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233 ALCESTIS 233

The just-dead lady : ay, establish here

I' the house again Alkestis, bring about

Comfort and succor to Admetos so ! 1530

I will go lie in wait for Death, black-stoled

King of the corpses ! I shall find him, sure,

Drinking, beside the tomb, o' the sacrifice :

And if I lie in ambuscade, and leap

Out of my lair, and seize — encircle him isss

Till one hand join the other round about —

There lives not who shall pull him out from me,

Rib-mauled, before he let the woman go !

But even say I miss the booty, — say,

Death comes not to the boltered blood, — why then,

Down go I, to the unsunned dwelling-place 1541

Of Kore and the king there, — make demand,

Confident I shall bring Alkestis back.

So as to put her in the hands of him

My host, that housed me, never drove me off : 1545

Though stricken with sore sorrow, hid the stroke.

Being a noble heart and honoring me !

Who of Thessalians, more than this man, loves

The stranger ? ^ Who, that now inhabits Greece ?

Wherefore he shall not say the man was vile 1550

Whom he befriended, — native noble heart ! "

aSO, one look vpward, as if Zeus might laugh

Approval of his human progeny, —

One summons of the whole magnific franne.

Each sinew to its service, — up he caught, 1555

And over shoulder cast, the lion-shag.

Let the club go, — for had he not those hands f

And so went striding off, on that straight way

Leads to Larissa and the suhurh tomb.

^ Hospitality was a cardi-nal virtue of the Greeks.