LEADER. Oh, peace! Enough of sorrow in our path Is strewn. Thou son, stir not thy father's wrath. PHERES. My son, whom seekest thou ... some Lydian thrall, Or Phrygian, bought with cash?... to affright withal By cursing? I am a Thessalian, free, My father a born chief of Thessaly; And thou most insolent. Yet think not so To fling thy loud lewd words at me and go. I got thee to succeed me in my hall, I have fed thee, clad thee. But I have no call To die for thee. Not in our family, Not in all Greece, doth law bid fathers die To save their sons. Thy road of life is thine None other's, to rejoice at or repine. All that was owed to thee by us is paid. My throne is thine. My broad lands shall be made Thine, as I had them from my father.... Say, How have I wronged thee? What have I kept away? "Not died for thee?"... I ask not thee to die. Thou lovest this light: shall I not love it, I?... 'Tis age on age there, in the dark; and here My sunlit time is short, but dear; but dear. Thou hast fought hard enough. Thou drawest breath Even now, long past thy portioned hour of death, By murdering her ... and blamest my faint heart, Coward, who hast let a woman play thy part And die to save her pretty soldier! Aye, A good plan, surely! Thou needst never die; Thou canst find alway somewhere some fond wife To die for thee. But, prithee, make not strife With other friends, who will not save thee so. Be silent, loving thine own life, and know All men love theirs!... Taunt others, and thou too Shalt hear much that is bitter, and is true. LEADER. Too much of wrath before, too much hath run After. Old man, cease to revile thy son. ADMETUS. Speak on. I have spoken.... If my truth of tongue Gives pain to thee, why didst thou do me wrong? PHERES. Wrong? To have died for thee were far more wrong. ADMETUS. How can an old life weigh against a young? PHERES. Man hath but one, not two lives, to his use. ADMETUS. Oh, live on; live, and grow more old than Zeus! PHERES. Because none wrongs thee, thou must curse thy sire? ADMETUS. I blest him. Is not life his one desire? PHERES. This dead, methinks, is lying in _thy_ place. ADMETUS. A proof, old traitor, of thy cowardliness! PHERES. Died she through me?... That thou wilt hardly say. ADMETUS (_almost breaking down_). O God! Mayst thou but feel the need of me some day! PHERES. Go forward; woo more wives that more may die. ADMETUS. As thou wouldst not! Thine is the infamy. PHERES. This light of heaven is sweet, and sweet again. ADMETUS. Thy heart is foul. A thing unmeet for men. PHERES. Thou laugh'st not yet across the old man's tomb. ADMETUS. Dishonoured thou shalt die when death shall come. PHERES. Once dead, I shall not care what tales are told. ADMETUS. Great Gods, so lost to honour and so old! PHERES. She was not lost to honour: she was blind. ADMETUS. Go! Leave me with my dead.... Out from my mind!