Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ALCESTIS: SCENE 4, by EURIPIDES


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ALCESTIS: SCENE 4, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Full many guests out of full many lands
Last Line: Unto thy hearth, o king!


Enter SERVANT

Serv. Full many guests out of full many lands
Have plagued Admetus' house, and at my hands
Feasted, but never yet have I been host
To one more plaguy, for he boldly cross'd
Our threshold though he saw my lord's despair.
And then it was not with your humble air
He took our pot-luck when he learnt our state,
But if we served him just a moment late
He shouted, 'Quick!' and then he catches up
In hasty hands the ivy-wreathed cup,
And drinks the purple mother's unmix'd draught,
Until the sharp lash of the wine he quaff'd
Caught him, and stung him, and his head he crown'd
With myrtle boughs and bawl'd a tuneless round.
Then two songs in Admetus' house arose,
For he howl'd on, nor reck'd the household woes,
Whilst we, the house-folk, mourn'd our lady bright,
Hiding our swoln eyes from the stranger's sight,
For thus Admetus bade. So I receive
A strange man who perchance may filch and thieve
For livelihood, whilst she, our lady's gone.
Oh! but I fail'd to follow and make moan
With outstretch'd hand for one who was a mother
To all our folk,—to me and every other,
Seeing she saved us from full many a slight
By smoothing her lord's wrath. Am I not right
To hate this guest inopportune?

Enter HERCULES

Herc. What ho!
What's all this look of gravity and woe?
Servants should not stand sulking at a guest,
But meet him with an eye to each behest!
Serv. I know it well, but this is not a case
For revelling, or for a laughing face.
Herc. The lady that is dead a stranger was,
Wherefore grieve not too bitterly; because
The masters of the house are living yet.
Serv. Living! Art ignorant of our regret?
Herc. Nay, nay, unless thy master told untruth.
Serv. Ah, he's too kind a host!
Herc. Must I in sooth
Meet with ill-treatment o'er a stranger's bier?
Serv. Nay, surely she was very near and dear.
Herc. Say, hath thy master then forborne to tell
All his calamity?
Serv. I'll say farewell!
Our lord's calamities are our concern.
Herc. Now say, thy words begin at last to turn
Upon some foreign loss?
Serv. No, else I had
Not grieved to see thee feasting blithe and glad,
Herc. What hath my host so scantly treated me
As to have left me ignorant?
Serv. Nay, see,
Thou camest not when we could well receive—
We of the household,—for behold we grieve;
Behold our clipt hair and our swart attire!
Herc. When, then, is dead? Is it his ancient sire,
Or either of his babes?
Serv. Nay, an' you will,
It is Admetus' wife!
Herc. What say'st? And still
Ye did receive me?
Serv. He had been ashamed
To thrust thee from the shelter thou hadst claim'd.
Herc. What a sweet wife hast lost, O hapless one!
Serv. Alas, we are all lost, not she alone!
Herc. Yes, when I saw the eyes with tears abrim,
The shorn locks, and the countenance of him,
I knew it all at once, But he so shook
My sure conviction, saying that he took
A stranger's corse unto the grave, that I
Within your gateway came unwillingly,
And drank within the kind man's house of fate,
And revell'd with a wreath about my pate.
But thine it was to bid me not carouse
When such a sorrow hung upon the house.
Say, now, where hath he buried her, and whither
Shall I go find her?
Serv. Thou must travel thither
By the straight path that goeth trending down
Unto Larissa; just outside the town
Thou shalt behold her smoothly-chisell'd tomb.
Herc. O; soul of mine and heart all-daring, come,
Show, once for all, what mighty manner of man
Was born to Zeus of the Tirynthian
Alcmena, daughter of Electryon!
For I must rescue the late dead and gone,
And set Alcestis back within this house,
And toil a toil to please her lordly spouse.
Yea, I will go lay wait for Thanatos,
The sable-garbéd king of earthly loss.
I think that I shall find him drinking up
The proffered contents of each funeral cup
Hard by the tomb, and an' I shall waylay him,
And, from my ambush rushing, catch and stay him,
And make a circlet round him with my hands,
Never a heaving athlete understands
The way to wrest him out, till grace be given
Unto the dame. But an' I've vainly striven
To make such capture, an' I have not won
Unto that blood-stain'd cup, then I go down
To th' unsunn'd house of Cora and her king,
And put forth my request, and trust to bring
Alcestis earthward, so that she be put
In that host's hands who took me in, nor shut
His door upon my face, and though hard smit
By a great grief, yet aye kept hiding it,
Being the noblest, kindliest of hosts!
What man is there in these Thessalian coasts,
What man in Hellas who receiveth so?
Wherefore he shall not ever say that, though
He was himself so quick to do and feel,
He did good service to a ne'er-do-weel!
Adm. Hateful approach, alas, and prospect hateful
Of widow'd palaces!
Woe's me, woe's me, alack for what's so fateful!
Where can I flee from these?
Where can I stand? And what can I be saying?
And what can I not say?
Ah, would that I could die! Without gainsaying,
'Twas to a weary way
My mother bred me up. I envy so
The dead for whom I yearn;
I long to dwell beside them, down below!
What time the sunbeams burn
I like not to behold them, nor am fain
Of treading through the land,
So sweet a hostage hath the Death-god ta'en
And given into Hell's hand!
Chor. Forward! Go deep into the house.
Adm. Alack.
Chor. Thou hast of grief good store,—
Adm. Ah me!
Chor. Hast travell'd on a mournful track
I know it well!
Adm. No more!
Chor. Thou nothing aidest her that's in her place.
Adm. Alack, and woe is me!
Chor. Never again to see thy dear wife's face
Is very hard on thee!
Adm. Thou hast made mention of the woe that gnaws
My spirit. What more grim
Than when a hero loseth her that was
A faithful wife to him?
Would that I had not wed nor dwelt with her,
For I view jealously
The childless and unwedded wanderer
Amidst mortality.
He hath one life for which such tears are shed
As pain thee not too much.
But to behold sick children, and a bed
Laid waste at Death's fell touch
Is not supportable, when man may stay
Childless and mateless aye.
Chor. Fate, that's so hard to wrestle with hath come.
Adm. Alack!
Chor. But wilt not set
A term unto thy griefs
Adm. Alas! my doom!
Chor. Heavy it is, but yet—
Adm. Ah, woe on woe!
Chor. Endure; thou'rt not the first
To lose.
Adm. (Oh, bitterness!)
Chor. The consort of thy love; for fate accurst,
Weareth a different dress
To torture different men.
Adm. Oh, pains immense!
And grief for friends in gloom!
Why hinderest thou me from leaping hence
Into her hollow tomb,
And lying dead beside earth's perfectest?
Then o'er hell's lake had cross'd
Not one, but twain of all souls faithfullest,
And Hades had not lost!
Chor. This grief came quick upon thy happy state,
To thee unschool'd in fate;
But thou has saved thy life, and she hath lain
Hers down to rescue thee.
Full many a lady from her lord is ta'en;
This is no novelty.
Adm. Dear friends, I deem her fortune less austere
Than mine is, though the cause be nowise clear;
For her no sorrowful thing can touch again,
And splendid she hath ceased from every pain;
But me, who should not live and yet have trick'd
My destiny, long sorrows shall afflict.
For how can I endure to enter in,
What words of mine, what words to me can win
A pleasant entrance into my sad home?
And whither shall I turn me from my doom?
But whoso hates me, meeting me, will cry:—
'The living knave who fear'd himself to die,
And out of cowardice gave up instead
The woman he had married, and so fled
From Hades. Seemeth he a man and brother,
Who, fearing death, yet hateth sire and mother?'
This the report, then, that will add unto
Mine other woes. Dear friends, oh, tell me true,
Is it so glorious for a man to live
Whom neither fates nor mortals ere forgive?
Chor. I also have been borne aloft through song,
Reas'ning perpetually,
And have found out not anything more strong
Than is Necessity!
Let not thy onslaught be more dread, O queen,
Than hitherto 't hath been!
And thee, Admetus, she hath seized upon
In grasp inevitable.
But peace! for to upraise the dead and gone
No tears of thine are able.
Even the sons the gods by stealth beget
Must die, beyond forgiving;
And being dead she is belovèd yet,
Who was belovèd living.
The noblest of the wives of mortal birth
Thou tookest to thy side!
Let not her tomb be counted but as earth
Heap'd on death's daily bride,
But honour it as you the gods would honour.
Let foreign travelling men
Pause and with wonder gaze adown upon her!
Yea, haply some one then
Leaving the path will say: 'Once on a time
She died to save her lord:
But now 'tis a divinity sublime,
All hail, O mine adored!
Be thou propitious!' Such man's prayers will be
But lo I think to see
Alcmena's son, who cometh wandering
Unto thy hearth, O king!





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