Thine, as I had them from my father....  Say,
How have I wronged thee?  What have I kept away? 
“Not died for thee?"...  I ask not thee to die. 
  Thou lovest this light:  shall I not love it, I?... 
’Tis age on age there, in the dark; and here
My sunlit time is short, but dear; but dear. 
  Thou hast fought hard enough.  Thou drawest breath
Even now, long past thy portioned hour of death,
By murdering her ... and blamest my faint heart,
Coward, who hast let a woman play thy part
And die to save her pretty soldier!  Aye,
A good plan, surely!  Thou needst never die;
Thou canst find alway somewhere some fond wife
To die for thee.  But, prithee, make not strife
With other friends, who will not save thee so. 
Be silent, loving thine own life, and know
All men love theirs!...  Taunt others, and thou too
Shalt hear much that is bitter, and is true.

LEADER. 
Too much of wrath before, too much hath run
After.  Old man, cease to revile thy son.

ADMETUS. 
Speak on.  I have spoken....  If my truth of tongue
Gives pain to thee, why didst thou do me wrong?

PHERES. 
Wrong?  To have died for thee were far more wrong.

ADMETUS. 
How can an old life weigh against a young?

PHERES. 
Man hath but one, not two lives, to his use.

ADMETUS. 
Oh, live on; live, and grow more old than Zeus!

PHERES. 
Because none wrongs thee, thou must curse thy sire?

ADMETUS. 
I blest him.  Is not life his one desire?

PHERES. 
This dead, methinks, is lying in thy place.

ADMETUS. 
A proof, old traitor, of thy cowardliness!

PHERES. 
Died she through me?...  That thou wilt hardly say.

ADMETUS (almost breaking down). 
O God! 
Mayst thou but feel the need of me some day!

PHERES. 
Go forward; woo more wives that more may die.

ADMETUS. 
As thou wouldst not!  Thine is the infamy.

PHERES. 
This light of heaven is sweet, and sweet again.

ADMETUS. 
Thy heart is foul.  A thing unmeet for men.

PHERES. 
Thou laugh’st not yet across the old man’s tomb.

ADMETUS. 
Dishonoured thou shalt die when death shall come.

PHERES. 
Once dead, I shall not care what tales are told.

ADMETUS. 
Great Gods, so lost to honour and so old!

PHERES. 
She was not lost to honour:  she was blind.

ADMETUS. 
Go!  Leave me with my dead....  Out from my mind!

PHERES. 
I go.  Bury the woman thou hast slain.... 
Her kinsmen yet may come to thee with plain
Question.  Acastus hath small place in good
Men, if he care not for his sister’s blood.

[PHERES goes off, with his Attendants.  ADMETUS calls after him as he goes.]

ADMETUS. 
Begone, begone, thou and thy bitter mate! 
Be old and childless—­ye have earned your fate—­
While your son lives!  For never shall ye be
From henceforth under the same roof with me.... 
Must I send heralds and a trumpet’s call
To abjure thy blood?  Fear not, I will send them all....