Alcestis

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 315 sections

2.960
What profit, then, my friends, for me to live, in fame and fortune ruined.
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Myself have traced the Muses’ path, have soared amid the stars, have laid my hold on many a theme,
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and yet have found naught stronger than necessity, no spell inscribed on Thracian tablets written there by Orpheus, the sweet singer,
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no! nor aught among the simples culled by Phoebus for the toiling race of men, and given to Asclepius’ sons.
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The only goddess she, whose altar or whose image man cannot approach;
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victims she heedeth not. O come not to me, dread goddess, in greater might than heretofore in my career. Even Zeus requires thy aid to bring to pass whatso he wills.
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Thou too it is that by sheer force dost bend the steel among the Chalybes; nor is there any pity in thy relentless nature.
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This is the goddess that hath gripped thee too in chains thou canst not ’scape;
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yet steel thy heart, for all thy weeping ne’er will bring to light again the dead from the realms below. Even sons of gods perish in darkness
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in the hour of death. We loved her while she was with us, we love her still though dead; noblest of her sex was she, the wife thou tookest to thy bed.
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Her tomb let none regard as the graves of those who die and are no more, but let her have honours equal with the gods, revered by every traveller;
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and many a one will cross the road and read this verse aloud, This is she that died in days gone by to save her lord; now is she a spirit blest. Hail, lady revered; be kind to us!
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Such glad greeting shall she have.
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Many are the shapes that fortune takes,
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and oft the gods bring things to pass beyond our expectation. That which we deemed so sure is not fulfilled, while for that we never thought would be, God finds out a way. And such hath been the issue in the present case.

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.