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"But who is it that 's dead? Some child gone ? or the aged sire perhaps ? "

" Admetos' wife, then ! she has perished, guest ! "

" How sayest ? And did ye house me, all the same ? "

" Ay : for he had thee in that reverence uss

He dared not turn thee from his door away ! "

" Ο hapless and bereft of what a mate ! "

" All of us now are dead, not she alone ! "

" But I divined it ! seeing, as I did.

His eye that ran with tears, his closef-clipt hair, 1490

His countenance ! Though he persuaded me,

Saying it was a stranger's funeral

He went with to the grave : against my wish,

He forced on me that I should enter doors,

Drink in the hall o' the hospitable man 1495

Circumstanced so ! And do I revel yet

With wreath on head ? But — thou to hold thy peace

Nor tell me what a woe oppressed my friend !

Where is he gone to bury her ? Where am I

To go and find her ? "

" By the road that leads isoo Straight to Larissa, thou wilt see the tomb, Out of the suburb, a carved sepulchre."

So said Λβ, and therewith dismissed himself Inside to his lamenting. vm

[Herakxes.] " Ο much-enduring heart and hand of mine ! 1524

Now show what sort of son she bore to Zeus, That daughter of Elektruon, Tiruns' child,^ Alkmene ! for that son must needs save now


 * Tiryns, in Argolis, was the home of Alcmene.