your teams of horses to
your chariots, and cut from your single steeds the manes that fall upon
their necks. And let there be no noise of pipes, nor of the lyre throughout
the city for twelve completed moons. For none other corse more dear shall I
inter, nor one more kind toward me. But she deserves to receive honor from
me, seeing that she alone hath died for me.

CHORUS.

O daughter of Pelias, farewell where thou dwellest in sunless dwelling
within the mansions of Pluto. And let Pluto know, the God with ebon locks,
and the old man, the ferryman of the dead, who sits intent upon his oar and
his rudder, that he is conducting by far the most excellent of women in his
two-oared boat over the lake of Acheron. Oft shall the servants of the
Muses sing of thee, celebrating thee both on the seven-stringed lute on the
mountains, and in hymns unaccompanied by the lyre: in Sparta, when returns
the annual circle in the season of the Carnean month,[25] when the moon is
up the whole night long; and in splendid[26] and happy Athens. Such a song
hast thou left by thy death to the minstrels of melodies. Would that it
rested with me, and that I could waft thee to the light from the mansions
of Pluto, and from Cocytus' streams, by the oar of that infernal river. For
thou, O unexampled, O dear among women, thou didst dare to receive thy
husband from the realms below in exchange for thine own life. Light may the
earth from above fall upon thee, lady! and if thy husband chooses any other
alliance, surely he will be much detested by me and by thy children. When
his mother was not willing for him to hide her body in the ground, nor his
aged father, but these two wretches, having hoary locks, dared not to
rescue him they brought forth, yet thou in the vigor of youth didst depart,
having died for thy husband. May it be mine to meet with another[27] such a
dear wife; for rare in life is such a portion, for surely she would live
with me forever without once causing pain.

HERCULES, CHORUS.

HER. Strangers, inhabitants of the land of Pheres, can I find Admetus
within the palace?

CHOR. The son of Pheres is within the palace, O Hercules. But tell me, what
purpose sends thee to the land of the Thessalians, so that thou comest to
this city of Pheres?

HER. I am performing a certain labor for the Tirynthian Eurystheus.

CHOR. And whither goest thou? on what wandering expedition art bound?

HER. After the four chariot-steeds of Diomed the Thracian.

CHOR. How wilt thou be able? Art thou ignorant of this host?

HER. I am ignorant; I have not yet been to the land of the Bistonians.

CHOR. Thou canst not be lord of these steeds without battle.

HER. But neither is it possible for me to renounce the labors _set me_.

CHOR. Thou wilt come then having slain, or being slain wilt remain there.

HER. Not the first contest this that I shall run.

CHOR. But what advance will you have made, when you have overcome their
master?

HER. I will drive away the horses to king Eurystheus.

CHOR. 'Tis no easy matter to put the bit in their jaws.

HER. _'Tis,_ except they breathe fire from their nostrils.

CHOR. But they tear men piecemeal with their devouring jaws.

HER. The provender of mountain beasts, not horses, you are speaking of.

CHOR. Their stalls thou mayst behold with blood bestained.

HER. Son of what sire does their owner boast to be?

CHOR. Of Mars, prince[28] of the Thracian target, rich with gold.

HER. And this labor, thou talkest of, is one my fate compels me to (for it
is ever hard and tends to steeps); if I must join in battle with the
children whom Mars begat, first indeed with Lycaon, and again with Cycnus,
and I come to this third combat, about to engage with the horses and their
master. But none there is, who shall ever see the son of Alcmena fearing
the hand of his enemies.

CHOR. And lo! hither comes the very man Admetus, lord of this land, from
out of the palace.

ADMETUS, HERCULES, CHORUS.

ADM. Hail! O son of Jove, and of the blood of Perseus.

HER. Admetus, hail thou too, king of the Thessalians!

ADM. I would I could _receive this salutation;_ but I know that thou art
well disposed toward me.

HER. Wherefore art thou conspicuous with thy locks shorn for grief?

ADM. I am about to bury a certain corse this day.

HER. May the God avert calamity from thy children!

ADM. My children whom I begat, live in the house.

HER. Thy father however is of full age, if he is gone.

ADM. Both he lives, and she who bore me, Hercules.

HER. Surely your wife Alcestis is not dead?

ADM. There are two accounts which I may tell of her.

HER. Speakest thou of her as dead or as alive?

ADM. She both is, and is no more, and she grieves me.

HER. I know nothing more; for thou speakest things obscure.

ADM. Knowest thou not the fate which it was doomed for her to meet with?

HER. I know that she took upon herself to die for thee.

ADM. How then is she any more, if that she promised this?

HER. Ah! do not weep for thy wife before the time; wait till this happens.

ADM. He that is about to die is dead, and he that is dead is no more.

HER. The being and the not being is considered a different thing.

ADM. You judge in this way, Hercules, but I in that.

HER. Why then dost weep? Who is he of thy friends that is dead?

ADM. A woman, a woman we were lately mentioning.

HER. A stranger by blood, or any by birth allied to thee?

ADM. A stranger; but on other account dear to this house.

HER. How then died she in thine house?

ADM. Her father dead, she lived an orphan here.

HER. Alas! Would that I had found thee, Admetus, not mourning!

ADM. As about to do what then, dost thou make use of these words?

HER. I will go to some other hearth of those who will receive a guest.

ADM. It must not be, O king: let not so great an evil happen!

HER. Troublesome is a guest if he come to mourners.

ADM. The dead are dead--but go into the house.

HER. 'Tis base however to feast with weeping friends.

ADM. The guest-chamber, whither we will lead thee, is apart.

HER. Let me go, and I will owe you ten thousand thanks.

ADM. It must not be that thou go to the hearth of another man. Lead on
thou, having thrown open the guest-chamber that is separate from the house:
and tell them that have the management, that there be plenty of meats; and
shut the gates in the middle of the hall: it is not meet that feasting
guests should hear groans, nor should they be made sad.

CHOR. What are you doing? when so great a calamity is before you, Admetus,
hast thou the heart to receive guests? wherefore art thou foolish?

ADM. But if I had driven him who came my guest from my house, and from the
city, would you have praised me rather? No in sooth, since my calamity had
been no whit the less, but I the more inhospitable: and in addition to my
evils, there had been this other evil, that mine should be called the
stranger-hating house. But I myself find this man a most excellent host,
whenever I go to the thirsty land of Argos.

CHOR. How then didst thou hide thy present fate, when a friend, as thou
thyself sayest, came?

ADM. He never would have been willing to enter the house if he had known
aught of my sufferings. And to him[29] indeed, I ween, acting thus, I
appear not to be wise, nor will he praise me; but my house knows not to
drive away, nor to dishonor guests.

CHORUS.

O greatly hospitable and ever liberal house of this man, thee even the
Pythian Apollo, master of the lyre, deigned to inhabit, and endured to
become a shepherd in thine abodes, through the sloping hills piping to thy
flocks his pastoral nuptial hymns. And there were wont to feed with them,
through delight of his lays, both the spotted lynxes, and the bloody troop
of lions[30] came having left the forest of Othrys; disported too around
thy cithern, Phoebus, the dappled fawn, advancing with light pastern beyond
the lofty-feathered pines, joying in the gladdening strain. Wherefore he
dwelleth in a home most rich in flocks by the fair-flowing lake of Boebe;
and to the tillage of his fields, and the extent of his plains, toward that
dusky _part of the heavens_, where the sun stays his horses, makes the
clime of the Molossians the limit, and holds dominion as far as the
portless shore of the AEgean Sea at Pelion. And now having thrown open his
house he hath received his guest with moistened eyelid, weeping over the
corse of his dear wife, who but now died in the palace: for a noble
disposition is prone to reverence [of the guest]. But in the good there is
all manner of wisdom. And confidence is seated on my soul that the man who
reveres the Gods will fare prosperously.

ADMETUS, CHORUS.

ADM. Ye men of Pherae that are kindly present, my servants indeed bear
aloft[31] the corse, having every thing fit for the tomb, and for the pyre.
But do you, as is the custom, salute[32] the dead going forth on her last
journey.

CHOR. And lo! I see thy father advancing with his aged foot, and attendants
bearing in their hands adornment for thy wife, due honors of those beneath.

PHERES, ADMETUS, CHORUS.

PHE. I am at present sympathizing in thy misfortunes, my son: for thou hast
lost (no one will deny) a good and a chaste wife; but these things indeed
thou must bear, though hard to be borne. But receive this adornment, and
let it go with her beneath the earth: Her body 'tis right to honor, who in
sooth died to save thy life, my son, and made me to be not childless, nor
suffered me to waste away deprived of thee in an old age of misery. But she
has made most illustrious the life of all women, having dared this noble
action. O thou that hast preserved my son here, and hast raised us up who
were falling, farewell,[33] and may it be well with thee even in the
mansions of Pluto! I affirm that such marriages are profitable to men, or
that it is not meet to marry.

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