The altars of all the Gods Drip with the blood of slain beasts:
Nothing, nothing avails.
(From the women's quarters in the left wing of the Palace comes a woman in tears. She is not a slave, but one of the personal attendants on the Queen.)But now from the house comes one of her women servants, all in tears. What now shall I learn? (To the weeping Servant) It is well to weep when our lords are in sorrow-but tell us, we would know, is she alive, is she dead?
SERVANT
You may say she is both alive and dead.
LEADER
How can the same man be dead and yet behold the light?
SERVANT
She gasps, she is on the verge of death.
LEADER
Ah, unhappy man! For such a husband what loss is such a wife!
SERVANT
The King will not know his loss until he suffers it.
LEADER
Then there is no hope that her life may be saved?
SERVANT
The fated day constrains her.
LEADER
Are all things befitting prepared for her?
SERVANT
The robes in which her lord will bury her are ready.
LEADER
Then let her know that she dies gloriously, the best of women beneath the sun by far!
SERVANT
How should she not be the best! Who shall deny it? What should the best among women be? How better might a woman hold faith to her lord than gladly to die for him? This the whole city knows, but you will marvel when you hear what she has done within the house. When she knew that the last of her days was come she bathed her white body in river water, she took garments and gems from her rooms of cedar wood, and clad herself nobly; then, standing before the hearth-shrine, she uttered this prayer:
'O Goddess, since now I must descend beneath the earth, for the last time I make supplication to you: and entreat you to protect my motherless children. Wed my son to a fair bride, and my daughter to a noble husband. Let not my children die untimely, as I their mother am destroyed, but grant that they live out happy lives with good fortune in their own land!'
To every altar in Admetus's house she went, hung them with garlands. offered prayer, cut myrtle boughs-unweeping, unlamenting;nor did the coming doom change the bright colour of her face.