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.

  1. What[*](In the arrangement of the following dialogue between the divided chorus I have mainly been guided by Paley, though I believe the last three lines assigned to him a Semichorus are said as the two bands are re-uniting preparatory to chanting their ode.) means this silence in front of the palace? why is the house of Admetus stricken dumb?
Second Semichorus
  1. Not one friend near
  2. to say if we must mourn our queen as dead, or if she liveth yet and sees the sun, Alcestis, daughter of Pelias, by me and all esteemed the best of wives
  3. to her husband.
First Semichorus
  1. Doth any of you hear a groan, or sound of hands that smite together, or the voice of lamentation, telling all is over and done? Yet is there no servant
  2. stationed about the gate, no, not one. O come, thou saving god, to smooth the swelling waves of woe![*](μετακύμιος. Liddell and Scott between two waves of misery, i.e. causing a short lull.)
Second Semichorus
  1. Surely, were she dead, they would not be so still.
First Semichorus
  1. Maybe her corpse is not yet from the house borne forth.
Second Semichorus
  1. Whence that inference? I am not so sanguine. What gives thee confidence?
First Semichorus
  1. How could Admetus let his noble wife go unattended to the grave?
Second Semichorus
  1. Before the gates I see no lustral water from the spring, as custom doth ordain should be
  2. at the gates of the dead, no shorn lock lies on the threshold, which, as thou knowest, falls in mourning for the dead, no choir of maidens smites its youthful[*](Dindorf restores νεαλὴς for νεολαία, a doubtful word, apparently not used as an adjective. Cf. Liddell and Scott.) palms together.
First Semichorus
  1. And yet this is the appointed day.
Second Semichorus
  1. What meanest thou by this?
First Semichorus
  1. The day appointed for the journey to the world below.
Second Semichorus
  1. Thou hast touched me to the heart, e’en to the soul.
Chorus
  1. Whoso from his youth up has been accounted virtuous,
  2. needs must weep to see the good suddenly cut off.
Chorus
  1. ’Tis done; no single spot in all the world remains whither one might steer a course, either to Lycia[*](To a shrine of Apollo.)
  2. or to the parched abodes[*](The temple of Zeus Ammon in the deserts of Libya.) of Ammon to release the hapless lady’s soul; on comes death with step abrupt,
  3. nor know I to whom I should go of all who at the gods’ altars offer sacrifice.