Dramatis Personae
Apollo
Death
Chorus of Old Men of Pherae
Maid
Alcestis
Attendant
Admetus
Eumelus
Heracles
Pheres
ApolloHalls of Admetus, wherein I steeled my heart to be content with a servant’s board, god though I was. Zeus was to blame; he slew my son Asclepius, piercing his bosom with a thunderbolt; whereat I was enraged and smote his Cyclopes, forgers of the heavenly fire; so my sire in recompense for this forced me to become a slave in a mortal’s home. Then came I to this land and kept a stranger’s flocks, and to this day have been the saviour of this house. For in Pheres’ son I found a man as holy as myself, and him I saved from death by cheating Destiny, for they promised me, those goddesses of fate, that Admetus should escape the impending doom, if he found a substitute for the powers below. So he went through all his list of friends, made trial of each, his father and the aged mother that bare him,Dindorf has good reason for suspecting this line here. but none he found save his wife alone that was willing to die for him and forego the light of life; she now within the house is upheld in his arms,