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. Alas! alas!
Chorus
  1. Thou wilt not help the dead one whit.
Admetus
  1. O misery!
Chorus
  1. Nevermore to see thy dear wife face to face is grief indeed.
Admetus
  1. Thy words have probed the sore place in my heart. What greater grief can come to man
  2. than the loss of a faithful wife? Would I had never married or shared with her my home! I envy those ’mongst men who have nor wife nor child. Theirs is but one life; to grieve for that is no excessive burden;
  3. but to see children fall ill and bridal beds emptied by death’s ravages is too much to bear, when one might go through life without wife or child.
Chorus
  1. A fate we cannot cope with is come upon us.
Admetus
  1. Woe is me!
Chorus
  1. But thou to sorrow settest no limit.
Admetus
  1. Ah! ah!
Chorus
  1. ’Tis hard to bear, but still—
Admetus
  1. Woe is me!
Chorus
  1. Thou art not the first to lose—
Admetus
  1. O! woe is me!
Chorus
  1. A wife; misfortune takes a different shape for every man she plagues.
Admetus
  1. O the weary sorrow! O the grief for dear ones dead and gone! Why didst thou hinder me from plung-ing into the gaping grave, there to lay me down and die with her, my peerless bride?
  2. Then would Hades for that one have gotten these two faithful souls at once, crossing the nether lake together.
Chorus
  1. I had a kinsman once, within whose home died
  2. his only son, worthy of a father’s tears; yet in spite of that he bore his grief resignedly, childless though he was, his hair already turning grey, himself far on in years, upon