Chorus
O home of hospitality, thrown open by thy lord to all now and ever! In thee it was that Pythian Apollo, the sweet harper, deigned to make his home, and in thy halls was content to lead a shepherd’s life, piping o’er the sloping downs shepherd’s madrigals to thy flocks.
Chorus
And spotted lynxes couched amid his sheep in joy to hear his melody, and the lions’ tawny troop left the glen of Othrys and came; came too the dappled fawn on nimble foot from beyond the crested pines and frisked about thy lyre, O Phoebus, for very joy at thy gladsome minstrelsy.
Chorus
And so it is thy lord inhabits a home rich in countless flocks by Boebe’s lovely mere, bounding his tilled corn-land and his level pastures with the clime of the Molossi near the sun’s dark stable, and holding sway as far as the harbourless strand of the Aegean ’neath Pelion’s shadow.
Chorus
Now too hath he opened wide his house and welcomed a guest although his eye is wet with tears in mourning for his wife so dear but lately dead within his halls; yea, for noble birth to noble feeling is inclined. And in the good completest wisdom dwells; and at my heart sits the bold belief that heaven’s servant will be blessed.
Admetus Men of Pherae, kindly gathered here, lo! even now my servants are bearing the corpse with all its trappings shoulder-high to the funeral pyre for burial; do ye, as custom bids, salute the dead on her last journey starting.
Chorus Look! I see thy father advancing with aged step, and servants too bearing in their arms adornment for thy wife, offerings for the dead.
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