Euripides
The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I.
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,261 when the moon is up the whole night long; and in splendid262 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 another263 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, prince264 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 him265 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 lions266 came having left the forest of Othrys; disported too around thy cithern, Phœbus, 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 Bœbe; 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 Ægean 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 Pheræ that are kindly present, my servants indeed bear aloft267 the corse, having every thing fit for the tomb, and for the pyre. But do you, as is the custom, salute268 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,269 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.
ADM. Neither hast thou come bidden of me to this funeral, nor do I count thy presence among things acceptable. But she here never shall put on thy decorations; for in no wise shall she be buried indebted to what thou hast. Then oughtest thou to have grieved with me, when I was in danger of perishing.270 But dost thou, who stoodest aloof, and permittedst another, a young person, thyself being old, to die, weep over this dead body? Thou wert not then really the father of me, nor did she, who says she bore me, and is called my mother, bear me; but born of slavish blood I was secretly put under the breast of thy wife. Thou showedst when thou camest to the test, who thou art; and I deem that I am not thy son. Or else surely thou exceedest all in nothingness of soul, who being of the age thou art, and having come to the goal of life, neither hadst the will nor the courage to die for thy son; but sufferedst this stranger lady, whom alone I might justly have considered both mother and father. And yet thou mightst have run this race for glory, hadst thou died for thy son. But at any rate the remainder of the time thou hadst to live was short: and I should have lived and she the rest of our days, and I should not, bereft of her, be groaning at my miseries. And in sooth thou didst receive as many things as a happy man should receive; thou passedst the vigor of thine age indeed in sovereign sway, but I was thy son to succeed thee in this palace, so that thou wert not about to die childless and leave a desolate house for others to plunder. Thou canst not however say of me, that I gave thee up to die, dishonoring thine old age, whereas I was particularly respectful toward thee; and for this behavior both thou, and she that bare me, have made me such return. Wherefore you have no more time to lose271 in getting children, who will succor thee in thine old age, and deck thee when dead, and lay out thy corse; for I will not bury thee with this mine hand; for I in sooth died, as far as in thee lay; but if, having met with, another deliverer, I view the light, I say that I am both his child, and the friendly comforter of his old age. In vain then do old men pray to be dead, complaining of age, and the long time of life: but if death come near, not one is willing to die, and old age is no longer burdensome to them.272
CHOR. Desist, for the present calamity is sufficient; and do not, O son, provoke thy father's mind.
PHE. O son, whom dost thou presume thou art gibing with thy reproaches, a Lydian or a Phrygian bought with thy money?273 Knowest thou not that I am a Thessalian, and born from a Thessalian father, truly free? Thou art too insolent, and casting the impetuous words of youth against us, shalt not having cast them thus depart. But I begat thee the lord of my house, and brought thee up, but I am not thy debtor to die for thee; for I received no paternal law like this, nor Grecian law, that fathers should die for their children; for for thyself thou wert born, whether unfortunate or fortunate, but what from us thou oughtest to have, thou hast. Thou rulest indeed over many, and I will leave thee a large demesne of lands, for these I received from my father. In what then have I injured thee? Of what do I deprive thee? Thou joyest to see the light, and dost think thy father does not joy?274 Surely I count the time we must spend beneath long, and life is short, but still sweet. Thou too didst shamelessly fight off from dying, and livest, having passed over thy destined fate, by slaying her; then dost thou talk of my nothingness of soul, O most vile one, when thou art surpassed by a woman who died for thee, the handsome youth? But thou hast made a clever discovery, so that thou mayst never die, if thou wilt persuade the wife that is thine from time to time to die for thee: and then reproachest thou thy friends who are not willing to do this, thyself being a coward? Hold thy peace, and consider, if thou lovest thy life, that all love theirs; but if thou shalt speak evil against us, thou shalt hear many reproaches and not false ones.
CHOR. Too many evil things have been spoken both now and before, but cease, old man, from reviling thy son.
ADM. Speak, for I have spoken; but if thou art grieved at hearing the truth, thou shouldst not err against me.
PHE. But had I died for thee, I had erred more.
ADM. What? is it the same thing for a man in his prime, and for an old man to die?
PHE. We ought to live with one life, not with two.
ADM. Mayst thou then live a longer time than Jove!
PHE. Dost curse thy parents, having met with no injustice?
ADM. I said it, for I perceived thou lovedst a long life.
PHE. But art not thou bearing forth this corse instead of thyself?
ADM. A proof this, O most vile one, of thy nothingness of soul.
PHE. She died not by us at least; thou wilt not say this.
ADM. Alas! Oh that you may ever come to need my aid!
PHE. Wed many wives, that more may die.
ADM. This is a reproach to thyself, for thou wert not willing to die.
PHE. Sweet is this light of the God, sweet is it.
ADM. Base is thy spirit and not that of men.
PHE. Thou dost not laugh as carrying an aged corse.
ADM. Thou wilt surely however die inglorious, when thou diest.
PHE. To bear an evil report is no matter to me when dead.
ADM. Alas! alas! how full of shamelessness is old age!
PHE. She was not shameless: her you found mad.
ADM. Begone, and suffer me to bury this dead.
PHE. I will depart; but you will bury her, yourself being her murderer. But you will render satisfaction to your wife's relatives yet: or surely Acastus no longer ranks among men, if he shall not revenge the blood of his sister.
ADM. Get thee gone, then, thou and thy wife; childless, thy child yet living, as ye deserve, grow old; for ye no more come into the same house with me: and if it were necessary for me to renounce by heralds thy paternal hearth, I would renounce it. But let us (for the evil before us must be borne) proceed, that we may place the corse upon the funeral pyre.
CHOR. O! O! unhappy because of thy bold deed, O noble, and by far most excellent, farewell! may both Mercury275 that dwells beneath, and Pluto, kindly receive thee; but if there too any distinction is shown to the good, partaking of this mayst thou sit by the bride of Pluto.
SERVANT
I have now known many guests, and from all parts of the earth that have come to the house of Admetus, to whom I have spread the feast, but never yet did I receive into this house a worse one than this stranger. Who, in the first place, indeed, though he saw my master in affliction, came in, and prevailed upon himself to pass the gates. And then not at all in a modest manner received he the entertainment that there happened to be, when he heard of the calamity: but if we did not bring any thing, he hurried us to bring it. And having taken in his hands the cup wreathed with ivy,276 he quaffs the neat wine of the purple mother, until the fumes of the liquor coming upon him inflamed him; and he crowns his head with branches of myrtles howling discordantly; and there were two strains to hear; for he was singing, not caring at all for the afflictions of Admetus, but we the domestics, were bewailing our mistress, and we showed not that we were weeping to the guest, for thus Admetus commanded. And now indeed I am performing the offices of hospitality to the stranger in the house, some deceitful thief and robber. But she is gone from the house, nor did I follow, nor stretched out my hand in lamentation for my mistress, who was a mother to me, and to all the domestics, for she saved us from ten thousand ills, softening the anger of her husband. Do I not then justly hate this stranger, who is come in our miseries?
HERCULES, SERVANT
HER. Ho there! why dost thou look so grave and thoughtful? The servant ought not to be of woeful countenance before guests, but should receive them with an affable mind. But thou, though thou seest a companion of thy lord present, receivest him with a morose and clouded countenance, fixing thy attention on a calamity that thou hast nothing to do with. Come hither, that thou mayst become more wise. Knowest thou mortal affairs, of what nature they are? I think not; from whence should you? but hear me. Death is a debt that all mortals must pay: and there is not of them one, who knows whether he shall live the coming morrow: for what depends on fortune is uncertain how it will turn out, and is not to be learned, neither is it detected by art. Having heard these things then, and learned them from me, make thyself merry, drink, and think the life allowed from day to day thine own, but the rest Fortune's. And honor also Venus, the most sweet of deities to mortals, for she is a kind deity. But let go these other things, and obey my words, if I appear to speak rightly: I think so indeed. Wilt thou not then leave off thy excessive grief, and drink with me, crowned with garlands, having thrown open these gates? And well know I that the trickling of the cup falling down thy throat will change thee from thy present cloudy and pent state of mind. But we who are mortals should think as mortals. Since to all the morose, indeed, and to those of sad countenance, if they take me as judge at least, life is not truly life, but misery.
SERV. I know this; but now we are in circumstances not such as are fit for revel and mirth.
HER. The lady that is dead is a stranger; grieve not too much, for the lords of this house live.
SERV. What live! knowest thou not the misery within the house?
HER. Unless thy lord hath told me any thing falsely.
SERV. He is too, too hospitable.
HER. Is it unmeet that I should be well treated, because a stranger is dead?
SERV. Surely however she was very near.
HER. Has he forborne to tell me any calamity that there is?
SERV. Depart and farewell; we have a care for the evils of our lords.
HER. This speech is the beginning of no foreign loss.
SERV. For I should not, had it been foreign, have been grieved at seeing thee reveling.
HER. What! have I received so great an injury from mine host?
SERV. Thou camest not in a fit time for the house to receive thee, for there is grief to us, and thou seest that we are shorn, and our black garments.
HER. But who is it that is dead? Has either any of his children died, or his aged father?
SERV. The wife indeed of Admetus is dead, O stranger.
HER. What sayst thou? and yet did ye receive me?
SERV. Yes, for he had too much respect to turn thee from his house.
HER. O unhappy man, what a wife hast thou lost!
SERV. We all are lost, not she alone.
HER. But I did perceive it indeed, when I saw his eye streaming with tears, and his shorn hair, and his countenance; but he persuaded me, saying, that he was conducting the funeral of a stranger to the tomb: but spite of my inclination having passed over these gates, I drank in the house of the hospitable man, while he was in this case, and reveled, crowned as to my head with garlands. But 'twas thine to tell me not to do it, when such an evil was upon the house. Where is he burying her? whither going can I find her?
SERV. By the straight road that leads to Larissa, thou wilt see the polished tomb beyond the suburbs.
