_Pher._ Had I died for thee, greater were the wrong. _Adm._ Is death alike then to the young and old? _Pher._ Man's due is one life, not to borrow more. _Adm._ Thine drag thou on and out-tire heaven's age! _Pher._ Darest thou to curse thy parents, nothing wrong'd? _Adm._ Parents in dotage lusting still to live! {760} _Pher._ And thou--what else but life with this corpse buyest? _Adm._ This corpse--the symbol of thy infamy! _Pher._ For us she died not; that thou canst not say! _Adm._ Ah! mayst thou some time come to need my aid! _Pher._ Wed many wives that more may die for thee! _Adm._ On thee rests this reproach--thou daredst not die! _Pher._ Sweet is this light of heav'n! sweet is this light! _Adm._ Base is thy thought, unworthy of a man! _Pher._ The triumph is not thine to entomb my age. _Adm._ Die when thou wilt, inglorious wilt thou die. {770} _Pher._ Thy ill report will not affect me dead. _Adm._ Alas, that age should outlive sense of shame! _Pher._ But lack of age's wisdom slew _her_ youth. _Adm._ Begone, and suffer me to entomb my dead. _Pher._ I go: no fitter burier than thyself Her murderer! Look for reckoning from her friends: Acastus is no man, if his hand fails Dearly to avenge on thee his sister's blood. _Adm._ Why, get you gone, thou and thy worthy wife: Grow old in consort--that is now your lot-- The childless parents of a living son: For never more under one common roof Come you and I together: had it needed, By herald I your hearth would have renounced. _Pheres and his train withdraw along the Stage [to the Right Side-door]. The interrupted Funeral Procession is continued, filing amidst lamentations of the Chorus, down the steps from the Stage into the Orchestra: there the Chorus join it and the whole passes out [by the Right Archway] to the royal sepulchre in the neighbourhood._ _Stage and Orchestra both vacant for a while._ STAGE EPISODE[2] _Enter the Stage [by one of the Inferior Doors of the Palace] the Steward of Admetus_: he has stolen away to get a moment's respite from the hateful hilarity of this strange visitor--some ruffian or robber he supposes--on whom his office has condemned him to wait, and thereby to miss paying the last offices to a mistress who has been more like a mother to him. The guest has been willing to enter, and though he saw the mourning of the household, he did not allow it to make any difference to his mirth: