Page:The Plays of Euripides Vol. 1- Edward P. Coleridge (1910).djvu/159

Rh. Whose son doth he who feeds them boast to be?

. Ares' son, king of the golden targe of Thrace.

. This toil again is but a piece of my ill-luck; hard it ever is and still is growing steeper, if I with Ares' own-begotten sons must fight, first with Lycaon, next with Cycnus, while now I am bound on this third contest to engage the horses and their master. Yet shall no man ever see Alcmena's son trembling at his foemen's prowess.

. See where Admetus, lord of this land, comes in person from the palace forth.

. Hail! son of Zeus, from Perseus sprung.

. Joy to thee also, Admetus, king of Thessaly.

. Would there were! yet thy kindly heart I know full well.

. Why dost thou appear with head shorn thus in mourning?

. To-day I am to bury one who is dead.

. Heaven avert calamity from thy children!

. The children I have begotten are alive within my house.

. Thy father maybe is gone; well, he was ripe to go.

. No, Heracles, he lives; my mother too.

. It cannot be thy wife is dead, thy Alcestis?

. I can a twofold tale tell about her.

. Dost mean that she is dead, or living still?

. She lives, yet lives no more; that is my grief.

. I am no wiser yet; thy words are riddles to me.

. Knowest thou not the doom she must undergo?

. I know she did submit to die in thy stead.

. How then is she still alive, if so she promised?

. Ah! weep not thy wife before the day, put that off till then.

. The doomed is dead; the dead no more exists.

. Men count to be and not to be something apart.

. Thy verdict this, O Heracles, mine another.