Heavy shall it be for you Never to look again On the face of the woman you love.
ADMETUS
You bring to my mind the grief that breaks my heart. What sorrow is worse for a man than the loss of such a woman? I would I had never married, never shared my house with her. I envy the wifeless and the childless. They live but one life-what is suffering to them? But the sickness of children, bridal-beds ravished by Death-dreadful! when we might be wifeless and childless to the end.
CHORUS
Chance, dreadful Chance, has stricken you.
ADMETUS
Alas!
CHORUS
But you set no limit to your grief.
ADMETUS
Ah! Gods!
CHORUS
A heavy burden to bear, and yet...
ADMETUS
Woe! Woe!
CHORUS
Courage! You are not the first to lose...
ADMETUS
Oh me! Oh me!
CHORUS
A wife.
Different men Fate crushes with different blows.
ADMETUS
O long grief and mourning for those beloved under the earth!
Why did you stay me from casting myself into the hollow grave to lie down for ever in death by the best of women? Two lives, not one, had then been seized by Hades, most faithful one to the other; and together we should have crossed the lake of the Underworld.
CHORUS
A son most worthy of tears Was lost to one of my house, Yet, childless, he suffered with courage, Though the white was thick in his hair And his days were far-spent!
ADMETUS
O visage of my house! How shall I enter you? How shall I dwell in you, now that Fate has turned its face from me? How great is the change! Once, of old, I entered my house with marriage-songs and the torches of Pelion, holding a loved woman by the hand, followed by a merry crowd shouting good wishes to her who is dead and to me, because we had joined our lives, being both noble and born of noble lines.
Today, in place of marriage-songs are lamentations; instead of white garments I am clad in mourning, to return to my house and a solitary bed.
CHORUS
Grief has fallen upon you In the midst of a happy life Untouched by misfortune.