Yea, for I see thy heart is set on length of days.PheresIs it not to save thyself thou art carrying to the tomb this corpse?AdmetusA proof of thy cowardice, thou craven heart!PheresAt any rate her death was not due to me; this thou canst not say.AdmetusAh! mayst thou some day come to need my aid!PheresWoo many wives, that there may be the more to die.AdmetusThat is thy reproach, for thou didst refuse to die.PheresDear is the light of the sun-god, dear to all.AdmetusA coward soul is thine, not to be reckoned among men.PheresNo laughing now for thee at bearing forth my aged corpse.AdmetusThy death will surely be a death of shame, come when it will.PheresOnce dead I little reck of foul report.AdmetusAlas! how void of shame the old can be!PheresHers was no want of shame; ’twas want of sense in her that thou didst find.AdmetusBegone! and leave me to bury my dead.PheresI go; bury thy victim, thyself her murderer. Her kinsmen yet will call for an account. Else surely has Acastus ceased to be a man, if he avenge not on thee his sister’s blood.AdmetusPerdition seize thee and that wife of thine! grow old, as ye deserve, childless, though your son yet lives, for ye shall never enter the same abode with me; nay! were it needful I should disown thy paternal hearth by heralds’ voice, I had disowned it. (Exit PHERES). Now, since we must bear our present woe, let us go and lay the dead upon the pyre. [Exit ADMETUS.

ChorusWoe, woe for thee! Alas, for thy hardihood! Noble spirit, good beyond compare, farewell! May Hermes in the nether world, and Hades, too, give thee a kindly welcome! and if even in that other life