Scaife ATLAS

CTS Library / Alcestis

Alcestis (58-112)

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0006.tlg002.perseus-eng2:58-112
Refs {'start': {'reference': '58', 'human_reference': 'Line 58'}, 'end': {'reference': '112', 'human_reference': 'Line 112'}}
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What meanst thou? art so wise, and I never knew it?
Death
Those who have wealth would buy the chance of their dying old.
Apollo
It seems then thou wilt not grant me this favour.
Death
Not I; my customs well thou knowest.
Apollo
That I do, customs men detest and gods abhor.
Death
Thou canst not realise every lawless wish.
Apollo
Mark me, thou shalt have a check for all thy excessive fierceness;
such a hero shall there come to Pheres halls, by Eurystheus sent to fetch a team of steeds from the wintry world of Thrace; he, a guest awhile in these halls of Admetus, will wrest this woman from thee by sheer force.
So wilt thou get no thanks from me but yet wilt do this all the same, and earn my hatred too.[*]
Death
Thou wilt not gain thy purpose any the more for all thy many words; that woman shall to Hades halls go down, I tell thee.
Lo! I am going for her, that with the sword I may begin my rites, for he whose hair this sword doth hallow is sacred to the gods below.
77
First Semichorus
What[*] means this silence in front of the palace? why is the house of Admetus stricken dumb?
Second Semichorus
Not one friend near
to say if we must mourn our queen as dead, or if she liveth yet and sees the sun, Alcestis, daughter of Pelias, by me and all esteemed the best of wives
to her husband.
86
First Semichorus
Doth any of you hear a groan, or sound of hands that smite together, or the voice of lamentation, telling all is over and done? Yet is there no servant
stationed about the gate, no, not one. O come, thou saving god, to smooth the swelling waves of woe![*]
93
Second Semichorus
Surely, were she dead, they would not be so still.
First Semichorus
Maybe her corpse is not yet from the house borne forth.
Second Semichorus
Whence that inference? I am not so sanguine. What gives thee confidence?
First Semichorus
How could Admetus let his noble wife go unattended to the grave?
98
Second Semichorus
Before the gates I see no lustral water from the spring, as custom doth ordain should be
at the gates of the dead, no shorn lock lies on the threshold, which, as thou knowest, falls in mourning for the dead, no choir of maidens smites its youthful[*] palms together.
105
First Semichorus
And yet this is the appointed day.
Second Semichorus
What meanest thou by this?
First Semichorus
The day appointed for the journey to the world below.
Second Semichorus
Thou hast touched me to the heart, een to the soul.
Chorus
Whoso from his youth up has been accounted virtuous,
needs must weep to see the good suddenly cut off.
112
Chorus
Tis done; no single spot in all the world remains whither one might steer a course, either to Lycia[*]

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