CHORUS.
THIRD ELDER.
O Zeus,
What escape and where
From the evil thing?
How break the snare
That is round our King?
SECOND ELDER.
Ah list!
One cometh?… No.
Let us no more wait;
Make dark our raiment
And shear this hair.
LEADER.
Aye, friends!
'Tis so, even so.
Yet the gods are great
And may send allayment.
To prayer, to prayer!
ALL (praying).
O Paian wise!
Some healing of this home devise, devise!
Find, find…. Oh, long ago when we were blind
Thine eyes saw mercy … find some healing breath!
Again, O Paian, break the chains that bind;
Stay the red hand of Death!
LEADER.
Alas!
What shame, what dread,
Thou Pheres' son,
Shalt be harvested
When thy wife is gone!
SECOND ELDER.
Ah me;
For a deed less drear
Than this thou ruest
Men have died for sorrow;
Aye, hearts have bled.
THIRD ELDER.
'Tis she;
Not as men say dear,
But the dearest, truest,
Shall lie ere morrow
Before thee dead!
ALL.
But lo! Once more!
She and her husband moving to the door!
Cry, cry! And thou, O land of Pherae, hearken!
The bravest of women sinketh, perisheth,
Under the green earth, down where the shadows darken,
Down to the House of Death!
[During the last words ADMETUS and ALCESTIS have entered. ALCESTIS is supported by her Handmaids and followed by her two children.]