Alcestis

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 315 sections

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whene’er to Argos’ thirsty land I come.
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Why then didst thou conceal thy present misfortune, if, as thy own lips declare, it was a friend that came?
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He would never have entered my house, had he known aught of my distress.
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Maybe there are who think me but a fool for acting thus, and these will blame me; but my halls have never learnt to drive away or treat with scorn my guests.
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O home of hospitality, thrown open by thy lord to all now and ever!
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In thee it was that Pythian Apollo, the sweet harper, deigned to make his home, and in thy halls was content to lead a shepherd’s life,
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piping o’er the sloping downs shepherd’s madrigals to thy flocks.
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And spotted lynxes couched amid his sheep in joy to hear his melody,
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and the lions’ tawny troop left the glen of Othrys and came; came too the dappled fawn on nimble foot from beyond the crested pines and frisked about thy lyre, O Phoebus,
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for very joy at thy gladsome minstrelsy.
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And so it is thy lord inhabits a home rich in countless flocks
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by Boebe’s lovely mere, bounding his tilled corn-land and his level pastures with the clime of the Molossi near the sun’s dark stable,
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and holding sway as far as the harbourless strand of the Aegean ’neath Pelion’s shadow.
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Now too hath he opened wide his house and welcomed a guest although his eye is wet with tears in mourning for his wife so dear
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but lately dead within his halls; yea, for noble birth to noble feeling is inclined. And in the good completest wisdom dwells; and at my heart sits the bold belief
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that heaven’s servant will be blessed.
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Woe, woe for thee! Alas, for thy hardihood! Noble spirit, good beyond compare, farewell! May Hermes in the nether world, and Hades, too, give thee a kindly welcome! and if even in that other life
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the good are rewarded, mayst thou have thy share therein and take thy seat by Hades’ bride!
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Many the guests ere now from every comer of the world I have seen come to the halls of Admetus, for whom I have spread the board, but never yet
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have I welcomed to this hearth a guest so shameless as this; a man who, in the first place, though he saw my master’s grief, yet entered and presumed to pass the gates, then took what cheer we had in no sober spirit, though he knew our sorrow;
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no! was there aught we failed to bring? he called for it. Next in his hands he took a goblet of ivy-wood and drank the pure juice of the black grape, till the mounting fumes of wine heated him, and he crowned his head with myrtle-sprays,
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howling discordantly, while two-fold strains were there to hear, for he would sing without a thought for the troubles in Admetus’ halls, while we servants mourned our mistress, though we did not let the stranger see our streaming eyes, for such was the bidding of Admetus.
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So now here am I entertaining as a guest some miscreant thief maybe, or robber, while she is gone forth from the house, nor did I follow her nor stretch my hand towards her bier, in mourning for my lady, who, to me, and all her servants,
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was a mother, for she would save us from countless trouble, appeasing her husband’s angry mood. Have I not good cause then to loathe this guest who cometh in our hour of woe?
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Ho! sirrah, why that solemn, thoughtful look? ’Tis not the way for servants to scowl on guests,
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but with courteous soul to welcome them. But thou, seeing a friend of thy master arrive, receivest him with sullen, lowering brow, though ’tis but a stranger that is the object of thy mourning. Come hither, that thou too mayst learn more wisdom.
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Dost know the nature of this mortal state? I trow not; how shouldst thou? Well, lend an ear to me. Death is the common debt of man; no mortal really knows if he will live to see the morrow’s light;
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for Fortune’s issues are not in our ken, beyond the teacher’s rule they lie, no art can master them. Hearken then to this and learn of me, be merry, drink thy cup, and count the present day thine own, the rest to Fortune yield.
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And to Cypris too, sweetest of the gods by far to man, thy tribute pay, for kindly is her mood. Let be those other cares, and heed my counsel if thou think’st I speak aright; methinks I do. Come, banish this excessive grief,
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and drink a cup with me when thou hast passed beyond these doors and wreathed thy brow; and I feel sure the plash of wine within the cup will bring thee to a better haven from this crabbed mood, this cabined state of mind. Mortals we are, and mortals’ thoughts should have;
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for all they who frown and scowl do miss,—leastways I think so,—the true life and get themselves misfortune.
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I know all that, but our present state has little claim on revelry or laughter.
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The dead was a stranger woman; grieve not to excess; for the rulers of thy house are living.
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How, living? Thou knowest not the trouble in the house.
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I do, unless thy master did in aught deceive me.
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Too hospitable is he.
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Was I to miss good cheer because a stranger had died?
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A stranger surely! quite a stranger she!
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Is there some trouble that he withheld from me?
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Farewell, go thy way! my master’s troubles are my care.
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This word of thine heralds not a grief for strangers felt.
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Had it been, the sight of thy merriment had not grieved me so.
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Can it be mine host hath strangely wronged me?
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Thou earnest at no proper time for our house to welcome thee, for sorrow is come upon us; lo! thou seest our shorn heads and robes of sable hue.
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Who is it that is dead?
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Is it a child or his aged sire that hat hath passed away?
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Nay, sir guest, ’tis Admetus’ wife that is no more.
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What sayest thou? and did ye then in spite of that admit me to your cheer?
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Yes, for his regard would not let him send thee from his door.
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Unhappy husband, what a wife hast thou lost!
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We are all undone, not she alone.
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I knew it when I saw his streaming eye, shorn head and downcast look, yet did he persuade me, saying it was a stranger he was bearing to burial. So I did constrain myself and passed his gates
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and sat drinking in his hospitable halls, when he was suffering thus. And have I wreathed my head and do I revel still? But—thou to hold thy peace when such a crushing sorrow lay upon the house! Where is he burying her? Whither shall I go to find her?
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Beside the road that leadeth straight to Larissa, shalt thou see her carved tomb outside the suburb.
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O heart, O soul, both sufferers oft, now show the mettle of that son Tirynthian Alcmena, daughter of Electryon, bare to Zeus.
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For I must save this woman, dead but now, setting Alcestis once again within this house, and to Admetus this kind service render. So I will go and watch for death the black-robed monarch of the dead, and him methinks I shall find
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as he drinks of the blood-offering near the tomb. And if, from ambush rushing, once I catch and fold him in my arms’ embrace, none shall ever wrest him thence with smarting ribs, ere he give up the woman unto me.
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But should I fail to find my prey and he come not to the clotted blood, I will go to the sunless home of those beneath the earth, to Persephone and her king, and make to them my prayer, sure that I shall bring Alcestis up again, to place her in the hands of him, my host,
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who welcomed me to his house nor drove me thence, though fortune smote him hard, but this his noble spirit strove to hide out of regard for me. What host more kind than him in Thessaly? or in in the homes of Hellas? Wherefore shall he never say
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his generous deeds were lavished on a worthless wretch. [Exeunt HERACLES and Servant.
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Ah me! I loathe this entering in, and loathe to see my widowed home. Woe, woe is me! Whither shall I go? Where stand? what say? or what suppress? Would God that I were dead!
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Surely in an evil hour my mother gave me birth. The dead I envy, and would fain be as they, and long to dwell within their courts. No joy to me to see the light, no joy to tread the earth;
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such a hostage death hath reft me of and handed o’er to Hades.
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Move forward, go within the shelter of thy house.
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Woe is me!
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Thy sufferings claim these cries of woe.
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Ah me!
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Through anguish hast thou gone, full well I know.
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Alas! alas!
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Thou wilt not help the dead one whit.
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O misery!
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Nevermore to see thy dear wife face to face is grief indeed.
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Thy words have probed the sore place in my heart. What greater grief can come to man
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than the loss of a faithful wife? Would I had never married or shared with her my home! I envy those ’mongst men who have nor wife nor child. Theirs is but one life; to grieve for that is no excessive burden;
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but to see children fall ill and bridal beds emptied by death’s ravages is too much to bear, when one might go through life without wife or child.
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A fate we cannot cope with is come upon us.
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Woe is me!
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But thou to sorrow settest no limit.
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Ah! ah!
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’Tis hard to bear, but still—
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Woe is me!
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Thou art not the first to lose—
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O! woe is me!
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A wife; misfortune takes a different shape for every man she plagues.
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O the weary sorrow! O the grief for dear ones dead and gone! Why didst thou hinder me from plung-ing into the gaping grave, there to lay me down and die with her, my peerless bride?
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Then would Hades for that one have gotten these two faithful souls at once, crossing the nether lake together.
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I had a kinsman once, within whose home died
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his only son, worthy of a father’s tears; yet in spite of that he bore his grief resignedly, childless though he was, his hair already turning grey, himself far on in years, upon
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life’s downward track.
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O house of mine, how can I enter thee? how can I live here, now that fortune turns against me? Ah me! How wide the gulf ’twixt then and now!
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Then with torches cut from Pelion’s pines, with marriage hymns I entered in, holding my dear wife’s hand; and at our back a crowd of friends with cheerful cries, singing the happy lot of my dead wife and me,
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calling us a noble pair made one, children both of highborn lineage; but now the voice of woe instead of wedding hymns, and robes of black instead of snowy white usher me
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into my house to my deserted couch.
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Hard upon prosperous fortune came this sorrow to thee, a stranger to adversity; yet hast thou saved thy soul alive.
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Thy wife is dead and gone; her love she leaves with thee. What new thing is here? Death ere now from many a man hath torn a wife.
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My friends, I count my dead wife’s lot more blest than mine, for all it seems not so; for nevermore can sorrow touch her for ever; all her toil is over, and glorious is her fame. While I, who had no right to live, have passed the bounds of fate
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only to live a life of misery; I know it now. For how shall I endure to enter this my house? Whom shall I address, by whom be answered back, to find aught joyful in my entering in? Whither shall I turn? Within, the desolation will drive me forth,
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whensoe’er I see my widowed couch, the seat whereon she sat, the floor ail dusty in the house, and my babes falling at my knees with piteous tears for their mother, while my servants mourn the good mistress their house hath lost.
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These are the sorrows in my home, while abroad the marriages among Thessalians and the thronging crowds of women will drive me mad, for I can never bear to gaze upon the compeers of my wife. And whoso is my foe will taunt me thus,
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Behold him living in his shame, a wretch who quailed at death himself, but of his coward heart gave up his wedded wife instead, and escaped from Hades; doth he deem himself a man after that? And he loathes his parents, though himself refused to die. Such ill report shall I to my evils add.

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.