Euripides, Alcestis 77–140: Parodos: the elders of Pherae ask whether Alcestis is dead

First Semichorus What means this silence in front of the palace? why is the house of Admetus stricken dumb?

Second Semichorus Not one friend near to say if we must mourn our queen as dead, or if she liveth yet and sees the sun, Alcestis, daughter of Pelias, by me and all esteemed the best of wives to her husband.

Doth any of you hear a groan, or sound of hands that smite together, or the voice of lamentation, telling all is over and done? Yet is there no servant stationed about the gate, no, not one. O come, thou saving god, to smooth the swelling waves of woe!

Second Semichorus Surely, were she dead, they would not be so still.

First Semichorus Maybe her corpse is not yet from the house borne forth.

Second Semichorus Whence that inference? I am not so sanguine. What gives thee confidence?

First Semichorus How could Admetus let his noble wife go unattended to the grave?

Before the gates I see no lustral water from the spring, as custom doth ordain should be at the gates of the dead, no shorn lock lies on the threshold, which, as thou knowest, falls in mourning for the dead, no choir of maidens smites its youthful palms together.

First Semichorus And yet this is the appointed day.

Second Semichorus What meanest thou by this?

First Semichorus The day appointed for the journey to the world below.

Second Semichorus Thou hast touched me to the heart, e’en to the soul.

Chorus Whoso from his youth up has been accounted virtuous, needs must weep to see the good suddenly cut off.

’Tis done; no single spot in all the world remains whither one might steer a course, either to Lycia or to the parched abodes of Ammon to release the hapless lady’s soul; on comes death with step abrupt, nor know I to whom I should go of all who at the gods’ altars offer sacrifice.

Only the son of Phoebus, if he yet saw this light of day— Ah! then then might she have left the dark abode and gates of Hades and have come again, for he would raise the dead to life, till that the thunderbolt’s forked flame, hurled by Zeus, smote him. But now what further hope of life can I welcome to me?

Our lords have ere this done all they could; on every altar streams the blood of abundant sacrifice; yet our sorrows find no cure.

Lo! from the house cometh a handmaid weeping; what shall I be told hath chanced? Grief may well be pardoned, if aught happeneth to one’s master; yet I fain would learn whether our lady still is living or haply is no more.