ALCESTJS 237
Outside, — Thessalian people's marriage-feasts
And gatherings for talk will harass me,
With overflow of women everywhere ;
It is impossible I look on them —
Familiars of my wife and just her age ! i675
And then, whoever is a foe of mine,
And lights on me — why, this will be his word —
' See there ! alive ignobly, there he skulks
That played the dastard when it came to die.
And, giving her he wedded, in exchange, leso
Kept himself out of Hades safe and sound.
The coward ! Do you call that creature — man ?
He hates his parents for declining death,
Just as if he himself would gladly die ! '
This sort of reputation shall I have, less
Beside the other ills enough in store.
Ill-famed, ill-faring, — what advantage, friends,
Do you perceive I gain by life for death ? "
That was the truth. ... i689
The grief was getting to he infinite — i696
Grief ^ friends fell hack hefore. Their office shrank To that old solace of humanity — " Being horn mm'tal^ hear grief! Why horn else ?" And they could only meditate anew. 1700
" They, too, upborne by airy help of song,
And haply science, which can find the stars.
Had searched the heights : had sounded depths as well
By catching much at books where logic lurked.
Yet nowhere found they aught could overcome 1705
Necessity : not any medicine served,
Which Thrakian tablets treasure,^ Orphic voice
^ Magical incantations ascribed to Orpheus the bard, whose home was in Thrace.
