Stasimon 4
[Episode]
Was I to miss good cheer because a stranger had died?
810
Attendant
A stranger surely! quite a stranger she!
Heracles
Is there some trouble that he withheld from me?
Attendant
Farewell, go thy way! my master’s troubles are my care.
Heracles
This word of thine heralds not a grief for strangers felt.
Attendant
Had it been, the sight of thy merriment had not grieved me so.
815
Heracles
CanThere is some doubt whether the next four lines are genuine. Nauck brackets them. it be mine host hath strangely wronged me?
Attendant
Thou earnest at no proper time for our house to welcome thee, for sorrow is come upon us; lo! thou seest our shorn heads and robes of sable hue.
Heracles
Who is it that is dead?
Is it a child or his aged sire that hat hath passed away?
820
Attendant
Nay, sir guest, ’tis Admetus’ wife that is no more.
Heracles
What sayest thou? and did ye then in spite of that admit me to your cheer?
Attendant
Yes, for his regard would not let him send thee from his door.
Heracles
Unhappy husband, what a wife hast thou lost!
Attendant
We are all undone, not she alone.
825
Heracles
I knew it when I saw his streaming eye, shorn head and downcast look, yet did he persuade me, saying it was a stranger he was bearing to burial. So I did constrain myself and passed his gates
and sat drinking in his hospitable halls, when he was suffering thus. And have I wreathed my head and do I revel still? But—thou to hold thy peace when such a crushing sorrow lay upon the house! Where is he burying her? Whither shall I go to find her?
830
Attendant
Beside the road that leadeth straight to Larissa, shalt thou see her carved tomb outside the suburb.
835
Heracles
O heart, O soul, both sufferers oft, now show the mettle of that son Tirynthian Alcmena, daughter of Electryon, bare to Zeus.
For I must save this woman, dead but now, setting Alcestis once again within this house, and to Admetus this kind service render. So I will go and watch for death the black-robed monarch of the dead, and him methinks I shall find
840
