Euripides Alcestis 466

Heracles

Mine hosts, dwellers on this Phersean soil! say, shall I find Admetus in the house?

Chorus

The son of Pheres is within, Heracles. Tell me what need is bringing thee to the Thessalian land,

to visit this city of the Pheraeans?

480

Heracles

I am performing a labour for Tirynthian Eurystheus.

Chorus

And whither art thou journeying? on what wandering art thou forced to go?

Heracles

To fetch the chariot-steeds of Thracian Diomedes.

Chorus

How canst thou? art a stranger to the ways of thy host?

Heracles

I am; for never yet have I gone to the land of the Bistones.

485

Chorus

Thou canst not master his horses without fighting.

Heracles

Still I cannot refuse these labours.

Chorus

Then shalt thou slay them and return, or thyself be slain and stay there.

Heracles

It will not be the first hard course that I have run.

Chorus

And what will be thy gain, suppose thou master their lord?

490

Heracles

The steeds will I drive away to the Tirynthian king.

Chorus

No easy task to bit their jaws.

Heracles

Easy enough, unless their nostrils vomit fire.

Chorus

With ravening jaws they rend the limbs of men.

Heracles

Thou speakest of the food of mountain beasts, not of horses.

495

Chorus

Their mangers blood-bedabbled thou shalt see.

Heracles

Whose son doth he who feeds them boast to be?

Chorus

Ares’ son, king of the golden targe of Thrace.

Heracles

This toil again is but a piece of my ill-luck;

hard it ever is and still is growing steeper, if I with Ares’ own-begotten sons must fight, first with Lycaon, next with Cycnus, while now I am bound on this third contest to engage the horses and their master.

500

Yet shall no man ever see Alcmena’s son trembling at his foemen’s prowess.

505

Chorus

See where Admetus, lord of this land, comes in person from the palace forth.

Admetus

Hail! son of Zeus, from Perseus sprung.

Heracles

Joy to thee also, Admetus, king of Thessaly.

510

Admetus

Would there were! yet thy kindly heart I know full well.

Heracles

Why dost thou appear with head shorn thus in mourning?

Admetus

To-day I am to bury one who is dead.

Heracles

Heaven avert calamity from thy children!

Admetus

The children I have begotten are alive within my house.

515

Heracles

Thy father maybe is gone; well, he was ripe to go.

Admetus

No, Heracles, he lives; my mother too.

Heracles

It cannot be thy wife is dead, thy Alcestis?

Admetus

I can a twofold tale tell about her.

Heracles

Dost mean that she is dead, or living still?

520

Admetus

She lives, yet lives no more; that is my grief.

Heracles

I am no wiser yet; thy words are riddles to me.

Admetus

Knowest thou not the doom she must undergo?

Heracles

I know she did submit to die in thy stead.

Admetus

How then is she still alive, if so she promised?

525

Heracles

Ah! weep not thy wife before the day, put that off till then.

Admetus

The doomed is dead; the dead no more exists.

Heracles

Men count to be and not to be something apart.

Admetus

Thy verdict this, O Heracles, mine another.

Heracles

Why weepest then? which of thy dear ones is the dead?

530

Admetus

’Tis a woman; I spoke of a woman just now.

Heracles

A stranger, or one of thine own kin?

Admetus

A stranger, yet in another sense related to my house.

Heracles

How then came she by her death in house of thine?

Admetus

Her father dead, she lived here as an orphan.

535

Heracles

Ah! would I had found thee free from grief, Admetus!

Admetus

With what intent dost thou devise this speech?

Heracles

I will seek some other friendly hearth.

Admetus

Never, O prince! Heaven forefend such dire disgrace!

Heracles

A guest is a burden to sorrowing friends, if come he should.

540

Admetus

The dead are dead. Come in.

Heracles

To feast in a friend’s house of sorrow is shameful.

Admetus

The guest chambers lie apart, whereto we will conduct thee.

Heracles

Let me go; ten thousandfold shall be my thanks to thee.

Admetus

Thou must not go to any other hearth. (To a Servant.) Go before, open the guest-rooms that face not these chambers, and bid my stewards see there is plenty of food; then shut the doors that lead into the courtyard; for ’tis not seemly that guests when at their meat

545

should hear the voice of weeping or be made sad. [Exit HERACLES.

550

Chorus

What doest thou? With such calamity before thee, hast thou the heart, Admetus, to welcome visitors? What means this folly?

Admetus

Well, and if I had driven him from my house and city when he came to be my guest, wouldst thou have praised me more?

No indeed! for my calamity would have been no whit less, while I should have been more churlish. And this would have been another woe to add to mine, that my house should be called no friend to guests. Yea, and I find him myself the best of hosts

555

whene’er to Argos’ thirsty land I come.

560

Chorus

Why then didst thou conceal thy present misfortune, if, as thy own lips declare, it was a friend that came?

Admetus

He would never have entered my house, had he known aught of my distress.

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.

565