r what many have had to bear before.--_Admetus_ knows he
must: this calamity has not come without notice. He rouses himself to
give orders as to the preparations for burial: the mourning rites shall
last a whole year, and shall extend throughout the whole region of
Thessaly: the very horses shall have their waving manes cut close, and
no sound of flute or instrument of joy shall be heard in the city.
{445}

_The corpse is slowly carried out, and at last the Stage is vacant.
Then the Chorus address themselves to a Choral Ode in memory of the
Spirit now passed beneath the earth: the evolutions as usual, carrying
them with each Strophe to one end of the Orchestra, and with the
Antistrophe back to the Altar._

CHORAL INTERLUDE II

_Strophe_ I

Immortal bliss be thine, {446}
Daughter of Pelias, in the realms below,
Immortal pleasures round thee flow,
Though never there the sun's bright beams shall shine.
Be the black-brow'd Pluto told,
And the Stygian boatman old,
Whose rude hands grasp the oar, the rudder guide,
The dead conveying o'er the tide,--
Let him be told, so rich a freight before
His light skiff never bore;
Tell him that o'er the joyless lakes
The noblest of her sex her dreary passage takes.

_Antistrophe I_

Thy praise the bards shall tell,
When to their hymning voice the echo rings,
Or when they sweep the solemn strings,
And wake to rapture the seven-chorded shell:
Or in Sparta's jocund bow'rs,
Circling when the vernal hours
Bring the Carnean Feast, whilst through the night
Full-orb'd the high moon rolls her light;
Or where rich Athens, proudly elevate,
Shows her magnific state:
Their voice thy glorious death shall raise,
And swell th' enraptured strain to celebrate thy praise.

_Strophe II_

O that I had the pow'r,
Could I but bring thee from the shades of night,
Again to view this golden light,
To leave that boat, to leave that dreary shore,
Where Cocytus, deep and wide,
Rolls along his sullen tide!
For thou, O best of women, thou alone
For thy lord's life daredst give thy own.
Light lie the earth upon thy gentle breast,