232 EURIPIDES
"But who is it that 's dead? Some child gone ? or the aged sire perhaps ? "
" Admetos' wife, then ! she has perished, guest ! "
" How sayest ? And did ye house me, all the same ? "
" Ay : for he had thee in that reverence uss
He dared not turn thee from his door away ! "
" Ο hapless and bereft of what a mate ! "
" All of us now are dead, not she alone ! "
" But I divined it ! seeing, as I did.
His eye that ran with tears, his closef-clipt hair, 1490
His countenance ! Though he persuaded me,
Saying it was a stranger's funeral
He went with to the grave : against my wish,
He forced on me that I should enter doors,
Drink in the hall o' the hospitable man 1495
Circumstanced so ! And do I revel yet
With wreath on head ? But — thou to hold thy peace
Nor tell me what a woe oppressed my friend !
Where is he gone to bury her ? Where am I
To go and find her ? "
" By the road that leads isoo Straight to Larissa, thou wilt see the tomb, Out of the suburb, a carved sepulchre."
So said Λβ, and therewith dismissed himself Inside to his lamenting. vm
[Herakxes.] " Ο much-enduring heart and hand of mine ! 1524
Now show what sort of son she bore to Zeus, That daughter of Elektruon, Tiruns' child,^ Alkmene ! for that son must needs save now
- Tiryns, in Argolis, was the home of Alcmene.
