ALCESTIS 235
Into the utter dark, thy palace-core ! " leos
I7iey tried what they called comfort^ " touched the
quick Of the ulceration in his soul," he said. With memories, — " once thy joy was thus and
thus ! " True comfort were to let him fling himself ^ Into the hollow grave o' the tomb, and so leio
Let him lie dead along with all he loved.
One bade him note that his own family
Boasted a certain father whose sole son,
Worthy bewailment, died : and yet the sire
Bore stoutly up against the blow and lived ; leis
For all that he was childless now, and prone
Already to gray hairs, far on in life.
Could such a good example miss effect ?
Why fix foot, stand so, staring at the house,
Why not go in, as that wise kinsman would ? 1620
" Oh that arrangement of the house I know !
How can I enter, how inhabit thee
Now that one cast of fortune changes all ?
Oh me, for much divides the then from now !
Then — with those pine-tree torches, Pelian pomp 162.5
And marriage-hymns, I entered, holding high
The hand of my dear wife ; while many-voiced
The revelry that followed me and her
That 's dead now, — friends felicitating both,
As who were lofty-lineaged, each of us leso
Born of the best, two wedded and made one ;
Now — wail is wedding-chant's antagonist,
And, for white peplos, stoles in sable state
Herald my way to the deserted couch ! "
1 Verses 1609-1G19 are a paraphrase.
