onverse with the gods, and the word is confirmed. They failed to
avert the trouble from their house on account of dire Fate and 'the
voice unwise of Phoebus from his shrine.' There has been a Demon
hostile to Electra's parents.--Then the brother and sister's thoughts
turn to the life-long separation, and the painful wandering, sorrows
e'en to the gods mournful to hear. Farewell to Argos: the Gods hurry
Orestes away for the Furies are already on his track, and conclude:

To the impious thro' the ethereal tract
We no assistance bring: but those to whom
Justice and sanctity of life is dear,
We from their dangerous toils relieve and save.
Let no one then unjustly will to act,
Nor in one vessel with the perjured sail:
A god to mortals this monition gives.

_Chor._ Oh, be you blest! And those, to whom is given
Calmly the course of mortal life to pass,
By no affliction sunk, pronounce we blest.

[1] The quotations of Euripides are from Potter's translation.

THE ALCESTIS OF EURIPIDES[1]

MEMORANDUM

_Of the Story as it would be traditionally familiar to the Audience
before-hand.--Admetus was the splendid King of Pherae, so famous for
the sacred rites of Hospitality that he had Sons of the Gods for
Guests, and the God of Brightness, Apollo, himself while he sojourned
on earth chose Admetus's household to dwell in. In the full tide of
his greatness the time came for him to die: Apollo interposed for his
chief votary, and won from the Fates that he might die by substitute.
But none was found willing to be the victim, not even his aged parents:
at last Alcestis his wife, young and bright as himself, gave herself
for her husband and died. Then another Guest-Friend of Admetus came to
the rescue, Jupiter's own son Hercules, and by main force wrested
Alcestis from the grasp of Death, and restored her to her husband._

PROLOGUE

_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