On me, not lightly thus shalt thou come off! 680
Thee I begat and nurtured, of mine house
The heir: no debt is mine to die for thee.
Not from our sires such custom we received
That sires for sons should die: no Greek law this.
Born for thyself wast thou, to fortune good 685
Or evil: all thy dues from us thou hast.
O'er many folk thou rulest; wide demesnes
Shall I leave thee: to me my fathers left them.
What is my wrong, my robbery of thee?
For me die thou not, I die not for thee. 690
Thou joy'st to see light—shall thy father joy not?
Sooth, I account our time beneath the earth
Long, and our life-space short, yet is it sweet.
Shamelessly hast thou fought against thy death:
Thy life is but transgression of thy doom 695
And murder of thy wife:—my cowardice!
This from thee, dastard! worsted by a woman
Who died for thee, the glorious-gallant youth!
Cunning device hast thou devised to die
Never, cajoling still wife after wife 700
To die for thee!—and dost revile thy friends
Who will not so—and thou the coward, thou?
Peace! e'en bethink thee, if thou lov'st thy life,
So all love theirs. Thou, if thou speakest evil
Of us, shalt hear much evil, and that true. 705
Admetus.
Ye have said too much, thou now, and he before.
Refrain, old sire, from railing on thy son.
Admetus.
Say on, say on; I have said: if hearing truth
