Strophe
Full Chorus. Listen for the heavy groan,
Smitten breast and piercing moan,
Ringing out that life is gone.
The house forgets its royal state,
And not a slave attends the gate.
Our sea of woe runs high:—ah, mid the waves
Appear, Great Healer, Apollo!
They break again into loose order and marching rhythm, remaining on the Right of the Orchestra.
1st Semi. Were she dead, could they keep such a silence? {94}
2nd Semi. May it be—she is gone from the Palace?
1st Semi. Never!
2nd Semi. Nay, why so confident answer?
1st Semi. To so precious a corpse could Admetus
Give burial bare of its honours?
They reunite in Choral order and work back to the Altar.
Antistrophe
Full Chorus. Lo, no bath the porch below, {99}
Nor the cleansing fountain's flow,
Gloomy rite for house of woe.
The threshold lacks its locks of hair,
Clipp'd for the dead in death's despair.
Who hears the wailing voice and thud of hands,
The seemly woe of the maidens?
At the Altar they again break up and fall into marching rhythm.
2nd Semi. Yet to-day is the dread day appointed— {105}
1st Semi. Speak not the word!
2nd Semi. The day she must pass into Hades—
1st Semi. I am cut to the heart!
I am cut to the soul!
2nd Semi. When the righteous endure tribulation,
Avails nought long-tried love
Nought is left to the friendly—but mourning!
Accordingly they address themselves to a Full Choral Ode, the evolutions carrying them to the extreme Left of the Orchestra in the Strophe, and in the Antistrophe back to the Altar.