SEMICH.  When the good are afflicted, he must mourn, who from the beginning has been accounted good.

CHOR.  But there is not whither in the earth any one having sent naval equipment, or to Lycia, or to the thirsty site of Hammon’s temple, can redeem the unhappy woman’s life, for abrupt fate approaches, and I know not to whom of those that sacrifice at the hearths of the Gods I can go.  But only if the son of Phoebus were viewing with his eyes this light, could she come, having left the darksome habitations and the gates of Pluto:  for he raised up the dead, before that the stroke of the lightning’s fire hurled by Jove destroyed him.  But now what hope of life can I any longer entertain?  For all things have already been done by the king, and at the altars of all the Gods abound the victims dropping with blood, and no cure is there of these evils.

CHORUS, FEMALE ATTENDANT.

CHOR.  But here comes one of the female attendants from the house, in tears; what shall I hear has happened?  To mourn indeed, if any thing happens to our lords, is pardonable:  but whether the lady be still alive, or whether she be dead, we would wish to know.

ATT.  You may call her both alive and dead.

CHOR.  And how can the same woman be both alive and dead?

ATT.  Already she is on the verge of death,[12] and breathing her life away.

CHOR.  Oh wretched man, being what thyself of what a wife art thou bereft!

ATT.  My master knows not this yet, until he suffer.

CHOR.  Is there no longer hope that she may save her life?

ATT.  No, for the destined day makes its attack upon her.

CHOR.  Are not then suitable preparations made for these events?

ATT.  Yes, the adornments[13] are ready, wherewith her husband will bury her.

CHOR.  Let her know then that she will die glorious, and by far the best of women under the sun.

ATT.  And how not the best? who will contest it?  What must the woman be, who has surpassed her? and how can any give greater proof of esteeming her husband, than by being willing to die for him?  And these things indeed the whole city knoweth.  But what she did in the house you will marvel when you hear.  For, when she perceived that the destined day was come, she washed her fair skin with water from the river; and having taken from her closets of cedar vesture and ornaments, she attired herself becomingly; and standing before the altar she prayed:  “O mistress, since I go beneath the earth, adoring thee for the last time, I will beseech thee to protect my orphan children, and to the one join a loving wife, and to the other a noble husband:  nor, as their mother perishes, let my children untimely die, but happy in their paternal country let them complete a joyous life.”—­But all the altars, which are in the house of Admetus, she went to, and crowned, and prayed, tearing the leaves from off the myrtle boughs, tearless, without a groan, nor did