need my aid!
_Pher._ Wed many wives that more may die for thee!
_Adm._ On thee rests this reproach--thou daredst not die!
_Pher._ Sweet is this light of heav'n! sweet is this light!
_Adm._ Base is thy thought, unworthy of a man!
_Pher._ The triumph is not thine to entomb my age.
_Adm._ Die when thou wilt, inglorious wilt thou die. {770}
_Pher._ Thy ill report will not affect me dead.
_Adm._ Alas, that age should outlive sense of shame!
_Pher._ But lack of age's wisdom slew _her_ youth.
_Adm._ Begone, and suffer me to entomb my dead.
_Pher._ I go: no fitter burier than thyself
Her murderer! Look for reckoning from her friends:
Acastus is no man, if his hand fails
Dearly to avenge on thee his sister's blood.
_Adm._ Why, get you gone, thou and thy worthy wife:
Grow old in consort--that is now your lot--
The childless parents of a living son:
For never more under one common roof
Come you and I together: had it needed,
By herald I your hearth would have renounced.

_Pheres and his train withdraw along the Stage [to the Right
Side-door]. The interrupted Funeral Procession is continued, filing
amidst lamentations of the Chorus, down the steps from the Stage into
the Orchestra: there the Chorus join it and the whole passes out [by
the Right Archway] to the royal sepulchre in the neighbourhood._

_Stage and Orchestra both vacant for a while._

STAGE EPISODE[2]

_Enter the Stage [by one of the Inferior Doors of the Palace] the
Steward of Admetus_: he has stolen away to get a moment's respite from
the hateful hilarity of this strange visitor--some ruffian or robber he
supposes--on whom his office has condemned him to wait, and thereby to
miss paying the last offices to a mistress who has been more like a
mother to him. The guest has been willing to enter, and though he saw
the mourning of the household, he did not allow it to make any
difference to his mirth:

Grasping in his hands {804}
A goblet wreath'd with ivy, fill'd it high
With the grape's purple juice, and quaff'd it off
Untemper'd, till the glowing wine inflamed him;
Then binding round his head a myrtle wreath,
Howls dismal discord:--two unpleasing strains
We heard, his harsh notes who in nought revered
Th' afflictions of Admetus, and th