ALCESTIS 207
Needs must one, when the good are tortured so, Sorrow, — one reckoned faithful from the first."
TJien their souls rose together, and one sigh Went up in cadence from the common mouth : How " Vainly — anywhither in the world iso
Directing or land-labor or sea-search — To Lukia or the sand- waste, Ammon's seat^ — Might you set free their hapless lady's soul From the abrupt Fate's footstep instant now. Not a sheep-sacrificer at the hearths i85
Of Gods had they to go to : one there was Who, if his eyes saw light still, — Phoibos' son ,2 — Had wrought so she might leave the shadowy place And Hades' portal ; for he propped up Death's Subdued ones till the Zeus-flung thunder-flame 190
Struck him ; and now what hope of life were hailed With open arms ? For, all the king could do Is done already, — not one God whereof The altar fails to reek with sacrifice : And for assuagement of these evils — nought ! " 195
But here they broke off, for a matron moved
Forth from the house : and, as her tears fowed fast.
They gathered round. " What fortune shall we hear ?
For mourning thus, if aught affect thy lord,
We pardon thee : but lives the lady yet 200
Or has she perished ? — that we fain would know ! "
"• Call her dead, call her living, each style serves,"
^ In Egypt, where was a temple to Zeus Ammon.
^ Asclepius (Aesculapius), the god of healing, who once restored a dead man to life, and for his presumption was smitten by Zeus' thunderbolt. See page 202, line 18.
