Part 14 (1/2)

It is a joy to thee {730} To view the light of heaven, and dost thou think Thy father joys not in it? Long I deem Our time in death's dark regions: short the s.p.a.ce Of life, yet sweet! So thought thy coward heart And struggled not to die: and thou dost live, Pa.s.sing the bounds of life a.s.sign'd by fate, By killing _her_! My mean and abject spirit Dost thou rebuke, O timidest of all, Vanquish'd e'en by a woman, her who gave For thee, her young fair husband, her own life! {740} A fine device that thou mightst never die, Couldst thou persuade--who at the time might be Thy wife--to die for thee!

If such a man takes to heaping reproaches on his own kin he shall at least hear the truth told him to his face!

_Cho._ Too much of ill already hath been spoken: {750} Forbear, old man, nor thus revile thy son.

_Admetus_ says if his father does not like to hear the truth he should not have done the wrong.

_Pher._ Had I died for thee, greater were the wrong.

_Adm._ Is death alike then to the young and old?

_Pher._ Man's due is one life, not to borrow more.

_Adm._ Thine drag thou on and out-tire heaven's age!

_Pher._ Darest thou to curse thy parents, nothing wrong'd?

_Adm._ Parents in dotage l.u.s.ting still to live! {760} _Pher._ And thou--what else but life with this corpse buyest?

_Adm._ This corpse--the symbol of thy infamy!

_Pher._ For us she died not; that thou canst not say!

_Adm._ Ah! mayst thou some time come to need my aid!

_Pher._ Wed many wives that more may die for thee!

_Adm._ On thee rests this reproach--thou daredst not die!

_Pher._ Sweet is this light of heav'n! sweet is this light!

_Adm._ Base is thy thought, unworthy of a man!

_Pher._ The triumph is not thine to entomb my age.

_Adm._ Die when thou wilt, inglorious wilt thou die. {770} _Pher._ Thy ill report will not affect me dead.

_Adm._ Alas, that age should outlive sense of shame!

_Pher._ But lack of age's wisdom slew _her_ youth.

_Adm._ Begone, and suffer me to entomb my dead.

_Pher._ I go: no fitter burier than thyself Her murderer! Look for reckoning from her friends: Acastus is no man, if his hand fails Dearly to avenge on thee his sister's blood.

_Adm._ Why, get you gone, thou and thy worthy wife: Grow old in consort--that is now your lot-- The childless parents of a living son: For never more under one common roof Come you and I together: had it needed, By herald I your hearth would have renounced.

_Pheres and his train withdraw along the Stage [to the Right Side-door]. The interrupted Funeral Procession is continued, filing amidst lamentations of the Chorus, down the steps from the Stage into the Orchestra: there the Chorus join it and the whole pa.s.ses out [by the Right Archway] to the royal sepulchre in the neighbourhood._

_Stage and Orchestra both vacant for a while._

STAGE EPISODE[2]

_Enter the Stage [by one of the Inferior Doors of the Palace] the Steward of Admetus_: he has stolen away to get a moment's respite from the hateful hilarity of this strange visitor--some ruffian or robber he supposes--on whom his office has condemned him to wait, and thereby to miss paying the last offices to a mistress who has been more like a mother to him. The guest has been willing to enter, and though he saw the mourning of the household, he did not allow it to make any difference to his mirth:

Grasping in his hands {804} A goblet wreath'd with ivy, fill'd it high With the grape's purple juice, and quaff'd it off Untemper'd, till the glowing wine inflamed him; Then binding round his head a myrtle wreath, Howls dismal discord:--two unpleasing strains We heard, his harsh notes who in nought revered Th' afflictions of Admetus, and the voice Of sorrow through the family that wept Our mistress. Yet our tearful eyes we showed not, Admetus so commanded, to the guest. {814}

He starts as he feels on his shoulder the huge hand of _Hercules_, who has followed him, and _now appears on the Stage goblet in hand, wreathed and attired like a reveller in full revel_. Hercules good-humouredly scolds him for letting a remote family bereavement hinder him from showing a sociable countenance to his lord's guest. He lectures him on the easy ethics of the banquet-hour:

Come hither, that thou mayst be wiser, friend: {832} Knowst thou the nature of all mortal things?

Not thou, I ween: how shouldst thou? hear from me.

By all of human race death is a debt That must be paid; and none of mortal men Knows whether till to-morrow life's short s.p.a.ce Shall be extended: such the dark events Of fortune, never to lie learn'd or traced By any skill. Instructed thus by me {840} Bid pleasure welcome, drink; the life allow'd From day to day esteem thine own; all else Fortune's.

The Steward receives his lecture with a bad grace: he knows all that--but there is a time for all things. His manner raises Hercules'