Things mortal—know'st the nature that they have?
No, I imagine! whence could knowledge spring?
Give ear to me then! For all flesh to die
Is nature's due; nor is there any one
Of mortals with assurance he shall last
The coming morrow."—(B.)
And so on the old but ever-appropriate text, "Thou knowest that to die is common;" and the oft-renewed question, "Why seems it then particular to thee?" Hercules proceeds moralising—"philosophising even in his drink," as an old scholiast remarks. The pith, indeed, of Hercules's counsel is "Drink, man, and put a garland on thy head."
When, however, the attendant says—
"Ah! thou know'st nought o' the woe within these walls:"
the guest's curiosity is aroused. Can Admetus have deceived me? is it, then, not a distant kinswoman whom they are burying? have I been turning a house of mourning into a house of feasting? Tell me, good fellow, what has really chanced. The servant replies:
"Thou cam'st not at a fit reception-time:
With sorrow here beforehand; and thou seest
Shorn hair, black robes.
Hercules. But who is it that's dead?
Some child gone? or the agèd sire, perhaps?
Servant. Admetus' wife, then, she has perished, guest.
Hercules. How say'st? and did ye house me all the same?
Servant. Ay: for he had thee in that reverence,
He dared not turn thee from the door away.
Hercules. O hapless, and bereft of what a mate!
