My affliction would not thus {575}
Be less, but more unhospitable I.
But why, the Chorus ask, conceal the truth?—His friend, answers Admetus, would never have entered, had he known. Some may blame him, he continues, but his house simply knows not how to do dishonor to a guest.—Admetus returns into the Palace, to his funeral preparations: the Chorus are moved to enthusiasm by this forgetfulness of self in hospitable devotion; their enthusiasm breaks out in an Ode celebrating the glories of their king's hospitality in the past, and ending in a gleam of hope that it may yet do something for him in the future. {588}
CHORAL INTERLUDE III
Evolutions, etc., as usual.
Strophe I
O liberal house! with princely state {589}
To many a stranger, many a guest,
Oft hast thou oped thy friendly gate,
Oft spread the hospitable feast.
Beneath thy roof Apollo deign'd to dwell,
Here strung his silver-sounding shell,
And, mixing with thy menial train,
Deigned to be called the shepherd of the plain:
And as he drove his flocks along,
Whether the winding vale they rove,
Or linger in the upland grove,
He tuned the pastoral pipe, or rural song.
Antistrophe I
Delighted with his tuneful lay, {601}
No more the savage thirsts for blood;
Amidst the flocks, in harmless play,
Wantons the lynx's spotted brood;
Pleas'd from his lair on Othrys' rugged brow
The lion seeks the vale below:
Whilst to the lyre's melodious sound
The dappled hinds in sportive measures bound;
And as the vocal echo rings,
Lightly their nimble feet they ply,
Leaving their pine-clad forests high,
Charm'd by the sweet notes of his gladdening strings.
Strophe II
Hence is thy house, Admetus, graced
With all that plenty's hand bestows;
Near the sweet-streaming current placed,
That from the lake of Boebia flows;
Far towards the shades of night thy wide domain,
Rich-pastured mead and cultured plain,
Extends, to those Molossian meads
Where the sun stations his unharnessed steeds;
And stretching towards his eastern ray,
Where Pelion, rising in his pride,
Frowns o'er th' Aegean's portless tide:
Reaches from sea to sea thy ample sway.