Of Death’s portentous passage through the door,
Apollon stood a pitying moment-space:
I caught one last gold gaze upon the night
Nearing the world now: and the God was gone,
And mortals left to deal with misery;
As in came stealing slow, now this, now that
Old sojourner throughout the country-side. 500
Servants grown friends to those unhappy here:
And, cloudlike in their increase, all these griefs
Broke and began the over-brimming wail,
Out of a common impulse, word by word.
“Whatever means the silence at the door?
Why is Admetos’ mansion stricken dumb?
Not one friend near, to say if we should mourn
Our mistress dead, or still Alkestis live
And see the light here, Pelias’ child — to me,
To all, conspicuously the best of wives 510
That ever was toward husband in this world!
Hears anyone or wail beneath the roof,
Or hands that strike each other, or the groan
Announcing all is done and nought to dread?
Still not a servant stationed at the gates!
O Paian, that thou would’st dispart the wave
O’ the woe, be present! Yet, had woe o’erwhelmed
The housemates, they were hardly silent thus:
It cannot be, the dead is forth and gone.
Whence comes thy gleam of hope? I dare not hope: 520
What is the circumstance that heartens thee?
How could Admetos have dismissed a wife
So worthy, unescorted to the grave?
Before the gates I see no hallowed vase
Of fountain-water, such as suits death’s door;
Nor any dipt locks strew the vestibule,
Though surely these drop when we grieve the dead:
Nor sounds hand smitten against youthful hand,
The women’s way. And yet — the appointed time —
How speak the word? — this day is even the day 530
Ordained her for departing from its light.
O touch calamitous to heart and soul!
Needs must one, when the good are tortured so,
Sorrow, — one reckoned faithful from the first.”
Then their souls rose together, and one sigh
Went up in cadence from the common mouth:
How “Vainly — any whither in the world
Directing or land-labour or sea-search —
To Lukia or the sand-waste, Ammon’s seat —
Might you set free their hapless lady’s soul 540
From the abrupt Fate’s footstep instant now.
Not a sheep-sacrificer at the hearths
Of Gods had they to go to: one there was
Who, if his eyes saw light still, — Phoibos’ son, —
Had wrought so, she might leave the shadowy place
And Hades’ portal; for he propped up Death’s
Subdued ones, till the Zeus-flung thunder-flame
Struck him: and now what hope of life to hail
With open arms? For, all the king could do
Is done already, — not one God whereof 550
The altar fails to reek with sacrifice:
And for assuagement of these evils — nought!”
But here they broke off, for a matron moved
Forth from the house: and, as her tears flowed fast,
They gathered round. “What fortune shall we hear?
To mourn indeed, if aught affect thy lord,
We pardon thee: but, lives the lady yet,
Or has she perished? — that we fain would know!”
“Call her dead, call her living, each style serves,”
The matron said: “though grave-wards bowed, she breathed; 560
Nor knew her husband what the misery meant
Before he felt it: hope of life was none:
The appointed day pressed hard; the funeral pomp
He had prepared too.”
When the friends broke out,
“Let her in dying know herself at least
Sole wife, of all the wives ‘neath the sun wide,
For glory and for goodness!” — “Ah, how else
Than best? who controverts the claim?” quoth she:
“What kind of creature should the woman prove
That has surpassed Alkestis? — surelier shown 570
Preference for her husband to herself
Than by determining to die for him?
But so much all our city knows indeed:
Hear what she did indoors and wonder then!
For, when she felt the crowning day was come,
She washed with river-waters her white skin,
And, taking from the cedar closets forth
Vesture and ornament, bedecked herself
Nobly, and stood before the hearth, and prayed:
‘Mistress, because I now depart the world, 580
Falling before thee the last time, I ask —
Be mother to my orphans! wed the one
To a kind wife, and make the other’s mate
Some princely person: nor, as I who bore
My children perish, suffer that they too
Die all untimely, but live, happy pair,
Their full glad life out in the fatherland!’
And every altar through Admetos’ house
She visited and crowned and prayed before,
Stripping the myrtle-foliage from the boughs, 590
Without a tear, without a groan, — no change
At all to that skin’s nature, fair to see,
Caused by the imminent evil. But this done, —
Reaching her chamber, falling on her bed,
There, truly, burst she into tears and spoke:
‘O bride-bed, where I loosened from my life
Virginity for that same husband’s sake
Because of whom I die now — fare thee well!
Since nowise do I hate thee: me alone
Hast thou destroyed; for, shrinking to betray 600
Thee and my spouse, I die: but thee, O bed!
Some other woman shall possess as wife —
Truer, no! but of better fortune, say!’
— So falls on, kisses it till all the couch
Is moistened with the eyes’ sad overflow.
But, when of many tears she had her fill,
She flings from off the couch, goes headlong forth,
Yet, — forth the chamber, — still keeps turning back
And casts her on the couch again once more.
Her children, clinging to their mother’s robe, 610
Wept meanwhile: but she took them in her arms,
And, as a dying woman might, embraced
Now one and now the other: ‘neath the roof,
All of the household servants wept as well,
Moved to compassion for their mistress; she
Extended her right hand to all and each,
And there was no one of such low degree
She spoke not to nor had an answer from.
Such are the evils in Admetos’ house.
Dying, — why, he had died; but, living, gains 620
Such grief as this he never will forget!”
And when they questioned of Admetos, “Well —
Holding his dear wife in his hands, he weeps;
Entreats her not to give him up, and seeks
The impossible, in fine: for there she wastes
And withers by disease, abandoned now,
A mere dead weight upon her husband’s arm.
Yet, none the less, although she breathe so faint,
Her will is to behold the beams o’ the sun:
Since never more again, but this last once, 630
Shall she see sun, its circlet or its ray.
But I will go, announce your presence, — friends
Indeed; s
ince ‘t is not all so love their lords
As seek them in misfortune, kind the same:
But you are the old friends I recognize.”
And at the word she turned again to go:
The while they waited, taking up the plaint
To Zeus again: “What passage from this strait?
What loosing of the heavy fortune fast
About the palace? Will such help appear, 640
Or must we clip the locks and cast around
Each form already the black peplos’ fold?
Clearly the black robe, clearly! All the same
Pray to the Gods! — like Gods’ no power so great!
O thou king Paian, find some way to save!
Reveal it, yea, reveal it! Since of old
Thou found’st a cure, why, now again become
Releaser from the bonds of Death, we beg,
And give the sanguinary Hades pause!”
So the song dwindled into a mere moan; 650
Plow dear the wife, and what her husband’s woe;
When suddenly —
”Behold, behold!” breaks forth:
“Here is she coming from the house indeed!
Her husband comes, too! Cry aloud, lament,
Pheraian land, this best of women, bound —
So is she withered by disease away —
For realms below and their infernal king!
Never will we affirm there ‘s more of joy
Than grief in marriage; making estimate
Both from old sorrows anciently observed, 660
And this misfortune of the king we see —
Admetos who, of bravest spouse bereaved,
Will live life’s remnant out, no life at all!”
So wailed they, while a sad procession wound
Slow from the innermost o’ the palace, stopped
At the extreme verge of the platform-front:
There opened, and disclosed Alkestis’ self,
The consecrated lady, borne to look
Her last — and let the living look their last —
She at the sun, we at Alkestis. 670
For would you note a memorable thing?
We grew to see in that severe regard, —
Hear in that hard dry pressure to the point,
Word slow pursuing word in monotone, —
What Death meant when he called her consecrate
Henceforth to Hades. I believe, the sword —
Its office was to cut the soul at once
From life, — from something in this world which hides
Truth, and hides falsehood, and so lets us live
Somehow. Suppose a rider furls a cloak 680
About a horse’s head; unfrightened, so,
Between the menace of a flame, between
Solicitation of the pasturage,
Untempted equally, he goes his gait
To journey’s end: then pluck the pharos off!
Show what delusions steadied him i’ the straight
O’ the path, made grass seem fire and fire seem grass,
All through a little bandage o’er the eyes!
For certainly with eyes unbandaged now
Alkestis looked upon the action here, 690
Self-immolation for Admetos’ sake;
Saw, with a new sense, all her death would do,
And which of her survivors had the right,
And which the less right, to survive thereby.
For, you shall note, she uttered no one word
Of love more to her husband, though he wept
Plenteously, waxed importunate in prayer —
Folly’s old fashion when its seed bears fruit.
I think she judged that she had bought the ware
O’ the seller at its value, — nor praised him, 700
Nor blamed herself, but, with indifferent eye,
Saw him purse money up, prepare to leave
The buyer with a solitary bale —
True purple — but in place of all that coin,
Had made a hundred others happy too,
If so willed fate or fortune! What remained
To give away, should rather go to these
Than one with coin to clink and contemplate.
Admetos had his share and might depart,
The rest was for her children and herself. 710
(Charopé makes a face: but wait a while!)
She saw things plain as Gods do: by one stroke
O’ the sword that rends the life-long veil away.
(Also Euripides saw plain enough:
But you and I, Charopé! — you and I
Will trust his sight until our own grow clear.)
“Sun, and thou light of day, and heavenly dance
O’ the fleet cloud-figure!” (so her passion paused,
While the awe-stricken husband made his moan,
Muttered now this now that inaptitude: 720
“Sun that sees thee and me, a suffering pair,
Who did the Gods no wrong whence thou should’st die!”)
Then, as if, caught up, carried in their course,
Fleeting and free as cloud and sunbeam are,
She missed no happiness that lay beneath:
“O thou wide earth, from these my palace roofs,
To distant nuptial chambers once my own
In that Iolkos of my ancestry!” —
There the flight failed her. “Raise thee, wretched one!
Give us not up! Pray pity from the Gods!” 730
Vainly Admetos: for “I see it — see
The two-oared boat! The ferryer of the dead,
Charon, hand hard upon the boatman’s-pole,
Calls me — even now calls — ‘Why delayest thou?
Quick! Thou obstructest all made ready here
For prompt departure: quick, then!’ “
”Woe is me!
A bitter voyage this to undergo,
Even i’ the telling! Adverse Powers above,
How do ye plague us!”
Then a shiver ran:
“He has me — seest not? — hales me, — who is it? — 740
To the hall o’ the Dead — ah, who but Hades’ self,
He, with the wings there, glares at me, one gaze
All that blue brilliance, under the eye-brow!
What wilt thou do? Unhand me! Such a way
I have to traverse, all unhappy one!”
“Way — piteous to thy friends, but, most of all,
Me and thy children: ours assuredly
A common partnership in grief like this!”
Whereat they closed about her; but “Let be!
Leave, let me lie now! Strength forsakes my feet. 750
Hades is here, and shadowy on my eyes
Comes the night creeping. Children — children, now
Indeed, a mother is no more for you!
Farewell, O children, long enjoy the light!”
“Ah me, the melancholy word I hear,
Oppressive beyond every kind of death!
No, by the Deities, take heart nor dare
To give me up — no, by our children too
Made orphans of! But rise, be resolute!
Since, thou departed, I no more remain! 760
For in thee are we bound up, to exist
Or cease to be — so we adore thy love!”
— Which brought out truth to judgment. At this word
And protestation, all the truth in her
Claimed to assert itself: she waved away
The blue-eyed black-wing’d phantom, held in check
The advancing pageantry of Hades there,
And, with no change in her own countenance,
She fixed her eyes on the protesting man,
And let her lips unlock their sentence, — so! 770
“Admetos, — how things go with me thou seest, —
I wish to tell thee, ere I die, what things
I will should follow.
I — to honour thee,
Secure for thee, by my own soul’s exchange,
Continued looking on the daylight here —
Die for thee — yet, if so I pleased, might live,
Nay, wed what man of Thessaly I would,
And dwell i’ the dome with pomp and queenliness.
I would not, — would not live bereft of thee,
With children orphaned, neither shrank at all, 780
Though having gifts of youth wherein I joyed.
Yet, who begot thee and who gave thee birth,
Both of these gave thee up; for all, a term
Of life was reached when death became them well,
Ay, well — to save their child and glorious die:
Since thou wast all they had, nor hope remained
Of having other children in thy place.
So, 1 and thou had lived out our full time,
Nor thou, left lonely of thy wife, would’st groan
With children reared in orphanage: but thus 790
Some God disposed things, willed they so should be.
Be they so! Now do thou remember this,
Do me in turn a favour — favour, since
Certainly I shall never claim my due,
For nothing is more precious than a life:
But a fit favour, as thyself wilt say,
Loving our children here no less than I,
If head and heart be sound in thee at least.
Uphold them, make them masters of my house,
Nor wed and give a step-dame to the pair, 800
Who, being a worse wife than I, thro’ spite
Will raise her hand against both thine and mine.
Never do this at least, I pray to thee!
For hostile the new-comer, the step-dame,
To the old brood — a very viper she
For gentleness! Here stand they, boy and girl;
The boy has got a father, a defence
Tower-like, he speaks to and has answer from:
But thou, my girl, how will thy virginhood
Conclude itself in marriage fittingly? 810
Upon what sort of sire-found yoke-fellow
Art thou to chance? with all to apprehend —
Lest, casting on thee some unkind report,
She blast thy nuptials in the bloom of youth.
For neither shall thy mother watch thee wed,
Nor hearten thee in childbirth, standing by
Just when a mother’s presence helps the most!
No, for I have to die: and this my ill
Comes to me, nor to-morrow, no, nor yet
The third day of the month, but now, even now, 820
I shall be reckoned among those no more.
Farewell, be happy! And to thee, indeed,
Husband, the boast remains permissible
Thou hadst a wife was worthy! and to you,
Children, as good a mother gave you birth.”
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 141