ADM.  O house, how can I enter in? and how dwell in thee now my fortune has undergone this change?  Ah me! for there is great difference between:  then indeed with Pelian torches, and with bridal songs I entered in, bearing the hand of my dear wife, and there followed a loud-shouting revelry hailing happy both her that is dead and me, inasmuch as being noble, and born of illustrious parents both, we were united together:  but now the groan instead of hymeneals, and black array instead of white robes, usher me in to my deserted couch.

CHOR.  This grief came quick on happy fortune to thee unschooled in evil:  but thou hast saved thy life.  Thy wife is dead, she left her love behind:  what new thing this?  Death has ere this destroyed many wives.

ADM.  My friends, I deem the fortune of my wife more happy than mine own, even although these things appear not so.  For her indeed no grief shall ever touch, and she hath with glory ceased from many toils.  But I, who ought not to have lived, though I have scaped destiny, shall pass a bitter life; I but now perceive.  For how can I bear the entering into this house?  Whom speaking to, or by whom addressed,[42] can I have joy in entering?  Whither shall I turn me?  For the solitude within will drive me forth, when I see the place where my wife used to lie, empty, and the seat whereon she used to sit, and the floor throughout the house all dirty, and when my children falling about my knees weep their mother, and they lament their mistress, thinking what a lady they have lost from out of the house.  Such things within the house; but abroad the nuptials of the Thessalians and the assemblies full of women will torture me:  for I shall not be able to look on the companions of my wife.  But whoever is mine enemy will say thus of me:  “See that man, who basely lives, who dared not to die, but giving in his stead her, whom he married, escaped Hades, (and then does he seem to be a man?) and hates his parents, himself not willing to die.”—­Such report shall I have in addition to my woes; why then is it the more honorable course for me to live, my friends, having an evil character and an evil fortune?

CHOR.  I too have both been borne aloft through song, and having very much handled arguments have found nothing more powerful than Necessity:  nor is there any cure in the Thracian tablets which Orpheus[43] wrote, nor among those medicines, which Phoebus gave the sons of AEsculapius, dispensing[44] them to wretched mortals.  But neither to the altars nor to the image of this Goddess alone, is it lawful to approach, she hears not victims.  Do not, O revered one, come on me more severe, than hitherto in my life.  For Jove, whatever he have assented to, with thee brings this to pass.  Thou too perforce subduest the iron among the Chalybi; nor has thy rugged spirit any remorse.