How blind is man, not knowing when he is blest!
Fool that I was, I mourned Alcestis’ death
Almost as much as I should mourn my own.
Indeed I thought, so great my grief appeared,
I would almost have laid my own life down
—Almost I say—to bring her back to earth.
Yet, now she lives once more she makes me weep
More bitter tears than I did ever shed
When I believed her gone beyond recall.
[Weeps bitterly.