still Admetus, the one indelicate and the other selfish; and between them they make it impossible to contemplate the situation, whatever elements of pathos it may contain, as anything out of the common, and impossible to believe that the author, if he knew what he was doing, is preparing us to accept it as an answer to the deepest of human questionings.
After a final altercation, ingenious and striking as a stage-device, but not otherwise affecting the posture and colour of the facts, Admetus consents to give his hand to his future inmate, and is persuaded to look her in the face. At last then the truth is out, the awful, thrilling, soul-penetrating truth. The king and his friends know now, that they have before them a mortal who has passed from death into life, and the heaven-born saviour who has brought her through. Here then, if faith or hope in the author's sympathy with his subject has survived in us under the shocks which he has given, we wait for our satisfaction; we wait to hear from Heracles the account of his tremendous experience, and from the others the outpouring of their belief and thankfulness. I will give in words of my own, as exactly as I can, the whole of what is said from this point to the end.
| Admetus. | Gods, what is this? Oh marvel passing hope! Is it my wife that I behold indeed, Or mocks me heaven with a madding joy? |
| Heracles. | Nay, not so. What thou seest is thy queen. |
| Adm. | Perchance an apparition from below. |
| Her. | Hold'st thou thy friend for conjurer of ghosts? |
| Adm. | She whom I buried...visible...here...my queen? |
| Her. | Aye; 'tis no marvel that belief is hard. |
| Adm. | May I touch her...speak to her as alive...my queen? |
| Her. | Aye, speak to her; for all thy will thou hast[1]. |
| Adm. | Ah, dearest, face and form of thee, that ne'er I thought to see! Oh wonder! Art thou mine? |
| Her. | Aye. Jealous heaven, forgive this happiness! |
| Adm. | O son of Zeus Supreme, his noble son, Blest be thou: may the father that begat |
- ↑ προσεῖπ᾽· ἔχεις γὰρ πᾶν ὅσονπερ ἤθελες. The point of this line is lost in English, because the phrase speak to, address (προσειπεῖν) has not with us the secondary limited sense of saying farewell, especially to the dead, the πρόσρησις or farewell being a regular part of the burial-office (Alc. 609–610). The Greek hints that Admetus is to have just what he chose to have (by consenting to her death) and no more, that he may speak but Alcestis will refuse to answer. It thus anticipates the sequel and the sarcasms of vv. 1144–1146, on which see below.
