Overview
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- Male: 2
Context
Admetus, the king of Thessaly, is preparing the funeral and burial for his wife Alcestis, who sacrificed herself in his place. While they are making these preparations, the Greek hero Heracles arrives, looking for hospitality from his friend. Even though it is bad luck to welcome a guest into a house of mourning, Admetus respects his guest too much to turn him away. Heracles doesn’t know that Alcestis has died, and though he can tell that Admetus has been crying, the king deliberately misleads
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ADMETUS Hail Son of Zeus and of the blood of Perseus!
HERACLES And hail to you, Admetus, lord of the Thessalians
ADMETUS May it be so! I know your friendship well.
HERACLES What means this shorn hair, this mourning robe?
ADMETUS To-day I must bury a dead body.
HERACLES May a God avert harm from your children!
ADMETUS The children I have begotten are alive in the house.
HERACLES Your father was ripe for death-if it is he has gone?
ADMETUS He lives--and she who brought me forth, O Heracles.
HERACLES Your wife--Alcestis--she is not dead?
ADMETUS (evasively) Of her I might make a double answer.
HERACLES Do you mean that she is dead or alive?
ADMETUS (ambiguously) She is and is not-and for this I grieve.
HERACLES (perplexed) I am no wiser-you speak obscurely.
ADMETUS Did you not know the fate which must befall her?
HERACLES I know she submitted to die for you.
ADMETUS How then can she be alive, having consented to this?
HERACLES Ah! Do not weep for your wife till that time comes.
ADMETUS Those who are about to die are dead, and the dead are nothing.
HERACLES Men hold that to be and not to be are different things.
ADMETUS You hold for one, Heracles, and I for the other.
HERACLES Whom, then, do you mourn? Which of your friends is dead?
ADMETUS A woman. We spoke of her just now.
HERACLES (mistaking his meaning) A stranger? Or one born of your kin?
ADMETUS A stranger, but one related to this house.
HERACLES But how, then, did she chance to die in your house?
ADMETUS When her father died she was sheltered here.
HERACLES Alas! Would I had not found you in this grief, Admetus!
ADMETUS What plan are you weaving with those words?
HERACLES I shall go to the hearth of another friend.
ADMETUS Not so, O King! This wrong must not be.
HERACLES (hesitating) The coming of a guest is troublesome to those who mourn.
ADMETUS (decisively) The dead are dead. Enter my house.
HERACLES But it is shameful to feast among weeping friends.
ADMETUS We shall put you in the guest-rooms, which are far apart.
HERACLES Let me go, and I will give you a thousand thanks.
ADMETUS No, you shall not go to another man's hearth. (To a servant) Guide him, and open for him the guest-rooms apart from the house.
Euripides, Alcestis. Trans. Richard Aldington. http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/alcestis.html
Links
The full-text of Alcestis from MIT Classics: http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/alcestis.html
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