THIRD ELDER. O Zeus, What escape and where From the evil thing? How break the snare That is round our King? SECOND ELDER. Ah list! One cometh?... No. Let us no more wait; Make dark our raiment And shear this hair. LEADER. Aye, friends! 'Tis so, even so. Yet the gods are great And may send allayment. To prayer, to prayer! ALL (_praying_). O Paian wise! Some healing of this home devise, devise! Find, find.... Oh, long ago when we were blind Thine eyes saw mercy ... find some healing breath! Again, O Paian, break the chains that bind; Stay the red hand of Death! LEADER. Alas! What shame, what dread, Thou Pheres' son, Shalt be harvested When thy wife is gone! SECOND ELDER. Ah me; For a deed less drear Than this thou ruest Men have died for sorrow; Aye, hearts have bled. THIRD ELDER. 'Tis she; Not as men say dear, But the dearest, truest, Shall lie ere morrow Before thee dead! ALL. But lo! Once more! She and her husband moving to the door! Cry, cry! And thou, O land of Pherae, hearken! The bravest of women sinketh, perisheth, Under the green earth, down where the shadows darken, Down to the House of Death! [_During the last words_ ADMETUS _and_ ALCESTIS _have entered_. ALCESTIS _is supported by her Handmaids and followed by her two children._] LEADER. And who hath said that Love shall bring More joy to man than fear and strife? I knew his perils from of old, I know them now, when I behold The bitter faring of my King, Whose love is taken, and his life Left evermore an empty thing. ALCESTIS. O Sun, O light of the day that falls! O running cloud that races along the sky! ADMETUS. They look on thee and me, a stricken twain, Who have wrought no sin that God should have thee slain. ALCESTIS. Dear Earth, and House of sheltering walls, And wedded homes of the land where my fathers lie! ADMETUS. Fail not, my hapless one. Be strong, and pray The o'er-mastering Gods to hate us not alway. ALCESTIS (_faintly, her mind wandering_). A boat two-oared, upon water; I see, I see. And the Ferryman of the Dead, His hand that hangs on the pole, his voice that cries; "Thou lingerest; come. Come quickly, we wait for thee." He is angry that I am slow; he shakes his head. ADMETUS. Alas, a bitter boat-faring for me, My bride ill-starred.--Oh, this is misery! ALCESTIS (_as before_). Drawing, drawing! 'Tis some one that draweth me ... To the Palaces of the Dead. So dark. The wings, the eyebrows and ah, the eyes!... Go back! God's mercy! What seekest thou? Let me be!... (_Recovering_) Where am I? Ah, and what paths are these I tread? ADMETUS. Grievous for all who love thee, but for me And my two babes most hard, most solitary.