might make when it came to the finale. The reception of Heracles does not stand upon the hollow and artificial plea that it is an occasion for redeeming the character of Admetus, otherwise so unsuitably ignoble, by exhibiting his sublime hospitality. These scenes, taken in their place and with what we can see at present, are proper exponents of the main action, the theme of which up to this point is the death and burial of the heroine, and the purport of it to show how, for reasons deducible from the data of the legend, the latter event succeeds the former with a strange and unexampled rapidity. We have next to consider how, if at all, this bears upon the sequel and particularly upon the conclusion, where we expect to find reflected the general aspect of the whole.
Of the two next scenes, that in which Heracles, under the effects of his too copious feast, discovers the real bereavement and declares his resolve to wrestle for Alcestis with Death, and that in which Admetus, returning with his friends, bewails the situation to which he has brought himself and confesses the error of his choice, we have already had occasion to speak, and may now pass over them. Each is separated from what precedes by a supposed interval of time, expressed probably, since the Chorus are absent, simply by the emptiness of the stage. These two intervals are, we may say, the only breaks in the action; for in this play the choric odes stand, as appears from the adjoining scenes, for spaces of time scarcely longer than they might well represent without assistance from the imagination of the spectators. During the first interruption, Heracles is occupied with his eating and drinking, for which we are to allow whatever time is indicated by the fact that he does not overtake the procession, the corpse having been left in the tomb, and the mourners having gone away, before he arrives there. Considering his habits, and that the tomb is near[1], and that the performers of the ceremony have strong reasons for expedition, all this fits together naturally enough. The second interval, which must be something longer, is loosely defined by the story of Heracles, who arrives before the palace soon after Admetus and his friends. He is able to pretend without detection that the disguised Alcestis is a slave, won by him as a prize in a gymnastic
- ↑ vv. 835–836.
