Alcestis
Euripides
Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. I. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1906.
- Would it were in my power and range to bring thee to the light from the chambers of Hades and the streams of Cocytus with the oar that sweeps yon nether flood!
- For thou, and thou alone, most dear of women, hadst the courage to redeem thy husband from Hades in exchange for thy own life. Light lie the earth above thee, lady! And if ever thy lord take to him a new wife, I vow he will earn my hatred
- and thy children’s too.
- His mother had no heart to plunge into the darkness of the tomb for her son, no! nor his aged sire.[*](A line is here wanting in the MSS., but its absence does not destroy the sense.) Their own child they had not the courage to rescue,
- the wretches! albeit they were grey-headed. But thou in thy youth and beauty hast died for thy lord and gone thy way. O be it mine to have for partner such a loving wife! for this lot is rare in life. Surely she should be my help-meet all my life
- and never cause one tear.
- Mine hosts, dwellers on this Phersean soil! say, shall I find Admetus in the house?
- The son of Pheres is within, Heracles. Tell me what need is bringing thee to the Thessalian land,
- to visit this city of the Pheraeans?
- I am performing a labour for Tirynthian Eurystheus.
- And whither art thou journeying? on what wandering art thou forced to go?
- To fetch the chariot-steeds of Thracian Diomedes.
- How canst thou? art a stranger to the ways of thy host?
- I am; for never yet have I gone to the land of the Bistones.
- Thou canst not master his horses without fighting.
- Still I cannot refuse these labours.
- Then shalt thou slay them and return, or thyself be slain and stay there.
- It will not be the first hard course that I have run.
- And what will be thy gain, suppose thou master their lord?
- The steeds will I drive away to the Tirynthian king.