ns nigh the tomb. If once
Seen from my secret stand I rush upon him,
These arms shall grasp him till his panting sides
Labour for breath; and who shall force him from me
Till he gives back this woman? {906}

If he fails to find Death elsewhere he will descend to the dark world
of spirits itself, rather than fail in making a fit return to his
friend:

Whose hospitable heart {913}
Receiv'd me in his house, nor made excuse
Though pierc'd with such a grief; this he conceal'd
Through generous thought, and reverence to his friend.
Who in Thessalia bears a warmer love
To strangers? Who, through all the realms of Greece?
It never shall be said this noble man
Received in me a base and worthless wretch!

_Exit [through the Stage Right Side-door] in the direction of the tomb._

_Stage and Orchestra vacant for a while._

EPISODE V

_Return of the Funeral Procession, headed by the Chorus who remain in
the Orchestra; the rest file up the steps onto the stage, Admetus last.
The Episode is technically a 'Dirge' between Admetus, whose speeches
fall into the rhythm of a Funeral March, and the Chorus, who speak in
Strophes and Antistrophes of more elaborate lyric rhythm, often
interrupted by the wails of Admetus._

_Admetus reaching the top of the Steps from the Orchestra stands face
to face with the splendid facade of his Palace_. Hateful entrance,
hateful aspect of a widowed home! How find rest there, in the heavy
woes to which he is now doomed? It is with the dead that rest is
found: his heart is in their dark houses, where he has placed a loved
hostage torn from him by fate! {931}

_Chorus_ [_in Strophe_]. Nevertheless he must go forward; he must hide
him in the deepest recesses of his Palace with his grief, the helpless
groans that yet will nothing aid her whom he will never see more! {938}

_Admetus_ cries that that is the deepest wound of all! Would he had
never wedded! To mourn single is pain endurable; to see children
wasting with disease, to see death invading the nuptial bed--that is
the pang unbearable! {950}

_Chorus_ [_in Antistrophe_]. Fate is resistless: shall sorrow then
have no bounds? Other men have known what it is to lose a wife: and in
one or other of innumerable forms misery has found out every son of
mortality. {956}

_Admetus_ begins to speak of the life-