Alcestis

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 315 sections

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Ha! What dost thou at this house? why is it thou art ranging here,
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Phoebus? Once again thou wrongest me, circumscribing and limiting the honours of the nether world. Wert thou not content to hinder the death of Admetus, by thy knavish cunning baulking Destiny? but now again
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hast thou armed thee with thy bow and art keeping guard o’er her, this daughter of Pelias, who undertook, of her free will, to die for her lord and set him free.
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Never fear; I have, be sure, justice and fair pleas to urge.
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What has that bow to do, if thou hast justice on thy side?
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’Tis my habit ever to carry it.
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Ay, and to help this house more than is right.
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The reason is, I cannot bear a friend’s distress.
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Wilt rob me of this second corpse likewise?
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Come! I did not take the other from thee by violence.
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Then how is it he lives above the earth and not beneath?
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He gave his wife instead, her whom now thou art come to fetch.
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Yea, and I will bear her hence to the nether world.
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Take her and go, for I do not suppose I can persuade thee.
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To slay my rightful victim? Why, that is my appointed task.
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Nay, but to lay thy deadly hand on those who soon would die.
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I see thy drift, thy eager plea.
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Is it then possible that Alcestis should attain old age?
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It is not possible; I too, methinks, find a pleasure in my rights.
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Thou canst not anyhow take more than one life.
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When young lives die I reap a higher honour.
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Should she die old, a sumptuous funeral will she have.
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Phoebus, the law thou layest down is all in favour of the rich.
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What mean’st thou? art so wise, and I never knew it?
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Those who have wealth would buy the chance of their dying old.
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It seems then thou wilt not grant me this favour.
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Not I; my customs well thou knowest.
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That I do, customs men detest and gods abhor.
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Thou canst not realise every lawless wish.
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Mark me, thou shalt have a check for all thy excessive fierceness;
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such a hero shall there come to Pheres’ halls, by Eurystheus sent to fetch a team of steeds from the wintry world of Thrace; he, a guest awhile in these halls of Admetus, will wrest this woman from thee by sheer force.
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So wilt thou get no thanks from me but yet wilt do this all the same, and earn my hatred too.
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Thou wilt not gain thy purpose any the more for all thy many words; that woman shall to Hades’ halls go down, I tell thee.
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Lo! I am going for her, that with the sword I may begin my rites, for he whose hair this sword doth hallow is sacred to the gods below.
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What means this silence in front of the palace? why is the house of Admetus stricken dumb?
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Not one friend near
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to say if we must mourn our queen as dead, or if she liveth yet and sees the sun, Alcestis, daughter of Pelias, by me and all esteemed the best of wives
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to her husband.
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Doth any of you hear a groan, or sound of hands that smite together, or the voice of lamentation, telling all is over and done? Yet is there no servant
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stationed about the gate, no, not one. O come, thou saving god, to smooth the swelling waves of woe!
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Surely, were she dead, they would not be so still.
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Maybe her corpse is not yet from the house borne forth.
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Whence that inference? I am not so sanguine. What gives thee confidence?
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How could Admetus let his noble wife go unattended to the grave?
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Before the gates I see no lustral water from the spring, as custom doth ordain should be
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at the gates of the dead, no shorn lock lies on the threshold, which, as thou knowest, falls in mourning for the dead, no choir of maidens smites its youthful palms together.
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And yet this is the appointed day.
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What meanest thou by this?
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The day appointed for the journey to the world below.
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Thou hast touched me to the heart, e’en to the soul.
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Whoso from his youth up has been accounted virtuous,
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needs must weep to see the good suddenly cut off.
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’Tis done; no single spot in all the world remains whither one might steer a course, either to Lycia
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or to the parched abodes of Ammon to release the hapless lady’s soul; on comes death with step abrupt,
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nor know I to whom I should go of all who at the gods’ altars offer sacrifice.
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Only the son of Phoebus, if he yet saw this light of day—
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Ah! then then might she have left the dark abode and gates of Hades and have come again, for he would raise the dead to life, till that the thunderbolt’s forked flame, hurled by Zeus, smote him.
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But now what further hope of life can I welcome to me?
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Our lords have ere this done all they could; on every altar streams the blood of abundant sacrifice;
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yet our sorrows find no cure.
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Lo! from the house cometh a handmaid weeping; what shall I be told hath chanced? Grief may well be pardoned, if aught happeneth to one’s master; yet I fain would learn whether our lady
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still is living or haply is no more.
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Alive, yet dead thou may’st call her.
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Why, how can the same person be alive, yet dead?
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She is sinking even now, and at her last gasp.
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My poor master! how sad thy lot to lose so good a wife!
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He did not know his loss, until the blow fell on him.
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Is there then no more a hope of saving her?
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None; the fated day comes on so fast.
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Are then the fitting rites already taking place o’er her body?
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Death’s garniture is ready, wherewith her lord will bury her.
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Well let her know, though die she must, her fame ranks far above any other wife’s beneath the sun.
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Far above! of course it does; who will gainsay it? What must the woman be who hath surpassed her? For how could any wife have shown a clearer regard
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for her lord than by offering in his stead to die? Thus much the whole city knows right well; but thou shalt hear with wonder what she did within the house. For when she knew the fatal day was come, she washed her fair white skin with water from the stream,
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then from her cedar chests drew forth vesture and ornaments and robed herself becomingly; next, standing before the altar-hearth, she prayed, Mistress mine, behold! I pass beneath the earth; to thee in suppliant wise will I my latest prayer address;
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be mother to my orphans, and to my boy unite a loving bride, to my daughter a noble husband. Let them not die, as I, their mother, perish now, untimely in their youth, but let them live their glad lives out, happy in their native land.
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To every altar in Admetus’ halls she went and crowned them and prayed, plucking from myrtle boughs their foliage, with never a tear or groan, nor did her coming trouble change the colour of her comely face.
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Anon into her bridal bower she burst, and then her tears brake forth and thus she cried, O couch, whereon I loosed my maiden state for the man in whose cause I die, farewell! no hate I feel for thee; for me alone hast thou undone,
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dying as I die from fear of betraying thee and my lord. Some other wife will make thee hers, more blest maybe than me, but not more chaste. And she fell upon her knees and kissed it, till with her gushing tears the whole bed was wet.
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At last, when she had had her fill of weeping, she tore herself from the bed and hurried headlong forth, and oft as she was leaving the chamber turned she back and cast herself once more upon the couch; while her children were weeping as they clung to their mother’s robes;
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but she took them each in turn in her arms and kissed them fondly, as a dying mother might. And all the servants in the house fell a-crying in sorrow for their mistress; but she held out her hand to each, nor was there one so mean
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but she gave him a word and took his answer back. Such are the sorrows in the halls of Admetus. Dying he had died once for all, but by avoiding death he hath a legacy of grief that he will ne’er forget.
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Doubtless Admetus sorrows in this calamity,
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if he must lose so good a wife.
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Ah yes! he weeps, holding in his arms his darling wife, and prays her not to leave him, impossible request! for she is worn and wasted with illness, and lies exhausted, a sad burden in his arms.
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Still, though her breath comes short and scant, she yearns to gaze yet on the sunshine, for nevermore, but now the last and latest time her eye shall see his radiant orb. But I will go, thy presence to announce,
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for ’tis not all who have the goodwill to stand by their masters with kindly hearts in adversity. But thou of old hast been my master’s friend.
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O Zeus, what way out of these sorrows can be found? how can we loose the bonds of fate that bind our lord?
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Comes some one forth? Am I at once to cut my hair, and cast the sable robe about me? Too plainly, ay too plainly, friends; still let us to heaven pray; for the gods’ power is very great.
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O king Paean, devise for Admetus some means of escape from his sorrows. Yes, yes, contrive it; for thou in days gone by didst find salvation for him, so now be thou a saviour from the toils of death
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and stay bloodthirsty Hades.
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Woe! woe! alas! Thou son of Pheres, woe! Ah, thy fate in losing thy wife! Is not this enough to make thee slay thyself, ah! more than cause enough to tie the noose aloft and fit it to the neck?
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Yea, for to-day wilt thou witness the death of her that was not merely dear, but dearest of the dear. Look, look! she cometh even now, her husband with her, from the house. Cry aloud and wail, O land of Pherae,
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wail for the best of women, as with sickness worn she passes ’neath the earth to Hades, lord below.
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Never, never will I say that marriage brings more joy than grief, as I
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conjecture by the past and witness these misfortunes of our king, for he when widowed of this noble wife will for the future lead a life that is no life at all.
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O sun-god, lamp of day!
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O scudding clouds that dance along the sky!
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He sees us both with anguish bowed, albeit guiltless of any crime against the gods, for the which thy death is due.
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O earth, O sheltering roof, and ye my maiden chambers in my native land Iolcos!

Perseus Greek. CTS URN tlg0006.tlg002.perseus-eng2. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source.