hand; nor was there one so mean
To whom she spoke not, and admitted him
To speak to her again. Within the house {200}
So stands it with Admetus. Had he died,
His woes were over: now he lives to bear
A weight of pain no moment shall forget.

Alcestis is wasting away, and fading with swift disease, while her
distracted husband holds her in his arms, entreating impossibilities.
And now they are about to bring her out, for the dying Alcestis has a
longing for one more sight of heaven and the radiant morning. The
Chorus are plunged in despair: how will their king bear to live after
the loss of such a wife!

The lamentations rise higher still _as the Central Gates open and the
couch of Alcestis is borne out, Admetus holding her in his arms, and,
her children clinging about her; the Stage fills with weeping friends
and attendants. The whole dialogue falls into lyrical measures with
strophic alternations just perceptible_. _Alcestis_ commences to
address the sunshine and fair scenery she has come out to view--when
the scene changes to her dying eyes, and she can see nothing but the
gloomy river the dead have to cross, with the boatman ready waiting,
and the long dreary journey beyond. Dark night is creeping over her
eyes, when _Admetus_, as he ever mingles his passionate prayers with
her wanderings, conjures her for her children's sake as well as his own
not to forsake them. A thought for her children's future rouses the
mother from her stupor, and she rallies for a solemn last appeal [_the
measure changing to blank verse to mark the change of tone_]. She
begins to recite the sacrifice she is making for her lord:

I die for thee, though free {284}
Not to have died, but from Thessalia's chiefs
Preferring whom I pleas'd, in royal state
To have lived happy here--I had no will
To live bereft of thee with these poor orphans--
I die without reluctance, though the gifts
Of youth are mine to make life grateful to me. {290}
Yet he that gave thee birth, and she that bore thee,
Deserted thee, though well it had beseem'd them
With honour to have died for thee, t' have saved
Their son with honour, glorious in their death.
They had no child but thee, they had no hope
Of other offspring, should'st thou die; and I
Might thus have live