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56 forthwith? Or on the other hand should he turn to the Pheraeans and confess to them, in the presence of the new- comer, that since the intended celebration must now be deferred, or else disclosed to this respectable personage so inaptly arrived, —it had best be deferred? The position of Admetus is such that he is driven to lie, not for hospitality, but for shame. Nor does he dare to let Heracles go, as he proposes, elsewhere. Partly he is afraid lest after all it should be suspected by Heracles that the bereavement is something graver than he has represented, and this should somehow lead to an exposure aggravated by the deceit. Partly he has, it may be supposed, a vague hope that Heracles, if he can be kept at the house, may be got out of Pherae without yet knowing what has occurred, and weakness loves postponement. But above all it is clear that, if the visitor repairs to another host, there will be no more privacy for what is done and doing at the palace. Now Admetus is resolved as ever—it is the only point on which he is consistent—that the clandestine funeral shall proceed, and proceed immediately. This is the cause of his crowning blunder, in remitting his guest to the uncontrolled charge of the servants, thus making it practically certain that he will be undeceived in some such scandalous and distressing fashion as he presently is. The brief visit of Heracles might perhaps have been got through tolerably, if the funeral had been put off even till the evening. But no; Heracles must stay and Admetus must go; an upshot reasonless and senseless, except so far as it explains and is explained by the pre-occupation, which this scene and those which precede it are contrived to exhibit.

Meanwhile we have naturally been asking ourselves, and not without receiving from the dramatist the means of anticipating the answer, what is the motive which induces a man like Admetus, hitherto known as generous, kindly, honourable, and particularly pious, to persist in this union of meanness with falsehood for the purpose of impoverishing, obscuring, degrading the solemnities of religion and love. To complete the answer is the object of the next ensuing scene, which shows us as it were by a specimen, in case we could not for ourselves imagine it, what sort of torture it is that Admetus, by these premature and surreptitious obsequies, is scheming to avoid, and what it would