Chorus
Lo! I too will share with thee thy mourning for her, friend with friend; for this is but her due.
Alcestis My children, ye with your own ears have heard your father’s promise, that he will never wed another wife to set her over you, nor e’er dishonour me.
Admetus Yea, so I promise now, and accomplish it I will.
Alcestis On these conditions receive the children from my hand.
Admetus I receive them, dear pledges by a dear hand given.
Alcestis Take thou my place and be a mother to these babes.
Admetus Sore will be their need when they are reft of thee.
Alcestis O my children, I am passing to that world below, when my life was needed most.
Admetus Ah me, what can I do bereft of thee?
Alcestis Thy sorrow Time will soothe; ’tis the dead who are as naught.
Admetus Take me, O take me, I beseech, with thee ’neath the earth.
Alcestis Enough that I in thy stead am dying.
Admetus O Destiny! of what a wife art thou despoiling me!
Alcestis Lo! the darkness deepens on my drooping eyes.
Admetus Lost indeed am I, if thou, dear wife, wilt really leave me.
Alcestis Thou mayst speak of me as naught, as one whose life is o’er.
Admetus Lift up thy face, leave not thy children.
Alcestis ’Tis not my own free will; O my babes, farewell!
Admetus Look, look on them but once.
Alcestis My end is come.
Admetus What mean’st thou? art leaving us?
Alcestis Farewell!
Admetus Lost! lost! woe is me!
Chorus She is gone, the wife of Admetus is no more.
Eumelus
O my hard fate! My mother has passed to the realms below; she lives no more, dear father, ’neath the sun. Alas for her! she leaves us ere her time and to me bequeaths an orphan’s life. Behold that staring eye, those nerveless hands! Hear me, mother, hear me, I implore! ’tis I who call thee now, I thy tender chick, printing my kisses on thy lips.
Admetus
She cannot hear, she cannot see; a heavy blow hath fortune dealt us, you children and me.
Eumelus
O father, I am but a child to have my loving mother leave me here alone; O cruel my fate, alas! and thine, my sister, sharer in my cup of woe. Woe to thee, father! in vain, in vain didst thou take a wife and hast not reached the goal of eld with her; for she is gone before, and now that thou art dead, my mother, our house is all undone.
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