“What sayest thou?  And yet he gave me entertainment?”

“Yea, for he would not, for shame, turn thee from his house.”

“O miserable man, what a helpmeet thou hast lost!”

“Ay, and we are all lost with her.”

“Well I knew it; for I saw the tears in his eyes, and his head shaven, and his sorrowful regard; but he deceived me, saying that the dead woman was a stranger.  Therefore did I enter the doors and make merry, and crown myself with garlands, not knowing what had befallen my host.  But come, tell me; where doth he bury her?  Where shall I find her?”

“Follow straight along the road that leadeth to Larissa, and thou wilt see her tomb in the outskirts of the city.”

Then said Hercules to himself, “O my heart, thou hast dared many great deeds before this day; and now most of all must I show myself a true son of Zeus.  Now will I save this dead woman Alcestis, and give her back to her husband, and make due recompense to Admetus.  I will go, therefore, and watch for this black-robed king, even Death.  Methinks I shall find him nigh unto the tomb, drinking the blood of the sacrifices.  There will I lie in wait for him and run upon him, and throw my arms about him, nor shall any one deliver him out of my hands, till he have given up to me this woman.  But if it chance that I find him not there, and he come not to the feast of blood, I will go down to the Queen of Hell, to the land where the sun shineth not, and beg her of the Queen; and doubtless she will give her to me, that I may give her to her husband.  For right nobly did he entertain me, and drave me not from his house, for all that he had been stricken by such sorrow.  Is there a man in Thessaly, nay in the whole land of Greece, that is such a lover of hospitality?  I trow not.  Noble is he, and he shall know that he is no ill friend to whom he hath done this thing.”

So he went his way.  And when he was gone, Admetus came back from the burying of his wife, a great company following him, of whom the elders sought to comfort him in his sorrow.  And when he was come to the gates of his palace he cried, “How shall I enter thee? how shall I dwell in thee?  Once I came within thy gates with many pine-torches from Pelion, and the merry noise of the marriage song, holding in my hand the hand of her that is dead; and after us followed a troop that magnified her and me, so noble a pair we were.  And now with wailing instead of marriage songs, and garments of black for white wedding robes, I go to my desolate couch.”

But while he yet lingered before the palace Hercules came back, leading with him a woman that was covered with a veil.  And when he saw the King he said, “I hold it well to speak freely to one that is a friend, and that a man should not hide a grudge in his heart.  Hear me, therefore.  Though I was worthy to be counted thy friend, yet thou saidst not that thy wife lay dead in thy house, but suffered me to feast and make merry.  For this, therefore,