Scene.—Before Admetus’ Palace. That worthy enters hurriedly through the Royal doors, which he bangs behind him with a slight want of dignity. He soliloquises.
Admetus.
Ye gods, how long must I endure all this,
The ceaseless clamour of a woman’s tongue?
Was it for this ye granted me the boon
That she might give her life in place of mine,
Only that Heracles might bring her back,
Torn from the arms of Death to plague me thus?
This was your boon, in sooth no boon to me.
How blind is man, not knowing when he is blest!
Fool that I was, I mourned Alcestis’ death
Almost as much as I should mourn my own.
Indeed I thought, so great my grief appeared,
I would almost have laid my own life down
—Almost I say—to bring her back to earth.
Yet, now she lives once more she makes me weep
More bitter tears than I did ever shed
When I believed her gone beyond recall.
[Weeps bitterly.
Chorus.
First Semichorus.
Oh, what a doubtful blessing is a wife
Who saves your life
And then doth make it doubly hard to live!
Alas, she doth but give
A gift we cannot prize
But count it in our eyes
As nothing worth—a thing to spurn, to cast away,
To form the theme of this depreciatory lay!
Second Semichorus.
Alcestis, what a shame it is to find
This kingly mind
So much disturbed, this kingly heart so wrung,
By thy too active tongue
Thou gav’st thy life for his
But oh, how wrong it is
To make that life which thou so nobly didst restore
A thing he values not at all, in fact a bore!
First Semichorus.
O wretched race of men,
When shall we see again
The peace that once ye had
Ere woman bad,
Or mad,
Did cross your happy path
In wrath,
And doom you to a tedious life of fear and fret,
Of unavailing tears and unconcealed regret!
Second Semichorus.
O Heracles, what shame
Shall cloud thy previous fame
Who brought this lady back
Along the black
Steep track,
Where Death and she did fare,
A pair
(At least, as far as we can ascertain) content
To those Tartarean halls which hear no argument!
[Enter Alcestis. She is in a bad temper, and is weeping as only Euripides’ characters can.
Alcestis.
Ah! woe is me! Why was I ever born?
And why, once dead, did I return again
To this distressful earth? Oh, Heracles,
Why did you bear me back to this sad place,
This palace where Admetus sits enthroned?
Oh, what a disagreeable fate it is
To live with such a husband—hear his voice
Raised ever in complaint, and have no word
Of gratitude for all I did for him!
Was there another creature in the world
Who willingly would die for such a man?
Not one! His father, aged though he was,
Scouted the proposition as absurd.
His mother, when approached, declined in terms
Which I should hesitate to reproduce,
So frank and so unflattering they were.
But I, I gave my life instead of his,
And what is my reward? A few cold words
Of thanks, a complimentary phrase or two,
And then he drops the subject, thinks no more
About the matter and is quite annoyed
When, as may happen once or twice a day,
I accidentally allude to it!
