Chapter 4
HERACLES. Thou art my friend, Admetus; therefore bold And plain I tell my story, and withhold No secret hurt.--Was I not worthy, friend, To stand beside thee; yea, and to the end Be proven in sorrow if I was true to thee? And thou didst tell me not a word, while she Lay dead within; but bid me feast, as though Naught but the draping of some stranger's woe Was on thee. So I garlanded my brow And poured the gods drink-offering, and but now Filled thy death-stricken house with wine and song. Thou hast done me wrong, my brother; a great wrong Thou hast done me. But I will not add more pain In thine affliction. Why I am here again, Returning, thou must hear. I pray thee, take And keep yon woman for me till I make My homeward way from Thrace, when I have ta'en Those four steeds and their bloody master slain. And if--which heaven avert!--I ne'er should see Hellas again, I leave her here, to be An handmaid in thy house. No labour small Was it that brought her to my hand at all. I fell upon a contest certain Kings Had set for all mankind, sore buffetings And meet for strong men, where I staked my life And won this woman. For the easier strife Black steeds were prizes; herds of kine were cast For heavier issues, fists and wrestling; last, This woman.... Lest my work should all seem done For naught, I needs must keep what I have won; So prithee take her in. No theft, but true Toil, won her.... Some day thou mayst thank me, too.
ADMETUS. 'Twas in no scorn, no bitterness to thee, I hid my wife's death and my misery. Methought it was but added pain on pain If thou shouldst leave me, and roam forth again Seeking another's roof. And, for mine own Sorrow, I was content to weep alone. But, for this damsel, if it may be so, I pray thee, Lord, let some man, not in woe Like mine, take her. Thou hast in Thessaly Abundant friends.... 'Twould wake sad thoughts in me. How could I have this damsel in my sight And keep mine eyes dry? Prince, why wilt thou smite The smitten? Griefs enough are on my head. Where in my castle could so young a maid Be lodged--her veil and raiment show her young: Here, in the men's hall? I should fear some wrong. 'Tis not so easy, Prince, to keep controlled My young men. And thy charge I fain would hold Sacred.--If not, wouldst have me keep her in The women's chambers ... where my dead hath been? How could I lay this woman where my bride Once lay? It were dishonour double-dyed. These streets would curse the man who so betrayed The wife who saved him for some younger maid; The dead herself ... I needs must worship her And keep her will.
[_During the last few lines_ ADMETUS _has been looking at the veiled Woman and, though he does not consciously recognize her, feels a strange emotion overmastering him. He draws back._]
Aye. I must walk with care.... O woman, whosoe'er thou art, thou hast The shape of my Alcestis; thou art cast In mould like hers.... Oh, take her from mine eyes! In God's name!
[HERACLES _signs to the Attendants to take_ ALCESTIS _away again. She stays veiled and unnoticing in the background._]
I was fallen, and in this wise Thou wilt make me deeper fall.... Meseems, meseems, There in her face the loved one of my dreams Looked forth.--My heart is made a turbid thing, Craving I know not what, and my tears spring Unbidden.--Grief I knew 'twould be; but how Fiery a grief I never knew till now.
LEADER. Thy fate I praise not. Yet, what gift soe'er God giveth, man must steel himself and bear.
HERACLES (_drawing_ ADMETUS _on_). Would God, I had the power, 'mid all this might Of arm, to break the dungeons of the night, And free thy wife, and make thee glad again!
ADMETUS. Where is such power? I know thy heart were fain; But so 'tis writ. The dead shall never rise.
HERACLES. Chafe not the curb, then: suffer and be wise.
ADMETUS. Easier to give such counsel than to keep.
HERACLES. Who will be happier, shouldst thou always weep?
ADMETUS. Why, none. Yet some blind longing draws me on...
HERACLES. 'Tis natural. Thou didst love her that is gone.
ADMETUS. 'Tis that hath wrecked, oh more than wrecked, my life.
HERACLES. 'Tis certain: thou hast lost a faithful wife.
ADMETUS. Till life itself is dead and wearies me.
HERACLES. Thy pain is yet young. Time will soften thee,
[_The veiled Woman begins dimly, as though in a dream, to hear the words spoken._]
ADMETUS. Time? Yes, if time be death.
HERACLES. Nay, wait; and some Woman, some new desire of love, will come.
ADMETUS (_indignantly_). Peace! How canst thou? Shame upon thee!
HERACLES. Thou wilt stay Unwed for ever, lonely night and day?
ADMETUS. No other bride in these void arms shall lie.
HERACLES. What profit will thy dead wife gain thereby?
ADMETUS. Honour; which finds her wheresoe'er she lies.
HERACLES. Most honourable in thee: but scarcely wise!
ADMETUS. God curse me, if I betray her in her tomb!
HERACLES. So be it!... And this good damsel, thou wilt take her home?
ADMETUS. No, in the name of Zeus, thy father! No!
HERACLES. I swear, 'tis not well to reject her so.
ADMETUS. 'Twould tear my heart to accept her.
HERACLES. Grant me, friend, This one boon! It may help thee in the end.
ADMETUS. Woe's me! Would God thou hadst never won those victories!
HERACLES. Thou sharest both the victory and the prize.
ADMETUS. Thou art generous.... But now let her go.
HERACLES. She shall, If go she must. Look first, and judge withal.
[_He takes the veil off_ ALCESTIS.]
ADMETUS (_steadily refusing to look_). She must.--And thou, forgive me!
HERACLES. Friend, there is A secret reason why I pray for this.
ADMETUS (_surprised, then reluctantly yielding_). I grant thy boon then--though it likes me ill.
HERACLES. 'Twill like thee later. Now ... but do my will.
ADMETUS (_beckoning to an Attendant_). Take her; find her some lodging in my hall.
HERACLES. I will not yield this maid to any thrall.
ADMETUS. Take her thyself and lead her in.
HERACLES. I stand Beside her; take her; lead her to thy hand.
[_He brings the Woman close to_ ADMETUS, _who looks determinedly away. She reaches out her arms._]
ADMETUS. I touch her not.--Let her go in!
HERACLES. I am loth To trust her save to thy pledged hand and oath.
[_He lays his hand on_ ADMETUS'S _shoulder_.]
ADMETUS (_desperately_). Lord, this is violence ... wrong ...
HERACLES. Reach forth thine hand And touch this comer from a distant land.
ADMETUS (_holding out his hand without looking_). Like Perseus when he touched the Gorgon, there!
HERACLES. Thou hast touched her?
ADMETUS (_at last taking her hand_). Touched her?... Yes.
HERACLES (_a hand on the shoulder of each_). Then cling to her; And say if thou hast found a guest of grace In God's son, Heracles! Look in her face; Look; is she like...?
[ADMETUS _looks and stands amazed_.] Go, and forget in bliss Thy sorrow!
ADMETUS. O ye Gods! What meaneth this? A marvel beyond dreams! The face ... 'tis she; Mine, verily mine! Or doth God mock at me And blast my vision with some mad surmise?
HERACLES. Not so. This is thy wife before thine eyes.
ADMETUS (_who has recoiled in his amazement_). Beware! The dead have phantoms that they send...
HERACLES. Nay; no ghost-raiser hast thou made thy friend.
ADMETUS. My wife ... she whom I buried?
HERACLES. I deceive Thee not; nor wonder thou canst scarce believe.
ADMETUS. And dare I touch her, greet her, as mine own Wife living?
HERACLES. Greet her. Thy desire is won.
ADMETUS (_approaching with awe_), Beloved eyes; beloved form; O thou Gone beyond hope, I have thee, I hold thee now?
HERACLES. Thou hast her: may no god begrudge your joy.
ADMETUS (_turning to_ HERACLES). O lordly conqueror, Child of Zeus on high, Be blessèd! And may He, thy sire above, Save thee, as thou alone hast saved my love!
[_He kneels to_ HERACLES, _who raises him_.]
But how ... how didst thou win her to the light?
HERACLES. I fought for life with Him I needs must fight.
ADMETUS. With Death thou hast fought! But where?
HERACLES. Among his dead I lay, and sprang and gripped him as he fled.
ADMETUS (_in an awed whisper, looking towards_ ALCESTIS). Why standeth she so still? No sound, no word!
HERACLES. She hath dwelt with Death. Her voice may not be heard Ere to the Lords of Them Below she pay Due cleansing, and awake on the third day. (_To the Attendants_) So; guide her home.
[_They lead_ ALCESTIS _to the doorway_.]
And thou, King, for the rest Of time, be true; be righteous to thy guest, As he would have thee be. But now farewell! My task yet lies before me, and the spell That binds me to my master; forth I fare.
ADMETUS. Stay with us this one day! Stay but to share The feast upon our hearth!
HERACLES. The feasting day Shall surely come; now I must needs away.
[HERACLES _departs_.]
ADMETUS. Farewell! All victory attend thy name And safe home-coming! Lo, I make proclaim To the Four Nations and all Thessaly; A wondrous happiness hath come to be: Therefore pray, dance, give offerings and make full Your altars with the life-blood of the Bull! For me ... my heart is changed; my life shall mend Henceforth. For surely Fortune is a friend.
[_He goes with_ ALCESTIS _into the house_.]
CHORUS. There be many shapes of mystery; And many things God brings to be, Past hope or fear. And the end men looked for cometh not, And a path is there where no man thought. So hath it fallen here.
NOTES
P. 3, Prologue. Asclêpios (Latin Aesculapius), son of Apollo, the hero-physician, by his miraculous skill healed the dead. This transgressed the divine law, so Zeus slew him. (The particular dead man raised by him was Hippolytus, who came to life in Italy under the name of Virbius, and was worshipped with Artemis at Aricia.) Apollo in revenge, not presuming to attack Zeus himself, killed the Cyclopes, and was punished by being exiled from heaven and made servant to a mortal. There are several such stories of gods made servants to human beings.
P. 3, l. 12, Beguiling.]--See Preface. In the original story he made them drunk with wine. (Aesch. _Eumenides_, 728.) As the allusion would doubtless be clear to the Greek audience, I have added a mention of wine which is not in the Greek. Libations to the Elder Gods, such as the Fates and Eumenides, had to be "wineless." Historically this probably means that the worship dates from a time before wine was used in Greece.
P. 4, l. 22, The stain of death must not come nigh My radiance.]--Compare Artemis in the last scene of the _Hippolytus_. The presence of a dead body would be a pollution to Apollo, though that of Thánatos (Death) himself seems not to be so. It is rather Thánatos who is dazzled and blinded by Apollo, like an owl or bat in the sunlight.
P. 5, l. 43, Rob me of my second prey.]--"You first cheated me of Admetus, and now you cheat me of his substitute."
P. 6, l. 59, The rich would buy, etc.]--Here and throughout this difficult little dialogue I follow the readings of my own text in the _Bibliotheca Oxoniensis_.
P. 7, l. 74, To lay upon her hair my sword.]--As the sacrificing priest cut off a lock of hair from the victim's head before the actual sacrifice.
P. 8, l. 77, Chorus.]--The Chorus consists of citizens, probably Elders, of the city of Pherae. Dr. Verrall has rightly pointed out that there is some general dissatisfaction in the town at Admetus's behaviour (l. 210 ff.). These citizens come to mourn with Admetus out of old friendship, though they do not altogether defend him.
The Chorus is very drastically broken up into so many separate persons conversing with one another; the treatment in the _Rhesus_ is similar but even bolder. See _Rhesus_, pp. 28-31, 37-42. Cf. also the entrance-choruses of the _Trojan Women_ (pp. 19-23) and the _Medea_ (pp. 10-13); and ll. 872 ff., 889 ff., pp. 50, 51, below.
Instead of assigning the various lines definitely to First, Second, Third Citizen, and so on, I have put a "paragraphus" (--), the ancient Greek sign for indicating a new speaker.
P. 8, l. 82, Pelias' daughter.]--_i.e._ Alcestis.
P. 8, l. 92, Paian.]--The Healer. The word survives chiefly as a cry for help and as an epithet or title of Apollo or Asclepios. "Paian," Latin Paean, is also a cry of victory; but the relation of the two meanings is not quite made out. (Pronounce rather like "Pah-yan.") Cf. l. 220.
P. 9, l. 112, To wander o'er leagues of land.]--You could sometimes save a sick person by appealing to an oracle, such as that of Apollo in Lycia or of Zeus Ammon in the Libyan desert; but now no sacrifice will help. Only Asclepios, were he still on earth, might have helped us. (See on the Prologue.)
P. 12, l. 150, 'Fore God she dies high-hearted.]--What impresses the Elder is the calm and deliberate way in which Alcestis faces these preparations.
P. 12, l. 162, Before the Hearth-Fire.]--Hestia, the hearth-fire, was a goddess, the Latin Vesta, and is addressed as "Mother." It is characteristic in Alcestis to think chiefly about happy marriages for the children.
P. 12, l. 182, Happier perhaps, more true she cannot be.]--A famous line and open to parody. Cf. Aristophanes, _Knights_, 1251 ("Another wear this crown instead of me, Happier perhaps; worse thief he cannot be"). And see on l. 367 below.
P. 15, l. 228, Hearts have bled.]--People have committed suicide for less than this.
P. 16, l. 244, O Sun.]--Alcestis has come out to see the Sun and Sky for the last time and say good-bye to them. It is a rite or practice often mentioned in Greek poetry. Her beautiful wandering lines about Charon and his boat are the more natural because she is not dying from any disease but is being mysteriously drawn away by the Powers of Death.
P. 16, l. 252, A boat, two-oared.]--She sees Charon, the boatman who ferried the souls of the dead across the river Styx.
P. 17, l. 259, Drawing, drawing.]--The creature whom she sees drawing her to "the palaces of the dead" is certainly not Charon, who had no wings, but was like an old boatman in a peasant's cap and sleeveless tunic; nor can he be Hades, the throned King to whose presence she must eventually go. Apparently, therefore, he must be Thanatos, whom we have just seen on the stage. He was evidently supposed to be invisible to ordinary human eyes.
P. 18, l. 280, Alcestis's speech.]--Great simplicity and sincerity are the keynotes of this fine speech. Alcestis does not make light of her sacrifice: she enjoyed her life and values it; she wishes one of the old people had died instead; she is very earnest that Admetus shall not marry again, chiefly for the children's sake, but possibly also from some little shadow of jealousy. A modern dramatist would express all this, if at all, by a scene or a series of scenes of conversation; Euripides always uses the long self-revealing speech. Observe how little romantic love there is in Alcestis, though Admetus is full of it. See Preface, pp. xiii, xiv.
Pp. 19, 20, l. 328 ff., Admetus's speech.]--If the last speech made us know Alcestis, this makes us know Admetus fully as well. At one time the beauty and passion of it almost make us forget its ultimate hollowness; at another this hollowness almost makes us lose patience with its beautiful language. In this state of balance the touch of satire in l. 338 f. ("My mother I will know no more," etc.), and the fact that he speaks immediately after the complete sincerity of Alcestis, conspire to weigh down the scale against Admetus. There can be no doubt that he means, and means passionately, all that he says. Only he could not quite manage to die when it was not strictly necessary.
P. 20, l. 355, If Orpheus' voice were mine.]--The bard and prophet, Orpheus, went down to the dead to win back his wife, Eurydice. Hades and Persephonê, spell-bound by his music, granted his prayer that Eurydicê should return to the light, on condition that he should go before her, harping, and should never look back to see if she was following. Just at the end of the journey he looked back, and she vanished. The story is told with overpowering beauty in Vergil's fourth Georgic.
P. 21, l. 367, Oh, not in death from thee Divided.]--Parodied in Aristophanes' _Archarnians_ 894, where it is addressed to an eel, and the second line ends "in a beet-root fricassee." See on l. 182.
P. 23, l. 393 ff., The Little Boy's speech.]--Classical Greek sculpture and vase-painting tended to represent children not like children but like diminutive men; and something of the sort is true of Greek tragedy. The stately tragic convention has in the main to be maintained; the child must speak a language suited for heroes, or at least for high poetry. The quality of childishness has to be indicated by a word or so of child-language delicately admitted amid the stateliness. Here we have [Greek: maia], something like "mummy," at the beginning, and [Greek: neossos], "chicken" or "little bird," at the end. Otherwise most of the language is in the regular tragic diction, and some of it doubtless seems to us unsuitable for a child. If Milton had had to make a child speak in _Paradise Lost_, what sort of diction would he have given it?
The success or ill-success of such an attempt as this to combine the two styles, the heroic and the childlike, depends on questions of linguistic tact, and can hardly be judged with any confidence by foreigners. But I think we can see Euripides here, as in other places, reaching out at an effect which was really beyond the resources of his art, and attaining a result which, though clearly imperfect, is strangely moving. He gets great effects from the use of children in several tragedies, though he seldom lets them speak. They speak in the _Medea_, the _Andromache_, and _Suppliants_, and are mute figures in the _Trojan Women, Hecuba, Heracles_, and _Iphigenia in Aulis_. We may notice that where his children do speak, they speak only in lyrics, never in ordinary dialogue. This is very significant, and clearly right.
The breaking-down of the child seems to string Admetus to self-control again.
P. 25, l. 428, Ye chariot-lords.]--The plain of Thessaly was famous for its cavalry.
P. 25, l. 436 ff., Chorus.]--The "King black-browed" is, of course, Hades; the "grey hand at the helm and oar," Charon; the "Tears that Well," the more that spreads out from Acheron, the River of _Achê_ or Sorrows.
P. 25, l. 445 ff. Alcestis shall be celebrated--and no doubt worshipped-- at certain full-moon feasts in Athens and Sparta, especially at the Carneia, a great Spartan festival held at the full moon in the month Carneios (August-September). Who the ancient hero Carnos or Carneios was is not very clearly stated by the tradition; but at any rate he was killed, and the feast was meant to placate and perhaps to revive him. Resurrection is apt to be a feature of both moon-goddesses and vegetation spirits.
P. 27, l. 476, Entrance of Heracles.]--Generally, in the tragic convention, each character that enters either announces himself or is announced by some one on the stage; but the figure of Heracles with his club and lion-skin was so well known that his identity could be taken for granted. The Leader at once addresses him by name.
P. 27, l. 481, The Argive King.]--It was the doom of Heracles, from before his birth, to be the servant of a worser man. His master proved to be Eurystheus, King of Tiryns or Argos, who was his kinsman, and older by a day. See _Iliad_ T 95 ff. Note the heroic quality of Heracles's answer in l. 491. It does not occur to him to think of reward for himself.
P. 27, l. 483, Diomede of Thrace.]--This man, distinguished in legend from the Diomede of the _Iliad_, was a savage king who threw wayfarers to his man-eating horses. Such horses are not mere myths; horses have often been trained to fight with their teeth, like carnivora, for war purposes. Diomêdes was a son of Arês, the War-god or Slayer, as were the other wild tyrants mentioned just below, Lycâon, the Wolf-hero, and Cycnus, the Swan.
P. 30, l. 511, Right welcome were she: _i.e._ Joy.]--"Joy would be a strange visitor to me, but I know you mean kindly."
P. 30, l. 518 ff., Not thy wife? 'Tis not Alcestis?]--The rather elaborate misleading of Heracles, without any direct lie, depends partly on the fact that the Greek word [Greek: gynae]; means both "woman" and "wife."--The woman, not of kin with Admetus but much loved in the house, who has lived there since her father's death left her an orphan, is of course Alcestis, but Heracles, misled by Admetus's first answers, supposes it is some dependant to whom the King happens to be attached. He naturally proposes to go away, but, with much reluctance, allows himself to be over-persuaded by Admetus. He had other friends in Thessaly, but the next castle would probably be several miles off. The guest-chambers of the castle are apparently in a separate building with a connecting passage.
As to Admetus's motive, we must remember that the entertaining of Heracles is a datum of the story in its simplest form. See Preface, pp. xiv, xv. In Euripides, Admetus is perhaps actuated by a mixture of motives, real kindness, pride in his ancestral hospitality, and a little vanity. He likes having the great Son of Zeus for a friend, and he has never yet turned any one from his doors.
Euripides passes no distinct judgment on this act of Admetus. The Leader in the dialogue blames him ("Art thou mad?") and so does Heracles hereafter, p. 56. But the Chorus glorifies his deed in a very delightful lyric. Perhaps this indicates the judgment we are meant to pass upon it. On the plane of common sense it was doubtless all wrong, but on that of imaginative poetry it was magnificent.
P. 35, 11. 569-605, Chorus.]--Apollo, worshipped as a shepherd god and a singer, harper, piper, etc. ("song-changer"), had been himself a stranger in this "House that loved the stranger": hence its great reward. Othrys is the end of the mountain range to the south of Pherae; Lake Boibeïs was just across the narrow end of the plain to the north-east, beyond it came Mt. Pelion and the steep harbourless coast. Up to the north-west the plain of Thessaly stretched far away towards the Molossian mountains. The wild beasts gathered round Apollo as they did round Orpheus ("There where Orpheus harped of old, And the trees awoke and knew him, And the wild things gathered to him, As he piped amid the broken Glens his music manifold."--_Bacchae_, p. 35).
P. 37, l. 614, Scene with Pherês.]--Pherês is in tradition the "eponymous hero" of Pherae, _i.e._ the mythical person who is supposed to have given his name to the town. It is only in this play that he has any particular character. The scene gives the reader a shock, but is a brilliant piece of satirical comedy, with a good deal of pathos in it, too. The line (691) [Greek: chaireis horon phos, patera d' ou chairein dokeis]; ("Thou lovest the light, thinkest thou thy father loves it not?") seems to me one of the most characteristic in Euripides. It has a peculiar mordant beauty in its absolutely simple language, and one cannot measure the intensity of feeling that may be behind it. Pheres shows great power of fight, yet one feels his age and physical weakness. See Preface, p. xvi.