ALC. For this receive these children from my hand.
ADM. Yes, I receive a dear gift from a dear hand.
ALC. Be thou then a mother to these children in my stead.
ADM. There is much need that I should, when they are deprived of thee.
ALC. O my children, at a time when I ought to live I depart beneath.
ADM. Ah me; what shall I do of thee bereaved!
ALC. Time will soften thy grief: he that is dead is nothing.
ADM. Take me with thee, by the Gods take me beneath.
ALC. Enough are we _to go_, who die for thee.
ADM. O fate, of what a wife thou deprivest me!
ALC. And lo! my darkening eye is weighed down.
ADM. I am undone then, if thou wilt leave me, my wife.
ALC. As being no more, you may speak of me as nothing.
ADM. Lift up thy face; do not leave thy children.
ALC. Not willingly in sooth, but--farewell, my children.
ADM. Look on them, O! look.
ALC. I am no more.
ADM. What dost thou? dost thou leave us?
ALC. Farewell!
ADM. I am an undone wretch!
CHOR. She is gone, Admetus' wife is no more.
EUM. Alas me, for my state! my mother is gone indeed below; she is no
longer, my father, under the sun; but unhappy leaving me has made my life
an orphan's. For look, look at her eyelid, and her nerveless arms. Hear,
hear, O mother. I beseech thee; I, I now call thee, mother, thy young one
falling on thy mouth--
ADM. Who hears not, neither sees: so that I and you are struck with a heavy
calamity.
EUM. Young and deserted, my father, am I left by my dear mother: O! I that
have suffered indeed dreadful deeds!--and thou hast suffered with me, my
sister. O father, in vain, in vain didst thou marry, nor with her didst
thou arrive at the end of old age, for she perished before, but thou being
gone, mother, the house is undone.
CHOR. Admetus, you must bear this calamity; for in no wise the first, nor
the last of mortals hast thou lost thy dear wife: but learn, that to die is
a debt we must all of us discharge.
ADM. I know it, and this evil hath not come suddenly on me; but knowing it
long ago I was afflicted. But be present, for I will have the corse borne
forth, and while ye stay, chant a hymn to the God below that accepteth not
libations. And all the Thessalians, over whom I reign, I enjoin to share in
the grief for this lady, by shearing _their locks_ with steel, and by
arraying themselves in sable garb. And harness[24] your teams of horses to
your chariots, and cut from your single steeds the manes that fall upon
their necks. And let there be no noise of pipes, nor of the lyre throughout
the city for twelve completed moons. For none other corse more dear shall I
inter, nor one more kind toward me. But she deserves to receive honor from
me, seeing that she alone hath died for me.