A stranger surely! quite a stranger she!HeraclesIs there some trouble that he withheld from me?AttendantFarewell, go thy way! my master’s troubles are my care.HeraclesThis word of thine heralds not a grief for strangers felt.AttendantHad it been, the sight of thy merriment had not grieved me so.HeraclesCanThere is some doubt whether the next four lines are genuine. Nauck brackets them. it be mine host hath strangely wronged me?AttendantThou earnest at no proper time for our house to welcome thee, for sorrow is come upon us; lo! thou seest our shorn heads and robes of sable hue.HeraclesWho is it that is dead? Is it a child or his aged sire that hat hath passed away?AttendantNay, sir guest, ’tis Admetus’ wife that is no more.HeraclesWhat sayest thou? and did ye then in spite of that admit me to your cheer?AttendantYes, for his regard would not let him send thee from his door.HeraclesUnhappy husband, what a wife hast thou lost!AttendantWe are all undone, not she alone.HeraclesI knew it when I saw his streaming eye, shorn head and downcast look, yet did he persuade me, saying it was a stranger he was bearing to burial. So I did constrain myself and passed his gates and sat drinking in his hospitable halls, when he was suffering thus. And have I wreathed my head and do I revel still? But—thou to hold thy peace when such a crushing sorrow lay upon the house! Where is he burying her? Whither shall I go to find her?AttendantBeside the road that leadeth straight to Larissa, shalt thou see her carved tomb outside the suburb.HeraclesO heart, O soul, both sufferers oft, now show the mettle of that son Tirynthian Alcmena, daughter of Electryon, bare to Zeus. For I must save this woman, dead but now, setting Alcestis once again within this house, and to Admetus this kind service render. So I will go and watch for death the black-robed monarch of the dead, and him methinks I shall find as he drinks of the blood-offering near the tomb. And if, from ambush rushing, once I catch and fold him in my arms’ embrace, none shall ever wrest him thence with smarting ribs, ere he give up the woman unto me.