_Scene: Pherae in Thessaly. The early morning sunshine blazes full on
the Royal Palace of the Glorious Admetus, and on the statues,
conspicuous in front of it, of Jupiter Lord of Host and Guest, and
Apollo: nevertheless the Courtyard is silent and deserted.--At last
Apollo himself is seen, not aloft in the air as Gods were wont to
appear, but on the threshold of the Central Gate._
APOLLO meditates on his happy associations with the house he is
quitting. How when there was trouble in heaven, and he himself, for
resisting Jove's vengeance on the Healer Aesculapius, was doomed to a
year's slavery amongst mortal men, he had bound himself as herdsman to
Admetus, and Admetus exercised his lordship with all reverence: