Alcestis (905-1015)

Hard upon prosperous fortune came this sorrow to thee, a stranger to adversity; yet hast thou saved thy soul alive.

Thy wife is dead and gone; her love she leaves with thee. What new thing is here? Death ere now from many a man hath torn a wife.

My friends, I count my dead wife’s lot more blest than mine, for all it seems not so; for nevermore can sorrow touch her for ever; all her toil is over, and glorious is her fame. While I, who had no right to live, have passed the bounds of fate

only to live a life of misery; I know it now. For how shall I endure to enter this my house? Whom shall I address, by whom be answered back, to find[*] aught joyful in my entering in? Whither shall I turn? Within, the desolation will drive me forth,

whensoe’er I see my widowed couch, the seat whereon she sat, the floor ail dusty in the house, and my babes falling at my knees with piteous tears for their mother, while my servants mourn the good mistress their house hath lost.

These are the sorrows in my home, while abroad the marriages among Thessalians and the thronging crowds of women will drive me mad,[*] for I can never bear to gaze upon the compeers of my wife. And whoso is my foe will taunt me thus,

Behold him living in his shame, a wretch who quailed at death himself, but of his coward heart gave up his wedded wife instead, and escaped from Hades; doth he deem himself a man after that? And he loathes his parents, though himself refused to die. Such ill report shall I to my evils add.

What profit, then, my friends, for me to live, in fame and fortune ruined.

The only goddess she, whose altar or whose image man cannot approach;

victims she heedeth not. O come not to me, dread goddess, in greater might than heretofore in my career. Even Zeus requires thy aid to bring to pass whatso he wills.

Thou too it is that by sheer force dost bend the steel among the Chalybes; nor is there any pity in thy relentless nature.

Her tomb let none regard as the graves of those who die and are no more, but let her have honours equal with the gods, revered by every traveller;

and many a one will cross the road and read this verse aloud, This is she that died in days gone by to save her lord; now is she a spirit blest. Hail, lady revered; be kind to us!

Such glad greeting shall she have.